Meeting of the Parliament 24 March 2026 [Draft]
I am pleased that my final speech in this session of Parliament is about such an important subject to my constituents as crofting. I, too, pay tribute to the contributions that have been made on the issue over the years by many members, not least by Rhoda Grant and Edward Mountain.
This bill has been in the works for a long time. Following the Shucksmith report in 2008, the Crofting Reform (Scotland) Act 2010 was passed. In 2014, the so-called crofting law sump concluded that a significant overhaul of crofting legislation was still required. As the minister has outlined, 140 years of successive crofting acts have created a complex legal situation that is not currently serving crofting particularly efficiently, so the bill is a welcome move to simplify some of that picture. Like other members, I very much hope to see further and more comprehensive legislation soon.
Meanwhile, as other members have mentioned, it is important not to lose sight of the reasons for and origin of crofting law. Throughout the 19th century, the people of the Highlands and Islands faced systematic persecution and eviction at the hands of some landlords who increasingly viewed humans as unprofitable. After the Napier commission examined those issues in the early 1880s, as has been mentioned, five members of the Crofters Party were elected as MPs. That pressure led to the Crofters Holdings (Scotland) Act 1886 finally being passed. For the first time, crofters had legal security of tenure and the right to fix a fair rent.
It is rare that any sector wants tighter regulation. However, the history that I have just recounted means that crofters are very aware that this traditional, culturally vital way of life requires legislation to sustain and protect it. The bill is a step forward in what must be a longer process of crofting law reform.
The bill streamlines administrative processes, frees up the Crofting Commission to focus on its enforcement duties and combines the functions of the Scottish Land Court and the Lands Tribunal for Scotland. That tackles at least some of the areas on which there was the greatest consensus among stakeholders. The next piece of legislation will need to be more comprehensive. However, I believe that the crofting community supports the general principles and the final form of the bill that is before us today.
I was pleased to secure several amendments at stage 2, including to give ministers the power to regulate the transfer of owner-occupier crofts, to prevent a right-to-buy where a crofter is in breach of their duties, to explicitly include enforcement duties in the Crofting Commission’s responsibilities and to introduce a more practical and proportionate civil rather than criminal penalty where there is a failure to uphold certain duties.
Other members also improved the bill with their amendments, and I thank them for supporting those and other amendments last week that related to grazings shares and the involvement of the Crofting Commission, where necessary, on grazings committee applications for environmental or forestry use of common grazings.
Depending on the voting intentions of my constituents, I look forward to working with the next Government on the additional legislation that will be required. In the meantime, the bill is an important step forward on the road to crofting legislation reform and I urge members to give it their support.