Official Report search · Parliament Workbench

Chamber

Meeting of the Parliament 28 March 2012

28 Mar 2012 · S4 · Meeting of the Parliament

Item of business

Agricultural Holdings (Amendment) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

Fergusson, Alex Con Galloway and West Dumfries Watch on SPTV

This has been a welcome debate on the general principles of the Agricultural Holdings (Amendment) (Scotland) Bill.

I am happy to welcome the three changes to the current law that the Government is seeking to introduce through the bill. As we heard, the Government proposes, first, to amend the definition of a “near relative” who may succeed to a secure agricultural tenancy, to include grandchildren; secondly, to prevent certain restrictions for rent reviews; and thirdly, to disapply VAT rate changes and options to tax as variations in rent that prevent rent reviews. The proposals are to be broadly welcomed and there will be no argument or opposition to them from the Conservative benches.

There is much to be applauded in the committee’s stage 1 report, but I have reservations about some of the committee’s thoughts and recommendations, on which I will concentrate. In doing that, I am transported back to the heady days of the previous Agricultural Holdings (Scotland) Bill—those halcyon days when I convened the Rural Development Committee and the cabinet secretary and indeed the Minister for Environment and Climate Change were but enthusiastic members of it—[Interruption.] Oh, they were happy days, Mr Gibson.

During the debate on the previous bill, which was somewhat hijacked by the current Minister for Energy, Enterprise and Tourism’s enthusiastic advocacy of the absolute right to buy for agricultural tenants, I warned that, although no one wanted a reinvigorated, vibrant and effective tenanted sector more than I did, Ross Finnie’s genuine attempts to bring that about would be more likely to have the opposite effect. All these years later, it gives me no pleasure to say that I appear to have been proved right. The number of let farms has fallen dramatically. That has happened for a number of reasons, but I think that I can safely say that a principal reason is the suspicion of the right to buy that still exists, which has stifled an important sector for the past decade.

However, there is good news. There is at long last a glimmer of light at the end of a particularly long and dark tunnel. Through sitting together in the tenant farming forum, all parties are slowly but surely achieving agreement and trust—several members have rightly mentioned trust—and are finally beginning to break the deadlock that has existed for the past 10 years. The prize is immense because, if we allow the tenanted sector truly to flourish, then we solve the new entrants problem, or much of it, at the same time.

For generations the tenanted sector has provided the door into agriculture, but we politicians have done a lot to close that door. I think that it is up to us politicians to try to open that door again. That is why I shudder at the thought of any attempt to extend the definition of “near relative” and why there is still a degree of nervousness among those who have land to let that, if they let it, it could be lost to them for ever through the introduction of a right to buy.

I heartily commend the cabinet secretary’s efforts to resist those possibilities. If he, too, genuinely wishes to bring about a reinvigorated, sustainable and vibrant tenanted sector, he must continue to resist. If he does, he will have our solid support. The way to success is surely through agreement in and through the tenant farming forum. Anything that is imposed from outside, be it by Government, by Parliament, by committee or by any other body, will simply extend the current difficult situation. Frankly, that would do nobody any good at all.

15:41

Search Hansard contributions

Meeting of the Parliament 28 March 2012

In the same item of business