 Good morning and welcome to the 12th meeting in 2015 of the Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee. Before we move to the first item, I remind everyone that their mobile phones should be switched on to silent, at least as they can affect the broadcasting system, and that committee members will be using tablets in some cases for the meeting papers in digital format. We have apologies today from Graham Day, and we welcome Chris John Allar to the meeting in his place. Agenda item 1 and Scottish Government's biodiversity strategy. This is for us to take evidence from the minister and her officials. Welcome, Aileen McLeod, with Keith Connell, Deputy Director of Natural Resources Scottish Government. Sally Thomas, land use and biodiversity team leader in the Scottish Government. Professor Des Thomson, Principal Advisor and Biodiversity to Scottish Natural Heritage. Welcome to you all. I don't know whether you wish to make any opening remarks, minister. Thank you. Well, please. Well, convener, can I just start by thanking you again for the invitation to come to the committee this morning to discuss Scotland's biodiversity and for the opportunity for me to make some brief opening remarks. I very much welcome the committee's on-going interest in Scotland's biodiversity, which I think everyone would acknowledge presents both opportunities and challenges. Since the committee last met to consider this subject, we have published the 2020 challenge for Scotland's biodiversity, which updated and complements Scotland's biodiversity strategy published in 2004. We are very close to publishing Scotland's biodiversity a route map to 2020. I am delighted to have been able to share with the committee a final pre-publication draft of the route map on which I would be extremely happy to receive your thoughts prior to its publication next month. As you know, convener, I am always keen to hear the committee's views and have your input, especially when it comes to an issue like this, given your expertise and knowledge. The route map sets out six big steps for nature and a number of priority collaborative projects, which the Scottish Government and a wide range of partners are taking forward to improve the state of nature in Scotland and help towards meeting the acu calls and targets. The six big steps cover issues such as ecosystem restoration and wildlife conservation and the provision of quality green space for health and education. The route map also recognises the importance of a range of biodiversity-related work that is focused on particular places and areas, working on a landscape scale and on a collaborative basis and involving public agencies, local authorities, NGOs and others. I am aware that the committee heard something about the opportunities of such work at the round table with stakeholders and Scottish Government delivery bodies last week. I wish to acknowledge the substantial contribution of Scottish natural heritage as lead authors of the route map and to put on record my thanks to the many organisations that have been involved in its preparation, in particular those represented on the delivery and monitoring group that reports to the Scottish Biodiversity Committee, which I chair. Biodiversity, as we all know, is a key component to our lives. It underpins our health and wellbeing and contributes significantly to our prosperity. That was set out in the 2020 challenge for biodiversity, but also in the Scottish Government's latest economic strategy, which highlighted that protecting and enhancing our stock of natural capital is fundamental to a healthy and resilient economy and supports sectors such as agriculture, forestry, fisheries, tourism and renewables. I am delighted to be appearing before the committee this morning and I look forward to answering your questions. Let me start by saying that it is important for us to get a fix on where the route map hopes to take us by 2020. I do not know if you have got any concise vision about what the biodiversity of Scotland should look like in 2020. Certainly by 2020, I would want us to be in a place where the importance of biodiversity is widely appreciated for its own sake and because it underpins our economy and our wellbeing. I agree that we need to focus on delivery, and that is why the biodiversity route map has a strong emphasis on the practical work that is delivering benefits on the ground. We have the governance arrangements as well, which support all of our work. They are equally as important, including the role of the delivery and the monitoring group that we need to drive forward our delivery and to report to the Scottish Bairiversity Committee, which I chair. I am glad that you mentioned delivery rather than process. I am sure that members will question the detail in the route map as we go through this. The question is, at the moment, is that likely to inspire people as a vision because it is highly detailed and you are dealing with a very diverse audience? It strikes me that the kind of people who are already active in biodiversity are not just large organisations but a whole welter of people across civil society and government at all levels. Is it going to inspire people as a vision that can allow them to be able to feel that we have something that we can achieve and that, by 2020, we will have achieved it? It will, convener. Obviously, we have both the biodiversity strategy and the route map. We cannot see either of those in isolation. The fact that, with our 2020 challenge itself, it has adopted an ecosystem approach that focuses on our need to protect our ecosystems in order to support our nature, wellbeing and a thriving economy. When it comes to the route map itself, I think that that draws together an excellent picture of the contribution that a set of big steps and priority projects are being taken forward on a partnership collaborative basis and what they will do towards meeting the 2020 targets. Although the route map is not intended to revisit the 2020 challenge, I think that the introduction in the route map seeks to capture its sense of ambition and our commitment to work with partners to improve the state of nature in Scotland. Building on that point, convener, I think that perhaps there is an issue that you raise in terms of the detail of the plan. It is extraordinarily detailed. There is a lot of stuff that builds on a great deal of work that has gone before. That may be a problem as well as an advantage, which is that there are many trees in the wood, but seeing the way through the wood, particularly for what you might call a Twitter generation, who are people who have a limited attention span, who want to find one thing to do that is going to make a difference. It is not in there. You would have to spend an enormous amount of time looking at the detail and know rather a lot about it. I do not think that that devalues the plan. What it does is ask where that plan fits into a wider strategy of the simple message that biodiversity is extremely important for the future, not just of Scotland but of the planet and how people can do things themselves to secure biodiversity, not just vote for the right people or support the right policies or volunteer for a variety of environmental agencies. How can you emphasise that with those people who will never rate this plan and will never say it? The key to that question, convener, is obviously the fact that what the route map does is to set out very clearly the six big steps for nature. It is very clear about the 12 priority collaborative projects that we are taking forward. I think that there is a lot of good work that is there around our peatland restoration and what we are doing around the conservation of species. We have made clear that this is an initial document and that more versions will follow in which we will be writing more detail on the pressures on biodiversity, what further action is needed to address those notable in relation to the land use change and pollution and further refinement of the indicators that are being developed so that we can be more precise about what is changing and why and more detail on who is leading the work that is specified with that shared across our agencies and our NGOs and our estates. The route map is primarily for our agencies and our NGOs and is working collaboratively with their partners in delivering it. What about for those people who want less detail rather than more detail, who just want to be told one thing or inspired to do something? Where does that fit into this plan? Mr Russell, that is a really good question. If we had distilled this into one thing, I think that we would have been criticised for omitting so many other aspects. Just as an aside, one of our NGO partners commented that this was an overly thorough document. How do we take that damning with faint praise? It is intentionally thorough. It is structured in a way that we think is understandable by those that we work with, but we do not really make any apology for the fact that it is quite detailed and thorough. I am not going to attempt to identify the single word that would inspire people. I am not going to ask anybody to apologise for it. I think that it is a very good document. I am slightly resistant to document that has three or four different colours in every page, but that being the case, I am just raising the question and I understand that you are concerned about it, but I think that it needs to be part of the strategy. I think that the committee would want to know that the strategy includes that type of direct, simple approach, a greener Scotland approach to biodiversity that draws people in to do things. The agencies are paid to do them. They are full of enthusiasts. It is that simple point that I am looking for. There is, within the structures that the ministers referred to, a communications group that is looking at that question about how best to communicate simple messages. One of the examples that they are looking at is, for example, drawing the relevance of a healthy environment to people's wellbeing, to the health agenda. Often, in that sort of area, there are simple messages that do resonate with people. There has been one or two criticisms from different stakeholders about what extent it has a strategic vision, just picking up on the point that Mike Russell just made there. To what extent people will actually buy into what is in the route map. People will not see themselves as people who will implement the route map. We got representations about land managers in particular that they did not see the relevance spelt out for their day-to-day work. We also had the criticism that the route map does not really add value to what is already being done, in some senses it lists what is being done, but it does not really add anything new. Can you pick up those criticisms about the route map, not necessarily leading to any actual new action? That was one of the key things that came out in last week's evidence about we are failing our targets so that everything needs to be stepped up. What I will say is that the vision itself is set out in the strategy and the 2020 challenge for Scotland's biodiversity. The route map is primarily sitting out the detail of how we deliver that vision and what is deliverable on the ground, which is still ambitious. I know that there has been some concerns about the route map that shows a lack of strategic thinking. We do not accept that, because it is the 2020 challenge that sets out the strategic challenge and it has been widely praised. The route map sets out some of the work under weight or plans to meet the 2020 challenge. For example, in terms of the wildlife he states, Scotland is also in the route map and it adds value and shows whether there is hard evidence. The issue is that I am quoting back to you the comments that we have received about the route map from those key stakeholders. One of the clear comments from Land and Estates was that they did not feel that land managers appeared to be at the very heart of the route map or the strategy and that there was not a reference to using policy tools and developing initiatives that will influence land managers. However, that is not the same thing as putting land managers at the heart of the strategy. There is a comment from land managers. The other thing that came out last week is the impact on farming to what extent our farmers will be obliged or feel willing to implement what is in the route map. Is that the connection between aspiration and delivery on the ground? Our land managers are, along with others, at the heart of the document. They will be delivering eight of the priority projects in the route map, along with some of the health ones. Throughout the route map, there is a whole welter of activities that are rather on-going or planned. Under priority project 11, which concerns sustainable land management, there is considerable ambition and joint working with the farming and land management community. The minister has just mentioned why life estates, for instance. That is a very ambitious project to try and improve and widen the benefits of certain forms of land management. Was it just too early in the process then that people are clearly not seeing themselves at the heart of the document, even though that is your intention? How will that turn around? There is, as I said, a number of things that we are doing around unsustainable land management. We talk about the ecological focus areas, for example, the capgrain requirement and increased protection for our hedgerows and watercourses and, obviously, the wildlife estates Scotland initiative, which is all about encouraging our best practice. We also have our demonstration farms, including our leaf farms and our climate change focus farms. There is a lot of detail in the route map in terms of the on-going work, and they set out quite clearly what the planned work is going forward. We have a lot of work around giving support for a landscape scale agri environment management under the new SRDP environmental co-operation action fund, for example, or promoting our agri environment and sustainable farming practices through the SRDP farm advisory service in the Scottish Rural Network. The other point was about new projects. A criticism that a lot of them are existing projects that are on-going. Given the gap in meeting our existing targets, we really need to lift up and have new projects that will make the real difference. If I may, again, there is considerable ambition in terms of new projects. We will need to look under habitats and species. Some of the species mentioned there are carlu, cornbunting and some of the bees species. We will need to look at some of the raptors, henharriers and golden eagles project that we have for reinforcing the golden eagle population in the south of Scotland. We only have two to four nesting pairs at the moment. We could potentially have 14 to 16 pairs. We have terrific partnership in place involving our SPB, Scottish Land on the States, Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust, SNH and other bodies, and we are willing the reinforcement of that population. To me, that seems to be very ambitious, with a lot of work going on behind the scenes to ensure that habitat and other conditions are in place. There are many other examples such as those. Perhaps it comes back to a point that Mr Russell was making earlier on, in terms of communicating that ambition. We have put a lot of effort into producing the route map and the many projects that are outlined here. Perhaps, once it is published at the time, the minister is outlined to develop the communication plan for that. I want to come back to the point that Sarah Boyack made about the wildlife states. We are keen to encourage our partners who want to be involved. Scottish Land on the States sits on the Biodiversity Committee. I know that it is bringing forward the annual report on the wildlife states in Scotland, so we are very much looking forward to seeing that and the work that it has been involved in. We have two supplementaries, Alex Ferguson and Claudia Beamish. I think that the discussion is incredibly important. If the aims of the strategy and the plan and the route map, or whatever you want to call it, are to be achieved, I think that this needs to be buy-in not just from the various agencies and partners involved, but from the people of Scotland, the man in the street, frankly. Last week, I highlighted an email that I had from an individual who had been one day to an environmental conference the next day to a farming seminar. The words he used describe it as being in two parallel universes in terms of the language that was being used. I am glad that Professor Thompson just mentioned communication, because I think that communication is terribly important in all of this. If I may say so, I think that we have become too highfalutin about all of this. The phraseology that is used, the terminology that is used, is incredibly complex and complicated. When we were discussing this in 2013, I said, can we stop talking about biodiversity and start talking about the balance of nature? People understand the balance of nature. They do not necessarily understand a strategic plan through a route map for biodiversity 2020. I wonder if you would acknowledge that, in communicating this properly, because it must be properly communicated if it is to be successful, there is a need to simplify the language to make it understandable so that, to go back to where Mike Russell started, somebody, a layman, can approach this plan and say, oh, that is a good idea, I can do something about that. Yes, I would be very happy to do so. I am all for simplification of language and trying to keep things as simple as we can. Last weekend, I had the opportunity to go on to the environment fair that was organised by Tafris and Galloway council. I was seeing the number of environmental partners and NGOs who were all there. The number of children who were there and who were engaging with environmental projects and trying to keep the language as simple as we can around what that means for our nature and our environment. I would absolutely agree with that. Claudia Beamish Good morning, minister. I ask you in relation to following on from Sarah Boyack's remarks about the evidence session last week and some of the written evidence that we have had about new projects that fit into the biodiversity route map going forward. Some concern has been expressed, as has already been highlighted this morning, about perhaps a lack of new projects. I wonder if you could comment specifically on three. One is the degree to which the national ecological network is going to be taken forward, building on the central Scotland green network. Another is something that has already been mentioned by Des Thomson this morning in relation to curlews, because in their written evidence RSPB had stressed that there was a concern and it was being looked at internationally and that 55 per cent of the curlew population has declined in Scotland over recent years since 1995. Those are two examples, one quite a broad example and one that is very specific about areas that I am really questioning. Where are we seeing new things coming into the route map? I do have a question about marine issues, but perhaps I could come back to that in a minute. Carlyw is a very good example because we have named it in the route map. We are very fortunate because RSPB Scotland has been leading a European effort to restore carlyw populations. We know that we have globally important populations. Massive decline, considerable research being led by RSPB to try and identify the causes for the decline in curlews and therefore the work that is needed. That is just the sort of work that is being captured within the route map. As further versions of the route map are published, we would be setting out in greater detail the sort of work being undertaken. In terms of the other project that you were referring to, Clory Bumish, on the Central Scotland Green Network, which I recently had the opportunity to go and visit across in shots, there is a route map under the planned work. We know that we will be developing a national ecological network to enable characterisation of the nature of Scotland and to help with the identification of priority areas for action around habitat restoration, creation and protection. Thank you very much, minister. That is encouraging. Can I turn my mind to marine biodiversity, which, as you know, is some big step six? Just the concern that has been expressed by some stakeholders about the marine protected areas not enhancing and only parts of marine protected areas being designated as no-take areas, for instance, to give you an example, but also the broader issue that RSPB has raised, which is the concern that there are not very many new projects in relation to marine biodiversity. What we will be doing on the biodiversity for marine areas is developing the evidence base through the setting and delivering of surveillance and a monitoring strategy that will allow authoritative reporting of the state and the progress. We will also be completing the suite of marine protected areas, including the additional natura sites and agreeing and delivering measures for their effective management, as well as putting in place the regional marine plans that incorporate the provision for decision-making that will promote ecological coherence between the protected areas and the safeguards for the priority marine features. We will move on to the idea of mainstreaming and biodiversity duty reporting. Angus MacDonald, first. Thanks, convener. Good morning, minister. I'm just touching on Claudia Beamish's point regarding new projects. I'm pleased to say that I have a copy of Falkirk Council's biodiversity duty report here, covering the period 2011 to 2014. It highlights some excellent work to date, but it also highlights projects that are under way, including the Inner Force Landscape Initiative, which combines about 30 projects, 30 plus projects, between now and 2019. There is certainly a high number of new projects going ahead in my area. SPICE confirmed through the Scottish Government that they have received 25 biodiversity duty reports from local authorities and 11 from other public bodies. However, it appears that some local authorities and the vast majority of public bodies haven't informed the Scottish Government that they've published a biodiversity duty report. Are you aware, minister, if all the organisations and public bodies that should have produced a biodiversity duty report have done so? To date, the Scottish Government has been informed of the publication of 34 reports. Obviously, as a Government, we encourage our public bodies to inform it of the publication of reports on the biodiversity duty, but that is not a requirement. The list that we have on the Biodiversity Scotland webpage may not be comprehensive. There are no sanctions in the wildlife and natural environment Scotland Act against those public bodies who fail to report, but we will, however, revise the guidance to public bodies to make reporting easier for the next round. We will shortly be commissioning a research project to evaluate the compliance and the quality of the biodiversity duty reports, and that research project will begin later in this year. Will you be looking at sanctions as an option in the future? I think that we certainly want to review the guidance and then we'll see what we get to after that, but I'm certainly very keen to make sure that we're getting our public bodies reporting to us on their biodiversity. Okay. The reports that you have received to date, what use will be made of these? We will certainly be using the reports that we receive to get a sense of what's happening and what's going on through our different agencies and local authorities, and then we'll see from there what you want to pick up on. In terms of moving the route map further forward, there's actually a lot of very important regional and local activities projects being carried out that we'd certainly like to reflect in future versions of the route map. One of the things that we did also do is we have written to all our public bodies to remind them of their obligation to report on the biodiversity duty and we have provided detailed guidance, but I don't think that the actual duty itself was specifically mentioned in the grant and aid letters because it hasn't been the Scottish Government's practice to seek to list all the statutory duties that apply to public bodies, but I'm very happy to look at this again. Okay, that's good, thanks. Any further points on that? Okay. Yes, Sarah Boyack. Have you any sense of why different organisations aren't putting together reports? Is it lack of expertise? Is it lack of priority? Is it that they don't see it as relevant to the organisation? Last week, it was reported that we'd got 25 local authorities that had produced biodiversity action plans, 32 local authorities. Do we have a sense of why others aren't all doing it as well? Are you quite happy to do that? It's partly resourcing, just in terms of the time and effort that's being devoted to this. All I can say is that the ones that we've seen have been excellent. We've got to just try to share that experience. Claudia Beamish. Could I just come back on that point? I recall in years past that some local authorities have had a dedicated biodiversity officer and I wonder if there's any information on how many local authorities now have that, or at least someone who's part of their remit is that, because it would seem that if there isn't somebody specifically focusing on it, that might answer some of the question as to why seven of the local authorities may indeed have reported but haven't informed the Scottish Government they've reported. Certainly where we have local biodiversity officers it makes a huge difference in terms of marshalling all the activities and all the projects that have been carried out and there are some exceptional individuals out there doing fantastic things for nature. I think you make a good point. Maybe you could write to us on that point. Yeah, we're quite happy to come back to the committee on that. Thank you. Non-native invasive species. The evidence that the committee heard last week indicated that some organisations remain very committed to the eradication of non-native invasive species and believe that it should be a priority in biodiversity plans. Others are less convinced that that is now a priority. I think the evidence that we had for example in Sumars and SNH was that there's no point in one individual doing this with enthusiasm if their next-door neighbour is not doing it at all by definition. So I'd just be interested to know what priority the Government now gives to this, whether the Government recognises that worthy and important as this may well be in certain circumstances there are some circumstances where it is not possible any longer to fight this fight and how you make those decisions. Certainly the spread of these invasive non-native species and wildlife diseases are certainly one of the key pressures on biodiversity. Water environments in our islands are particularly vulnerable to our invasive non-native species, while obviously our woodlands are also threatened by our various tree diseases. Those invasive species are now the single biggest negative pressure on protected nature sites and it's clearly important, certainly for me, that action against our non-native species is carefully assessed and prioritised at a national level to ensure that expensive commitments deliver value for money and that they can be sustained. I think that one of the most important jobs at a national level is obviously to prevent new species becoming established by identifying and addressing pathways and ensuring that we have good biosecurity measures in place. For example, new legislation will be coming forward to ban sale or the keeping of highly invasive aquatic plants commonly used in aquaria, but that is a job of the non-native species action group. We have projects such as the used WEDA project that seeks to remove non-native hedgehogs from the use to protect nesting seabirds or we have saving Scotland's red squirrels projects that are carried out at a landscape level. They need to be carefully co-ordinated and monitored to avoid any fragmentation and wasted or duplicated effort. Obviously, at a local level, we seek to encourage partnerships between our landowners, SNH, SEPA and NGOs and our volunteers. I think you give some very interesting examples. I mean, I am old enough to remember the individual who brought the first hedgehog to you. I shall not name him here now. I think there's no talking about. And that was with the best of intentions, but were the worst of results. But a distinction I think needs to be made between that type of action which can be prevented. And for example, the spread of Ramorov where there is a disease that is spreading and as far as we are aware, there is yet to no effective means of treating that disease apart from very radical action within forests. What relative priority do you get to prevention, eradication, disease control and given that it will absorb more and more of the resources that exist in the state, is it really a sustainable activity or are you going to have to prioritise that in a different way? I think that in terms of prevention, we've got wide-ranging legislation which takes a general no-release approach to the introduction of non-native species. I mean, where exceptions are needed, they are provided through secondary legislation or under licence from SNH. In terms of early detection and rapid eradication, our top priorities are to identify how those species invade and act quickly to prevent the establishment and spread. Early detection and reporting is encouraged through our monitoring programmes and citizen science initiatives such as the plant tracker app. Part of the agencies for the invasive non-native species responsibilities is to assess risks as they arise and to develop appropriate responses. Recent successes have included action to prevent the establishment of the zebra mussel, raccoon, marbled crayfish and black-tailed prairie dog. Is it finally, convener, if I might, there must become a moment in which something is no longer an invasive invasive non-native species but has in actual fact become part of the landscape that requires eradication or careful control in the sense that a bracken, for example, is rampant within parts of Scotland and requires control? How do you treat that? Because that becomes a land management problem, more than a simple biodiversity problem. The resources that are applied for land management terms to the commission and others become important? The case has made extremely well thinking about bracken and rodded endrin, but surely that reinforces the huge effort that we are putting into preventing invasion in the first place. As the minister was highlighting, there are exemplary examples, such as American mink, hedgehogs, rodded endrin control, riverbank vegetation in Britain and in Europe. We are leading the way in tackling non-native invasives. The key message that the minister has just been reinforcing is prevention. Getting that message across about the huge risks, not only to nature but in terms of the economic cost of ensuring that this is done. I have three words that I want to put in front of you, minister. I suspect that you can put money on what they are, American signal crayfish, because I listened very carefully to your reply. I cannot argue with any of it, but everything that you have said is just about blown apart by the situation with the American signal crayfish in Loch Ken in my constituency. Frankly, the measures that have been taken there to try to stop them spreading have not worked. They are spreading. They may have spread faster if these measures have not been taken. I do not know, but I simply put it to you that, as I think Mike Russell said, there will come a time when these can no longer be looked upon as invasive, they will be part of our everyday scenery. Somewhere along the line, in all of this, with something like rodded endrin, with something like American signal crayfish, you have to accept that unless you are going to press the nuclear button and really do something serious about them, that they are here and they are here to stay. When that becomes the case, a different approach has to be taken. I just put that to you as a general thought. Just in response, convener, I, as Mr Ferguson well knows, I recognise the local concerns and the fact that there has been a long-standing serious issue with our North American signal crayfish at Loch Ken. I am very keen to try and find a way to resolve that. I would be very happy to have a meeting with Mr Ferguson on crayfish at Loch Ken to see what else we can explore. I am conscious that my predecessor, Paul Wheelhouse, held a meeting in New Galloway last July to which a number of interested parties were invited. There is no easy solution, but I am very happy to meet Mr Ferguson to try and fathom a way through this with our American signal crayfish in Loch Ken. I will take the minister up on that invitation. Is there no natural predator for the signal crayfish? Well, in that case, we will look forward to what the conversation produces. Jim Hume? Just mentioned about woodlands being threatened and imported diseases, of course one that I think of is ash dibac, Calara. It is mentioned that control is fine, but prevention, as I said, is far more important. I wonder what work the Government has been doing regarding importing specific arboreal diseases. Any thoughts have been put into encouraging more local nurseries rather than what we have been seeing at the moment where nurseries are getting larger and centralised and, obviously, leading to diseases such as ash dibac spreading faster across large areas, not just of course UK, Scotland but also Europe? If I could just comment on that, we are extremely fortunate in Scotland because in terms of the research, there is a huge amount of work being done by Forest Research. We have got Plant Health Centre of Expertise doing work. We are now having to look at a whole range of ways of trying to make the trees and the woodland ecosystems more resistant. You mentioned the use of nurseries. That is clearly very important in terms of developing resistant strains. This is one area where we are very fortunate to have a very strong research base. In place, we have responded to the pressures. Indeed, some of the pressures have been anticipated some time ago. Therefore, we are well ahead of the game in trying to find solutions to this. It is a very challenging problem that you have set out. We are developing a Scottish plant health strategy. We recognise the number of plant health threats that are rising in the spread of pests that has increased due to the globalisation of trade and climate change. With that plant health strategy, it will set out measures to safeguard Scottish agriculture, horticulture, forestry and the wider environment from pests and diseases. It will be consistent with the ambitions of the UK plant's biosecurity strategy. We have also seen an appointment of the UK chief plant health officer. The Scottish Government has also committed to the appointment of a Scottish chief plant health officer, and that will complement the UK chief plant health officer as well. We are moving on to the natural capital agenda and the natural capital asset index. Jim Hume again. Thank you very much again, convener. Big step number two is investment in natural capital. Two years ago, the committee encouraged, in a letter to the then minister, to give more sort of detail as to how that can be translated taxion on the ground to the Scottish land and the states. The natural capital agenda has good promise, but it is not quite tangible yet. They did note that woodland carbon code is something that is moving in the right direction, but probably still needs to be a bit more tangible. I wonder what the minister thinks that we can do to make the natural capital asset index more tangible on the ground so that actual land managers can buy into the biodiversity agenda in a more meaningful way? A number of steps are already being taken to make the concept of natural capital relevant to biodiversity and also to the wider Scottish Government strategy and policy. I think that I would draw the committee's attention back to the 2020 challenge on biodiversity, which includes chapter 2 on natural capital. That captures not only the role that natural capital plays in underpinning our economy and wellbeing, but it sets out some very practical on-the-ground examples of nature services and their value. The work by the Scottish Government and a number of partners on peatland restoration is a very practical on-the-ground example. We are also supporting those who are developing the concept of natural capital. I am delighted that the Scottish Government is helping to fund the work of the Scottish Forum on natural capital. Two of our senior staff, including the chief economist, sit on the forum's steering group. Obviously, we also supported the inaugural World Forum on natural capital that was held in Edinburgh in 2013. As Jim Heal will probably be aware, natural capital was also referred to in the latest Scottish Government economic strategy, which we published recently. It was also welcomed by Johnny Hughes, co-chair of the Scottish Forum on natural capital. I would like to talk about land managers. We are thinking about hill farmers and crofters, just as much as estate managers. How is the question of natural capital being addressed with regard to these small land managers? The land managers, thinking of crofters and, of course, thinking of your own constituency convener, probably get natural capital more readily than many other people are thinking about it. If you think of the vast peatland ecosystem that you are familiar with, they have been treating peatlands as natural capital for centuries. They have no difficulty thinking about the value of peat in terms of the carbon store, what it does for clean water, what it does for wildlife and what it does in terms of reinforcing the cultural identity of the area. That is all part of the natural capital of the area. Something that is reassuring is that many of those organisations say that they understand natural capital. Indeed, we have been ahead of the boffens and others who are articulating it. Unless we have the economic support for people in those areas, they are not going to be able to apply natural capital. It is very worrying when I see the RSPB submission to this, which suggests that somehow or other we are only spending 27 per cent of the SRDP on agri-environment measures, whereas in England it is over 60 per cent. However, that does not take into account the less favoured areas where we have to support the very people who you have just said are more alert to biodiversity. I find that comparison of apples with payers that the RSPB has done is to be completely unhelpful when we are looking at the way in which we can apply the monies that we have. Part of the challenge there is converting the habitat condition that is being improved for those measures into a measure of natural capital. Perhaps some organisations have been better at doing that than others. Think of some of the RSPB land holdings—inch marshes, for instance—some of the areas in the flow country. The natural capital of those areas is very considerable and benefits considerably from the various grants and other support that is provided. I do not deny that they have good examples, but when I started off asking about crofters and hillfarmers, they clearly are the very key people who are supported by the ELFAS, which the RSPB does not like. In terms of climate, when you mentioned the agri-environment measures, the cabinet secretary ensured that there was an increase in that budget to over £10 million per year. Let's move on to question 7, which is about data and things like that, which Claudia Beamish has done. Last week, minister, as you will know, there was quite a broad-ranging discussion on monitoring research and biodiversity indicators. Just to highlight one or two remarks that were made last week in evidence, James Davidson of the Aberdeenshire Council said that, based on the experience of land use strategy pilot project that he was involved with, more local data and indicators were needed, and it would allow more effective targeting of resources. Whereas Simon Jones from SWT said that we shouldn't let the lack of data stop us from doing work on the ground at the moment. As you will know, minister, the State of Nature Scotland report, which was launched last year in Edinburgh, actually states that we simply do not have sufficient knowledge to make a robust quantitative assessment of the state of nature in Scotland. There is this sort of conflict between in some areas a lack of evidence and yet the need to act. We are wondering, as a committee, how the monitoring of biodiversity and providing of data and research to support action on the ground can be moved forward so that local data is available for resources to be targeted at smaller-scale projects? The main priority at the minute is around our ecosystem health indicators. It is intended that the sort of indicators will be presented nationally but will be scalable to a finer resolution. That will help us to try to understand the status of Scotland's ecosystems over time and to make priorities for restoration to inform the action that is being taken and also to assess the progress that is being made. I think that much of that work has been taken forward by a subgroup of the Science and Technical Group, where we have membership that has been drawn from our James Hutton Institute, Marine Scotland, a rural college, the RSPB, the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology. What we are needing to do is to try to continue to deepen our understanding and our evidence base. We need to do both because one supports the other and we need to be clearer about what needs to be done to improve our ecosystem's health. Through the convener, what will the process be whereby the people at local level are working with NGOs and local authorities? For instance, we use the North American signal crayfish as an example or invasive species that we took evidence from the previous minister on on Ash Dyebac last year. How will those issues and the continuing research be fed in to those people that matter on the ground? We will be set out in the annual report, but if you want to add it some more. Yes, as we have set out, the indicated minister and the tail end of the route map we have indicated that we are reducing an annual state of nature report. Drawing on the many indicators that we have, bear in mind that those indicators have contributions from thousands of people working across Scotland and a whole range of taxonomic groups. I do think that we need to turn this around. We have a phenomenal resource of people called citizen scientists. They are collecting an amazing amount of data and we are very fortunate to be able to capture that and report on what is happening and understanding the underlying causes of change. I understand that process, but taking it further is the question that I am asking really about how that process will then be fed back to those who are responsible for citizen science, for local authority biodiversity, for working in NGOs. That has obviously got to be robust if we are going to meet our 2020 targets. It does, and as you highlighted earlier on, one of the great ways of doing this is through the local biodiversity officers who are supremely well equipped at doing this and trying to redirect the efforts of people working on the ground locally. Can I just finally ask, in relation to the monitoring and assessment and indicators, how the biodiversity targets fit with the national performance framework and the targets in that obviously the Cabinet Secretary for Finance is very keen that it is taken forward and considered by committees, for instance terrestrial birds or other areas that relate to biodiversity? No, they contribute to the national performance framework directly. Change of subject to the role of education. Thank you very much, convener. Morning, minister and colleagues. Last week I picked up on a point on education. If you look at big step 3 and priority project 6, taking learning outdoors, the aim is to increase secondary and primary schools access to green space and nature for outdoor learning. There is a very good example of an outdoor learning venture in my constituency in Lachabar, the Lachabar Rural Education Trust, run by Isabel and Linda Campbell, who I met a number of years ago. We have been trying to assist them to get funding to keep this fantastic little project on the road with great difficulty. The previous First Minister, when he was with the Cabinet in Lachabar, went along to have a look at it and thought that it was fantastic, but there is no funding for them. When you have something like that that is working really well and it is school children that come out and they learn a lot of very useful things about the environment, about animals, about growing things and so on, we cannot seem to find a regular source of funding to keep that unit going, which is run by volunteers in the main. There are problems with the schools that run out of funds for buses to take their children to the place as well. In a constituency like mine, where you have massive distances to travel, you need to travel to these things because you cannot have them in every single place. What is being done, what sort of cross-departmental work is being done to ensure that there are proper funding streams for really excellent examples like that? If it does not get proper funding soon, there has been a few short-term funding proposals that they have had, but if they do not, the thing is going to close down. Where does that leave us? If we do not have a separate, identifiable funding stream that folk like that can actually bid into? I am going to bring in officials, but what I will say to begin with to Dave Thompson is that I agree with some of the fantastic projects that are out there for our schools. I had the opportunity a few weeks ago to meet some of our local biodiversity action plan officers, where I heard all about the North East Scotland camera trap project, which was absolutely fantastic. I had been set up to gather information on some of the more secretive mammal species living in our woodlands across the north-east. The project captured to me thousands and thousands of images and videos that were revealed the movement of a range of species, including our woodmouse, our red squirrel, our badgers, our otters and pine martens. That was all done with the help of local volunteers. Obviously, that was through our schools in Aberdein and Aberdeinshire. That project had received funding from Leader and the Forestry Commission Scotland to try and help to work with a number of schools who were involved with the project. At this point, I will bring in officials. I think that there are two things there. One is to add to that. That is a wonderful example that you have given. Of course, through the curriculums, there is a huge amount being done to improve educational awareness. We are doing a lot of work with Young Scott at the moment to promote the wider links between education, appreciating and caring for nature. There are a lot of examples around the board. If I can just come back, that is all great and fantastic. It is good to hear that. However, when the former First Minister visited him four years ago or whatever, he mentioned Leader and nothing came of it. He has struggled on ever since. It is a great project. There are things such as Leader out there, but it does not seem to be working very effectively. Why have a priority project 6 to increase the secondary and primary school access? When you have already got people volunteering to run something who need a relatively small amount of regular income, why cannot we help them? That is the point, because you have got them, they are on the ground, they are doing it, it is very valuable. If you lose it, you are going backwards, you are not going forwards. Although there are things happening in the schools and all that, and there are other things going on, why are we not looking? I would invite the minister and yourself to come up to see this little project. I would be more than happy and I am sure that the minister would be pleased to see you. You can assess for yourselves the value of that kind of project. It is in a very rural area. It is just below Unuchmore, the ski slopes, so you could have a up in the gondolas when you come up as well, minister. That would be an interesting experience, too. However, we have got that working, and it is in danger of folding, because there is no proper identification. You should be identifying some kind of funding stream that is there, so that those projects can deal with it. It is about thinking across departments and so on. I would be more than happy to accept the member's invitation to come and see the project, but I would also say that I would be more than happy for the member to write to me about this particular case, as well as setting out all the details. I think that that would be very helpful for us, and we will look to see how we can take that forward. Tour beyond our ken and all that. I think that it is certainly valuable for the summer to see some of those things. I wonder if we can add at this point that probably asking the education ministers about the way in which the focus on eco-schools is looked at and reviewed might be something that could help more specifically with biodiversity education and so on. However, I was going to mention one or two other things about that and other things that we need to raise with you in a minute. Mike Russell on this point. I think that we are missed not to mention two other developments that tie in, and perhaps the problem is that there are so many different developments in the area that some cohesion is required. One is Forest Schools and Forestry commission initiative, which is extremely important, and I think that some of the best outdoor education. The other one is a growing development of outdoor nurseries. Indeed, in Mr Thomson's constituency, stromash and our guile-based provider of outdoor education is about to start at second or third outdoor nursery, where the children are outdoors for almost the entire time. The only shelter on the site is a large yurt, which they eat in from time to time. There are many initiatives. The question is how they are drawn together. Perhaps the minister would care to co-operate with her counterparts in education to see if the committee might be informed about drawing together that and seeing where the budget lines are and how they tie together. I would be very happy to do that, and in relation to health, because I know that there are a number of very good green health projects that are being taken forward through Forestry commission Scotland and with our NHS. A briefing from the Government about how those all tie together and what they are. I think that we would find out quite a lot from it. Sarah Boyack is a follow-up to the education question, which is about access to skills. It follows on from Dave Thomson's question about making sure that biodiversity is embedded in the school curriculum in some way, but it is to further move on to young people thinking about taxonomy or working biodiversity as being a potential career option. There is a whole load of careers out there, but it is to what extent does that follow through the school system. It was one of the key issues that was asked last week about the lack of numbers of skilled taxonomists and the fact that we are not recruiting new people, but it would fit with a whole range of the different careers, environmental careers and land management careers, that having a positive approach to biodiversity would be a very useful building block for us. If I could comment on that, I did note with interest what was said last week that the NGOs here have done a fantastic job of organisations such as SWT, PlantLive and RSPB in terms of nurturing that expertise and encouraging specialisms in different taxonomic disciplines. For my own organisation SNH, we are employing a number of graduates each year to develop their skills and that is terrific in terms of their employability. We also fund a PhD scheme at the highest level in terms of developing skills. SEPA is no different, it is actively involved in the number of PhD schemes. We are acutely aware of that, but we should not lose sight of the importance of reaching the youngest people. It is through the nurseries that we heard about, our early primary school stage. If we can reach the kids at that stage, we can have a lasting impact on their appreciation of the environment and how the environment is cared by them. I would just echo those comments, convener, but I would also add that there is also been continued investment by the Scottish Government via our rural affairs food environment research in the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, which provides support to a world-leading taxonic institution in the scientific botanic garden. I know that the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh provides specialised programmes at all the PhD levels, so we are now delivering, in partnership with the James Hutton Institute and the University of Aberdeen at the first PhD in liking taxonomy in the UK in more than 30 years. That is some very different answer to the issue that was raised last week with us. We will reflect on that when we are thinking about our next move in this direction. Before we move to the final point, there was a question about big step 6, which Christian Allard wishes to ask about marine and coastal ecosystems. I want to come back to the big step 6, particularly on the marine ecosystem. We heard a lot this morning about how farmers, land managers and cruftists need to be at the heart of the strategy. We heard as well how managers and conservationists have got a gulf between the land managers and conservationists, and maybe the natural capital will be able to address this. I would like to know from the minister how we have the same gulf in the marine environment between the people who harvest our seas and the NGOs, and how this strategy will address this particular gulf. So, just so that I'm clear, is the question about what we're doing in relation to coastal environment and coastal restoration? Yeah, and marine environment as well as the ecosystem and the status of our seas. I think that the fishermen and the people who harvest our seas have been very proactive, and I don't want them to have the same feeling that the land managers maybe and the farmers and the cruftists have not been involved so much in the strategy, and I didn't see a lot in it on the big step 6. No, well, I think certainly the minister set out earlier on under priority project 12 in terms of what we're doing in relation to the seas, a sort of considerable amount of evidence gathering to try and understand the wealth of nature that we've got and the sort of work that we need to take to address that. Indeed SNH has got a specialist at the moment seconded to the Scottish Government to develop our understanding of coastal erosion and coastal processes, so that we are ensuring that these areas are much more robust to change. But the strategy is targeted not only to the NGOs, but it is targeted as well for the benefits of the coastal communities that are harvesting our seas? Oh, absolutely, yes, of course, and there are a whole variety of coastal fora that we're working with in order to take this forward, ranging from the fourth and Clyde coastal fora to other and more regional ones. It's incredibly important that we do that. East coastal foras are so effective because they're operating across the marine and land environment. Can you get out, I was just going to add that we are very happy to come back to the committee, maybe just to kind of, I think, just to set out the approach that's kind of adopted by Marine Scotland. Obviously, I'm very conscious that that's with the portfolio of the cabinet secretary as well, just around how they work between environmental groups and the fishing sector as well, because obviously you're talking about, in relation to conflicts, so I'll be very happy to kind of set some of that out for the committee if you find that helpful. By another wrap-up point from Dave Thompson, I think, just now briefly. Thank you very much, convener. I have just a couple of quick points, and it's to do with your involvement, your department's involvement with transport and infrastructure. The A9 is about to be dualled, and all the preparatory work is being prepared, and there's two points that come up there. In priority project 5, your planned work is delivering the national walking and cycling network and promoting its use by the public, and I've certainly been pressing very hard that there needs to be a proper, not a cycle way all the way up the A9. We're going to spend £3,000 million on this road, by the way, which I think you know. We need to ensure that there's a proper people way so that bikes can use it, walkers can use it, people in disability buggies can use it. To do with the biodiversity strategy? Well, it is. It's to do with priority project 5, delivering the national walking and cycling network. What I want to ascertain, convener, is that the departments work together in relation to that. Have you had an input? Are we going to get a proper cycle way, walk way, alongside the A9 when we're actually improving it? The second point is—this is very much to do with biodiversity—are we going to have green bridges because otherwise you create a barrier over which wildlife, et cetera, have great difficulty in moving, whereas green bridges give them a green way of getting from one side of the road to the other. This is all going to add cost, but I think that we need to be looking at these things in a project of this size. We need to get it right. I wonder how much involvement you've had as a department with this. If you have that, that's great, and if you haven't, I think that you should. That's something that we are considering already. We're certainly delivering the national walking and cycling network and promoting its use by the public. We're also looking at how we can improve the provision of green space in many of our disadvantaged areas of Orbit Scotland, but that's through a number of our green infrastructure projects that will be funded through the Scotland's 2040 to 2020 structural fund programme. These are all areas that we are currently considering right now. It doesn't seem to be working on anything, but we have been meeting at a crucial level with Transport Scotland colleagues in relation to the A9 and biodiversity. There has also been a lot of detail work and discussion with Cairngorn's National Park Authority, which is a significant part of the route that runs through the park area. There is work on going at a detailed level of looking at individual sites and opportunities, certainly in relation to biodiversity and opportunities along the route. I thank you very much for that. I would be interested if the first section concreted already consulting on the detail of it. I haven't had a chance to look at that in detail yet, but I will be. I would certainly hope that a proper cycleway walkway and green bridges are being considered. There are other things that you need to update us on, because Paul Wheelhouse gave us a lot of information in our session on 18 March 2013. I wonder if you would agree to write to us of updates about the national ecological network, a small part of which we have just been discussing. The strategic programme for re-establishing species driven to local and national extinction, progress on work being undertaken to restore degraded ecosystems, and progress on tackling marine biodiversity. Those were all touched on by the previous minister, and it would be very valuable to us in our consideration to get an update. I am very happy to do so. I thank you very much, minister, and your officials, for a wide ranging and slightly longer session than we had expected, but that is good. It shows you that you are doing your job and we are doing ours. We are very pleased to have that. We are going to have a short suspension now to allow a change of witnesses and indeed to have a comfort rate. We move on to agenda item 2, which is a review of agricultural holdings legislation final report. Second item today is to take evidence on that review. We are joined by a panel of stakeholders. I welcome everyone to the meeting. I welcome Scott Walker, chief executive of the national farmers union of Scotland. I welcome Stuart Young, chair of the Scottish land and estates agricultural holdings strategy group Dinect estates. I welcome Ken Bolt, royal institution of chartered surveyors. I welcome Martin Hall, Scottish agricultural arbiters and failures and representative of the Tenant Farming Forum and the former SAVA president. Mike Gascoigne, convener of the Rural Affairs Committee of the Law Society of Scotland and Christopher Nicholson, chairman of the Scottish Tenant Farmers Association. Welcome to you all. Let me kick off with a question about the idea of having a tenant farming commissioner. I suggested that it should be a post that is established. Do you agree that the proposed rule for the commissioner would be to investigate and solve complaints against a number of codes of practice? Should the codes be statutory and what remedies would be available to such a commissioner? Who would like to kick off? I thank you, convener. To answer the question, it is worthwhile to go back over a little bit of brief history and the fact that so many disputes arise between landlords and tenants. While, of course, there is a recourse to the land court to solve disputes, that recourse is problematic, both in terms of cost and in terms of time, and also in terms of the atmosphere that generally creates within the industry. If you, Scotland, as long advocated some sort of post of commissioner adjudicator, something along that line of somebody could be proactive in terms of disputes, somebody could intervene and, I suppose, for lack of better description, act as an arbiter in certain circumstances, because often what you need is simply somebody to bring both sides together to talk, to enforce a set of conditions that is then adhered to individuals. Given that background, the basic principle of what is proposed by the review group to us is sound. I think that you do need compulsory codes, statutory codes to be put in place, and whoever is the adjudicator or commissioner actually does need strong powers to enforce their decisions, and we think that it is vital that they are proactive in this area. That involves basically all various issues where they can dispute whether that be about rent reviews, whether that be about way go, and also about signposting individuals how they can get the best advice. Sounds like a job for the United Nations. You would have thought that we would need to be more than one commissioner if that is what we are talking about. Are there other points of view? Chris Herrick-Nagelson Thank you, convener. The Scottish Tenant Farmers Association has been an advocate of the creation of a tenant farming commissioner for a long time now, and we see that the tenant farming commissioner is a vital ingredient to the health of this sector going forward. We believe that the tenant farming commissioner would benefit from statutory powers and statutory codes of conduct and the ability to implement and create statutory codes that act as a guide to how landlords and tenants deal with all the processes such as way go and rent reviews. Furthermore, those processes must be able to be audited as a means of ensuring that the processes and codes have been followed correctly. In terms of wider remits, the tenant farming commissioner should be able to have the remit to investigate complaints in the sector, monitor what is happening and mediate an actor's arbiter, not only in individual situations but also in situations where the stakeholder groups, in particular NFUS, SLE and STFA, where there are many areas where consensus can be reached, but in some areas consensus will not be reached. There is a role there for a tenant farming commissioner to act as a mediator or arbiter in those situations. Should the codes be statutory? I believe that the codes should not be statutory and that they should be voluntary codes but that the tenant farming commissioner, whoever that may be, has teeth to enforce those codes. There is a great deal of consensus in the industry or there could be with a bit of cajoling into positions so that there are voluntary codes in place covering the areas that need to be covered. It may be that, if codes cannot be agreed upon, the commissioner has the ability to introduce something most statutory, but the emphasis should be on voluntary codes rather than bringing about more layers of legislation that are not needed at the moment. Shirt Young? Good morning. Scotland and the States are very supportive of the concept of introducing a tenant farming commissioner. In fact, we think that we should be doing something working with other stakeholders with a view to trying to introduce an interim commissioner, given that it can take some time before any legislation comes into effect. I believe that there has already been dialogue between key stakeholders to that effect. As whether they should be statutory or not, our position is that we would rather see non-statutory codes of practice, but we are very open to looking at with other examples in other sectors that already exist. Can we learn and develop our own codes having had that opportunity? Mike Russell. I was surprised by Martin Hall's view that you have a non-statutory code, but you give powers to a commissioner. That would seem to go in a very odd direction. Surely, if you accept that there should be an enforcement of a code, then you have to have a statutory code that allows you to be very clear on both sides what is to take place and, if it does not take place, what the consequence is thereafter. The mixture of the two would seem to meet not only to be odd but ineffective. If I can come back on that, I do not think that they should be ineffective if there are codes there and the commissioner has teeth to be able to enforce those. With powers there to make the enforcement meaningful, I have difficulty understanding why we could not operate on voluntary codes. If the problem is an attempt to resolve a problem between two parties, and this is the only way that it is likely to have it resolved, then to do it in a way that is not statutory and that, in actual fact, puts too much flexibility into it, won't produce any result. I represent tenant farmers who are at the end of their tether with the situation that they have with their landlords. To say to them, by the way, here's a non-statutory code, and there might be somebody appointed by somebody who we're not entirely sure who is who will be able to enforce this at some stage in the future, is, frankly, hope deferred. I think that if you're going to take action to resolve issues, then we should have the courage to take that action in a clear way, which is accountable, because a published code that is on the statute book is an accountable code. The rest of it would be subject to the vagaries of interpretation, which has not benefited many of my constituents. I think that there are a couple of examples that are there that could be—we have had the rent review process, which was a code that the industry came about, and, laterally, there was the agreement between the three stakeholders regarding the mechanism for rent reviews to avoid huge increases in rent, laterally. Those have not worked, which is why we are considering further legislation. Those have worked in part, but they would work even better with the appointment of a tenant farming commissioner. Having a clear statute reflecting on those points. Yes. The only point that I might add is in our recommendation that the private housing rental panel might seem to be a suitable starting point for the kind of operation that the commissioner might be in charge of. It seems to work quite well. Thank you for that. Mr Bolt, perhaps you have a view on that, which is interesting. Speaking for the RICS, our sensation is that we would be supportive of a commission, possibly not a commissioner but possibly a board, to deal with process so that if practice—if there is a problem with the way that people are practising—that that can be addressed, as opposed to failure to agree. There is a slight distinction there, because one does hear suggestions that there are problems with the way that people practice on both sides. How do you want to address that? A commission would help with that. If it was a commission of experts who had the necessary skills, perhaps at arm's length from government so that it is independent and people could have confidence in it. That is something that the sector struggles with, is confidence. Confidence is at the heart of many of the problems that we have in improving relationships and making new units available. What should be available to the commission or to the commissioner? I think that that has got to be thought through what the remedies are. I think that we would look at the penalties at the last resort. There are codes of practice in which are voluntary. For example, the rent review process to build a bit more time in it and force people to get going earlier, to be more open and transparent about how they are approaching it. That has been taken on board certainly within my profession. I know that we are using it now, going out that little bit earlier, giving tenants the chance to come back. The problem is not one-sided. It is not just that we have landlords and their agents who can be criticised for their practice. I can give examples of where we have used the code of practice and where we are not getting any response from a tenant. I have seen examples of where landlords have left messages or sent up to 20 pieces of correspondence looking for a response from tenants. It cuts both ways. There are issues on both sides. I think that a little bit more dial will go on whether and what penalties there should be, but I would look for them to be—I think that the way it is now—that the land court has indicated that, in the event that one party has followed the code of practice and one party has not, regard might be had for that, so there is an incentive there to follow the code of practice. Dave Thomson had a small supplementary on this before I come back to Christian Allard. Thank you very much, convener. It is just to follow up from Ken Bolt's point. You are saying that you have evidence there that it is not just the landowners and their agents, but also tenants who have not followed a code of practice. Surely that must lead you to the conclusion that the commissioner and the code of practice must have a statutory basis so that all parties must follow them, because that is the problem with your voluntary system. People do not need to follow it, and it leads to problems on both sides. Therefore, if you have a commission with clearly set out responsibilities, if you have codes of practice that would be developed through discussion that have a statutory basis so that that commissioner can apply statutorily, then the commissioner has an ability to pull people together. If that commissioner also had a role not just in a legal sense but in a sense of mediation where mediators, either the commissioner could do it or he could take on professional mediators and many good ones in Scotland that could get people together to work their way through the statutory codes, etc. You have a very robust system then that is going to be fair to everyone. Do you agree or accept my logic? I do not disagree, but I can only speak from my own experience where I act for both landlords and tenants. As always, the vast majority of people are reasonable, but there is one or two that you meet. For example, the one that I mentioned where we had used the new code of practice for the rent review and it took about 20 phone calls and letters to the tenant, we persevered, we did not need to go and I have been in practice over 30 years, I have never ended up having to have a rent dispute settled by arbitration nor have I ever ended up at the land court and I am sure that a lot of people in practice would say the same. From my experience I have never needed it. You have the land court sitting out there and everyone knows that whether you are a landlord or a tenant, if you end up going to the land court it is an expensive business. I do not think that anyone would be wanting to go to the land court if they could avoid it, but from what you are saying there it sounds like it is all rosy and working really well and we can all just go home now. Well, certainly that is my own experience. It is an experience with some others, but that is my experience. A little bit further and you can come in in a minute, Scott Walker, because on the point about the French safer system, we have a French national here who wants to see it. I was quite intrigued with the submission where we had from the STFA, maybe Christopher Nicholson wants to talk about it. I am a great fan of safer or safer, whatever we want to call it, but I wanted to inquire what exactly do you think we should take from safer for the commission or the commission or whatever we decide to have to what example were you thinking of? One of the key benefits we see of a commissioner or an organisation like SAFARE is that they can ensure that the buying and selling of land and also the letting of land is carried out in the public interest and in a manner that would benefit the local community and agriculture in that area. My understanding of SAFARE is that if there is, for example, a land sale, the SAFARE is required to approve the purchaser and have the power to intervene if they think that someone else is more suitable to occupy that land. In the same way, let land, they have a say over approving who the tenant of let land is. They are ensuring that land is managed and occupied in the public benefit. You think that SAFARE, in fact, will come out after the event. It is maybe the safer way to do it. Sorry? After the event of whatever is tenants or whatever is acquiring land, it is better to do it afterwards, after the sales or after the transaction. I think that they should approve the transaction. I think that the transaction will happen if the transaction does not happen and then after it has got to go through SAFARE to decide if it is acceptable or not. Is it what you are? We think that a tenant farming commissioner could have a role like that. There are examples. One of the recommendations in this Ag Holdings review report is that there will be certain opportunities to assign tenancies out with tenanted farming families. We see that there is a role for an organisation such as SAFARE or a commissioner to approve who the new assignee is. Otherwise, it is a danger of simply the biggest operators taking up all the opportunities. Can we get a comment, maybe, from the panel? Well, indeed. I am just going to say that we are going to come on to assignation and things like that, I guess, in more detail later. But Scott Walker on this related point about the commissioner and the SAFARE process. I am going back to the commissioner and statutory codes. The reason we are here and the reason we have the review group's situation is because the current system is not working satisfactorily. I think that everyone agrees that we want to move to a situation where, for existing tenants, things are thought of as being fair. We are also creating an environment where people want to rent land out in the future. That is the ultimate aim that we wish to get to. There are plenty of situations where everyone around the table can say that things are working fine, because there are situations where things are working fine, but there are also plenty of situations where there is a dispute where things are not working. The tenant forum, for instance, did come up with very good voluntary code on how to conduct rent reviews, the process that people should go through. I think that that would be the basis of any new commissioner, I would suggest, of looking at codes in the future. The nature of voluntary codes is that, where you have two reasonable parties, they will agree to it and they will work with it. However, where you have either of the parties who are not reasonable or perhaps there is a whole series of events that have occurred beforehand, they do not stick to that. For that reason, statutory codes that are enforceable by a commissioner are hugely important if you are going to bring confidence back to the sector. It is that commissioner and that intervention and the fact that you do not have to go to the land court or that there is not the threat of having to go to the land court to settle disputes is for us what would make the commissioner's job successful. If we have a commissioner but it still requires individuals to go to the land court, then, in our view, the commissioner will not be effective and the role of the commissioner will not do what is supposed to do, which is to settle disputes, intervene where there are disputes and bring confidence to the sector. I do not want to press Scott little on that. You have defined the purposes of the commissioner in a very utilitarian manner, which is to find some way of resolving difficulties between those who cannot resolve them themselves. However, what we have not done is to take the step that Christopher had taken and that Saphir has done, which is to have a wider test, which is a test of community benefit. It does not seem to me that the state, per se, would have a role in simply making either sides in a dispute happier. That is Ken's job if he can do it. Given that Ken has never, he says, met a difficult situation here, I am going to follow him around the country to see how he does it. However, the concept of the public good is the reason why the state would be involved in appointing a commissioner, and I agree that a commissioner or a commissioner should be at arm's length. It is that issue that land reform and the wider issue of land reform that you will come into has to address. It is the wider public benefit and the use of the resource of land in the interests of both the community in which it is set and the wider country that we really need to start addressing. I do think that that needs to be factored into how you are seeing the role of the commissioner. I think that in both public goods and in the consideration of where there is market failure, and we will talk about later on, I suspect, about, say, rent reviews, for instance, where there is market failure because you do not have a clear market for certain forms of tenancies. Therefore, that is why you need to set up a statutory mechanism in place to deal with it. I also think that, therefore, we are looking at other aspects of wider legislation that is going through Parliament just now. When you look at land in Scotland for NFU Scotland, one of the presumptions of land is that that should be used for food production. That is what we should be looking for. When you look at public good and public benefit and what people are using land for, then the driver for us would be that you are using that for agriculture and you are using it for food production. Those are the reasons why legislation and Government intervention is justified. We have just talked about making sure that we have a good partnership between the land loan and the tenant. The relationship has to improve. I know that we have heard about everything that is rosy, as someone said earlier. We have to make sure that implementing the recommendation of the review will involve legislation and will be followed by a number of initiatives, development of codes of practice and guidance. I would like to know from the panel of different organisations how you would help to share opinions to improve that relationship between the land loan and the tenants. I think that the key stakeholders have a fundamental role to play there in working together. I think that they have already demonstrated that they can do that having set up the rent panel last year, which I think has had some positive effect. Certainly, using it in practical application personally, I have seen it have positive effect. I think that some good ground could be made by the stakeholders getting together, closing the door and working through these things together. Making sure that everybody trusts the process and that we have the common good of what we want to see in the countryside, the tone of the debate and what is going to go thereafter. It will be based around that trust between the different organisations, land loans and tenants. Anybody wants to comment on that? In the past, in the last decade, stakeholders have got together in what was called the Tenant Farming Forum, the TFF, which, to my mind, was a large, clumbisum body that wasn't very satisfactory at dealing with problems or coming up with solutions. In the last year, the three of the main stakeholders have set up, for example, the rent panel and the joint initiative, which is between STFA, NFUS and SLE. That seems to be working much better, and this debate about landlord and tenants is about improving relationships between landlords and tenants. We would like to encourage landlords to become more evident in the debate. I know that Stuart is here today, but I feel quite strongly that it should have been a landowner or a landlord representing landlords rather than a professional agent. No objection to Stuart, but I think that we have to do whatever we can to create greater landlord involvement and ensure that landlords are determining what the best interests are in the long term for their estates rather than landlords being represented through professional advisers. That is a good point. I made a lot of times Stuart with my neighbour. I never made a person who employs him. Claudia Beamish, then Scott Walker. Good morning to the panel. It was on that point that has been raised about intermediaries, so I would like to get the views of the panel on a quote that actually comes from the review, which says that many submissions have alleged that inexperience or insensitive intermediaries at times cause a saring of landlord-tenant relationships, which is both unhelpful and unnecessary. Others have suggested that there may be what amounts to an excessive use of professional intermediaries to the exclusion of any personal contact between landlord and tenant. I highlight this particular last point that I am going to read now, because it gives me serious calls for concern in terms of the future. It says that I go on in regard that the number of landlords who have chosen to contribute to the review itself through a professional intermediary has been notable. Could I have comments from the panel on that as to why that would be the case and how anyone thinks that is helpful to the future of relationships? I am tempted to say yes to your question in the sense that I am going to be a lump bastard from somebody as a consequence of it, but the situation is that for many landlords and tenants, when the two individuals talk, they know what is trying to be achieved and what the long-term objective is, and they can come together. There are many situations out there, and there are many situations out there in which you get agents involved, which in some degrees is professionalising their relationship, but in other degrees, certainly in recent years, has often been the conflict for the views that are trying to escalate rents. In terms of the relationships that I have built up, those relationships are not the same relationships that exist in the past between the landlord and the tenant. Certain agents seem to have a reputation that goes in front of them. Some people would call them hard negotiators, others would say that they fly pretty close to the wind, but it does not build up that trust and that long-term relationship. That goes back to the point beforehand about trust. It is not something that you can create overnight, and it is something that has to be worked on and built up on. It does not take much to damage it, and it gets people, unfortunately, in a way of thinking that they enter into discussions, feeling that either side is not being wholly honest, or either side is looking at it from a slightly different angle, and it clouds all the discussions that take place. That is why I say that for NFU Scotland it is important that we get legislation passed in this Parliament. We get that sort of framework there that everyone knows on how they can work with it. I certainly believe that, whether it is SLE or SDFA or NFU Scotland, there is a mindset amongst the three organisations to make this work. There is a mindset amongst all the organisations to ensure that there is a fair deal for tenants and landlords, and there is the encouragement out there to get people to look at renting out land, whether that is your traditional estate or whether that is your own or occupied farms going out. On why did landlords get agents to apply to the submission or maybe leave that to Stuart to say something on that aspect? Thank you. Firstly, Christian, the invitation to meet Charles Beerson will be in the post tomorrow. I am not sure that I understand why there should be a view that an agent on intermediary responding to consultation or input to the review group should be a difficulty. Using my own example, I like to think that I know how my principal thinks and works. That is what I am employed to do. It is part of my function, part of my role. He has a wide and varied business interests that consume his time. That is why I am there. Therefore, I will put in responses and submissions, and I will, hopefully, represent his position very accurately. I will respond briefly to that. It is purely a personal view that, if it is something as important as it is to the future of the relationship between landlords and tenants, I would have hoped that there would be more direct submissions from landlords of whatever scale for this specific review. That is the point that I am making. I do not necessarily know that intermediaries are helpful. Let us be real about this. There are a lot of tenant farmers who cannot afford the professional advice of intermediaries in the way that larger landlords have. I think that the business interests of the landlord should perhaps be focused at the time of the review on making contributions. That is my personal view. Ken Bolt will again use my own personal example. However, as we are talking directly about intermediaries and I am one, before I will submit anything, I will run that past my principal. He will read it before it is submitted. He is seeing exactly what is being said to represent his opinion. Ken Bolt and Christopher Nicholson. I think that the RICS took a keen interest when there was a suggestion in the media that was picked up, the points that you have made, that the intermediaries, the agents and the factors were at the heart of the problem. That was why I was asking the question, just so that we are quite clear about that. It may not be your view. No, I am just saying that it was not because of what I have read in the media that I was raising that issue. The response within my profession, the Royal Institution of Chartered Severe, was that on my part it did not ring true with my experience in that this relationship of trust and confidence, which Christian has talked about, is at the heart of working on a rural estate with land. It is something that most of the people within the profession spend a lot of time investing in. You do not go in to do a rent review and then disappear forever. You have a lot of things. You have an on-going relationship. Some of those relationships have gone through the generations over 100 years, some of the tendencies. It is in everyone's interests that you have a good working relationship—absolutely key. The RICS took an interest in it. We had various meetings of all the big players in Scotland. I have never seen them all in a room before. A lot of them were seriously offended by what had been suggested because it did not ring with them. We spoke to Andrew Thin and came along to the meeting, because I think that he was the one who went public with it. The RICS said that we have a code of practice. We expect the very highest standard of our members. If any member steps out of line, they get dragged up by the professional practice section very strictly. They are very worried about the reputation of the profession. They have a lot of members in Scotland, and it is very important that we retain our reputation. They made it clear that we have not had one single formal complaint. They said, give us a complaint and we will investigate it. There was not one single complaint. Some of those things are very easy to say, but if you do not evidence them, you leave a professional body that cannot act against members on hearsay. It has to do it on the basis of some representation of the facts. It has never had the benefit of that. The professional body has made it abundantly clear to the people who may be suggesting this, come forward and we will deal with it. The RICS not only has its own code of practice, it also has a royal charter, so it has a duty to consider the public interest as well. If there is something that is not necessarily against the public interest, they are prepared to take that up as well. The tenant farming forum and others have been running through the same issues for the past 10 years, and I do not think that we want to spend as much time today as those 10 years. It is a fair point that you have made. Christopher Nicholson asked to respond to it, but I really have to move on. Dave, is it about a particular case or is it about the general principle? The point is that if you have a code of practice in RICS and it is not statutory, how can it ever be enforced? It is a general principle, but of course it wants to come out and be better. It will be very quick. Over the weekend I read a statistical account of agriculture in the south west Scotland, written in 1875, and the last couple of pages looked at the tenanted sector 140 years ago. The author pointed out an emerging problem that many landlords were handing over responsibility for the management of their estates to outside agents. The author felt that this was resulting in short-term policies for the management of the estates that not only was not in the interests of tenant farming and agriculture in general, but it was not even in the landlord's long-term interest. I think that that is as true today as it was 140 years ago. If there was more landlord involvement in policy and how estates are run and taking a long-term view, we might see different policies being put forward from landlords today. I think that we would see easier dispute resolutions if landlords were more willing to sit down and talk with tenants rather than through intermediaries. There we are. We have had a range of opinions on that. Thank you very much, convener. I just want to comment on Ken Bolt's comments on trusting confidence and so on. Just going through the various submissions, I think that it is interesting and I will comment on this, that in relation to a number of the issues that the RICs take, the diametrically opposed position more almost to STFA. I am looking at the rent review recommendations, freedom of contract, extension of assignation, conversion of secure tenants to LDT, preemptive right to buy, absolute right to buy, conditional right to enforce sale and ministerial right to intervene. I just think that it is interesting that RICs position is the opposite position to the STFA. I do not see any effort in there to be balanced in relation to what I might expect a professional organisation to do, so it is pretty obvious that he who pays the piper is calling the tune in relation to the point of view of RICs. You want to come back at all, but we will be coming back in each of the individual issues starting off with the rent review. I think that the only point that I would make is that RICs members represent both sides. I think that what we have done is trying to put our response together from the experience that RICs members have got. I think that it is probably a fair comment to say that the owner of the land is often better resourced than the tenant that is a fact of life, and they probably more frequently seek professional advice. However, what RICs has tried to do is to try to, for example, on the rent review, rent review is a challenging exercise anyway, and we are maybe going to come to it further. We are coming to it straight away. Well, I was going to say that it is a challenging exercise for anyone, for professionals. We try to do it as best we can. As I said, I have never personally ended up in the land court or in front of an arbiter, but we put a lot of effort into trying to get our rent reviews done as fairly and as reasonably and as openly as we can. I am not saying that it is a rose garden, because there are always difficult characters on both sides that are difficult characters. Our worry is that the suggestions for the new proposals based on budgets will, like the principle that the rent should be based on the productivity of the farm. I think that we should come to that in terms of the actual detail of rents, which is what Sarah Boyack was about to lead on, rather than to stray over into the detail of it in terms of the principles that Dave Thomson was mentioning. I have a series of questions around the whole issue of rent and rent reviews, which, even just in the first few minutes of this session, is clearly a major issue. It has certainly been an issue that this committee has periodically taken evidence on, and it was a key issue that was addressed in the review. I want to ask some questions around the recommendations of the review. First of all, I want to pick up the last point that we were just hearing about in terms of the issue of how rents are set and the principles on which rents are set. We are just getting into that in the last comment about the different suggestion between the suggested by the NFUS and the SFTA, which would focus on productive capacity, the capacity to work the farm and raise revenue from it, versus the RICS approach, as I read it, which is about a fair rent, which is more commercially driven. I think that that goes to the heart of some of the discussions that we were having here about whether or not we regard agricultural tendencies as important or not, to what extent we want to attach a priority to that in terms of food production and environmental management. The issue about if rents get too high because you have competition for them or because the rent is seen as a commercial rent, strictly, rather than the capacity of the farm to deliver, you have potentially got a barrier to tenant farmers in terms of the capacity to raise money and invest. The first point is about the principle here. I will come back with other detailed questions, but the second point would be about the difference of setting rents for different types of tenancies. People who have more long-term secure tenancies versus those who have much more limited-duration tenancies should ask for views on whether the process should be different and whether the principle should be different for different types of tenancies. Who wants to start off then? I will try to keep the short answers and absolutely to the point. If I deal with the two extremes, we have secure tenancies or annual grasslets. Annual grasslets and some crazy prices are paid for annual grasslets on a yearly basis, but I think that that should be left to the marketplace. There are specific circumstances each year that will set those rental prices. Once we see cap bed down, we will hopefully see some sense and sensibility to the grasslet market. If you look at the other extreme in terms of secure tenancies, what the review group has come out with, looking at the productive capacity of the land, looking at some standardisations, costings in terms of how you set the rents, we think that that is a sensible way to go forward. What we really need now is more detail on how that mechanism would work and how that would be implemented in practice. There is a broad consensus within the industry that what is being suggested by the review group in terms of secure tenants rents is a sensible progression on what we have at the present time. Yes. Ever since the open market rent test was introduced in 1958, tenants have argued to have it removed. We see that the recommendation on rents is one of the most significant features of this review report. It is important that a fair rent is set on the productive capacity to allow a landlord a fair return on his investment and also the tenant a fair return on the fixed equipment that he has provided. Our belief is that in any tenancy where the tenant is providing a significant amount of fixed equipment so that those are secure tenancies and the longer-term LDTs, the rent test should be based on the productive capacity. That is because you are looking at a situation where the tenant and the landlord are investing capital. Because of the scarcity and distortion of the land market that we have in Scotland at the moment, unless you have it on productive capacity, it means that the landlord is taking away a greater proportion of the rent that he should have when it is set in the open market and the tenant is not left with a sufficient return for his investments. A move to the productive capacity from the open market should ensure a fairer distribution of the divisible surplus to both parties. The Scottish Land and the States members have recognised the views that have been put forward by SCFA and NFUS vis-à-vis a move towards a productive capacity test. That is something that we are prepared to work with and see worked up. We feel that it is something where we need to really get into working some practical examples so that we can see how that flowchart in the review group's report would work in practice. We are certainly not wedded to the retention of any open market test. As far as new tenancies are concerned, in any new LDT, the position should be that the parties are free to agree on the rent-setting mechanism, and if there is no such agreement that there should be a default position back to the same productive capacity basis. Does anyone else want to comment on this just now to see the question? The productive capacity basis has always been a starting point for setting rates in any case, so there is a strong logic for that. Sarva would certainly like to see some examples worked up, but at the moment we are slightly concerned because we are involved in dispute resolution. We are concerned that it looks to be as if it is going to introduce more capacity for dispute than already exists. We would like that not to be the case, but we are just flagging it up as a practical difficulty that we see on the horizon. That would be the case? Yes, because within productive capacity there are so many more variables that are of a subjective view than exist at the present. People would be coming to the table with historic information about how well farms have performed and some comparative work in different parts of the country about what would be reasonable to expect. Even within local areas, there are huge variations. If you are dealing with grade 3 land, whether it grows one and a half tonnes of barley or three tonnes of barley, whether the ground can carry one beast per acre or two beasts per acre, and they have huge potential to have large variations in the rent. You have also got the potential to look at the hypothetical tenant. That exists at the moment, but if you are looking at farming systems, you have certainly got the strong ability to upset a tenant farmer if you are suggesting that he is not farming it in perhaps the manner that it could be found. It is different to the system that he is operating at the moment. I have a couple of follow-up questions. One is about the extent to which diversification of the tenant would be taken on board in terms of setting rent reviews. The other one is the issue about where there is spare housing on the holding, which is part of the farm but it is not necessarily being used, and how those things should affect valuations for fair rent. Okay, who wants to comment on that? Anyone in particular? Christopher Nicholson. In terms of diversification, we welcome the proposals that should enable tenants an easier road to gaining landlord consent to diversify. In terms of setting the rents for diversifications, we should be aware that existing diversifications rental agreements have already been arrived at, and some of those we may not want to override. However, going forward, we are in agreement with the proposals that a landlord should have a return for what he has provided as part of the diversification. If he has contributed to a building, then there should be a fair rent apportioned to him. In terms of housing, we feel that the housing is part of the fixed equipment of the farm, and that was the way that the farm was led at the start of the lease. It could be problematic going down the road of attributing a rental value to surplus housing, which might be used for part-time farm workers, for example. Claudia Beamish, first of all, I want to come back to a more general point. That is just a quick point to follow up on the point that was made by you, Martin, about the productive capacity. I do not want to put words in your mouth or in the rest of the panel at all, but would it be the case that the move from historic to area payments would help with those definitions as cases build up? In view of the fact that there are the two rough grazing and the other areas, surely that would help to simplify the definitions of productive land? It will help, yes, but even within those bands, there are huge variations, particularly band 1, for instance. Large variations in the quality of that land and productive capacity. I will answer the question and say that the Scottish Land and States was supportive of the proposals that the review group came up with vis-à-vis diversification and housing. The issue of surplus housing has been a somewhat thorny one in rent reviews, and I think that the approach that they have suggested is very sensible. I went to improvements in many things like that just in a minute or two, but just a point, given that the market value is starting to be taken into account, as Christopher Nicholson says, under 1958 Government, Tory Government then, you are obviously seeing means to move away from that approach. Will I be right in thinking that the decline in tenancies that have been going on for decades has got some of its roots in that particular move towards free market values in rents, and that indeed the arguments that have taken place in more recent decades have further reduced the number of tenancies? That was one of the starting points where the realities of farming and the market got completely out of kilter. I think that there is a lot of truth in that, in that the ability to set rent that is not viable in the long term is one reason why many tenants have given up. It is also in some extreme examples used as a means for a landlord to coerce a tenant to give up through the setting of a non-viable rent. From the RACS's point of view, we remain convinced that having a market check on rents is a sound way forward. It is the way that we approach all valuations, whether it is a rent. We look at historically what comparables are out there. In the agricultural scene, Christopher has talked about scarcity and how the lack of availability of land results in too many people competing for too few farms and very high rents being tendered. However, it also has to be acknowledged that we already have a process for people who are looking at comparables. Under the existing arrangements that are governed by the existing legislation, you have to extract scarcity. It is not an easy thing to do. We did it recently on one holding, where we put it on the open market and secured a rent. We ended up using, for a compatible purpose, probably about 50 per cent of what was achieved on the open market. We were not taking a figure that is achieved on the open market and going to sitting tenants and saying, now, we are going to have to double your rents, because we realised that we would start the next Jacobite revolution. What we had to do was to consider a lot of other factors and adjust it for scarcity, the evidence for scarcity and use a much, much lower figure. The fact that there are few holdings available and that open market tenders are higher, there already is an adjustment to ease the negotiations for sitting tenants. We are going to explore that all a good deal further just in a minute or two, because we want to look at investment, improvement, compensation and wego. Jim Hume. Convener, you are talking about access to finance, so obviously for tenants that is an extremely important part. Recommendation 9 is recommended that we should consider registering tenants in the land register, so that those tenants could therefore be borrowed against what the panel's views are on that. Recommendation 10 is recommended in a three-year amnesty regarding wego's improvements. There have been many improvements made by tenants that have not been registered. Also wondering what the panel's views are on the amnesty to allow tenants to register their improvements. Further to that, I will be interested in the panel's views on any changes in the wego protocols for the future moving forward. We are pleased that the review group recognised an evolving investment pattern on tenanted farms, which means that in the secure tenanted sector tenants are having to provide an ever-great amount of capital for fixed equipment. We would disagree with one of their findings that suggests that they did not see any evidence for differences in investment levels between owner-occupied and tenanted farms. We think that there is a huge amount of evidence that the length and breadth of Scotland and the lack of investment in the tenanted sector is a real concern to the future health of the sector. The review group has gone down a certain at least stage 1 of trying to allow greater ability for the tenant to raise capital by recommending that a secure tenancy should be registered with the registers of Scotland and allow it to be used for mortgage purposes, i.e. a lender to grant a standard security over the registered lease. However, as the ricks paper points out, maybe there is not a bit of thinking that has not been joined up here in that that is only of benefit to a mortgage provider if the value is realisable. Because secure tenancies are not allowed, freedom of assignation is restricted on secure tenancies, the value of that registered tenancy is not realisable because it is not tradable. They have gone to stage 1 but have not completed stage 2. The alternative that they have got is that secure tenancies could be converted to a minimum turn 35 year LDT and assigned for value, but we failed to see how an improvement that is may have a lifespan of 100 years or more can maintain its value under a lease of only 35 five years. We question whether that means to realise value, will ever realise true value of improvements. We also question the possible complexities of going through the conversion process, which leads to quite a few uncertainties. I do not think that a mortgage provider or a bank would be willing to take the risk of going through a lengthy conversion process that is uncertain. They would rather have easier means of realising value if the worst came to the worst and they had to call in the security. I think that there needs to be a bit more thought in how tenants go about raising finance for improvements and you have to bear in mind that there is no obligation on the landlord to provide modern improvements. Landlords are only obliged to provide what was considered necessary at the start of the lease and in most secure tenancies the start of the lease dates, pre-dates, modern farm improvements. On the next point on the amnesty, we feel this is a of great benefit to the tenants' sector. There are a lot of tenants who have lost then letters of notice or there is uncertainty over who provided the improvement. It is important that all tenants' improvements are covered by the amnesty and we are in full support of the recommendation but there are two aspects of the recommendation in the review that we think is problematic. One is the recommendation that any improvement where the tenant does not notify the landlord during the amnesty period is assumed to revert to the landlord. That is a plain contravention of property rights of the tenants. There will be many tenants who no doubt do not take advantage of the amnesty and we do not see why someone who does not take advantage of the amnesty should run the risk of losing his improvements. We also foresee the potential for disputes and this is a role for a commissioner. There needs to be a form of dispute resolution for this amnesty period and the disputes that may arise from it. At the moment, the 1991 act prevents disputes over improvements being referred to alternative dispute resolution. The default is the land court, there is no alternative and we feel that that could be a major limitation on the amnesty. Without tenants knowing that there is an alternative to the land court, the proposal might serve little purpose. We have had a long submission, but it has got to the nub of the matter. Other comments on that particularly? We will start off with Scott Walker and then go to Stuart Young. Taking the three points, firstly, with regard to investment, because of the low profitability in agriculture, investment is difficult for a tenant. One of the advantages that owner occupiers will always have is the security of land and the appreciation of land values and the fact that the banks have far greater certainty in lending when they are supporting the underlying asset of the land. That is a factual situation. With regard to the registration of the secure act tenancies, the principle is good, but we doubt whether it will make any big difference to the banks in terms of them either providing finance to tenants or on the basis that they provide finance to tenants, so the principle is good but we do not think that it will make a big difference. In terms of WAGO, everything that Christopher says, I totally agree with on that. The issue with WAGO is that, over a long period of time, not all improvements have been properly recorded and notified. That can often cause one of the disputes for certain rents or it can cause certainly a dispute and uncertainty if a tenant is thinking about leaving the hold-in. What is he going to get for the purpose of WAGO? We very much see this as an opportunity to catch up on all that. Starting from the principle that wherever the tenant has invested in the hold-in and improved the hold-in, the presumption should be that that is compensated for at the point of WAGO. The amnesty provides the opportunity for that to take place. I think that the onus is on the industry if we go forward on this basis is to make sure that everyone knows about the amnesty, everyone knows what they have got to do in that time. If it brings all the records of condition up to scratch and brings all the details up to date, that will be a huge benefit for the industry going forward. I then take on the point that Christopher Scott said. Even once you have got there, the issue that you have now is that individuals still feel that, at the point of leaving the tenant, are they going to fully get the amount of money that they should get. In most situations, landlords will pay the amount of money that the tenant should get. In certain situations, they can be to dispute between the two parties. With the only recourse being the land court, the length of time that is associated with the land court and the course that is associated with the land court, we really need a far quicker dispute mechanism. To me, this is the type of thing where expert determination would be the classic way to intervene on this. That should be something that the commissioner, for instance, could impose upon the two parties if they could not come to a settlement between themselves. I am going to deal with the issue of the amnesty first. It was a proposal that Scottish Land and States originally put forward. I think that you will find that there is a considerable degree of consensus between STFA, NFUS and Scottish Land and States on it. One particular point that I would like to emphasise is that I think that we should try and limit the time period over which we record improvements to one year rather than three years, as suggested in the review. Settling that brings considerable advantage, particularly in the process of rent review, whereby you want to firmly establish whose fixed equipment is whose. If we can do that sooner rather than later, then hopefully that will prevent the prospect of dispute when it comes to setting rents. I was going to hold off on talking about conversion and succession at this moment in time, so I imagine that it is a question that you are going to come to. The point about security and the ability to grant a security on a lease is that we have taken some soundings from lenders. The banks have told us that that is not an issue for them. What they want to know is about the serviceability of their loan. They want to know about the track record of the applicant and about their overall balance sheet position. I am not convinced that it is the factor that is holding back investment in holdings. I am supporting the amnesty and the practical benefits that that would bring about for rent reviews and at Wego, because there is a great deal of uncertainty over that, and it would certainly assist in that process if we could bring that into being. Given the protracted nature of some of those discussions about who is on spot and to whom? My personal view is that I do not think that one year is enough. I think that it is just too tight to capture all of those improvements in that time. I thought that I would mix it a little there. I think that we are probably finishing off that question, but I did not really hear anybody saying that we should not have an amnesty. The recommendation is three, so I think that that is quite encouraging regarding Wego. There was not too much talked about Wego protocol, obviously, but some of that, I think, will come into assignation, which we are going on to next. There is quite a broad consensus regarding the dispute mechanism that we have at the moment, not being correct. I think that there is a concurrence with Christopher Nicholson's view that there is a similar amount of investment when it is on our occupier and when it is a tenant, as evidence does not seem to agree with that. We have had evidence in the past regarding SRDP, where tenant farmers go for management options, and on our occupiers are going for more capital options. I thought that I would finish off on that point before we go on to assignation. It is not correct that the default position is to the land court for Wego valuations, but, in practice, it is a very rare occasion that that happens. In most cases, it is two orbiters and anovasmen, and that system works very well at prison for Wego valuations. Sorry, I was referring to the question whether, not on the valuation of the improvement, which comes at Wego, but the question as to whether an improvement should be recognised as an improvement, which comes at the period when you serve notice. That is the dispute over the appropriateness of an improvement that cannot be referred to anyone other than the land court. I would agree with Christopher on that. Let us move on to retirement, succession and assignation. I thank you very much, convener. I think that we are coming to the real nub of some of these proposals here. I have been trying to think of one way to amalgamate all this into one question, and I have failed miserably. I think that I am going to have to deal with this in three subsections, if I may convener. I will base the first two on specific recommendations in the review. The first being that the review recommended that family members to whom a tenancy could be assigned or bequeathed, and I quote, should be widened to include any living parent or any living descendant of a parent or spouse or civil partner of any living descendant of a parent of the tenant or of the tenant's spouse or civil partner. That is recommendation 13. My question is really, to my mind, that is widening out the possibility that somebody with absolutely no connection to that holding at all could be bequeathed or assigned the lease. I wonder what the views of the panel are and whether they think that is fair, particularly if the landlord does not have any, if there is no, not necessarily the landlord, but if there is no fit or proper person test built into that and also whether, because I think this is an important point that I am not sure has been brought into these discussions, whether the holding in question is a viable unit. I mean, I do think one of the reasons for one of the reasons for reducing numbers of tenants over the last 50 years is that holdings have got bigger and bigger and bigger because they have had to be viable. So you have less holdings to put on the market, but I just wonder if you feel that that proposal is fair, given the lack of challenge that seems to me by the person who is able to let the land. So Christopher Nicholson, then... You referred to a landlord not being able to challenge a possible successor. However, our understanding was that the existing test would remain. A landlord can object on the basis of character, farming ability and financial background of the successor, which he can do at the moment. So if I was to assign my lease to a next of kin, if the landlord has the ability to object, if there is a reason that that successor is not a fit character, not a fit ability to farm and does not have access to sufficient capital to farm. So I think there's good protection of the landlord's interest. So you believe that the fit and proper person test is built in already? I think it's built in, yeah. In which case I stand corrected. Does anybody else want to comment on that? I don't think that that's what the report, the review group's recommendations are. Detail that would remain? I think that when it comes to succession and probably what definitely conversion 2 is, it's very important that there's a balance achieved. And we're of the view that the proposals that the review group have come up with are not appropriately balanced. They represent a substantial erosion of the landlord's rights. And as you'll have seen from our submission, we've taken opinion from Senior Council and the firm view that's come back from council is that these proposals represent a breach of ECHR and ultimately leaves the Government with a prospect of a very hefty, circa £600 million bill of paying compensation to landlords. So I think that's pretty blunt and fundamental in terms of the Scottish Land and States position and how we see things. And clearly what we don't want to be doing going forward is going into any new legislation that's going to see a period of conflict, action in courts, repeat of Salveson versus Riddle. So let's see if there's a better way of going forward. And certainly with regard to succession, we've always understood that the difficulty or the particular difficulty was associated with successors who were currently excluded under the legislation but who had an attachment or working with the holding. And our view is that we would be supportive of succession rights if the successor had an attachment to the holding. They were earning a proportion of their income from the holding. Okay, just before we come to Scott Walker, Mike Russell wants to ask a question. To challenge the assertion about ECHR, I mean this is always a matter of opinion and you have an opinion on the matter that you have no more than an opinion on the matter. But there's a different perspective you could take on this which would be that from 1948 onwards and the freedom to assign that was in the legislation in 1948, then the freedom to assign has been gradually eroded over that period of time since 1958 and the pendulum is beginning to swing back to a more reasonable set of arrangements in which assignations should take place in the best interests of the tenant and the landlord, providing that is going to lead to a continuing safe operation and secure operation of the farming business. Now, I think that Christopher's view on making sure that there is still a test is a good one, but I actually think that the inevitability is that you will continue for that pendulum to swing towards much freer assignation and it would be better to engage with that which is far more what communities wish to take place because communities very often feel pretty aggrieved when tenants can't assign in the way they wish to. It would be better to go along with that and to find a way to make it work for both sides than to bring along the big stick of ECHR and say unless you even think of doing this then it's going to cost the Government a lot of money so back off. I don't think that's a helpful contribution to the debate. What would be helpful contribution to the debate is to find a way in which this could be made to work so that tenants felt that their desire to see this business continue in a way that they believe is right for the business and right for their family is supported by landowners by negotiation. I think that it would have been irresponsible of the Scottish land and the states not to have identified this difficulty and brought it to the attention of the Government and this committee. There may well be some landlords that would have the view that Mike Russell has expressed but there may well be others who have a completely different view and one where they feel that their rights are severely prejudiced and resulting in a loss of value and one that they wish to pursue. Tenants may also feel that their rights are being unfairly restricted. I could take you to a constituent of mine whose rights he believes were strongly impinged upon in terms of his wish to succeed his uncle in the farm and was unable to do so. There are rights on both sides and rights do not only accrue to property rights also exist in individuals and in communities. That's why next week we're holding a seminar on human rights and land reform to which you're very welcome to attend and I hope you will attend because there are a balance of rights to be struck here and whilst I'm sure it is helpful for Scottish land and the states to to seek council's opinion it might also be helpful to recognise that that is only an opinion and a negotiated discussion of this might be better. Scott Walker and then Dave Thompson's point. Yeah, when the TFF was up and running this was an issue that was discussed within the TFF over many years and there was a general recognition that there is a problem in families especially when it's on timely death that nieces and nephews didn't have a right to take over over the tenancy and I think there was also a general recognition within the industry that we needed to change the rules. Now that's as far as it went. There was then a little bit of dispute as to how far you changed the rules but what we generally have here put in front of us this idea of going back up the family tree then down the family tree to pass on the tenancy to us seems broadly sensible. I think you still have to keep a certain restrictions in place to make sure that the people who do take on that tenancy you know do they have the where for all to pay the rent do they have the knowledge to actually do the farming enterprise and certainly through our discussions with the review group we'd always believed that those sort of protections would would remain there because I think again if you look at say the wider public interest as well as the interest of the individual business you want whoever can actually take on that tenancy to be able to farm that tenancy properly and be able to contribute to to agricultural agricultural holdings so that what's being put forward here by the review group again to us seems broadly sensible. The issues about lawyers and what's possible on lawyers we would leave that to others to determine what may or may not be possible in those aspects. Dave Thompson Thank you, convener. I'm struggling to understand what Stuart Young is really saying because if a landowner has a good tenant at the moment and they're complying with all the sort of conditions and so on that Scott Walker mentioned you know in terms of running a farm and they want to assign it to another good tenant that's going to run it really well with all the safeguards and so on what detriment is there to the landowner in that case because they're just getting a new good tenant in place of an old good tenant. The only thing that comes to my mind is there's been a steady decline in tenanted farms opposing the proposal is going to lead to a continuing steady decline in tenanted farms now if that's the intention then you should be open about it if it's not explain to me what the difference is between an existing good tenant and a new good tenant. I think that what we envisage is that without the widening of succession and conversion what would happen is a normal course of events where there are no successes is that tenancies would come back to landlords and with the right climate and environment landlords would then relet these holdings. They may well want to sell it because they have the need to raise funds for a particular purpose they may wish to plant it they may wish to change the land use or they may wish to relet it and I think that having that range of options is something that has a value to the landlord and it's that loss in value that's been that I'm highlighting in relation to the proposals as they stand so it's not necessarily that they just they want to see the continued perpetuation of that tenancy adfin item. Yeah maybe I can just come back quickly convener um well it strikes me then that you're striking right at the heart of the purpose of having secure tenancies in that case you're really saying that that land owners will have their own views as to how they want to use that tenanted land and if they can get an opportunity to get rid of a secure tenant because they're retiring and there's nobody they can assign it to then that's what a landlord would do so you're really I suppose suggesting that landlords would indeed prefer that legislation to be swept away totally so they have the freedom to be able to do what they want with what they see as their land. I don't think that's what I've suggested that the existing succession rights are swept away I've supported indicated scotland is a support for a widening of succession rights where there's hardship I just think that it's of wider benefit if there is an opportunity arising where landlord can reorganise his affairs. I think that the within the report the review group recognise that 1991 act tenancies are perhaps not fit for purpose in the longer term and I think your public policy has already determined that new tenancies going forward and has done since 2003 should be fixed duration tenancies. Right, we've got one more point to make here from Christopher Nicholson and Muskenbank to Alec Ferguson. Just two quick points I was genuinely surprised by the opposition from landlords to the widening of family succession partly because in England the DEFRA future of farming report published in 2013 made the same recommendation for English tenancies widening of family succession and removal of their equivalent of the viable unit test and I never noticed in the press opposition from English landlords to that recommendation and secondly just to reinforce the point David Thompson made we see that there is a strong public interest argument in taking every achievable measure to preserve the area of land under security of tenure. Security of tenure was introduced in 1948 and has largely shaped the nature of Scottish farming in the intervening years it's the one measure that has allowed Scottish farming to flourish it's allowed tenants to make investments under security of tenure and it's allowed a lot of tenants to move on to the next stage and actually buy their farms and we have limited history now 20 years in England of FBT's short term leases the story of the limited partnership tenancies in Scotland over the last 30 years and in those cases a lot of those tenancies struggle to short term tenancies struggle to keep even the land in good heart never mind provide continuing investment into the holdings so I do not see what is wrong with secure tenancies going forward and I think without security of tenure being an option for new blood coming in to the industry I don't see how new new blood comes in and establishes successful long-term businesses. Okay, Sarah Boyack. Quite a quick question just listening to the discussion as it's going on I mean I think all of us would accept that family structures have changed if we went back in my own family one or two generations there were six or seven brothers and sisters it's pretty normal for people to have one or two kids now so I think that the nature of families is changing and is that not an issue in terms of somebody who is planning to retire or to want to hand on that what is being suggested there by Stuart Young is just it just immediately stops because there's not been a son or a daughter or somebody in the very close family who wants to be a tenant farmer and that all the time that somebody might have spent up in their career just disappears and there's no value left to that family and no influence as well. Well, Ken Bull and if anyone wants to come back very briefly we're making some progress but we've got an awful lot more to do. Yeah, RICS doesn't support the extension of Asignation I think one of the broader problems we have is farms becoming available for new entrants we'll get on to discuss that because the 91 act tenancies keep on rolling on and I think that what the RICS sees is that anything that doesn't allow them to come back on to the market. We have something like 80 per cent of the less agricultural land of 1.2 million hectares is locked in to 91 act tenancies. I've had in the last probably 10 years three of them three 91 act tenancies have come up and they've all been reallet to farming families because that's what the landlords wanted to do. So I think by extending the breadth of Asainese it just means that there will be less farms coming up and I think we need slightly more radical thinking if we're going to try and unlock land which the government has said that is what it wants to do. Well I guess that's up to us to look at as we go forward but you know Alec Ferguson has been waiting for a long while to come back on his points. Thank you convener it's a interesting and very relevant discussion and I have to say you know my question was whether this is fair and I say that because I quite agree with Mike Russell that there needs to be a balance in all of this if we are we've all talked about trust and confidence if that is to be put back into this sector then everything we do needs to be fair at the end of the day but if I could move on to the second recommendation that comes under this heading which is that 91 act tenants should be able to convert their tenancy into a new LDT with a minimum of 35 years which could then be assigned on the open market and I just want to spend a little bit of time on that particular topic because some people have said to me people landowners who and the business of letting land that they are that they can understand where this is coming from but they believe that 34 35 years is too long it's a minimum of 35 years not 35 years a minimum of 35 years and it's been put to me that this would be much more acceptable and and would receive much a greater degree of buy-in from the land owning sector if I can call it that if it was reduced to maybe 20 25 years and again I just would like everybody's views on that it seems to be a principle that people are not against in general but there is a worry about this the length of the the LDT that's proposed Christopher Nicholson has already stated his case very clearly that that's fine I'm just saying so that's one you know of Scott Walker. We find this the most contentious issue out of the the whole paper that's been put forward and we've got very strong views being expressed to us by some of our tenants within NFU Scotland and very strong views being expressed to us by our landowner members in NFU Scotland and I find it quite interesting sort of sitting in between on one side I've got SLA on one side of me on one side I've got Chris Nicholson which sometimes feels the same within NFUS that you've got these these different you know bodies bodies competing against against one another. What what I go back to is the the reason why this change was was talked about in in in the first place and for for NFU Scotland we were looking at the situation of you have some tenancy with a secure tenancy who had no one to assign that secure tenancy to you know the rules of succession limited to who they could assign it to. Now what has been done by the Scottish Government would tend to show that maybe up to 70% of secure tenants do have somebody who would be able to succeed their their tenancy so it leaves a group there who doesn't if we widen the rules of succession are further as it's been proposed proposed there again that'll give another option of people where they can pass on on the secure tenancy but for those who are left with no one to pass on the secure tenancy to what you have the situation is that financially for those individuals it's generally better for them to stay in the hold-in as long as possible which we would suggest isn't good for the individual and it's not actually good for the land itself it's being you know underused under underutilised so for us we we came up with this idea of you know changing as a nation of of this of the secure secure tenancy because it would give some value back to the tenant encourage him to move on and it would would hopefully also ensure that the land is utilised more so that that's a principle in terms of where NFU Scotland comes from speaking to to all sides in the argument I think as as Alex says I think there is a there is a broad consensus that the idea of conversion of of a secure tenancy to some fixed term is sensible and what we're really debating then is the length of that fixed term what that fixed term should should be and I don't think you will come to a full consensus within the industry as to what that fixed term should should be for any of us originally we talked about that fixed term being 25 years and we also talked about that as a nation being to a new entrant specifically you know some sort of vehicle to give them a route into route into the industry now the review group what they've come up with is something slightly different you know they sort of see it being wider so it's not just for a new entrant anyone could be assigned that secure tenancy and in terms of instead of 25 years the review group is suggesting 30 35 35 years I think seeing that you know we could accept that we could go go along along with it as I say we had been looking originally though for for that to be some other route for new entrants or somebody getting getting started started into into the industry do you think for one minute that the large submission that you made at the last minute to us reflects the views of tenants in the NFU or is it the kind of dichotomy that you've explained to us is there and visible in the NFU's approach because you know it's a very large paper that we got at the last minute and didn't help us to do any analysis of it and I have to say it doesn't sound to me as though the tenants in the NFU had very much say in it I think that the problem was say for us in the papers that we submitted to the group is that we see this all as a continuation of the process so we're not coming to this just new today so we've done a very very detailed response into that Ag Holdings review group and I've got to say most of what we've actually suggested has been shown in the Ag Holdings review group and what we should have probably made clear to all the committee members was that what we've suggested beforehand we should have shared all that with you and we should have shared with you the fact that you know virtually everything that's in this review group document is you know policy of NFU Scotland so that should have been explained you know what I've tried to explain just now is exactly you know the I'd say NFU Scotland is in essence just a smaller profile of the industry as a whole and the tensions that exist within NFU Scotland just now on this issue of resignation reflects the tensions that exist in the industry as a whole as I say where there is consensus is I think people do see that this flexibility will provide a mechanism for tenants to be able to move out the land it will provide a mechanism to ensure that that land's more utilised in the future and then we're therefore getting down to what's reasonable in terms of that length length length of length of term and whether or not there should be any other restrictions placed on it as to who should actually be able to take over that that resignation as I say originally we suggested it should be a limited to just new entrants coming into the industry but recognising that's not come out of the review group I suppose we are we're willing to put that one to to the side I think we're going to have to move on I think we've had a demarch on that easy but I'm sorry we've got a really good point I want to make sure that's true I think we have yes but a practical suggestion which is which is quite simply I was going to discuss the easy hr implications but we've been there in order to there is an issue I think in in landlords seeing the ability to convert to a minimum 35 year LDT which can then be assigned on the open market as being seen as a way of preventing them being able to take land that they own back in hand and I think that is an issue that is sort of up there would there be any in the panel's view is there any future just as a tenant has a preemptive right to buy if a farm is put onto the market in a landlord or landowner having a preemptive right to take on an assignation that is put on the open market is there any future in going down that route right it's too young and then Christopher Nicholson briefly very quickly which is better than not having it the original one of the original recommendations in the interim report of the review group was the option of assignation of a secure tenancy to continue as a secure tenancy but with a landlord preemptive right and I think the landlord preemptive right was in there to ensure compliance with ECHR and the feeling was that in the case of the conversion to an LDT it possibly wasn't required to be ECHR compliant to include a landlord's preemptive right and in from some areas there was a concern that landlords would simply exercise the preemptive right and take everything back in hand I don't believe that would be the case and going forward we believe that a policy that would be in the public interest and fair would be for the original proposal to be put back in which allows open assignation of secure tenancies but with a landlord's preemptive right to protect the landlord's interest thank you very much for that thank you right Dave thanks nicely from what Christopher has said and thank you for letting me get in here it's if what Christopher was suggesting in terms of assignations as the STFA would like to see being extended to non-family members that would deal with Ken Bolt's point about new entrants because if you broaden it you're actually opening it up to new entrants so I don't really understand the ricks point there it would also mean there would be less appetite for people to convert to secure LDTs so would that not actually resolve the problem provided you've got all the safeguards and you get a good tenant in there well I hope quite soon uh I've quite created well Ken Bolt's name was mentioned there pass okay thank you for that right I'll take that as acceptance of the point well who knows the role of the right to buy so in this case we've got uh am I correct yes I think I am Claudia Beamish I'd like to seek the panel's views on three questions in this in this section of our deliberations this morning and I think it might be helpful if I could outline those three and then get any responses to different aspects that panel members want to comment on so in terms of the first question is comments on the removal of the requirement to register the second is the proposal for a tenant to be able to apply to the land court to force the sale where the landlord is failing to meet their obligations and the last point at this stage for response please is the right for ministers to intervene to address barriers to local sustainable development and how that might apply in the farming context so I don't know who would like to proceed okay Ken Bolt the RSCS I think that the registration process is straightforward at the moment if there are any issues on boundaries and so on they're dealt with at or near the time of the registration and it's a straightforward process so I think that it thinks that it's unnecessary to change the existing arrangements that would be for registration more society on that because I think that in written evidence you expressed a view on the need to rewp to register yes I mean may I say first of all that the law society's role here is to look for good law or to avoid bad law and we're not by our constitution going to apply any thought or comment on policy right but it seems to us that there is no reason why there couldn't be an open automatic right to buy avoiding the often but probably sporadic nevertheless inclination for some people to not sub sub tenants not to to seek to register an interest because they might sour the relationship with the landlord thank you and I wanted to comment there and then Scott Walker on the on the first point the need to register requirement requirement to register we don't see any reason to register and it's there are many tenants who've been deterred from registering by by their landlords or agents the result is that only about a sixth of tenants in Scotland have registered or a fifth of tenants so we welcome this proposal it's practical in common sense I think it's in the interest of all tenants to register I don't think they should be there half the process of physically having to register their proposal here seems common sense and you know it's only when the land's been sold then the tenant would get first right first refusal so that seems a sensible way in terms of the land core and ministers to force a sale what we've always said is that you've got to spell out clearly what the obligations are for for the parties we see this as a role again for the commissioner to be to be involved in so I'm sure in most situations people will adhere to their obligations and responsibilities where they're not adhering to it then we believe that the commissioner should intervene draw to the attention of where those obligations aren't being met set out a plan and the timescale for you know the landlord to have the opportunity to put things things right and only if there's you know refusal and you know clear negligence and clear are not sticking to that plan then as a matter of last resort then they could be an enforced sale put in place so we see that as a sanction that would be helpful is a sanction of last resort and also sanction that hopefully would never actually have to be to be used because the threat of it will be enough to ensure that the obligations are delivered that only answers really the second part scott in a sense because the third part is some the right of ministers to intervene to address barriers to local sustainable development rather than the landlord not meeting the obligation which is which is a land court issue so if you have any comment on that that would be helpful yeah so on the third part in some ways I would see that exactly the same as the likes of the competition markets authority so you know where there's any restrictions in place that are detrimental to the market and unfulfilling economic growth growth perspectives then it's quite right that government shouldn't intervene you know currently government has powers through local authorities for compulsory purchase through for for certain certain measures and again we'd have to see how once this is drawn up in the bill but that sort of scenario that where the market is failing or where economic growth is being hindered then the government and you know the authority of the government should be there to do something about it sustainable development being the phrase rather than economic growth just to be quite accurate about that but yeah I suppose when we see sustainable development we recognise it crosses a lot of different elements but we would go back to agriculture production being in the key aspect there Stuart young dealing with the first point the removal of a requirement to register in relation to the preemptive right to buy I think there'll be a degree of consensus amongst the stakeholders on that particular point although the principal concern for Scottish land estates membership is what the trigger points are and how they actually are defined and that's a level of detail to which the review group have not gone into so I think we really need to understand that and would be clearly willing to engage as that is explored further the second element which is the power of force sale and the ability to apply to the land court I think that the process is fair and appropriate with appropriate checks and balances then the reality is that few landlords would ever be forced to sell and anybody but arguably anybody put themselves in that position would be facing the the consequence it's not an issue that Scottish land estates have great concern over and thirdly the power of ministers to intervene perhaps not surprisingly it's a suggestion that we've got a fundamental difficulty within principle but it's a recommendation that's not when we haven't seen the detail of a proposal not fully developed and again the review group suggests it's something for further consideration well we'd be delighted to consider it further when there's something to consider we would have liked to have been able to consider and detail your thoughts but once again we received your remarks very late in the day and it's kind of difficult for us to go into great detail on that might vessel this issue of of ministerial intervention i think there is with respect to mr young i think there is some detail in this and the parallel is very much in terms of the communities and the role of communities that we talked on about earlier agricultural tendencies are a very important part of some communities and particularly smaller communities for example my constituency of island communities where the difficulty exists where the sustainable development the community the future of the community is put at risk by landlords who are not fulfilling their obligations and whose actions are leading to widespread depopulation the loss of farms then there is a tangible and clear impact upon a community a community can suffer depopulation can its whole focus moves away from the rural and none of us wish to see that so i think the parallel here is with the land or other land reform actions where people can take actions in a community to ensure that farms and that the nature of that community continues and the empowering here is for the individual tenants to play a role in so doing now i think as that detailed development develops it will say two things one is it will make it clear why this should sit within this whole process should sit within the land reform legislation because it is part of land reform and secondly it will require us all to look at the balance between individual rights under ECHR and wider community rights and to make sure the two are both given fair treatment so i think there is detail in this i think that is what is being proposed and i hope that all the organizations will treat this very seriously because there are places where communities have been very severely damaged by the actions of landlords Mike Russell referred to situations where landlords are not fulfilling their obligations my view is that the power of force sale would deal with that particular problem it may but the the the interests of the community must also be born in mind you know i can see that force sale might well be an individual reaction to it but where there are a range of tenancies within an estate all of which are creating this problem and the attitude of the estate is creating this problem then there needs to be a change i mean i've expressed my view in this committee before i think you know large estates are not actually um although they're one of the the issues in land reform they're not the only one you know local authorities are a big one in terms of local authority but there are specific circumstances in places in scotland where the policy of estates has led to the depopulation of areas i think you know i've seen evidence on this presented by a range of bodies and i think that is the issue that's attempting to be tackled here by ministerial interventions so it is clear well defined and proportionate in terms of putting the interests of the communities alongside the interests of individuals scott walker sorry just in danger of well i'm in danger of straying off slightly slightly here in response to michael michael russell russell's point there i think when we look at land reform and community our right to buy and community involvement we've we've had quite extensive consultation with with our members across across the country and for us this issue goes beyond just the issue of estates impacts on any land owner of any size and i know that there is a lot of concern within the farming community as to what that impact could be on individual vigil holdings because while people want to be supportive of local local development depending on your farm depending on what piece of land maybe local development wants to take place on that could have quite significant impacts upon the viability of those individual businesses so they'd be sort of the general issues we bring up in the context of that wider discussion a conversation with individual farmers and i'm doing so in my own area because i don't think that the absolutely overwhelming majority of individual farmers have any reason to fear this at all indeed you know i think there are an advantage for them in making sure that their role in the community is better defined so i don't think that that difficulty and danger exists i think it should be addressed community by community in place by place and it should you know i play my role in that but it is important to see this in the context of empowering and enabling communities rather than shutting them out you know could i turn our minds to comments please on whether the panel believed that the review group came to the right conclusion on absolute right to buy and i'll just give you one brief quote which is from paragraph 208 of the record of the report which says that the concept of absolute right to buy though its potential impact sorry through its potential impact on the supply of tenanted land and on the wider confidence of investors in rural Scotland is one that the review group believes is not and would not be helpful to seeking to further the Scottish Government's vision on tenanted farming i would just like any comments on that either specifically in that context or in the wider context of land reform Chris Deggelson our main criticism of the conclusions of the review group on right to buy is that they appear to have failed to see the benefits to investment that right to buy brings and it goes back to the discussion we've had had before when a tenant buys his farm he's only buying the bit that he hasn't already paid for he's not having to he's only having to pay for the bit he's not already paid for he's not having to pay for his improvements but as soon as he's bought the farm all those improvements become extra collateral that he can use to access finance and and we see it in all over scotland where where tenants do buy their farm there's incredible growth in their businesses in the following decades in in general now um when the review group were going around meetings in the in the spring and in the autumn um they always put forward the alternative of open assignation of the secure tendencies as the alternative to a right to buy and that the open assignation of secure tendencies would allow the investment to take place that that you'd get under a right to buy and therefore there was little public interest argument for a right to buy but now they've they've removed the open assignation option from their final report and that is the single most single biggest disappointment in this review to to our members and suddenly you're back to the situation where people are making an argument for a right to buy again and if if we are to remove um the the the the ability to buy a farm is a natural aspiration for a lot of tenants um I know there are a lot of problems with enacting such a measure which may may simply not be possible but the calls for the right to buy a symptom of what's wrong with the with the legislation and the sector and most tenants fail to see how those calls will go away without addressing the the gaps that are left in the review by the removal of open assignation so this discussion is about you know probing further before we suggest what we think the minister should do about it so you know this is the next step in the sense Stuart Young. We would agree with the conclusions that were arrived at in paragraph 208 of the report and I'd just also like to highlight that there's a consistency in that position with that taken by the land reform review group in relation to the absolute right to buy so we've had two separate pieces of work coming to the same conclusion. Yeah um I'd agree with uh the comment that like Chris said about you know when we talk about absolute right to buy it's a symptom of what's wrong in in the sector and it's reflection that for some individuals in in the sector they feel that relationships are so broken so damaged that that's their only recourse of action. We've had a lot of debate on this issue within NFU Scotland over over many years and you know it's probably the most contentious issue in all these discussions and it probably goes part down to this whole element that I was talked about earlier about trust and confidence going forward in in the future so for a lot of people that wish to let out land and people who wish to let out land on a long-term basis the discussion about absolute right to buy have really clouded their sentiment in in doing those types of activities and for many of our tenants they feel that discussions about absolute right to buy is stopping the letting of land function properly within Scotland at the same time. At the same time as that however you know we do recognise that there are some tenants within NFU Scotland who firmly believe that the only solution to all of this is actually you know coming forward with an absolute right to buy and everything else that's being talked about is irrelevant and that's the solution to all of it. Our view is that when you weigh everything everything up that the recommendation and the conclusion that's come out in this report that absolute right to buy wouldn't deliver what we want which is in terms of you know fair tenants agreements for existing tenants and also having the confidence and sector for letting land in the future I think to rule out absolute right to buy is the correct thing to do. We're not going to be able to talk about this any longer at the moment no doubt we will in future we've had a variety of views on it and you mentioned new letting vehicles for the 21st century like Ferguson's back to you. Come back to the whole core of this which is to try to restore an element of confidence and trust between landlord and tenant basically and a trust in the system so that those who have land to let are more willing to let it than they currently appear to be and that seems to me to be the very core of the reinvigorated tenants sector that I'm quite sure everybody around this table wishes to see. So there are proposals for new types of tenants. We have an intriguing possibility of a full repairing LDT again over 35 years and if I have an issue with that it's only the length of that proposal and we have various other types of lease proposed but perhaps before one of the things that was rejected was freedom of contract as which was already brought up it seems to it operates down south how well or successfully that may be open to question but it does seem to have restored a degree of confidence in the system because people are letting land more than they were before that sort of system came into being. So do you think the review panel was right to rule out effectively freedom of contract but my main question at this stage is really do you think that the proposals that have been put forward on the types of letting vehicles are enough to restore the confidence that's needed with those who have land to let to do so? Okay Scott Walker briefly please. I think in terms of restoring confidence it's about this entire package and it's how this entire package is to be delivered so there's not one specific element of it it's looking at everything in the whole so I would say that first. With regards to the 35-year new suggestion that's been put forward that seems sensible it seems an opportunity that there are land holdings out there that do need investment the landlord's not in the position to make that investment to bring up to scratch and for somebody to be able to take on that land with a minimum term of 35 years that seems sensible and that could work for both parties so we think that's an interest in development and one would like to see work up in more detail. I think when you look just now at general SLDTs and LDTs there's nothing fundamentally wrong with the letting vehicles that we currently have and again that's a message that I sort of take from what comes comes out of this report. The whole issue is about confidence and the whole issue really comes about people being confident to let on a long-term basis and tenants feeling confident that when they come to the end of their term that they're going to get another term thereafter and for both parties whether it's a landlord or a tenant where things are working it's in the interest of both parties to continue working together and to take on because anytime you bring somebody new in this uncertainty this change so what we need to do is get to a situation where it encourages people to let on a long-term basis and continue to let on a long-term basis. These two things just very briefly I would bring in is I have a little bit of concern with the current arrangements being proposed here of how you actually deal with you know some cropping lets you know how they would adequately be covered because what I read certainly here is you either go for a very very short term on a year by year basis which I don't think is satisfactory for for any party in terms of looking forward to the future or you've got to do a minimum of 10 years which for some cropping practices just doesn't fit in with the practices out there and secondly on a slightly different situation it's been mentioned already today that you have a limit partnerships which largely had worked for most people for a long period of time but we've got to the situation now where limit partnerships have either come to an end or will be coming to an end shortly and what you've got is the situation of tacit relocation each and each and every year where they're tending to be rolled on on a yearly basis but that's not particularly good for either either party again because while they're continuing to be rolled on no one knows how long they're going to be rolled on and I think it's it's the wish of of the industry and I know this discussion started very very early stages between SLA, SDFA and NFUS is to see you know could we encourage those individuals that are in those situations to sit down and see if they can come to any sort of sensible working arrangements that suit both parties that would encourage a longer term security to be put in place for those individuals. Our concern is a practical one over an item that Scott has just touched on is on the on the gap between the one and the 10 years and particularly for some areas of cropping land and just the requirement I think all that will do if that is brought in at the moment is probably allow people to look outside the legislation for contract farm agreements or or chef farm agreements or alternative vehicles so that it's a it's a route it would be a real problem for the industry I think the gap in between one and ten years. I'm going to concur with much of what Scott has said and and also Martin to be there for a reasonably brief but I think it's important for me to say that scotchland and states view some of the proposals that the review group have come up with very positively by introducing the degree of flexibility in relation to the new LDT although I think the 35 year term for a repairing lease is something that would rather leave the parties to be able to agree and just to reiterate the difficulty of not having something to fill the gap between one and ten years I can think of many examples that I've come across in my working life where people want to let particularly ranges of buildings I don't have any cattle but I've got buildings my neighbour has cattle he'd like to use my buildings how do I do it well that's contract farming isn't it and ken bolt I would just say the RICS would echo what everyone else has said the problem of only having two options or the one year or the 10 year or the 35 year I just don't think there's enough freedom there for the parties they've got these fixed vehicles they can use and they will as martin said look outside the box at other arrangements to get round so I don't think they're particularly helpful yes very briefly get chrysticles and views on that last comment that would look we need more options in there okay Christopher we're pleased that the review group rejected freedom of contract for the obvious reasons of the land ownership structure in the in the sector we don't see a lot wrong with the existing new style leases we have at the moment SLDT's and LDT's LDT's were modified in 2012 to reduce landlords obligations on fixed equipment so we don't really see where the why they shouldn't be fit for purpose going forward but we should be realistic about what they will be used for they will be useful as bolt-on lettings to existing businesses there it's highly unlikely that they will provide a civil base for new entrants to build a secure business going going forward and we only have to look at where a lot of limited partnership tenants are at the moment who were yesterday's new entrants umson very briefly on this point must convener I think the discussion that we've just had just highlights one of the problems and difficulties that there are all sorts of issues around this that we could argue away for months if not years and I think it highlights the point that the STFA have made that open assignation deals with the problem very simply and very effectively and as soon as you move into the sort of STLT's and everything we're talking about here you get into all sorts of debates about that whereas open assignation gives freedom to everyone and I'm very much of a mind that I like to keep things simple and this is only really going to complicate matters and involve ricks and lawyers and everyone else even more in the future and I think we need to bear that in mind it's maybe more a comment than a question convener well if that's the case it's Alec Ferris is good to make a comment as well I'm very tempted to make quite a long comment convener but I think he probably wouldn't look very good in the official report I think Mr Thompson's got his message his wire slightly crossed on that particular issue but I what has struck me out of this just in winding up is there's actually I think a great deal of agreement here and I would just like to think that with a little bit of give and take either way as this thing goes forward we could end up actually all in agreement on this issue which could only be to everybody's benefit be wonderful new entrance and reducing barriers to entry the review identified the need for more starter farms to be available and it also found that some older tenants would be willing to provide an informal apprenticeship to a new entrant if they were able to assign the tenancy to them so I'd be interested to know what the panel's views are on on the review's proposals or encouraging new entrants and do you agree that there's a need for a phased apprenticeship to a tenancy Christopher Nicholson and then Scotland Scottish Government are making progress in the creation of starter units on forestry commission land maybe there's potential in the future in terms of crown estate land we're well behind England who has 3000 starter units with county council holdings and other landlords such as the national trust farms the the real problem is where the new entrants go after that first rung on the on the ladder if those starter farms are for a five or 10 year period they build up some capital and the difficulty for Scotland and also for England is where those new entrants go for the next stage in their in their career and and this is where we see the the benefits of open assignation because that would allow a a complete rung in the ladder to for people to enter into the tenancy sector upsize downsize it would give opportunity for say tenants who are approaching in a retirement but don't want to retire completely to say downsize to a smaller holding and someone younger move into a bigger holding it it would give a level of flexibility that would bring huge benefits to the sector and go a long way towards getting new blood into the into the sector and affording them the second stage which is which is a secure base to develop a long-term business everyone in the industry agrees they want to do more to get a new blood into industry and help it help them to develop so i agree with everything that Christopher says about you know forestry units crown estate land other land that could be looked at as a starter units in development the addition to that i would add as it goes again about the culture of letting land in in scotland so the more land we could make available to be rented out then that will help people get into the industry to get some land and it also helped people to develop their business so it's important that we take the opportunity under what what we're talking about just now to make sure that the bill's correct and that encourages people to to let outland i think we was also there's there's a role in the tax environment as well you know what tweaks could be made in the tax environment to encourage you know give a leg up to encourage the letting of of land to a new entrant compared to somebody's already existing in farming because somebody's already in existing in farming will usually have that financial advantage to increase the size of their holding rather than somebody else get in and we've also be slow in the industry to take up a share farming agreements and various other agreements that allow somebody to start off in the industry build up their capital and slowly you know develop was a recent s us conference where there was a couple very good examples given from young individuals who have shared farming agreements in in scotland there was particularly one on the dairy side where it's a woman who's taken over the dairy business she's slowly working hand in hand with the farmer building up her a number of cows in his herd and very much working working together as she said it said it very much comes down to personal relationships that putting the two individuals together and making sure that they can work work things through and I think as an industry we probably don't know what to do enough to highlight these good examples and we need to shine the light on those good examples and make people aware of them and how they can make those situations work wherever possible. Without straying into the issue of attacks just now which we can come back to another point I want to just sort of see a wrap up to this at the moment and I think Sarah Boyack was going to kick off the final sort of question that we've got on this number 11 if you wish. Yes definitely it's really just to say where do we go next in terms of the legislation there's different views out there as to whether we should have a new piece of agricultural holdings legislation or whether it should be slotted in as a section in the land reform act and I think NFUS said that you were very much against that because you thought it would leave the legislation indelibly tainted which I thought was pretty strong wording so really keen for a view across the panel as to what do you think you know it's quite well since we last had agricultural holdings legislation cabinet secretary seen it as a major priority because I've led the review group and it's really what happens next. You know the first question was about the tenant farmer commissioner to what extent do you think there's an urgent need for legislation and what do you think the best legislative vehicle is? I think that Scott's already talked about the importance of the package and its ability to deliver confidence so our position on this very much is that there should be a standalone dedicated agricultural holdings bill that delivers a package. That should be delivered in the current parliamentary term so it's not something we're waiting for so important things such as tenant farming commissioner that you referred to are delivered sooner rather than later. What's happened today with the Land Reform Act? The understanding that I have from dialogue that Scottish land estate officials have had with civil servants is that they'll not get it all in a land reform bill. It'll not get it all in the whole package within a bill. If they could deliver it within a bill that would be better but I do also agree to a certain extent I'm not sure if I use the same language as Scott but I think that it deserves agricultural laws a complicated area deserves its own dedicated bill. Mike Russell. I'm surprised by that because certainly I want to see as I think you know many of my colleagues want to see land reform legislation completed in this term and I also want to see this legislation completed in this term and the most efficient and effective use of resource you'll given that a lot of the legislation will come to this committee will be to have them within the same bill but there's also a very strong connection between them. I mean I do think that Scott's language is unfortunate and I think regrettable actually because the connection between them is empowering communities and empowering individuals and redressing the balance in some of the power relationships that exists within parts of Scotland and that's a positive agenda it's not a negative agenda and it's certainly not a negative agenda for Scott's members and I'm you know go back to the fact that we should all be saying that and having that conversation but I don't actually see physically how you can run those two bills in the next 12 months and you know I think Sarah's agreeing that both of us are ex ministers I just don't see how that could be done and there is a commitment to do both of those so the most efficient and effective use of resource is to do it in a single bill but I would not accept a bill that excluded any of these items out from it. Scott Walker I think there is general consensus that we want an act holding's bill to be delivered to this parliament term and I think as people have mentioned there's actually a great deal of consensus amongst all the industry bodies on the main elements of that act holding's bill so we want that bill to be delivered. Again I can only speak for NFU Scotland members in the discussions that we've had around the country with regards to land reform and regard to act holding's and perhaps it's confusion on our part or our members' part but our members certainly have concerns about some of the land reform bills some of it they think is excellent some of it will be very good but they've got a lot more concerns about the land reform bill whereas the act holding's bill people could see the direction of travel they know what's to be delivered there so in terms of confidence for farmers and I'm purely talking about farmers we would prefer to see the two separated maybe going through at the same time but it would be helpful if it was separated in people's mindset. I see you shaking your heads and you'll know far more than me about what's possible within the Parliament returns but that would be our wish if it was at all possible. Alex Ferguson Just for the record convener and thank you for the opportunity. My concern is not so much getting it through by March 2016 as getting it right both in the land reform debate and indeed in the agricultural holdings debate. Both of those bills will come to this committee for scrutiny we haven't got that long to go in this Parliament for these very very weighty subjects that they are not without controversy don't let's pretend they are to get this particular piece of legislation right has the enormous prize of restoring the faith and confidence that we've been talking about in the sector that has to be the principal aim in my view and I really worry about the prospect of delivering the process of scrutiny properly and correctly if that is put in to another bill and I simply put that for the record. Thank you all. Let me say that as you know we could hardly be said to have not given this whole matter a large amount of scrutiny including today and this is one of many times that we've had to talk through this matter and indeed when we take evidence at stage one in whatever shape the bill looks there will be another further wide-ranging review of people's attitudes at that time. I would just finally like to thank the witnesses for the diverse views that we have round the table but to point out that it is all set in the context of the common good of this country and that indeed the public interest which has been emphasised by the land reform review and indeed is underpinning the way in which agriculture contributes to that common good is something that we take very seriously indeed and we will try our very best to make sure that we get the kind of outcome that will be satisfactory and will be progressive indeed even radical and sometimes the word was used earlier I hope that it's one that's going to make Scotland a better place at the end of it and I believe that it will so thank you very much we're going to have to close the meeting just now but before I do so I must say that on the 1st of April of all days the committee will consider five negative instruments take further evidence from the agricultural holdings legislation from the review group with the cabinet secretary for the rural affairs and food and environment and the committee will also consider a petition PE 01490 on the control of wild geese numbers and consider its future work programme so you know we could do with an extension day and the number of hours of the day I have to close the public part of the meeting now I have you to ask you to leave very quickly we have two further items that we have to deal with and thank you very much for that close the meeting publicly