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Showing 60 of 2,354,908 contributions. Latest 30 days: 0. Coverage: 12 May 1999 — 25 Mar 2026.
Nora Radcliffe (Gordon) (LD): LD Chamber
27 Sep 2006
Crofting Reform etc Bill: Stage 1
Crofting has been an essential factor in ensuring the economic and social vitality of communities in the crofting counties for many years. Aberdeenshire was nearly one of the crofting counties. In 1886, the question whether it would opt in or out was finely balanced. There is ...
Nora Radcliffe (Gordon) (LD): LD Chamber
25 Jan 2007
Crofting Reform etc Bill
Crofting tenure has sustained rural communities in the crofting counties since the Crofters Holdings (Scotland) Act 1886 was passed and the legal concept of a croft has developed through several reforms since then, but there has been widespread consensus in recent years that f...
Nora Radcliffe (Gordon) (LD): LD Committee
15 Nov 2006
Crofting Reform etc Bill: Stage 2
Amendment 139 was prompted by nervousness in the agricultural rented sector, which is only just beginning to settle down three years after the Agricultural Holdings (Scotland) Act 2003. A stated intention of the bill is to enable small landholders who feel that historically th...
Nora Radcliffe: LD Chamber
27 Sep 2006
Crofting Reform etc Bill: Stage 1
I agree absolutely with Jamie Stone. The tools exist to do the job, but it will be a lengthy and expensive job to do it properly, requiring money and resources. Nevertheless, it is a job that needs to be done.I am sorry to say that I found Rob Gibson's speech unrelentingly neg...
Nora Radcliffe: LD Committee
08 May 2006
Crofting Reform etc Bill: Stage 1
We are talking about creating new crofts, but should we be talking about creating new crofting townships? Perhaps it is not the case, but it seems that a lot of the ethos of crofting is to do with the fact that you are in a crofting community.
Nora Radcliffe: LD Committee
08 May 2006
Crofting Reform etc Bill: Stage 1
Much of the evidence that we have heard is that the perceived market in crofting, crofts, assignations and so on is related to external factors such as housing. I would like the panel to comment on how housing, planning and crofting interlink and whether we are just chasing a ...
Nora Radcliffe: LD Committee
15 May 2006
Crofting Reform etc Bill: Stage 1
Minister, will you expand on the creation of new crofts? Much of the discussion seems to assume that new crofts will be created in the crofting counties on the west coast, but there is an expectation that new crofts might also be created outwith those areas. Will you say a lit...
Nora Radcliffe: LD Committee
14 Jun 2006
Crofting Reform etc Bill
I do not come from the crofting counties and I do not represent a crofting area, but it seems to me that having set our hand to the plough it would be a mistake for us to stop. There has been considerable discussion of crofting over many years; everyone around the table has re...
Nora Radcliffe: LD Committee
19 Apr 2006
Crofting Reform etc Bill: Stage 1
I would like Professor Hunter to comment on the proposal to create new crofting tenures outwith the crofting counties. How will that play out?
Nora Radcliffe: LD Committee
19 Apr 2006
Crofting Reform etc Bill: Stage 1
What are panel members' opinions on the provisions to create new crofts? Where might they be used? I am particularly interested in how they will work outwith the crofting counties. How might an area be defined? What is the difference between being a tenant under the existing s...
Nora Radcliffe: LD Committee
24 Apr 2006
Crofting Reform etc Bill: Stage 1
This is another aspect of the whole thing. How much is the market pressure a housing market pressure as opposed to a crofting market pressure? Should we be addressing this as a housing issue, to take pressure off the crofting market?
Nora Radcliffe (Gordon) (LD): LD Committee
03 May 2006
Crofting Reform etc Bill: Stage 1
I am interested in where grazings committees fit in. In her submission, Dr Balfour says that where there is a properly constituted, properly functioning grazings committee it could deal with a lot of local issues. How true is that throughout the crofting counties? How many cro...
Nora Radcliffe: LD Committee
03 May 2006
Crofting Reform etc Bill: Stage 1
I want to explore the extension of crofting outwith the crofting counties—
Nora Radcliffe: LD Committee
03 May 2006
Crofting Reform etc Bill: Stage 1
My question is about extending crofting tenure outwith the crofting counties by creating new areas where it could be applied.
Nora Radcliffe (Gordon) (LD): LD Committee
15 May 2006
Crofting Reform etc Bill: Stage 1
I return to the idea of making local policy. A point that has come from much of the evidence that we have heard is that crofting is not the same everywhere—it is organised and run differently and operates within different parameters in different parts of the crofting counties....
Nora Radcliffe: LD Committee
15 Nov 2006
Crofting Reform etc Bill: Stage 2
I take on board the minister's comments establishing the public interest. However, I would like an assurance from her that we may have more discussion on how to allay nervousness in the agricultural let sector about the potential of the bill to destabilise the fragile confiden...
Nora Radcliffe (Gordon) (LD): LD Committee
19 Apr 2006
Crofting Reform etc Bill: Stage 1
I want to move on to a different aspect of the bill: the creation of new crofts, particularly outwith the crofting counties. The bill states that new crofts may be created in an area that is specified by an order. What sort of area is that likely to be? Is it likely to be a co...
Nora Radcliffe: LD Committee
19 Apr 2006
Crofting Reform etc Bill: Stage 1
I would be interested in having an indication of the benefits and disbenefits of having a crofting tenure as opposed to having small landholder status. Might the lawyers with you like to expand on that?
Nora Radcliffe: LD Committee
19 Apr 2006
Crofting Reform etc Bill: Stage 1
Individuals who have small landholdings under the Small Landholders (Scotland) Act 1911 could apply to come under crofting tenure. That would involve not communities, but isolated landholdings. How would that pan out?
Nora Radcliffe: LD Committee
19 Apr 2006
Crofting Reform etc Bill: Stage 1
I was trying to get at the idea of a one croft, one crofter rule. De facto, in the crofting counties, people run four or five or even 10 or 11 crofts. Should we seek to regulate that?
Nora Radcliffe: LD Committee
24 Apr 2006
Crofting Reform etc Bill: Stage 1
I will go straight to the really sticky question: where should the balance be struck between the rights of crofters to realise value from their crofts and the future of crofting as a protected tenure? Whom does the free market benefit and are they entitled to that benefit? Who...
Nora Radcliffe: LD Committee
03 May 2006
Crofting Reform etc Bill: Stage 1
Do you see an advantage in the side effects of having crofting as a means of keeping people on the land or repopulating areas of Scotland? Is that a possible argument for going ahead with the proposal, despite the practical difficulties that you see with it?
Nora Radcliffe: LD Committee
03 May 2006
Crofting Reform etc Bill: Stage 1
Agnes Leask said that if someone wants to designate land as a house site and then to build a house, the land has to be decrofted. Would that mechanism allow decisions on where houses should be built to be made in the light of crofting interests, rather than in the light of wid...
Nora Radcliffe: LD Committee
08 May 2006
Crofting Reform etc Bill: Stage 1
If we are talking about creating crofts outwith the crofting counties, how important is it to make groups of crofts, so that there is a township ethos?
Nora Radcliffe: LD Committee
08 May 2006
Crofting Reform etc Bill: Stage 1
That is the intention behind the crofting system in the first place, is it not?
Nora Radcliffe: LD Committee
08 May 2006
Crofting Reform etc Bill: Stage 1
I presume that when you drew up the local plan you decided that housing was more necessary than crofting in Taynuilt.
Nora Radcliffe: LD Committee
08 May 2006
Crofting Reform etc Bill: Stage 1
So might there have been a lack of awareness that the land that was allocated for housing was held in crofting tenure?
Nora Radcliffe: LD Committee
14 Jun 2006
Crofting Reform etc Bill
I have a question about lending and borrowing, although it will take us down a different route.The SRPBA submission suggests that part of the reason why people buy crofts is that they need security to borrow money for capital investment. As an alternative solution, it suggests...
Nora Radcliffe: LD Committee
29 Nov 2006
Crofting Reform etc Bill: Stage 2
Ted Brocklebank mentioned the creation of uncertainty for potential renewable energy developers. Confidence is crucial to getting funding. The issue is whether, if there is serious uncertainty about security of tenure or about whether a lease that is entered into with a crofte...
Nora Radcliffe: LD Committee
19 Apr 2006
Crofting Reform etc Bill: Stage 1
Do you envisage an area, for example in the north-east, being a county or local authority area? Could Aberdeenshire or Moray be an area?
Nora Radcliffe: LD Committee
19 Apr 2006
Crofting Reform etc Bill: Stage 1
So there are attractions for tenants and landholders, but are there disbenefits for landowners?
Nora Radcliffe: LD Committee
19 Apr 2006
Crofting Reform etc Bill: Stage 1
The commission will have the final say about whether an application will be accepted. Would one of the criteria it considers be the effect on, for example, an estate or surrounding landholdings?
Nora Radcliffe: LD Committee
19 Apr 2006
Crofting Reform etc Bill: Stage 1
So we must watch this space.
Nora Radcliffe: LD Committee
19 Apr 2006
Crofting Reform etc Bill: Stage 1
Before I come on to the question that I want to ask, I am trying to get my head around the question why someone who can pay £100,000 for a croft cannot be a crofter even if they live on the croft, behave like a crofter and do all the things that crofters are supposed to do. Th...
Nora Radcliffe: LD Committee
19 Apr 2006
Crofting Reform etc Bill: Stage 1
I will follow that up. Again, I am not going to ask the question that I had wanted to ask.We are dealing with a man-made, legalistic and heavily regulated system of tenure. If the price at which the landlord's interest can be bought out is fixed at 15 times the rent, why canno...
Nora Radcliffe: LD Committee
19 Apr 2006
Crofting Reform etc Bill: Stage 1
If the landlord's interest can be bought out for 15 times the annual rent, why should that not be the limit at which the outgoing person can sell their tenancy or right of assignation or whatever?
Nora Radcliffe: LD Committee
19 Apr 2006
Crofting Reform etc Bill: Stage 1
Can I now come to the question that I wanted to ask?
Nora Radcliffe: LD Committee
19 Apr 2006
Crofting Reform etc Bill: Stage 1
Can I flag up something else that I see happening?
Nora Radcliffe: LD Committee
19 Apr 2006
Crofting Reform etc Bill: Stage 1
I return to the idea of one crofter, one croft. Many crofts are too small to sustain even a part-time income. The bill provides for the division of crofts. Should it provide for amalgamating crofts to form larger units, if that were in the community's interests and would creat...
Nora Radcliffe (Gordon) (LD): LD Committee
24 Apr 2006
Crofting Reform etc Bill: Stage 1
Last week, Brian Wilson—or it may have been Jim Hunter—said something about how there should be one crofter for one croft. However, I think that crofters sometimes work more than one croft in order to create a viable unit. Do our witnesses have any comments to make in that reg...
Nora Radcliffe: LD Committee
24 Apr 2006
Crofting Reform etc Bill: Stage 1
Do you sublet from another crofter?
Nora Radcliffe: LD Committee
24 Apr 2006
Crofting Reform etc Bill: Stage 1
So that delivers on that crofter's obligation to work the land, which means that we have a system that works.
Nora Radcliffe: LD Committee
24 Apr 2006
Crofting Reform etc Bill: Stage 1
I was rather surprised to discover that there is no definitive map-based register of boundaries. Do you have any comments on the desirability of achieving that, or on the difficulties that would be associated with doing so?
Nora Radcliffe: LD Committee
24 Apr 2006
Crofting Reform etc Bill: Stage 1
Is the perception of the expense involved the reason why it has not happened to date?
Nora Radcliffe: LD Committee
24 Apr 2006
Crofting Reform etc Bill: Stage 1
You did not want to rock the boat.
Nora Radcliffe: LD Committee
24 Apr 2006
Crofting Reform etc Bill: Stage 1
So, you could be operating with an assumed boundary, and if you did not ask any questions you did not get unwelcome answers.
Nora Radcliffe: LD Committee
24 Apr 2006
Crofting Reform etc Bill: Stage 1
I would be interested to hear the panel's views on the idea of producing a fully mapped croft register. What have been the barriers to that in the past, which might have to be overcome to achieve that?
Nora Radcliffe: LD Committee
24 Apr 2006
Crofting Reform etc Bill: Stage 1
Can you give me a lay explanation of why that is the case?
Nora Radcliffe: LD Committee
24 Apr 2006
Crofting Reform etc Bill: Stage 1
Who is going to bell the cat?
Nora Radcliffe: LD Committee
24 Apr 2006
Crofting Reform etc Bill: Stage 1
We will probably find that there are strips of land that no one has laid claim to.
Nora Radcliffe: LD Committee
24 Apr 2006
Crofting Reform etc Bill: Stage 1
The bill offers scope for the creation of new crofts, but is enough land available in the Western Isles to create new crofts?
Nora Radcliffe: LD Committee
24 Apr 2006
Crofting Reform etc Bill: Stage 1
Everything that I wanted to ask about has been touched on.
Nora Radcliffe: LD Committee
03 May 2006
Crofting Reform etc Bill: Stage 1
Would other panel members like to comment on grazings committees as a mechanism for capturing the community interest?
Nora Radcliffe: LD Committee
03 May 2006
Crofting Reform etc Bill: Stage 1
I think that you have asked the question for me.
Nora Radcliffe: LD Committee
03 May 2006
Crofting Reform etc Bill: Stage 1
Yes.
Nora Radcliffe: LD Committee
03 May 2006
Crofting Reform etc Bill: Stage 1
Do other panel members wish to discuss the pros and cons—for both the landlord and the tenant?
Nora Radcliffe: LD Committee
03 May 2006
Crofting Reform etc Bill: Stage 1
Let us consider the issue from the point of view of landowners who want to develop part of their estate or landholding into crofts, rather than that of small landowners. Would such development be desirable?
Nora Radcliffe: LD Committee
03 May 2006
Crofting Reform etc Bill: Stage 1
I wanted to ask Duncan Mulholland a question. We have focused on the areas that the three of you come from, but do you know of other areas where people would be affected by legislation on small landholdings?
Nora Radcliffe: LD Committee
03 May 2006
Crofting Reform etc Bill: Stage 1
I just wondered whether, during previous campaigns, you had been in touch with people in other parts of the country. I represent a constituency in the north-east and I wondered whether you knew of a nucleus of people there who might be interested.
Nora Radcliffe: LD Committee
03 May 2006
Crofting Reform etc Bill: Stage 1
I have heard some expressions of interest.
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Chamber

Plenary, 27 Sep 2006

27 Sep 2006 · S2 · Plenary
Item of business
Crofting Reform etc Bill: Stage 1
Radcliffe, Nora LD Gordon Watch on SPTV
Crofting has been an essential factor in ensuring the economic and social vitality of communities in the crofting counties for many years. Aberdeenshire was nearly one of the crofting counties. In 1886, the question whether it would opt in or out was finely balanced. There is certainly local interest in the bill's provisions for expanding crofting tenure outwith the current crofting counties. I am particularly interested in that aspect of the bill.

For many years, crofting has successfully kept people living and working in some of the most remote and rural areas of Scotland. However, today's world is very different from the world of 1886. Various legislative changes relating to crofting tenure have had an effect, although some effects have been less welcome than others. Wide consensus exists on the need to update the crofting law and the management of crofting. The fact that there is no consensus on some of the Executive's proposals does not reflect on the effort or consideration that has gone into them, but is rather the result of the complexity of the issues that are involved and the recognition by all sides of the importance of getting things right.

As the minister said at the start of the debate, the Environment and Rural Development Committee has spent a great deal of time trying to tease out the issues. The process has pulled out concerns that were not articulated during the earlier consultation, which demonstrates the value of the way in which the Parliament and its committees go about their work.

Addressing the questions of how to deal with the market value of crofts and how to reconcile the imperatives of buyers and sellers has involved an iterative process. The proper occupier proposals that were made late in the process were intended to bring about reconciliation but, as many members have said, they have not won the support that would be needed to progress them.

There was widespread support and an enthusiastic welcome for many parts of the bill, and I look forward to progressing those through stage 2 to deliver several key aspects of the original bill. Those include interposed leases; powers for the Crofters Commission to challenge neglect; the creation of new crofts without the inhibition of the right to buy; the extension of crofting tenure; and an accurate and comprehensive register of crofts. The last of those, in particular, will be an essential tool in moving forward some of the crofting agenda. The fact that there is no accurate and comprehensive register of crofts at the moment is attributable to several different factors. It does not help to try to apportion blame for why there has not been such a register so far; what is important is that we find a way of achieving that.

The Executive has taken on board the committee's concerns about the aspects of the bill that have not won support. Along with others, I welcome the fact that those aspects will be examined further before being taken forward. I am sure that, with more work, it will be possible to define the objectives of crofting and to find suitable ways in which to achieve regulation of the market.

In the same item of business

The Presiding Officer (Mr George Reid): NPA
The next item of business is a debate on motion S2M-4710, in the name of Ross Finnie, on the general principles of the Crofting Reform etc Bill.
The Minister for Environment and Rural Development (Ross Finnie): LD
Crofting is a uniquely Scottish way of life and approach to small-scale agriculture. For the first time, it is to be subject to legislation that has been dev...
John Swinburne (Central Scotland) (SSCUP): SSCUP
The Scottish Parliament information centre's excellent briefing on crofting states:"In recognition of its importance in sustaining remote rural communities, ...
Ross Finnie: LD
I would be happy to receive a letter from the member on that point. It is certainly not within the scope of the bill, although it may be a matter of great an...
John Farquhar Munro (Ross, Skye and Inverness West) (LD): LD
The minister said that a committee of inquiry is to be established to consider the complexities of the crofting situation. Will it look into absenteeism and ...
Ross Finnie: LD
I am grateful to John Farquhar Munro for that intervention. I am well aware of his particular interest in crofting in general and in the misuse and neglect o...
Fergus Ewing (Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber) (SNP): SNP
I apologise for not being here for the start of the minister's speech. When will the committee of inquiry's remit be finalised? When will the committee be es...
Ross Finnie: LD
That is the sort of multiple question for which one gets points for each part.We have given quite a lot of thought to the committee of inquiry. We have to id...
Rob Gibson (Highlands and Islands) (SNP): SNP
Few of the original proposals in the Crofting Reform etc Bill are left unscathed. It is a botched bill. It has been savaged by the determined committee that ...
Elaine Smith (Coatbridge and Chryston) (Lab): Lab
Will the member take an intervention?
Rob Gibson: SNP
Not at the moment.Crofting reform was a low priority for the Lib-Lab coalition, which has taken so long to go so tortuously short a distance. Listen to croft...
Ross Finnie: LD
Rob Gibson has referred several times to market value. If he intends to extinguish that, is it SNP policy to remove the right to buy? The right to buy was th...
Rob Gibson: SNP
The situation that the minister discusses is complicated. The right of people to have a house that they can decroft and use for themselves has been accepted ...
Mr Ted Brocklebank (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Con): Con
When the commission that was chaired by Francis, Lord Napier of Ettrick, went to interview crofters about their grievances on 8 May 1883, it was no coinciden...
Ross Finnie: LD
Will the member take an intervention?
Mr Brocklebank: Con
I will do so in a moment. The minister may want to come back on what I am about to say.As Rob Gibson pointed out, Ross Finnie declared on BBC Radio Scotland ...
Ross Finnie: LD
I am grateful for the member's concerns about market values, which we all share. However, for the sake of members, will he point to any section of the bill t...
Mr Brocklebank: Con
Things will become apparent as I proceed.The bill has failed to dampen the speculation and free market in land—that is the major problem that we are faced wi...
Elaine Smith: Lab
Is Ted Brocklebank suggesting that, in abandoning the bill, the Executive should abandon provisions—which it intends to leave in the bill—to create a registe...
Mr Brocklebank: Con
Of course, there are aspects of the bill that we believe should, eventually, be part of a well-thought-out bill that has a real vision for the future of crof...
Elaine Smith (Coatbridge and Chryston) (Lab): Lab
On behalf of the Labour Party, I thank the clerking team of the Environment and Rural Development Committee for assisting the committee in reaching this stag...
The Presiding Officer: NPA
I call Sarah Boyack, who will speak as convener of the Environment and Rural Development Committee.
Sarah Boyack (Edinburgh Central) (Lab): Lab
I thank committee members, witnesses, committee clerks and all those who were involved in the preparation of our committee report. In particular, I thank the...
John Farquhar Munro (Ross, Skye and Inverness West) (LD): LD
I congratulate the convener of the Environment and Rural Development Committee, who seems to have an amazing grasp of crofting legislation. I thank her for h...
Jim Mather (Highlands and Islands) (SNP): SNP
As we have heard, the bill attracted adverse comment and deep and stinging criticisms from the Environment and Rural Development Committee, which is to be co...
Elaine Smith: Lab
Does the member accept that the committee's deliberations uncovered many of the issues that he has outlined? Instead of continually denigrating the Scottish ...
Jim Mather: SNP
Given the delays and the patchwork of good with the bad, I must focus on the fundamental flaws in what is an extremely unhelpful bill, which has caused great...
Mr Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD): LD
We have heard John Farquhar Munro—who I think is one of only two members of Parliament who are crofters—say that some parts of the bill are welcome, so why o...
Jim Mather: SNP
If the member had listened to Rob Gibson, he would have got that message loud and clear. It is important that progress is made and that we get the improvemen...
Eleanor Scott (Highlands and Islands) (Green): Green
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 ...