Hansard

More than two years ago, Parliament unanimously agreed to support an amendment that I lodged that recognised the contribution that our current national parks make and agreed that new national parks should be designated. Slowly but surely, we edge towards to the will of Parliament, and that cannot come quickly enough.

It is more than two decades since my colleague Sarah Boyack—who, I have to say, has not changed a bit—took the National Parks (Scotland) Act 2000 through Parliament. That groundbreaking legislation paved the way for the then Labour-led Scottish Executive to create the Loch Lomond and the Trossachs national park, which my colleague Jackie Baillie—who also has not changed a bit—will have much to say about in her contribution.

That legislation also led to the creation of the Cairngorms national park in 2003. Labour is proud of that achievement and the real social, economic and environmental benefits that those parks have delivered for those areas. However, it is very much unfinished business.

When those parks were created, no one anticipated that the SNP would fail to continue the work that my colleagues began in creating national parks in Scotland. Despite our outstanding natural beauty and the fact that national park status is a successful and internationally recognised brand, we still have only two here in Scotland, which the minister rightly said is astonishing. Compare that number with 10 in England, three in Wales or 47 in Norway.

Given our world-class scenery, the protection and management that national parks provide for that scenery and the benefits to tourism and rural development of the national park brand, the case for expanding the number of parks in Scotland is clear, and it has been for years. That is why Labour’s long-standing policy has been to do just that.

It is no secret that I have been vocal in my view that one of those new parks should be in Galloway—a proposal that has significant public support, including from Dumfries and Galloway Council as far back as when I chaired its economy and environment committee, and from councils in Ayrshire.

With an internationally designated United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization biosphere, the first dark skies park in Scotland, the stunning Galloway forest, a rich mosaic of farmland that is important to delivering food security and amazing wildlife, Galloway has been a national park in waiting for years.

Indeed, it is five years since a report for the Galloway National Park Association revealed that a new national park could add between 250,000 and 500,000 new visits each year to Galloway and South Ayrshire—worth £30 million to £60 million in additional spend—helping to create and support between 700 and 1,400 additional jobs to complement existing jobs in crucial sectors such as agriculture. That could be game changing for the local economy in one of the most peripheral parts of Scotland, whose challenges of low pay and outward migration of young people are well documented.

That is why if the Government is serious about a more inclusive economy, it is vital that the criteria for new national parks recognises the areas where the potential economic boosts will be greatest—for example, areas that do not currently have the highest visitor numbers and are too often forgotten. As well as Galloway, other areas, including the Scottish Borders, would receive a significant economic boost from national park status. The southern part of the Borders in particular, which is the favoured area of the campaign for a Scottish Borders national park, is in pressing need of an economic boost.

With easy access to the central belt and the north of England, a Borders national park would help to deliver that boost and bring in more visitors to the area.

The community campaigns in Galloway, the Borders and elsewhere show that there is real demand and a real appetite to grow the number of national parks in Scotland. That is why Labour believes that the Scottish Government’s ambition should not be limited to just one new national park in this parliamentary session. Indeed, I remind the minister of her own party’s manifesto, which commits the Scottish Greens to at least two new national parks and one new regional park. Will the minister say in closing whether the spending plans that were published last week provide sufficient resources to deliver more than one new national park in this parliamentary session?

Given how far Scotland has fallen behind, there is no reason to stop the Scottish Government favouring, for example, two parks in southern Scotland. That could potentially reduce costs through the sharing of services, build on the close and growing links between the Borders and Dumfries and Galloway, and ensure that every borderlands rural local authority has a national park in its area.

Paving the way for a new era of national parks would not only boost the economic recovery of many areas; it would contribute to Scotland’s climate and biodiversity recovery. It is two years since the Scottish Government gave a commitment to increase our protected areas for nature to at least 30 per cent of Scotland’s terrestrial area by 2030, in line with the campaign of the international Campaign for Nature. However, with the clock ticking, the figure currently sits at less than a quarter. Across the UK, that target is being met by designating new national parks. Scotland is in danger of falling further behind.

I know that some people may, understandably, ask at a time of public spending pressures whether we can afford to spend money on new national parks. Given that national parks bring in between £10 and £17 of investment to an area for every pound that is spent, the question is whether we can afford not to do that if we want to deliver the economic and environmental recovery that we need, particularly in communities that have been left behind for far too long.