Meeting of the Parliament 19 March 2026 [Draft]
I will speak to amendments 43 to 46, 16A and 47. As the minister said, the bill was amended at stage 2 to remove the words “substantially”, “undue” and “significantly”. I wanted to see those words put back into the bill, because I believe that landowners cannot spuriously stop developments on a croft. That was before I saw the new section 50ZA and, given the minister’s assurances, I do not intend to move those amendments.
Amendment 46 would add a paragraph to the section that states that, should the owner add conditions to consent for environmental purposes, they must specify why they are imposing them and why they believe that they are reasonable.
I have listened to what the minister said about amendment 16A and I accept his assurances, so I will not seek to move that amendment.
On amendment 47, when we were taking evidence on the climate change plan, the committee heard that there were issues with progress and questions about who was responsible for the environmental use of a croft that was holding back peatland restoration, for example. At the moment, a crofter is entitled to cut peat and plant trees on their crofts—indeed, we have forest crofts. However, there is a concern that, if the crofter invests time, labour and finance in forestry or peatland restoration, the landlord will try to sell the carbon credits over their head. Amendment 47 therefore seeks to ensure that the financial benefit of any crofter’s activity remains with the crofter. That is custom and practice and it is wise to set it out in law. The landowner has no control over the peat or trees on a croft or common grazing, and therefore they cannot take any benefit from that work, because they have no idea what will happen to those trees or peat in the future.
At stage 2, the Scottish Government stated that there was a legal difficulty with including carbon credits in the bill, because they were not legally defined. Therefore, amendment 47 does not use the term “carbon credits” but it seeks to ensure that crofters get value from their endeavours. There is nothing in amendment 47 that would prevent crofters from entering into joint agreements with a landowner. The problem is that the landowner is not part of that joint agreement and does not want to take part, but is sitting back and hoping to make financial benefit from it. I therefore believe that amendment 47 is necessary.
I do not think that the matter should be determined in the court. Crofting is different from other patterns of ownership in that the crofter is already entitled to the peat and forestry on their croft, and nobody else should be able to take that from them. I will therefore move amendment 47.