Meeting of the Parliament 13 January 2026
I thank members across the chamber for the consensual way in which we have debated the bill today. That goes back to the point that I made in my opening statement, about the extensive amount of very good engagement that the bill team and my officials have done to ensure that we bring the crofting community along with us.
I will address a number of points that members have made—I am sorry, but I will not be able to associate names with all those points. A number of members said that there is not enough in the bill and that more wholesale legislative reform is needed. However, the bill was never intended to deliver fundamental reform—it is technical in nature, and it provides the improvements that we need while enabling crofters to take greater control of how they use their land.
Although reform will be necessary in the future, I would caution against rushing straight into it. We first need to establish what crofting policy should be in the future, and—to continue the approach that we took to this bill—we need stakeholders to consider that question, too. Although it is ultimately the Government’s responsibility to deliver that policy, that should not be done unless we have good evidence from stakeholders.