Meeting of the Parliament 16 March 2016
I warmly support amendments 57 and 58 in the name of Sarah Boyack. Part 4 is one of the shortest parts of the bill and in my view should have benefited from the much stronger language that is used in the policy memorandum. In relation to part 4, the question is what happens if there is not engagement with communities on estates, whether estates are owned by private owners or the public sector. There is no answer to that. The intention of part 4 is to encourage better practice. I accept that laudable intention, but what happens if better practice does not kick in in every part of the country? What happens if some landowners do not wish to engage with the people who live on their estates?
Many landowners are drawing on substantial sums of public money, so cross-compliance becomes an issue. Let me explain what that means, for members who are not involved in rural affairs. Cross-compliance means that there is a sanction upon those who receive public funds of one sort or another if they do not pursue the wider public good objectives—not just those objectives for which the money is paid. I wanted to see in this bill some suggestion that there would be sanctions.
14:45Clearly, there needs to be a reasonable period for the Government to prove that the approach will work. Sarah Boyack is right to strengthen the review that takes place—I am glad that the Government has been positive about that—so that if, after the review, it is clear that there are still those, in the private or the public sector, who are not consulting and who have no intention to consult, sanctions will be applied. We will strengthen that part of the bill to ensure that nobody in Scotland lives on an estate or in an area where what they wish, what the community wishes, or what their views are about that area can be set at nought by a private or a public landowner.
I hope that the approach will work, but if it does not, the review needs to be vigorous and needs to be conducted in such a way that we move on to ensure that the public policy objectives of the bill are finally fulfilled.