Hansard

The Scottish National Party welcomes the final stage of the bill. The bill is equitable and achieves fairly small administrative changes that benefit crofters. Importantly, it makes a clear statement that it is possible to create new crofts, which we all agree is welcome.

The process has taken 10 years and, as the minister has just indicated, we have come a short way down a long road towards a consolidating bill. We need to find ways to speed up the process. I hope that we will be able to do that.

It is impossible to consider crofting seriously without considering the fabric of life in the crofting counties—that has been the SNP's policy for the past 30 years. That is why the crofting inquiry that will be undertaken later this year has a huge task in agreeing new priorities that have been raised during the consideration of the bill but which the bill was not designed to deliver.

Crofters face a gaggle of acronyms when trying to get support. However, the rural support scheme, the less favoured area support scheme, the crofting counties agricultural grants scheme—the RSS, the LFASS and the CCAGS—and the bull hire scheme are rather underfunded and, it is feared, begrudged. That is not the European Union's fault. If Scotland had full fiscal powers, it could invest in crofting as a nature-friendly element in a buoyant, sustainable economy in the Highlands and Islands. In the meantime, however, if we are to succeed, our ministers with responsibility for transport, enterprise, agriculture and health must all get in harness. If they do not, home production from crofts and public health will suffer.

It is important that we try to stem depopulation. The key question that must be asked in relation to the bill is whether it will stop further depopulation in areas that have great potential.

Speaking to the Environment and Rural Development Committee on behalf of active crofters, John MacKintosh, the former president of the Scottish Crofters Union, said:

"I think that the reason why you get dereliction of crofts is that there is a complete and utter lack of realistic support for crofting and what crofting is about. Until we get that ... fewer and fewer people will work those crofts ... There are quite a few crofts that make a loss, so the crofter is left with one option, which is to start looking at the market and thinking of getting out."—[Official Report, Environment and Rural Development Committee, 14 June 2006; c 3349-3350.]

That view is widely held, and we must be able to dispel it. If the bill can help that to happen, so much the better.

Crofts are small pieces of land surrounded by large amounts of legislation. However, bureaucracy must not be allowed to strangle initiative. We need to restore the ability, the power, the will and the resources to rebuild our economic and social life across the crofting areas. Crofting needs young, new entrants and must try to use the experience that has been built up by small farmers organisations in Europe. If that mood is about, I am glad that this bill will be passed. The UHI Millennium Institute, broadband for all and croft-run renewable energy investment can all help us to turn the corner. Lessons from Norwegian communities show that small farms and crofts can earn huge electricity revenues to invest in local needs. However, that needs to be in the hands of the crofters.

The SNP has consistently supported land and seabed reform and crofting community buyouts. We want the role of the new crofting landlords to be examined carefully, because it is quite different from the role of the old private landlords. Ted Brocklebank's amendments touched on that matter, and I am glad to say that they were unsuccessful.

We welcome new crofts and forest crofts and ways in which small landholders can be welcomed into crofting tenure in places such as Arran. Those will be achieved, at last, by the bill.

The reforms have to tackle the lack of affordable housing that is

"the great Highland scandal of modern times",

as James Hunter writes in the brochure for the exhibition "Fonn 's Duthcas: Land and Legacy". Crofting can provide land for house building. I am sorry that we did not pass John Farquhar Munro's amendments this morning, as they would have emphasised the role of common grazings in achieving that.

Crofting underpins Gaelic and Norse cultures, whose confidence can play a vital part in reversing depopulation to retain and attract working families. If we can do that, we can integrate the north into the mainstream of Scotland's social, educational, agricultural and industrial life, with the help of ferry, rail and road links that are fit for this climate-change age. If crofting communities are to succeed, that has to happen. The bill has a small part to play in that.

The crofting communities have a big role to play in a sustainable future for our remarkable land. The bill, which has been too long in the making, is but an early instalment, but the SNP is, nevertheless, happy to support its passage.