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Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee 27 January 2016

27 Jan 2016 · S4 · Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee

Item of business

Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2

McLeod, Aileen SNP South Scotland Watch on SPTV

This is a group of minor Government amendments. Amendment 46 provides that, where an application has been made under part 5 by a part 5 community body—that is, a Scottish charitable incorporated organisation, or SCIO—the name of the part 5 body as well as its address must be included on the register of applications by community bodies to buy land. Amendment 49 applies where a part 5 community body that is a body corporate with a written constitution has made an application under part 5 and then changes its address. The amendment requires the part 5 community body to notify the keeper of that change of address as soon as is reasonably practicable. Amendment 53 provides that an application for a right to buy under part 5 of the bill must include or be accompanied by information about certain matters, details of which may be set out in regulations. One of those matters is “the reasons the Part 5 community body considers that its proposals for the land satisfy the sustainable development conditions set out in section 47(2)”. Amendment 53 modifies section 45(6) to make clear that, “where the application is to buy a tenant’s interest,” the information to be provided is about how the proposals for the land satisfy the sustainable development conditions “as modified specifically by section 47(5)(a)” in relation to applications to buy a tenant’s interest. It is a minor and technical amendment for clarity. Amendment 55 is a minor amendment to correct a cross-reference in section 46. It amends section 46(6) so that it correctly refers to the views and responses received in response to an application under section 45 rather than under section 46. The effect of section 47(3)(f)(ii) is that the procedural requirements are not met if the landowner is “subject to any enforceable personal obligation ... to sell the land” except for the obligation to sell the land to the part 5 community body that made the application to buy the land. Amendment 56 provides that there is also an exception to that requirement where the obligation on the landowner is to sell the land to the third-party purchaser nominated by the part 5 community body. Amendments 57, 58 and 59 are all minor. To comply with the procedural requirements under section 47, a community body must have submitted a written request to the landowner requesting the transfer of land, and the owner must not have responded or agreed to the request. Where the community body wishes to buy a tenant’s interest, the community body is required to submit a written request to the tenant to buy the interest but, unlike the case of the request to the landowner, the tenant does not have to respond in order for an application to buy the tenant’s interest to be made. Sections 47(8)(b) and 47(8)(c) allow ministers to make regulations about the responses to those requests in circumstances where owners and tenants are taken not to have responded or agreed to those requests. Amendments 57, 58 and 59 amend those provisions so that they apply only to responses by landowners. Amendment 61 corrects a minor error in section 47(9). It amends the reference to subsection 42 so that it refers to section 42. Amendment 68 moves section 65, which is an interpretation provision for part 5, to after section 43, where it sits better. I move amendment 46. Amendment 46 agreed to. Amendments 47 to 51 moved—Aileen McLeod—and agreed to. Section 44, as amended, agreed to. After section 44 Amendment 52 moved—Aileen McLeod—and agreed to. Section 45—Right to buy: application for consent

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Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee 27 January 2016

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