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Rural Affairs and Islands Committee 04 February 2026 [Draft]

04 Feb 2026 · S6 · Rural Affairs and Islands Committee

Item of business

Crofting and Scottish Land Court Bill: Stage 2

Grant, Rhoda Lab Highlands and Islands Watch on SPTV

I will speak to amendments 166, 173 to 175, 189 and 190.Too often, we hear about people using their croft house as a holiday let or a second home. That theme runs through a lot of the amendments to the bill, because we must find ways of making sure that crofts are used for their intended purpose. At the moment, many so-called crofters are not crofters; they are people who bought a house and some land. Crofting land is fundamentally different from other land in that the land must be put to agricultural use. Over the years, diversification has infringed on that purpose—often for good reasons, because few crofters make a living from the land on their croft.Amendment 166 would tighten up the “ordinarily resident” criteria to ensure that the“crofter’s sole or main residence”is on or near the croft, as opposed to the crofter being “ordinarily resident”. That definition would make it easier for the commission to identify those who are not ordinarily resident on the croft.Amendment 173 would allow Scottish ministers or any Scottish Government department, such as the rural payments and inspections division, to be able to report breaches in the residence criteria to the Crofting Commission, which would then be required to instigate an investigation.Amendment 174 would enable the person who is reporting a breach to request that they remain anonymous and to have the Crofting Commission keep their details anonymised if they live in the same township as the person who is being reported. It can cause tensions and splits in the community if the name of the person who has reported a breach becomes known.Amendment 175 would limit the scope for people to make vexatious complaints by allowing the commission to take previous vexatious complaints “into account” before proceeding to investigate a breach.Amendment 189 is a probing amendment. Currently, crofters are able to apply for consent to be absent from a croft. There are legitimate times when someone would require to be absent, such as for short-term work commitments or caring and family responsibilities. However, anecdotal information suggests that the ability is being misused and that people are using it to be permanently absent. I am keen to work with the minister and the bill team to explore how we can stop the abuse of consent for absence without putting people’s homes and livelihoods at risk should difficult circumstances occur.Amendment 190 seeks to deal with the issue of someone who is buying a croft or an assignation needing to be aware of the duties that they are taking on. All too often, people believe that a croft is a house, but it is not. Where a house is attached to a croft, that is a croft house. However, there cannot be a croft house without it being attached to croft land, and it is the land to which obligations are attached. Crofts are changing hands for huge amounts of money, and I do not believe that that would happen as it is doing currently if people understood what they were taking on. My amendment proposes a way in which to enable that to happen, but I am open to discussion if there are better ways of doing it.

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Rural Affairs and Islands Committee 04 February 2026 [Draft]

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