Hansard

I, too, thank those who gave evidence, the bill team and the members of committee staff and SPICe who helped us in our consideration of the bill.

Scottish Labour supports the Crofting and Scottish Land Court Bill, which is a very necessary piece of legislation that puts right some of the mistakes that were made in the Crofting Reform (Scotland) Act 2010. As well as helping to streamline processes, it will, I hope, allow practices to be modernised.

However, crofters are desperately disappointed that the bill does nothing to deal with the current threats to crofting, which include market pressures. That market does not relate to crofting itself; it is to do with the fact that there is a housing crisis, coupled with the ambition to own second homes or holiday lets. The bill does nothing to encourage land use or to recognise crofting as an intrinsically agricultural practice in which, in order to make a living, a person must also have other employment.

Because of that, diversification has been encouraged, which has meant that diversification such as the provision of holiday accommodation and the finding of other uses for the land has eclipsed the agricultural use of crofts. Some activities, such as growing vegetables, weaving and using the produce of the land, fit well with crofting, but others do not. Second homes and holiday lets are damaging crofting, and the bill does nothing about them.

The bill’s only innovation is to look at environmental management as part of crofting, which is a positive move, as long as it does not disguise dereliction and rewilding as environmental management. By its very nature, crofting is environmentally friendly. Crofters who carry out carbon audits find that they sequester carbon rather than produce it. It is also nature friendly in practice, so if we are serious about the environment, we must support some of the traditional aspects of crofting while recognising that it is an economic driver and that people have to be able to make a living to stay and work in our crofting communities.

The bill also does not make it clear that peat, trees, grass and other essential carbon stores belong to the tenant. Crofters have always had the right to cut peat and to grow and cut trees—indeed, we now have woodland crofts. The bill needs to provide clarity on that issue, because if it does not, we will face a block to peatland restoration.

One of the most complex issues in the bill is that of grazing shares, which have sometimes come adrift from the croft, as many members have mentioned. In most cases, that has been unintentional, because the croft was sold and the conveyancing had not included the grazing share with the croft. The bill will put in place a default to stop that happening in future, but it does not deal with existing cases, so action needs to be taken to ensure that the land is being used. The most straightforward way to do that would be to reunite the share with the original croft.

Part 2 of the bill, which concerns the Scottish Land Court and the Lands Tribunal for Scotland, is less contentious, but that might be because it was difficult to discuss the policy with the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service, which made it difficult for the committee to get a clearer view of the practical issues. Although we understand that there must be a clear separation between the judiciary and Parliament, Parliament must consider the impact of changes on the running of court services, so there must be an ability to scrutinise that.

I hope that the bill will cut bureaucracy, but it does nothing to reduce the complexity that exists or to put crofting on a secure footing for the future. Therefore, Parliament must return to the matter in the next session if crofting and its value in slowing depopulation are not to be lost for future generations.