Hansard

We have heard about a fine example of a committee doing its job of scrutinising a bill and reaching a conclusion on it. I add my thanks to everyone who gave evidence, to the committee clerks and to all who worked on the bill. Once the bill got to the committee, the process was exemplary.

The Executive has during stage 1 come in for a great deal of criticism, to some of which I add my voice. However, I am not critical of the Deputy Minister for Environment and Rural Development, Rhona Brankin, who fronted the bill and who had the sometimes unenviable job of appearing before the committee to answer its questions. I know that she is highly aware of crofting issues and that her commitment to crofting is not in doubt, so her life must have been made difficult by the media's criticisms of the bill.

I do not, however, fully accept some of the criticisms that were made. I accept that the bill undoubtedly fails to address the existing free market in crofts and croft tenancies—although I point out that none of the witnesses from whom we heard suggested how the bill could address the issue directly—but I have never quite understood how the bill would make the situation worse, as has been suggested. Indeed, in some small ways, the bill might indirectly help to make the situation better by increasing the supply of crofts and regulating owner-occupied crofts, which has not been done in the past. I will talk more about that if I have time.

There are aspects of the bill that definitely deserve criticism. It gives the impression that it was thrown together and is poorly drafted: the proper occupier proposal, which appeared in the policy memorandum during stage 1, is an example. The Executive intimated that it was minded to introduce the concept of a proper occupier at stage 2. I accept that there was a good intention behind the proposal, which was to regulate owner-occupied crofts. I have said that I accept that such regulation is necessary, but as was said at the time, the impression was created that the bill was being knitted as we went along and that the proper occupier proposal was made primarily because there was an unwillingness to amend the definition of a crofter in the Crofters (Scotland) Act 1993. My committee colleagues felt that if that act required to be amended, it should be amended once and for all and that the answer was not to introduce into legislation a completely new concept that no one liked the sound of but which was intended to simplify crofting law. As I said, the proper occupier proposal has been shelved.

There were other criticisms and I am heartened to see that the Executive has responded to them. It has responded to the desire to look holistically at crofting, to quantify what it has to offer and to distil a vision for crofting in the 21st century by undertaking to hold an inquiry, which I very much welcome. It was clear during evidence taking that there is no shared understanding of what crofting means, sometimes even among crofters. Some people who gave evidence focused on crofting as a way to provide housing in rural areas and others regard it from a land use and agricultural perspective—I adhere to that view—in respect of the possibility of carrying out enterprises on the land, such as small-scale horticultural processes.

All those views of crofting are valid in their own ways. In the traditional crofting counties, there has been not so much unemployment as under employment. It is usual in those areas for a person's living to be made up of various part-time jobs rather than one full-time one—crofting has traditionally been a component of that. Housing issues are also clearly difficult in many of the traditional crofting areas and there are opportunities for small-scale agricultural and horticultural enterprises. Crofting can, and does, make up an important thread in the fabric of rural life in those areas.

That leads me to one of the reasons why I want the bill to be amended and shortened and why I admire the deputy minister for her fortitude in sticking with the bill until now. The bill includes the provision to create new crofts, which is exciting in itself and will meet a need. As I said, increasing the supply of crofts might do a little to damp down the cost of crofts or croft assignations. However, the new provision is even more exciting in the light of the Executive's forestry strategy, which includes a commitment to the creation of forest crofts. That is a potentially exciting development that will include an aspect of crofting that, for some reason, did not feature largely in the evidence that we heard, which is the tradition of holding, managing and utilising land in common. That is done in traditional crofting communities in the form of common grazings. It is clear that common management of woodlands has much to offer.

That brings me to the other aspect that I am very much in favour of, which is the potential to extend crofting outwith the existing crofting counties—an awful lot of our forest estate lies outwith the crofting counties. The committee heard evidence on that from Dumfries and Galloway, for example. Such areas could be offered much by the creation of forest crofts, which would give people the potential to live and work in forest areas, do forest-based rural activities and manage the forests in common for the good of the whole community. That is an exciting development. For that reason, if for no other, I suggest that we go with the bill in its shortened form.

Other members mentioned points that I wanted to make; John Farquhar Munro, for example, commented on planning. It is clear that the Crofters Commission should be a statutory consultee for planning decisions that would affect areas under crofting tenure. I want assurances from the minister in her summing up that that point has been taken account of for the Planning etc (Scotland) Bill, which is with the Communities Committee.

Also, the power to challenge neglect of crofts is important. I do not have time to say anything about interposed leases, but that issue is crucial.

I hope that crofters have been reassured by the parliamentary process and that they are reassured that Parliament and the Executive, through its response, are committed to crofting, have its best interests at heart and will not impose anything on crofting that it does not want. I hope also, because the Executive has responded so positively and constructively to the committee's stage 1 report, that Parliament will accept the general principles of the bill: it has much to offer. In looking to the future, the inquiry will be important, but we can make a start today.