 Rhaid hwbldeitha nhw, everybody. Welcome to the 29th meeting of this year of the Rural Affairs Climate Change and Environment Committee. Before we start, remind you to switch off all mobile phones etc. People may well be using tablets for the meeting, but not for playing Sudoku. Apologies from Graeme Day and welcome Roderick Campbell as our substitute. Agenda item 1, decision on taking business in private, that is item 6, which is on the consideration of work on Scotland's climate change targets. Are we agreed? We are agreed, so we'll take that item in private. We move on to agenda item 2, sub-ledge, and this is for members to take evidence from the Minister on the Scotland Act 1998, River Tweed amendment order 2015 draft. The instrument has been laid under the affirmative procedure, which means that Parliament must approve it before the provisions may come into force. Following this evidence session, the committee will be invited to consider the motion to approve the instrument under agenda item 3. I welcome the minister, Paul Wheelhouse. Good morning. Along with Geoff Gibbons, policy manager salmon and recreational fisheries and Joanna Irvin, principal legal officer at the Scottish Government. Good morning to you. I ask the minister, first of all, do you have any initial statement, please? Just a brief one, convener, if I may. Please do. Thank you for inviting me to speak about this draft order that has been laid for Parliament's approval. Members of the committee will be aware that freshwater fisheries management and conservation in Scotland is largely regulated by the Salmon and Freshwater Fisheries Scotland Act 2003, but that separate arrangements are in place for the border rivers. Following this committee's consideration of the provisions in the Agriculture and Fisheries Scotland Bill, an amendment to the 2003 act came into force last September to provide a new enabling power, allowing the Scottish ministers to create a regime for the tagging of salmon caught in Scotland. I can confirm that it remains our intention to consult fully on the structure and extent of any future carcass tagging scheme and that I am currently considering those options alongside the wider recommendations emerging from the report from the independent review of wild fisheries in Scotland. However, it's necessary to address a technical issue with the current legislation to ensure that a single carcass tagging system can be introduced across the whole of Scotland. The 2003 act and the amendments brought in last year do not extend to the River Tweed, which as a border river has its own governance and that is provided by the Scotland Act 1998 River Tweed Order 2006 to allow a whole river management scheme across the border. As a consequence the order under discussion today amends the 2006 order by inserting a new power allowing a regime for the tagging of salmon caught in the Tweed district to be created and at the same time ensuring that when such a scheme is introduced within Scotland that can be replicated for the Tweed. The power allows provision to be made around the nature and form of the tags, record keeping and enforcement. The purpose behind the regime will be to enhance existing conservation measures for wild salmon and to ensure that fish which are caught in Scotland and find their way to market are traceable. That will allow tag fish to be measured against fish stocks and in addition this will supplement existing mechanisms for identifying unlawfully caught fish. The detail of the tagging regime would then be set out for the Tweed district in a separate order and for the rest of Scotland in regulations made under the 2003 act. I can also confirm that I've been in correspondence with my counterparts in the UK Government who will be taking the order forward through the UK Parliament and this provides a very brief overview of hope of the order and our longer-term strategy and I'm happy to answer any questions convener. Thank you very much minister. I'll start off by just asking geographical question how much of the Tweed basin is actually in Scotland in terms of you know an overall catchment of salmon fishing? Roughly speaking. Well if this is a game of trivial pursuit that I would fail miserably so I will perhaps look to my left to Jeff Gibbons. I'm not sure if Jeff it's a fair question to ask if Jeff has any knowledge of that. If we don't convener we can come back with the detail. Well the Tweed Commission area moves out to five hours out to sea and includes the coastline between Holyne Island and Coburns Barhigades as well. I was thinking about the tributaries that flow from England and the length of the Tweed that's actually has England and Scotland on either side of the border at the other side of its flow. She'll get the measuring tapes out convener and get you an answer to that. I mean it's very important that we get positive signals from London that you know they'd be doing something similar because clearly my thoughts are that most of the Tweed is actually in Scotland in terms of to cut the catching of salmon. It's worth pointing out convener that there's already carcass tagging in England as it stands so we're really bringing an oren regime and therefore so it's not point of view conservation measures are already in place in England and we're unfortunately having to catch up but we can certainly for the committee's benefit we can come back with some detail information. I'm sure since to have fewer salmon it's easier for them to tag them in a way the point is that we're keen to see that we're having best practice. One of the tributaries of the Tweed I would guess it would probably be about 90% is excellent Scotland but that's just a trivial guess. I was just wondering why there was no general consultation on on the actual order as we were informed here and how we're going to get the message out to interest parties from here with. If we make a video I'll maybe ask Jeff to come in on the on the process that we've been going through but we have obviously engaged closely with the authorities in England as well about the any concerns they have and I believe so far indicated that they're happy to to progress this with us so we've done a kind of first scan if you like to see at government to government level whether there's any concerns that DEFRA would have over this this measure and it's also copied in the Secretary of State for Scotland as well because of the cross-border nature of the activity so you know there's not been anything flagged up to us yet but perhaps Jeff can if convener with your permission just talk through the consultation process. As you know it's an enabling power so it actually doesn't detail the specific aspects of the scheme that will follow indeed a full consultation on how the scheme would look across Scotland will follow in due course as the minister indicated we have spoken to the commission about the the purpose of the of the order they're aware of why we want to obviously encapsulate as much of Scotland as we can and they're quite content indeed they've been pushing for carcustagging for some time so in terms of consultation about the enabling power we've spoken to the commission in terms of a consultation more widely about how the scheme we're looking in practice will follow in due course as the minister said. Add in one point that the Crown Estate Commission have also been consulted so it's just talking about commissions. The Tweed Commission I think is the one that Jeff Gibbons was referring to but we've also consulted the Crown Estate as well. Thanks. I think Ferguson. I just wondered if I could ask the minister is this sort of being looked upon in any way as a sort of pilot scheme for something coming forward for the rest of Scotland or is it a completely separate issue given the rather unique nature of the Tweed? I think the latter points was relevant but you have got a situation as said in my opening remarks where at the moment we couldn't apply a single tagging scheme across the whole of Scotland so this is a technical measure to make sure that we can take the Tweed within that any scheme that's coming forward. I think it's important to put it in context to the Wild Fisheries Review we're obviously scanning through Andrew Thin and his group's recommendations and clearly we want to come forward with a comprehensive package rather than do things piecemeal but this at least allows us to move forward so that when we do come forward with the detail of the carcustagging scheme that we set out in the Aquaculture and Fisheries Act that we will be able to do so and apply it across the whole of Scotland rather than having to do two separate schemes for areas that straddle a border on the rest of Scotland and I'm not sure if Jeff wants to come in further on that. By pursuing the inaugural at this stage it allows us to progress options, wider options should we look towards a pilot and we decide towards a pilot as a first instance as an option it sits in there depending on the wider considerations. Thank you. Are there any further questions? If there are no further questions then we will move on to Agenda Item 3 and the third item today is to consider the motion S4M 11509 and asking the committee to recommend approval of the Affirmative Instrument the Scotland Act 1998 River Tweed Amendment Order 2015 draft. This gives an opportunity for any debate that's required and whilst we now know that officials can't take part we'll invite the minister to speak to and move the motion. Thank you convener. I move that the committee supports this order and recommend that the Scotland Act 1998 River Tweed Amendment Order 2015 be approved. Thank you. I invite members who wish to speak if they do. Speak now or forever hold your peace. And there seem to be no members who wish to do that. Do you wish to wind up minister? I'm fine, convener. Thank you. Therefore I put the question on the motion. That is, the question is that the motion S4M 11509 in the name of Paul Wheelhouse be approved. Are we all agreed? We are agreed, therefore we will record that result that the committee report will confirm the outcome of the debate and thank the minister and his officials for that just now. Yep. We will now change over the witnesses for the budget and I think the minister is going to stay with us. I thought that was my opportunity to escape but thank you, convener. Thank you. We'll recommence now. Welcome minister and you're accompanied today on this quiz regarding the Scottish Government's draft budget 2015-16 on the themes of forestry and SRDP climate issues respectively by Joe O'Hara, Deputy Director of Forestry Commission Scotland, John Ireland, Deputy Director of Low Carbon Economy Division and Neil Ritchie, the branch head of natural assets and flooding in the Scottish Government. Good morning everybody. I refer members to the papers and I'll kick off with the first question which is basically about the delay in publishing the document that shows how the budget supports measures to reduce Scotland's climate emissions. Since the delays in its publication hinders effective scrutiny, can the minister commit to publishing it alongside the draft budget next year? Well, convener, I recognise the fact that having been a member of the Finance Committee as well in the past, I know that there's great interest in having the information simultaneously to the budget. But if I could maybe just, for the committee's benefit, just point out the process that's involved. Although there's no statutory requirement to reduce this information and no statutory specification as to when it's produced, we've made every effort to try and produce it as close as we can to the publication of the budget. I believe last year it took five weeks to produce the information. This year it took three weeks. We had an unusual situation in the referendum during the summer that we had, as I understand it, a delay there obviously in terms of the budget process, which is slightly later than it would have been otherwise. In terms of collating the level 4 information, the team have done a very good job in terms of producing that within a three-week timescale, as I understand it. So it's difficult. We have to wait until we've got the finalised budget before the carbon assessment of the budget can be produced. It needs to be finalised before we can, if you like, the team can produce the information that you're now relying on to assess the carbon intensity of the Government spending programme. So there is a difficulty in producing them simultaneously, as the point I'm making, and we made every effort to make sure the gap is as small as possible. Apologise that it's perhaps presented a problem this year to the committee, but the team haven't ever to get it as quickly as they possibly could to you. One or two supplementaries on that. First of all, the document has produced, looks as though it's been run off in a hurry. It should, I think, I'm asking you, be presented in a similar fashion to the budget. Indeed, I would suggest that it should be circulated to every MSP since our view is that every department has a responsibility and climate change and that it might give it more status if that were so. Well, I certainly agree with you, convener, that I believe it's important that every member of the Parliament, particularly given the need for every committee to scrutinise low-carbon agenda, and indeed all ministers are held accountable for their actions. We're all collectively responsible for delivering the Climate Change Scotland 2009 Act. So we do all take an interest in it, particularly because the Cabinet Subcommittee has now been created, it's relevant. So I take that point entirely, that we need to make sure it has status that people recognise it and look at it. We can always look at the formatting and presentation of a document. I'm happy to go away with that as an action point for next year. It's obviously a desire to make sure the information is produced as quickly as possible has perhaps meant we've sacrificed style in relation to the presentation, but I take that point. I was going to say, it seems to us that perhaps it was longer than three weeks before it was available to MSPs more like five weeks. Well, if I may, I mean, I'm understanding it took about three weeks to prepare, but perhaps I can ask John Ireland who might be more familiar with the deadlines as to when that happened. Just looking for a piece of paper which I noted down the dates yesterday. I think the level four information was available on the 23rd of October, and this was actually published on the 11th of November, which I think is roughly three weeks. I think the five weeks was actually a comment on last year's time period. It's probable that while level four comes about fortnight after the budget, the actual document was two or three weeks after that. Yeah. As soon as the level four, it's the difference between the level four information and this information. So the level four information is produced, and then what we do is we collate the information and provide the commentary on that and then produce it in as quickly as way as possible. You can get a sense of the timing issues involved in this. If you actually look at that in detail, that some of the items at the level four still aren't tied down. So what we're trying to do here is trade off between getting a useful commentary to you on the level four information as it's presented, which does take time, and getting as full information at as possible. And that also accounts for the formatting. So we do this in Word rather than sending it to the printers to be laid out properly because that would add another delay to the process. I think we do understand your frustrations and we are trying to work to do this as quickly as possible. And this is absolutely right that in future we can circulate it to all MSPs. But there is a trade-off here between sort of, you know, we have to have time to do the work and assembly and the commentary. It just can't be done just in sort of seconds. It does take time. You know, Jeff, it might be worth just mentioning, Commander, that obviously we are developing. I think the committee may already be aware of this, developing a macroeconomic model for RPP3 purposes. And I'm not sure, we can always explore. I'm not sure that John and his team have yet had a chance to think through whether that will speed up the process next year. We can always look and see in future years will that availability of that model allow us to more quickly calculate through from the level four figures to produce the document more rapidly. But we'll always look to try and see if we can shorten that gap. I'm aware of the needs for Parliament to be able to scrutinise those figures as quickly as possible. But we obviously have to, we have some physical limitations on what we can do at the moment. And I'm sure the team have done everything they can this year. I'm confident they have done everything they can this year to get the figures to you as quickly as possible. But as I said earlier, we'll look at the formatting. We'll look at how we distribute the figures and do what we can to improve the process for you. Okay, thank you for that. Jim Hulme. Good morning everybody. Good morning. Just looking at the annual climate change targets in 2010, they were missed 2011 and 2012, they were missed. I just wonder how yourself, the minister, account for that within the role of your environment budget, what action has been taken within the budget to address the climate change targets for the future? Well, I certainly recognise and I put on record that obviously we are disappointed as a Government and indeed on behalf of the Parliament that we've Scotland, we've missed our targets. I've dealt with it before through the ministerial statement I gave, but it's worth, if you want any encouragement, that in terms of the actual amount of greenhouse gases we emitted, we did that we would actually be below the target, i.e. better than target for the last two years, not in 2010, sadly, but we're off the mark there. But in 2011 and 2012, the actual amount of greenhouse gases we emitted was below the targets we'd set ourselves as a Parliament. But based on the net account we failed and we recognise that. So in terms of the second part of the question, what we're doing to tackle that, clearly we've done a number of things, we have engaged with our stakeholders on the unit, I believe the other opposition parties did as well with the stakeholders doing WWF, Stock Climate Chaos, and Friends of the Earth to look at what the options might be to address our under-performance as a country. And a package of measures was brought forward in June to try and address the requests that have been made. Similarly, John Swinney, the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Sustainable Growth, has met stakeholders again to hear their concerns and look forward to future years as to what measures could be taken to get us back on track to achieve the tonnage targets we've set ourselves, which means that we probably need to achieve just over 46 per cent by 2020. So the task is getting harder. We recognise that. The baseline adjustments obviously have played a huge part in the perceived and actual in terms of statutory targets missing our targets. So we have obviously, as I've just referred to in response to the previous question, we are committed to developing a macroeconomic model which will allow us to much better understand the cost effectiveness of the spend we make in all the years of government spending in terms of tackling low-carbon. So that model should be available late summer next year, hopefully for use in the autumn of next year, and to inform RPP3, but it will also have a benefit in forming future budget rounds as well. So we can advise colleagues in different portfolios how much carbon abatement they get for every million pounds they spend in certain types of activities. So we'll be in a much better position to be able to have an examination of our performance and what steps are necessary to get us on stream. And we've obviously had some examples given by UT Collier in previous sessions to the committee of what it would take to save a megaton, but that's not necessarily true. The £5 billion you referred to in housing we may be able to achieve one megaton elsewhere in the economy for a lower cost. And so therefore we need to have that understanding of what we can do. Give a commitment to the committee that we are seriously looking to how we can achieve our absolute tonnage targets that have been set in annual statutory targets. And we're working together through the Cabinet sub-committee as a team to identify how we can do that across Government. Bearing in mind, we don't have sectoral targets. We need to, if we fail in one area, we need to make up that shortfall somewhere else within the economy and we are working as a team to do that. Okay, thanks for the answer minister. Just looking at the figures for the draft budget though, rural enterprise looks to be cut by 98.9% almost completely done away with altogether. Now there's been various projects that I'm aware of which have come out of that. Monitor farms, which of course one of the monitor farms has been on climate change and carbon. Obviously that'd be concerning if that would go, of course Go Rural, which I think our deputy convener here helped launch. And of course the rural leadership programme which, if I recall Jim Mather saying, was a vital attribute that will play a key role in achieving the rural business growth we all want. That's really quite concerning that that budget seems to be just getting chucked out the window. I wonder if the minister would like to be comment on that and where these projects go in the future. Is this where the question is probably not yet done now? For this minister, is it related to climate change? I'm happy to give an overview of- There's one monitor farms on climate change. That one is, yeah, right. I'm happy to address it. I mean, I think probably the cabinet secretary can deal with some of the detail, but in terms of the overall position we've arrived at, it's worth stating that we had a number of stakeholders including National Farmers Union of Scotland, I believe Mr Hew may be familiar with the organisation who were demanding that we had almost no transfer funds from pillar one to pillar two at all. Had they had their way, we would have had nothing in an agri environment, we would have had nothing in terms of the enterprise budget either. We have to realistically look at- We were in a position where we had a very poor settlement both in pillar one and pillar two, and I don't want to necessarily go revisit that entire debate as I'm sure we've experienced it over the summer, but we arrived in a position where we had a very poor level of funding as I think you know in terms of pillar one. Little scope to transfer funding from pillar one to pillar two. Pillar two settlement is the lowest in Europe as well, so we have 12 euros per hectare, which is by any standard a very meager settlement and therefore a very limited ability to fund agri environment and other measures. In the negotiations, the farming community for land managers were wanting to have minimal transfer funds from pillar one to pillar two, and the environmental NGOs were wanting to maximise the amount of spending on agri environment. I believe the cabinet secretary had a difficult challenge, but he has tried to achieve that balance so that the maximum modulation has effectively gone into pillar two aspects which cover agri environment, which is what those stakeholders were asking for, and the farmers have effectively got what they want with minimal transfer through modulation to pillar two in relation to the other aspects of SRDP. So we have that position and that was effectively what stakeholders asked for, albeit neither of them got exactly what they wanted, which is probably a good thing. So we've got a balance between having the agri environment budget maintained and actually £10 million higher, although appreciating it only in cash terms, not in real terms. And we're able to support the agri environment projects that the environmental NGOs believe were vital to support. So we've arrived at where we are because in a nutshell we have a very poor settlement on pillar one and pillar two, and there was limited scope for modulation, and the cabinet secretary is on the best he can to get the balance of what the very stakeholders were asking for. Thank you. Claudia Beamish. Thank you, convener, and good morning to you ministers, to the officials as well. Could I just take you back to question one, because on reflection you've raised the issue of the new macroeconomic model, which I would very much welcome, and I think it will be helpful. But I'm not clear about how that would help with drilling down into level four during the budget process. I don't understand how that would speed that up, and I don't know whether you can clarify that for me, because it would be helpful to understand what the relationship between the two is. Well, to be clear, I mean I haven't said definitively it will, but I'm just keen that we look to see whether we can use that model because of its ability to be able to tell us the cost-effectiveness of spending and its impact through the supply chain. If we put money into a particular area, what impact does it have on the economic achieving our overall purpose of sustainable economic growth, for sure, but also what does that do in terms of low-carbon supply chain and developing low-carbon economies? If we can use that additional modelling capability within Government to help inform the budget process, that may enable us to have a faster ability to, in response to change in level four figures. It may be the last minute you might be able to then tweak the figures and come forward with a better assessment. I mean, Mr Ireland is the expert on this issue and it's very much his baby in terms of the model, but I believe, I'm just offering that, we can maybe look to see whether that model might give us additional functionality that we can use to speed up the process next year. I don't know whether John wants to comment on whether that's even feasible because I've bounced it on him in the course of the committee meeting, but it's just a thing of possibility worth exploring. I think it probably wouldn't have necessary to the speed of the process, because I think it would add to the utility. It could provide additional information and we will look at that. I think the other area in which it potentially could help enormously is around some of the issues around the carbon assessment of the budget, which is done in a very helpful way in terms of the carbon content of government expenditure, but is done in a less helpful way in terms of abatement potential. In fact, he says nothing about the abatement potential. So I think the new model will give us a lot of scope to provide you with additional information. We need to think about the timing and sequencing of that. It might be more sensible to focus on the commentary that we try and provide quickly now and then provide additional information later because, again, model runs take time. So I think basically what the minister is signalling here is that there's scope to do a great deal of stuff here, which will be helpful in your scrutiny process. Once we have the model up and running, we should come back to this and we should also obviously pick up on the concerns about timing and getting the information to you as quickly as possible. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I have another question on the targets. Nigel Don. Thank you very much and good morning minister. Morning. To your colleagues. I wonder if I could just proceed a little bit further because, of course, models are always welcome, but they're only as good as their original data and the algorithms you put into them, of course. I'm also conscious, as the minister will be, that the portfolio we're talking about now is one of the highest producers of carbon for the money that we spend. And I think we probably understand that, but you may minister want to give some explanation of that. But what I'm wondering is in that context, whether we should be putting more effort on auditing, not because I want government auditors running around the place, but maybe those who receive these very substantial sums of money within our communities should actually be required to provide some kind of professional audit and carbon audit within their businesses because it is quite a large amount of carbon and quite a large amount of public money. I think those are very reasonable points, convener, in terms of the balance of spend it should we know, and it was casting ourselves forward quite a long time now to 2050, we know that, as I think I've said to committee before, we would anticipate that by 2050 a very much larger proportion of Scotland's total remaining emissions will be in rural land use sectors. It's there for all. Organisations that are involved in that sector, if you like, will have an interest in ensuring that they are as if carbon efficient, if I can put it that way, using that term and not even sure if it's a legitimate term, but I think it will do, minister. It will do for the purposes of this conversation, I hope. There's an interest everybody would have, so regardless of whether it was mandatory or voluntary, I would have thought that actually everybody would have an incentive to ensure that we can try and maintain livestock production, for example in Scotland, in the face of that requirement to reduce our carbon emissions. So it's in the sector's interest to work with government, to work with stakeholders to deliver agriculture, which can maintain productivity, but in a lower carbon kind of future. And therefore, while I think I've discussed at committee previously that we would, and given a response indeed to committee about thoughts about where we might go in terms of carbon audits in the farming sector, I entirely agree with Nigel Don that this would be a sensible area for us to have a dialogue with industry about and to see what we can do voluntarily, ideally. We've obviously got the farming for better climate farms, which are trying to demonstrate to the sector what is it possible to do that through peer-to-peer influence to show people that a good farmer taking hopefully relatively easily replicable steps can deliver 10% or 11% improvement in their bottom line. That is a good thing to do as a business and it also has the benefit of lowering their carbon intensity. So we're obviously trying different types of it to encourage rather than, so a lot of carrots, if you like, rather than a lot of stick, but we do obviously need to try and work with the industry to come forward with hopefully as unburocratic a means of doing so as we can, but to record information to allow us to understand what is actually happening there, monitor what is happening through time, and understand whether we're on the right trajectory in terms of taking the agriculture sector and other rural sectors doubted in terms of their emissions profile. So entirely given that it's a good thing to do, we may ultimately, if performance was less than expected, have to go down a more of a stick route in terms of mandatory measures, but I'm hopeful that we wouldn't have to to consider that at this stage. Can I share your enthusiasm for doing that? Can I say that I don't share your optimism that will happen quite frankly? My observation of the world is that people don't change until you actually force them to, quite frankly. It seems to me that the opportunity doing it voluntarily gives you time to develop the methods which would be useful. I would suggest the history suggests to me, that then very quickly comes a point where you just tell people, you're going to have to do this because otherwise uptake will be too slow. If I may come back in, I agree with Nigel Dawn that there is a risk that people don't follow through. We have indicated in relation to the announcement in June in the CAP package around permanent grassland and nutrient management plans that we would expect to see that migrating into a situation where a plan has to be produced. And we are working with the industry to try and develop the software, the tools, but during this period where it's not mandatory to make sure that it's as easy to deploy as possible for the farmers. We don't want to create huge layers of bureaucracy for them, but we think it's actually in their interests as well. So it gives us time to demonstrate that those farms who do our early adopters are actually going to benefit from saving on nitrogen costs and fertilizer costs. It reduces the farms' risk of diffuse pollution breaches as well. So there's lots of reasons for farms to engage in this. We're hoping that we can demonstrate it's in their interests to do so, but we've already signalled in that one that we are moving probably to a position where it will be a requirement to produce a plan in due course. So I accept the point that Don is making that there is a risk that some may be less forthcoming than others, and it's always the backstop that we can bring that in. I think there's a willingness to do that if we have to, but I would hope that farmers will heed the need to take action themselves for the interests of the industry in the long term, make sure it's as viable and competitive as it can be in the future, and can be consistent with that low-carbon future that we all need to achieve. Talking of sticks, we move on to planting targets in forestry. Thank you, convener, I think. But yes, if we could, good morning, Minister. If we could move on to forestry, or branch out into forestry, perhaps I could say. I'm merely following the convener's lead. To be a little more serious about it, the draft budget restates the government's intention of planting 100,000 hectares by 2022. That target, as we've discussed many times when those committees started off as 10,000 hectares a year, and it became 100,000 hectares over 10 years, which still requires an average of 10,000 hectares a year. And if we can cut through all the figures, the fact is that those targets are not being met. And given that RPP2 attributes measurable emissions abatement figures for increased forestry planting, which is an integral part of RPP2, I wonder if the minister could speculate, perhaps, or comment, certainly, on how continually failing to reach the targets that we need to reach if we're going to reach the overall target of 100,000 hectares. But what impact that is going to have on the climate change targets that the government has set? Well, if we could firstly say that forestry is extremely important to achieving our targets, so I recognise that. And Mr Ferguson's question is absolutely true. I haven't got a precise figure in front of the convener, but we can come back with the correct one. But I believe it's about 18 per cent of our emissions are offset by our woodlands in Scotland. So it's a huge sink. We're not a Latvia. A Latvia effective is negative emissions annually because the forests are so huge. They are an unfortunate position where they're not contributing to global climate change because the size of the forests. So we do have an objective to plant those 100,000 hectares between 2012 and 2022. And it is true to say that we have not achieved the 10,000 hectares of elasticity figures. It would be, I think, wrong to ignore the fact that there's been a significant increase in investment in woodland planting over those three years. And we've worked with private sector and, indeed, obviously in the national forest estate and with NGOs to ensure that we have improved performance. But we have not achieved the 10,000 hectares. There are a number of reasons for that. Probably the key one looking forward rather than looking back to what's happened in the last few years where the weather and other things have kicked in is really about the availability of sites. And what we have to do is achieve a position where we can have the right number and the right places, sites coming forward. We have certain restrictions of what we can do as a forest to commission in terms of the WEAG process, which we've all signed up to in terms of some important process we've gone through because of concerns about forests being planted in the wrong places and concerns from the, particularly from livestock sector about a loss of grazing land to forestry in places like the Ettrick Valley, which I know Mr Hume is very familiar with. And so we have gone through that process that has meant that the process is slower now. We've got a challenge in finding land which is available and which, having gone through the kind of consultation with communities and with the local farming interests that we can plant up. But the bigger issue really is as you probably see with the balance of funding between where it goes between national forest estate and private sector. It's largely in private sector landowners we need to be able to plant trees. And so we have to have the right incentives for them to do so. And I recognise that it's getting the balance right is very important. We've got a transitional period, fortunately, in terms of European funding where we're going to have a slight drop-off in planting in the current year while we move to the new SRDP. We've done everything we can to minimise that drop-off. I'm certainly thankful to the staff at the commission and indeed stakeholders for working with us on that so we can get a reasonable amount of planting in this transitional year. Unlike the previous transition where it dropped like a stone. So we've made some movement there but we do have to catch up effectively between now and 2022 in terms of our planting rates. So it's in the next spending review we will obviously look at what support there is for forestry planting and have to take into account our underperformance in terms of planting to date and what we then need to do in forthcoming spending reviews and I can't guarantee what the outcome of that will be but certainly that's the representations I'll be making in the next spending review if I'm still here after the weekend to, well yeah, Mr Hume's sort of saying it's not likely but I'm an optimist Mr Hume. So if I'm still here that's what I'll be putting into the next spending review process to try and make the case that we need to up our investment in forestry to achieve that. I'm sure your slight nervousness is shared by many colleagues minister as a witness but we wish you well over the weekend I think. Thank you. Indeed. Just to go back to the implications of these mis-target for the climate change targets that have been set if we fail to catch up because that has to be a possibility is the government thinking of how it can mitigate against the clearly detrimental impact that not meeting these targets will have and you know is there some way in which you can compensate from other areas for if we continue to fail to meet these targets? Well yes, we certainly are taking a look at our own portfolio in the context of the cabinet sub-committee. Each portfolio is effectively looking at delivery to date against the RPP2. Obviously the climate change delivery board have done their analysis of where we are, what's-and-all doing in terms of our performance against the RPP targets. And in the case of the rural affairs portfolio clearly forestry is a woodland planting is a challenging area for us. So it will be our job as the rural affairs portfolio to look at what we are doing try and come forward to the cabinet sub-committee with suggestions as to how we can make up if we can within our own resources the shortfall and emissions abatement and that we would be if we fail to plant tree in 2012 it has an impact around about 2022 in terms of its peak sequestration potential for a tree it's about 10 years 8 to 10 years after it's planted so we're already beginning to cause ourselves problems in a sense in the early 2020s with the need to match up to 10,000 hectares in previous years. So we will look at what we can do to make that up within our own resource. We can have a look at what we can do on the national forest estate as well but there are timelines involved there because of the WEAG process but it can take perhaps up to two years if you're saying we want to make up the shortfall and plant trees here on the national forest estate or say newly acquired land we have a number of farms a number of areas of land we've bought which we haven't yet planted and we could make up sort of I think it's three and a half thousand three and a half thousand hectares of planting through that alone but that may take two years to get through the system and then obviously we've got the phasing of the work in terms of our own workforce to get that done as well so it's not as easy as it may appear just to make it up like that but we are looking at these issues I give Mr Ferguson the assurance that from a rural fares portfolio point of view that is exactly what we're going to have to do in terms of our contribution to the cabinet sub-committee process and if that is not possible then that means as a government we have to come up with some other means of making up that abatement in the timescales that we'd set out in RPP2 so we recognise that the need to abate the CO2 and green ice gases does not diminish and therefore we need to make it up at some point between now and when it was intended to have been delivered by 2022 Questions to supplementary to that yep it was to go on about the planting targets yep because there's a couple of people want to come in as well right if I'll just finish off if I may with my own questions can be done just to go back to catching up on the planting targets that were set and obviously hopefully that is the sort of best solution to the problem that we've been highlighting at the CONFOR conference that you and I both attended a few months ago you made it quite plain I think that much of the onus for new plantings would fall on the private sector indeed and indeed in evidence given to us just last week or the week before CONFOR raised a concern that actually so much of the expectation was seeming to fall on the private sector that concern was raised by CONFOR's position which is that the money available is and I quote wholly inadequate to deliver what's being asked of it I realise that's coming from one particular to the side but Joel Harat a meeting when she was here did agree that through SRDP the meeting the targets over the next SRDP period would be really challenging I don't think any of us would probably argue with that at all I'm not a criticism in any shape or form but I wonder if the minister could just respond to that concern particularly raised by CONFOR whether he feels that the funding that is in place through SRDP is adequate given the concerns that have been raised particularly by the private sector on which there is such an expectation Well I suppose I could be cheeky and say to Mr Farker that it's quite unusual to find the private sector saying they want government to keep all their money not give it to the private sector We largely speaking are funding activity in the private sector which is for a number of reasons I think we've obviously got a challenge both out there in terms of stakeholders perception of if the forestry commission was to be using all that funding to expand dramatically the amount of land in the national forest estate rather than planting trees elsewhere we'd run into the problems we encountered in the electric valley and the wee ag process so there's a great seemingly at least a degree of resistance to the forestry commission buying up farmland so that's one challenge so we could have an alternative model where the state invests in increasing the amount of tree planting increasing the amount of hectares under forest cover by buying land and then funding the planting but that seems to be resisted by the private sector largely and particularly farmers The serious aspect of it in terms of whether confor and others are concerned about the intervention rates that are available to support planting we have reflected on that obviously I know it's not universally liked but we have moved to a position where we are looking at more of a balance in terms of the incentives for planting commercial species and native broadleaf species and that's not to take any money away from native broadleaf it's been largely speaking got parity now in terms of funding rates so if it's native broadleaf species are appropriate for the scheme and maybe it's a conservation outcome that's sought rather than a commercial outcome that's sought then that's clearly going to be still possible to fund that scheme and we've brought up the level of funding for commercial species recognising the potential drop-off in commercial timber supplies in about 30-40 years' time given the problem we had in the 1990s and early 2000s in terms of a fall-off in planting so we're recognising that there's a need to produce a consistent supply of timber for a number of uses construction sector clearly but also not taking anything away from the need to continue to plant significant numbers of native broadleaf trees as well for environmental reasons so we're trying to get a balance right on limited funds but obviously some stakeholders who want to just abolish obviously planting funding in its entirety such was the resistance to increase tree cover and loss of land to agriculture so we've resisted that request we're keeping the level of funding flat in cash terms in the budget which appreciate will come under pressure and that's why it's important to make the point as I did to earlier question about the forthcoming spending review and we need to look seriously at is the amount of resource going to deliver the 10,000 hectares for the long term we've got a challenge I think bringing forward land from the private sector so Mr Farker's right in the sense that there's a challenge there except there's a challenge to get that to happen quickly but we need to look and if we can get the incentives right then that is possible to do so but it's a choice for Parliament it's a choice for society do we have take the funding and give that to Forest Commission to expand the amount of land owned by the Forest Commission through the National Forest State on behalf of ministers and plant trees there or do we work with the private sector to deliver planting and I think there's a lot more that could be done with farmers for example agroforest is something that's of interest we could work with farmers to come up with schemes which are maybe slightly bigger than they've done in the past to make them to more commercial scale extraction and we could work with the farming industry to emulate what's done in the continent or perhaps it's seen as a long-term investment a long-term equity investment on the behalf of farmers to have some forestry planting that they can harvest at a suitable time in the future so there's lots of different models we can do but I accept the point it's a challenge but it's not a simple challenge to address which is the overarching view I'd like to give okay okay okay right Claudia Beamish followed by Rod Campbell thank you, convener but it was about agroforestry or silver pasture depending on your perspective and so I'm glad the ministers highlighted that so I don't have a question now thank you very much Rod Campbell followed by Jim Hew morning I just wanted to probe you a little more on the question of incentives for the private sector touched on a little bit in the last couple of minutes but really obviously in a time of financial constraints how far can you think outside the box as it were to try to encourage production as it were without straining the budget? Well it is an enormous challenge we do have Mr Campbell is quite right we do have a constrained pillar 2 budget to play with and therefore the ability to invest in everything we'd like I mean if we were emulating Ireland for example or other countries we've had as I say we've had this debate we could've ended up with an extra two and a half billion euros to spend over the period up to 2020 which would have had an enormous benefit in finding additional funding not just for forestry but for all sorts of other agri-environment schemes too so but we are where we are so we have to work within the budgets we have available to us clearly there was a lot of pressure on us to not spend even as much as we have on forestry from some stakeholders I think we've got to recognise that forestry is an extremely important sector to rural economy and so therefore we and indeed of carbon sequestration potential for impact in terms of woodland birds early stages of planting are enormously helpful to some of our woodland bird species as well so for very very many reasons we resisted they are just to from some to lower the forestry budget but we don't have much scope to increase the budget at this time and within the spending view but I think it's the kind of thing we need to take away in terms of the next spending view look at the priorities that we have through the 10,000 hectare average figure that Mr Ferguson is referring to is extremely important target for us and we can only afford a certain amount of slippage on that for obvious reasons in terms of RPP2 so we need to make sure that we've got the momentum in terms of tree planting and going and if the incentives aren't delivering that then we need to look afresh at it so I've given Mr Campbell and indeed Mr Ferguson the assurance that that's something that will feature large in my own consideration of the budget going forward and my contributions to Mr Swinney's deliberations Okay Jim you Thanks convener it was just your point about working with industry to perhaps look at the forestry as a potential other crop or of course something that you can actually heat your home with I think regarding biomass it's about one hectare that you need to continually seriously heat your home if you're planting and harvesting on a rota sort of system but of course there's a large percentage in fact about 50% in the Scottish borders area I think of land that is actually tenanted and therefore there's a problem for farmers planting trees because they're a tenant or they've got a short assured lason of for example if it's 15 years it takes 40 years to harvest it so but have yourself or some of your officials looked at that position where perhaps it could be seen as a crop and if the tenant had to go they could perhaps get a way go for the value of the crop even though it's only halfway through to its maturity I think that's a very interesting area to look at I'm not aware I mean I can check with the Johara in a second whether there's any work being done on that I know that I have asked colleagues in the Forest Commission to look at the wider agroforestry position Claudia Beamish I know is interested in as well as to what the potential might be I had a chance conversation with James Hutton Institute about this issue and they were looking at civil cultural position in Sweden and other countries where this is very much the norm obviously different maybe land ownership model and that may play a part but I haven't looked to that specific aspect of it but clearly we can either we can work with tenant farmers NFUS and SLE to try and come up with some sort of solution to that I know there are interesting initiatives being taken forward in terms of woodlots as well that's a number of landed interests are looking at to support indeed in Mr Ferguson's constituents I believe that the first one was actually deployed and I think that's a very interesting model as well which might allow a different model where probably if you like the tenant is leasing woodland on the land owners estate for that reason but aspect of a tenant perhaps having capital invested in forestry themselves and then maybe getting a way go with something I'm very happy to go away and have a look at and see if we can come back with a suggested way forward in that convener cos I think it's a good point that's been made I don't know if Joe O'Hara can maybe comment if she has or colleagues have looked at that already You haven't started yet it did come up obviously when I was here two weeks ago so but I've got it on the list of definitely one to be looking at it still seems to depend on the nature the exact nature of the lease of the tenancy agreement and it varies from one to the other but yeah it's definitely something we'll take forward on the cat Thanks Isn't it the case minister that the tenancy review group will be looking at way go generally and this will be one aspect to have that That is absolutely correct convener and we can maybe at this even at this late stage throw that into the mixes maybe something that could be taken into consideration I'm not sure if forestry or forestry investment has been looked at as a specific example what we can ask if that has been squared away in terms of the review group's work Okay, thank you and Joe O'Hara said that last time that no applications for planting had been refused due to a lack of money in the woodland grant budget so are additional incentives necessary to promote new woodland planting in the private sector and if the funding levels have not been a constraint I think there's obviously something convener that we need to keep an eye on whether the funding level itself is the problem include that's why I think we need to look at the next spending review to see if there is an issue we need to address that because I'm conscious that in recent years it's stayed pretty flat in terms of cash terms the amount of money we've had available However, as I understand it the main barrier we have to achieving our targets at the moment is the availability of sites now obviously the two things are linked I certainly appreciate that in terms of the incentives being essential to bring forward land but there's also been a degree of uncertainty about the cap reform position and what would come there after and generally speaking what the package would be hopefully we're getting through that and we would expect to see the clarity that there now is about the regime going forward helping to bring some project forward that may have been held in abeyance and to see what the future held for them so I hope that hiatus if you like will work its way through but we still may find ourselves in a position where we're not quite getting enough land coming forward to achieve our 10,000 hectares and so I certainly agree convener that we need to look at the incentives as to whether they are sufficient in the longer term to achieve that very important target I'd like to continue on that thread because thanks to a note from the Forestry Commission following the evidence session of fortnight ago we're reminded that the Woodland expansion and advisory group wanted to see tough guidelines about the way in which the Forestry Commission goes about buying land so first of all in that it's interesting for the record that 55% of these purchases are on the open market and 45% are off market so we'd know exactly what's happened in terms of the 55% but because of commercial incompetence we don't know why certain people have sold their land to the Forestry Commission as negotiated sales can you expand on that for our benefit because it seems to me that that might help our planting targets for a start well I certainly recognise the phenomenon quite often as I understand it through previous conversations I had with the director Bob McIntosh there have been examples where people are perhaps they don't want to kind of air their issues in public they'd rather go privately and see whether there's a potential for a sale as a kind of an easier route for them to get to disposal of land than going through a public sale I think it's true private house sales in other areas people sometimes do that for that reason I'm not sure why whether that applies to every person that goes forward in terms of a private sale to the Forestry Commission but I suppose the important issue is once the land is acquired if you like the same consultation the same regulation applies to the commission in terms of what they then do with that land so even once it's acquired we still have to go through the same process to consult with local agricultural interests and the local communities as to whether it's appropriate to plant up so the timescales are the same from that point of view and it doesn't facilitate any faster planting just because it's not gone through the sort of a public sale of the assets so I'm not sure if I maybe misunderstood the point of making a convener but I want to go on and make another point I'm sure to fire on so there's criticism from certain farming interests against the Forestry Commission you know buying land in this fashion so I think it's important in the context of that 55% in the open market 45% in the negotiated sales that we established where the pressure points are in fact there's a willing seller and that might well be the trigger for the Forestry Commission to move into a position where it can see the opportunity but be blamed by other parties because it's taken that opportunity to buy the land concerned Yeah well I think I do recognise the point you're making convener and the concerns there might be a local level about such transactions taking place obviously the commission and Forestry Enterprise Scotland are in a difficult position if someone's approaching them for a private sale and it's in commercial confidence to then consult local stakeholders are you happy with the Forestry Commission buying this land would be difficult because it was then breaching confidentiality of the agreement so there aren't any consultations to the local community then well in terms of the since late 2012 though I mean the Forestry Enterprise have written to all neighbours following a land purchase so I suppose you still got the position that before anything is it is after the sale I appreciate that but you know before anything is done in terms of taking forward a change in use or forestry planting on the land consultation then does take place so we have you know if you like the safeguard that if that proves to be an absolute deal breaker for the community locally then potentially the land could be either used for agriculture or sold off and potentially if that's not possible to take forward as a forestry project so I appreciate it's not perhaps the answer that you're looking for a computer but at least there's an assurance that since certainly since late 2012 as part of the kind of impact of WEAG as a process there is now a immediate consultation with stakeholders once the land is purchased to ensure that they're aware of what's happened and what potentially the land might be used for and that can put in their views but it's not just about communities it's about individuals who might feel that they could have used the land that the Forestry Commission has in a sense outbid them to purchase it if it's in the open market and secondly that it's all very well talking about communities but there might be neighbours who actually feel that they could have used the land and the way in which the Forestry Commission responds to that will be something we'll want to explore in the future because I think we need to know more about questions why land can be sold privately without us knowing why Well, I mean it's worth pointing out that it's not with any desire on the part of the Forestry Commission to subvert any processes that might involve the community here we have a challenge as the commission does to look for good sites to invest in forestry in the national interest and that is part of their job and so therefore if they're finding sites that are being offered to them at a reasonable price I think it would be unreasonable to suggest that that's not something that they should take for legitimacy but I do take the point about community consultation it's worth also stating that where FES do ultimately purchase the land then that land and community organisations locally would then become eligible to lease or purchase that land under the national forest land scheme as well it doesn't address the point about the neighbouring farm perhaps that wanted a bit of extra land but the wee ag process would reveal if there's land there that was best kept as agricultural land as we've obviously created a number of starter farms and in recent times through this process that potentially if there's someone that could lease that land from us it's not viable perhaps as a starter farm but it was available maybe to extend their own farm holding they could potentially look at leasing that land from the commission so the forestry commission is not in the business of farming but it is in creating opportunities for new entrants to farming but we can obviously look at that issue convener and that's helpful to discuss just now and I'm quite sure that we'll come back to this and Dave Thomson thank you convener just a very quick follow-up to that very interesting discussion there it just strikes me that later on this morning we're going to be looking at the community empowerment bill and community right to buy and there's a possible conflict of interest or a dichotomy at least in relation to secret sales and how that will impact in relation to community empowerment and community right to buy because if communities don't know something is being sold they wouldn't be able to exercise their rights so I think the minister maybe needs to think a bit more through in relation to the connection there well I mean if I can say first thing I would do and I genuinely would encourage communities to do this my team small team would probably hate me for saying so but because they'd be overworked but I would encourage communities that have an interest in land for that reason to register an interest in the land because they then get a preemptive right to buy the land if it is up for sale it would be illegal for the landowner to sell the land if it's being that there's a registered interest community to then sell it privately to whether it's to the forest commission or anybody else so it's an interest to the community if they do want to see that asset potentially even if they're not absolutely certain if they've got a good case to say why that would be in the community's interest then please do you know approach us for advice about how to register an interest in the in the land to make sure that they're not left out of the process that they're not left out of consultation on the future of that site but I do take the point about you know the wider community empowerment agenda and I think it's very very important the commission as our other agencies of government looking at how best we can engage in that process how best forest commission the SNH Scarpids more generally are able to facilitate community projects community ownership at a local level and as I say once we've acquired land it is available then under national forest land scheme if it's surplus to to our requirements certainly the the community would have the ability under national forest land scheme to bid for that land and to have the opportunity to buy it with our support so I would hope there are some safeguards there but I'm always interested if there are improvements we can make and certainly if the committee do have any recommendations in that area I would certainly look at them seriously as to how we can you know demonstrate best practice in this area yeah thank you minister for that it can be very very quickly yeah I accept what you're saying there but it and we will be discussing it later on so I'll not labour the point but it does raise the whole question of whether there should be a need to register in the first place and if there's no need to register put a different complexion on the whole thing but we will be discussing this later and it's appointed I'm going to be raising A final comment minister and we're talking about a land use strategy at a higher level we obviously need to have a much more detailed land use strategies at local levels in order to anticipate potential uses for particular land whoever owns it at the present time I agree with you convener the two interesting piece of work we're doing on regional land use framework pilots in Aberdeenshire and Scottish Boroughs are not intended to be the beel on the end all they are if you like an exploratory exercise to understand how we can use grassroots feedback into the into the land use planning process how that then ties into the development planning process of local authorities as well so we can identify what the community's aspirations are for the land how it can be used in their area have that reflected in development planning documentation of the local authorities and therefore obviously then that having an influence on projects that then come forward making sure that the opportunities that have been identified by communities are not missed something because it's been passed in the past perhaps top down in terms of how land use has been determined so I do recognise very much the grassroots element to that and that's a really important innovation and I would hope that we'll learn enough from the two pilots to come up with a model that can then be rolled out across the whole country in terms of involving communities in that process When shall we be hearing the results of these pilots? I'll come back to convener I forget maybe it's old age but I forget the time scales we have for that but it will come back to the committee following the meeting on that Hi, being a minister leads on feelings of old age Sometimes it does yes Moving from community health on to tree health Angus MacDonald Thank you convener Good morning minister Morning Clearly over the past a couple of years we've had serious tree health issues in Scotland not least for example I should die back and ramorom to name but two In its evidence on the draft budget to the RSPB to the committee the RSPB highlighted the importance of the the Forestry Commission's monitoring and research work with regard to tree health However it states that the scale of these programmes needs to be enhanced another evidence stressed importance of work one tree and plant health and also Nigel Miller the outgoing president of the NFUS said to committee on the 5th of November another basic issue is plant health and research for which there is a flat budget we seem to be facing a minor crisis as far as three diseases go Can you explain to the committee minister the full provision for tree health and the budget and can you reassure this committee and stakeholders that this will be sufficient to meet future challenges with regard to tree and plant diseases Thank you for that question I mean I if I can say it I'll bring Jo Hoare in the detail of what we are spending on this but tree health I certainly recognise Mr Macdonald's point and indeed those of the stakeholders in previous weeks that it's an area of growing importance it's obviously linked to climate change in some respects that we are encountering a bigger problem with tree diseases and pests than perhaps we have in the past it's a growing area I think of concern for us given the I've visited Dumfries and Galloway and saw the horrendous damage that was caused by phytophthoromorum in the Galloway forest area not only to the national forest estate assets but also to the wider private sector owned forests in Galloway it's immediately obvious unfortunately as I'm sure Mr Ferguson will recognise Mr Hume that if you and indeed Claudia Beamish when you visit the region the in the highest summer and see brown trees everywhere the large trees having been killed by phytophthoromorum and very quickly has to be said that no we've got a real challenge add to that Dothostroma pineadol blight calar ash die back as you mentioned we've got a number of threats that faces at the moment so we have you know put in the process trying to increase the budget for for plant and tree health issues it's not I'll be honest it's not as much as I would like to see invest in this area but we are constrained obviously in terms of our budget at this time and but I certainly want to give the the reassurance to committee it's an area that is recognised as being a growing area of concern it's one that you know where I can do I will look to put additional resource into it we've got a very important relationship with forest research which is currently funded largely by DEFRA not funded obviously in the event of a different result in September that might have had a different conclusion as to future funding of of the likes of forest research but we are you know it's currently largely funded by by DEFRA but we work very closely with forest research so some of the if you like the funded activity that's dealing with plant and tree health is not actually showing up in our accounts because it's currently funded from elsewhere on our behalf so we recognise the scale of the challenge and the need to put resource in but at that point if I may convener hand over to Johar to talk about the detail of what is actually being spent pleased to do it okay um as the minister said that the money that's in the DEFRA vote on our behalf I think we're currently talking in the round the range of around two and a half million around the whole issue of forest resilience and tree health within the research budget but that's in the process of being worked up at the moment there's also the money in the resas strategic research programme which also is also in the process of being worked up at the moment as it's a five year programme so there are a number of other headings where this comes under as regards the forestry commission heading we have three million of additional funding next year specifically highlighted for tree health a million of that is with forest enterprise this is primarily going on roading to get at the diseased larch in galloway and also the additional restocking because we've we've been trying to working to harvest additional larch when it's been diseased so that we don't get all of the inoculum then spreading further from the outbreak in 2012 so there's a million an additional an FES on on tree health we're putting when the new s.r.d.p. opens in March there's a half a million pounds in there which is to fund private sector for replanting cleared infected sites and we're also identified another half a million that will supplement that with for a similar scheme that's that's not included in s.r.d.p.e.u funding that's purely Scottish Government funding coming from forestry commission budget and then there's on top of that there's another million and a half which is going on surveillance so we do extents of helicopter surveillance each year to see whether the disease has spread so luckily this year as a result of that we noticed that there wasn't a big expansion that we'd had in the previous year we've also recruited and then the process of recruiting three new staff to to support folk in the field in the north and in the south and also some of that money is going on improved diagnostics so when the public see a disease tree or have disease trees on their land we can work out whether exactly it is phytothra so is that the right sort of level of detail for you we could get if it's helpful can be done if you may not have caught all of that or did the first report me enough caught all of that we can supply that that detail in a foot supplementary letter if that would be of help very helpful but you know is there a total that you can give us for those I will have to rely on Joe Hara for that I'm afraid because we're trying to establish what's in our budget and what's in other additional money three million is a right in total sorry I can just give you the forestry because three million within our budget and a half a million that's within the SRDP money for next year that's additional funding but we can try and convener if it be helpful pull together the totality of what's happening both in terms of funding which is out with the scots government per view going through forestry search defra funding so you've got a comprehensive picture of what's being spent in Scotland on tree health if that would be of assistance yeah that would be a help indeed okay that rod camby yeah um morning I noticed in the oral evidence that you gave to the committee on the 5th of November Sahara you referred to the role of large local nurses nurseries and said that you had strict to plant health controls and enforcement where does that feature in the budget we that featured in the previous two years budget where we funded I don't have the exact figure a transition plan for nurseries so that they could introduce better phytosametry conditions in the beds to try and reduce the contamination of trees in the in the beds and then taking them out to the nursery we work closely with nursery representatives who the tree health advisory group very closely with them by the lot of support on the field of but on the grams advisory support and diagnostic work with them in terms of identity additional grant funding for it it's that the money that we've paid and I can come back in terms of to come back to the committee in terms of how much we've spent and getting them to a position where they are more resilient going forward to dealing with these plant health outbreaks when they take place I don't have a ring fence budget for that going forward okay just adding for Mr Campbell's benefit that you may not be aware that we under our current convention we don't we don't fund you know the recovery of losses on the part of nursery so it explains why the actions that are being taken are about the the sort of sanitary aspects if you like of the operations of the nurseries rather than dealing with the cost of of the stock that's lost through disease outbreaks it's just a it's a historic convention it applies across the whole of the UK in terms of the the actions we take to to support nurseries we we do it through improving their performance for the future and improving the sanitary procedures in the future rather than dealing with the cost of losses okay thank you Jim Hume thanks convener just on that point and nurseries of course not all the stock that is planted in Scotland comes from Scotland or even the UK and it can be coming from very large nurseries and hence perhaps we're seeing jumps of diseases several hundred miles is there any work within the budget or elsewhere regarding looking at perhaps smaller nurseries or more localised nurseries so we don't perhaps have this jumping off disease several hundred miles I certainly agree with Mr Hume it's a risk it's a known risk that may have played a part in some disease outbreaks I believe you know certainly the work that's been done by scientific officers working for DEFRA on behalf of all the administrations across the UK have indicated in the case of Calara that there may have been climatic or at least weather-related sources of the spread of the disease but it's not helped when you have material being brought in that perhaps was diseased from elsewhere in offices once it was in the UK it's been migrated around the UK by by planting of infected products from nurseries to other sites and that's been a dominant feature of the the sort of migration of the disease within the UK so we do have a challenge there we are working with DEFRA to tighten up the importing the regulations regarding imported products to the UK and we've had some success I'm grateful to DEFRA colleagues for taking on board our concerns about pine products which are obviously particularly important to Scotland and there have been additional measures taken to restrict the importation of products relating to pine and conifer so that is sort of an example of where we've been working to try and eliminate some of the potential vectors of disease coming into what's a very important part of our forestry estate in Scotland and clearly there are other issues the Lappet Moth has obviously been brought in on some point imported to the UK we believe rather than actually coming naturally but you know that's another example we have to be very careful about beetles, larvae and indeed moths and another invertebrots that may be coming on products to the UK and therefore can spread to our own forest assets so it's a mixture of money yes and obviously we can look at giving detail of what we're spending in that area but also regulation can play an important part in inverting future costs to us and the whole invasive non-native species agenda of course you'll be aware of is another area we have to look at I'll move on from planting trees to removing them now peatlands Minister what contribution will 10 million pounds funding in the 2015-16 for peatland restoration make towards achieving the emission reductions set out in rpp2 for peatland restoration it's an important start I mean I recognise we have in the rpp2 terms a total economy cost about 230 million I think between 2013-2027 in terms of the expectation of investment so the 5 million pounds that we're spending in the current year the 10 million and next are an important start in that process but I've just emphasised that the rpp2 refers to whole economy costs so it's important to recognise the 10 million particularly important the 10 million next year has been delivered to SRDP we would hope that will attract and lever in private sector money third sector money to supplement that and we'll hopefully get more than 10 millions worth of peatland restoration projects in that year I understand we can maybe bring in Neil Richard briefly in due course on the detail that we have made good progress this year with the initial 5 million we have over 100 sites identified for investment and we're confident that we can deliver on the initial 5 million in this current financial year the challenge is next year and a similar argument to the peatland sorry the forestry debate we've just been having about bringing forward sites it's to bring forward the scale of and a number of sites we need to deliver potentially it's certainly hopefully 10 million plus pounds worth of projects in the forthcoming year but the development of the peatland plan and the peatland code indeed will help bring in additional partners to that we hope and I just point the most high profile site we are aware of obviously forsonards in the community's own constituency is one which is a partnership between RSPB a private land owner and obviously with government funding support so it's a kind of a cocktail mix where we need different partners to work together on a landscape scale solution to get the kind of quality of projects we're looking for but if I may convener if you have permission bring in Neil Ritchie just to talk about progress to date yeah no I think don't think as much I can add to what myns has said and what Alan Hampson from the Scottish Natural Heritage said to the committee last week where in terms of the total of 15 million we're giving in the spending review last year where S&H is making good progress in terms of actually allocating that and getting uptake this year and actually is looking likely we may actually be exceeding the 6000 hectare target that we set for those figures I think one of the biggest lessons I'm taking from the experience we've had over the last year in terms of allocating us money is a lot of things aren't just about the money it's a lot of it it's about capacity building it's actually providing some of the tools some of the awareness about approaches to restoration understanding of the benefits out there and as well as supporting the innovative approaches like the peatland code which is aimed at developing corporate social responsibility market that will take time to develop it but that work that is really coming together and I think we're making good progress with standards and good stead and in terms of next year we are retaining about 500,000 pounds outside of that 10 million to support SNH's work in terms of promoting peatland restoration within the context of the SRDP and wider resources as well as actually helping to maintain this capacity building approach which I think is showing good feedback from some of the key stakeholders I'm sure that we could do with a detailed discussion about this at some point but in terms of this budget you provided a little bit there but is there more detail on how the budget allocated to peatlands will be spent other than what you've said just now that you can tell us? I think that we can happily come back to the committee with just a fuller exposition of what is currently being done and the approaches being taken to deliver the initial 5 million which give you hopefully give you confidence as a committee that there is good work that has been done as Neil Ritchie has indicated I refer back to Alan Hampson's points last week on the up to 6,000 around 6,000 hectares of peatland being delivered and we can obviously try and verify that figure for you to make sure you have confidence that's accurate So can you give the committee reassurance that this will achieve the optimal results in terms of greenhouse gas emissions and other multiple benefits? Well, certainly convener I give you a commitment that we are trying to do exactly that what we still don't have from a point of view of inventory is an accurate picture as to what factors we can apply to peatland investment in terms of the impact on our abatement and obviously we're working to try and develop a specific set of figures as we can which fully reflect what we believe to be a genuinely positive impact of investment in peatland The figures that we have available to us today are too generic and they are undersell I think the investment in peatland and its impact on climate change so it's one area that we're obviously working on as part of the development of the greenhouse gas inventory to get as accurate a figure as possible So once we've got that we will know exactly how effective our spend is being but I think the message I would give to committee is that we believe where we are optimising the use of the money we have available to us at this moment in time obviously we will learn from that initial tranche of projects what works, what doesn't and we'd hope to make sure it's an iterative process that we learn as we go along and further enhance the effect of the spend as we develop our approach but once we've got those inventory figures we'll have a better ability to inform future investment in peatland and make sure we get the best bank for our bucks I'm sure that we'll bear in mind both the deep peats in the Thorsinard in places like it but also the raised bogs in the lowlands in that thinking because the RSBB have highlighted the importance of on-going maintenance of peatlands once we start to find them in a reasonable state and condition So what about the funding for peatland maintenance? Is that quantifiable? Is peatland maintenance likely to fulfill of active management requirements in the SRDP? I believe that when we're certainly aware of the convener of the active management concerns and we obviously can come back to that point in terms of trying to look at the detail of what's in there we don't believe that we should correct myself we believe that we can work around that there are obviously we're aware of the concerns in some cases peatlands can be well maintained by a low degree level of grazing I've certainly seen that RSBB reserve at Loch Leven and Fife where there's low intensity grazing by cattle I believe on some sheep but it's just keep the condition of the wetland in very good order so we need to look at the balance here but we are conscious of the need to avoid having unintended consequences of the CAP active management sort of regulations so that's something we're alert to and we can come back to the committee of a more considered response on that clearly when we're thinking about the budgets effectiveness that's quite important if that could be done for us soon move on to equality issues including age Claudia Beamish thank you convener could I highlight tune minister that as you well know but just for the record that in relation to the protected characteristics that there is a statutory obligation on us all to look at supporting those groups within that and the committee had deliberations about that and thought that without excluding other areas other groups that we would look at age this time and so if I could ask you about the interesting evidence that came forward last week and if you can have any comments about that which was in relation to the forest policy group and I'll just read briefly from that evidence just to remind us all about it particularly with an emphasis on on young people I should say in terms of age though not exclusively of course that the forest group forest policy group supports the idea of the forestry commission providing opportunities for new entrants to farming but encourages encourages the forestry commission to develop parallel ideas on how to extend the tenure and management of forest to sectors of society who have been effectively being excluded from the involvement in forestry in the past the focus for encouraging new entrants to forestry should not be solely on communities so this is important but should also include people of ordinary means especially those living in rural areas and the FPG considers that this is sufficiently important to warrant featuring in the aims of the budget alongside the mention of new entrants to farming so I wonder if if you could comment on that minister and how that might be taken forward Well, I certainly recognise I think further on to to woodlots and I think that's that's been one just one potential measure that's been brought forward by the industry working with landowners to explore how you can get new entrants into into forestry clearly we are working in parallel fields to try and get new entrants into crofting as well so it's not just farming I very much think it's very very important we worked hard to encourage new entrants into all areas of rural land use so in terms of forestry clearly there are opportunities as as Claudia Beamish has quite really said about communities and that's been well discussed and this was as relatively transparent how communities can take over forest assets and manage them themselves so it does offer the opportunity for those communities to provide themselves a solution to get new entrants into forestry at a local level but I take the point that there's maybe more work that can be done by the commission but to look at how we can bring new entrants in there are opportunities to lease for certainly communities to lease for us but not necessarily individuals in that sense and I'm sympathetic the points we made I think before by by both Woodland and Crofts grouping to sort of look at how we can create new Woodland Crofts which is another entry way into forestry and have unfortunately it's not been an opportunity that's come forward so far but in the repositioning programme where we've been disposing of sites of and officials will recognise I've explored a few times occasions where whether it would be possible to create some sites for Woodland Crofts out of the process or indeed when we're acquiring forest whether we can create them at that point as well so I will give an undertaking to to Claudia Beamish and the committee that's something I take a keen interest in the opportunities haven't yet arisen but I am continuing to look for those opportunities how we can create more Woodland Crofts and indeed had a productive discussion with the Woodland lots association when they had a private members' debate in parliament about what they could do with the commission and I know they want to work more closely with the commission to see if there are a lot of opportunities on the national forest estate so that's something that we can come back to the committee on with a considered view I don't know to what extent there's been work done already since that meeting by the commission committee I don't know whether Joe O'Hara can be comment if anything has been taken forward or not but it's something I'm keen to explore myself Yes, I've mentioned to the committee last time I was here we're working closely with the community Woodlots association the with the Woodlots association and we've provided funding and advice and we're working with them to take forward that project further which I think Claudia Beamish is aware of so very much so And if I'm making me just add a point that struggling to find information in front of me but we have I know done a lot of work in trying to I think it's almost I think 95 are there abouts apprentices and trainees we've brought through in terms of developing their skills so these individuals may obviously develop skills and therefore may provide the future source from which people can then take on themselves management of assets for themselves rather than through the commission so we've got an important role to play as in the industry in helping to train the workforce of the future people who have the appropriate skills to perhaps manage for us as individuals or indeed communities in the future so that's another important dimension of the work we do through rural affairs portfolio but specific in this case of forestry commission right so through the convener but bearing in mind that all that unless I'm I'm wrong is about leasing are there any opportunities that would support the purchase of forest land from the forestry commission which relates to young and some and new entrants and could that if not could that be looked at those ministers? I'm happy to look at the issue I'm not aware of an equivalent to the you know entrance schemes for new farmers for example to provide you know grant funding for people to to set up their own woodland operation and so we can look at what you know what scope there is with an existing support mechanisms for that to be facilitated but it's an interesting point I'm not aware of anything myself but I don't know if Joe Harock and I don't think I've missed in terms of grant schemes that would support the very idea that Claudia Beamish has raised important thing with starter farms is they are tenant farmers and they're on there to get themselves set up so that they can get to the farm payment going forward so that would probably be around a tenancy roll the other thing that I might remind the committee about is the lotting of sales so when we do put land up for sale forest enterprise has been identifying much smaller pieces to market so rather than marking it all as one breaking it up so that a wider range of people might be able to bid for it We just had to be in a content conscious of a couple of high profile ones that have happened recently that certainly in the one in row cell forest we looked at all sorts of opportunities there and it was deemed because the quality the asset and the lack of infrastructure in the site it would wouldn't lend itself to lotting to small areas and maybe even creating woodland cross I specifically looked at that opportunity there I thought it might be quite neat to if you like redress histories damage to to that community to try and look at saving and bring people back to work in the countryside in that area but it was deemed to be potentially a the wrong opportunity to create that in terms of lack of infrastructure for small crossed operations within a very large land holding but it's something that we can look at and in lotting as Joe has said is another way of doing it whether they're the right size of lots is an issue and I appreciate obviously take some capital to invest in a forestry operation whether people have got that capital so I will have a look given commitment to Claudia Beamish to have a look at what we could do on that front and whether it's possible to come up with a similar scheme recognise the very long term investment that's required in forestry as opposed to farming which is more immediate in terms of its impact You said that the capacity building nature of whether a community could take something like that on is even more extended in places with so few people Absolutely convener and surrounds the area that Russell is in and the north coast is clearly an area which needs to have that capacity bill in order to be able to have the confidence to try and take on Absolutely convener I recognise that and indeed I'm aware in the Russell forest area that the community is struggling to even maintain a retained fire service because of the age structure of the population so that was why we explored the opportunities to try and create sort of smaller units and get some population in there to work the forest but it just didn't happen in this case Right, next question from Cara Hilton Thanks convener Good morning minister Just looking at the equality statement that's published alongside the draft budget I'd like to ask what the improved data shows with regard to the use of outdoors and green space and how organisations like Scottish National Heritage will take this data on the account of making their spending plans Thank you, I mean that these are really important issues I'm conscious when I go around visiting projects where we have invested either SNH or the Forest Commission have invested how much additional work is now going on to making them accessible to all ages all abilities and that's a very important part of what we are trying to do and indeed it's an ethos that carries through the Woodlands and Around Towns initiative as well the precise purpose of that project is to try and create opportunities for people regardless of their abilities ages to access the countryside and to get the health benefits both physical and mental health and wellbeing benefits of using those assets but it's certainly worth saying that SNH has certainly been improving the range and quality of data that is available to us in this area and the latest survey results which included questions on the frequency of visits frequency of use ease of access to Scotland's outdoors as well as satisfaction with the green space that's being used and the impact of green space on mental health the data indicates that 46% of adults made one or more visit to the outdoors per week in 2013 compared with 42% in 2012 now there may well be an element of the year of natural Scotland boosting those figures and I would hope that the investment in the year of natural Scotland had some impact there so the challenge is to make sure we try and maintain that increased level of activity for future years so I recognise that but that compares with say 44% 2006 so it does show it goes up and down over the time at the same time we know a quarter of the population never go outdoors in any kind of sense that we would regard going outdoors with participation lower in certain social and economic groups poor health with poor health the second most common reason for not participating so people have physical capability issues obviously it's a major limiting factor in terms of accessing the outdoors and that's why it's so important we do the work we do and putting in as best we can level paths and smooth surfaces so people can use wheelchairs and zimmer frames and other mobility devices to get around but increasing participation in these groups is of course relevant across several government departments it's not just a rural affairs issue we have played our part in the health inequalities working group trying to bring forward what we can do in terms of as Harry Burns called them green prescriptions and he was very much of a mind that they were more effective than pharmacological prescriptions in many cases particularly for stress related conditions and mental health conditions but it's also a challenge that's recognised in the 20 biodiversity strategy as well in terms of something that we need to do more on so I hope that it helps to give a flavour as to where we are at at least but we do recognise we need to keep doing more on that and particularly to help people who have got physical infirmities and who have got age-related conditions that are preventing them accessing the countryside okay fine moving on on the equalities statement Rod Campbell Minister can you just update us on where we are with domestic climate justice and how much impact that's had on the budget and what the future holds well it's an obviously the climate justice agenda up to now has largely focused on international climate justice efforts but we have been sort of increasingly looking at what we can do on domestic front I commissioned research on the exposure of individuals to flood risk and looked at particularly at the relationship between income and other inequalities if you like and flood risk and there is certainly a number of communities that have been identified across scotland where that is a particular challenge I think the methodological sort of issues have meant you know there have been sort of changes in some respects to perhaps our assumptions about where those communities would be and we're obviously constantly reviewing this but the work we have set out in terms of investment in Crichton campus in Dumfries where we are looking at establishing research excellence there at least networked across scotland making access to taking advantage of the capabilities I have across scotland will enable us to perhaps put a more of a focus on how we can channel research to look at issues as to how Scotland adapts to climate change how we deal with issues like flood risk working with other groups like climate exchange the we have centres of excellence in places like Dundee Sterling Edinburgh universities as well so we are putting more effort into researching this issue with the long-term objective of informing our policy in areas such as flood risk management and wider adaptation issues to climate change which obviously go well beyond just flooding thank you no further supplementaries on that well thank you very much minister and your team of officials for this set of evidence we look forward to responding to this in our remarks to the finance committee on the budget and with the help of your supplementary evidence that you'll provide us with we'll try and make it as comprehensive as possible so thank you very much for that thank you committee we'll have a brief suspension just now for about five minutes I think before the change over to the next item we'll restart the committee just now with agenda item five on the community empowerment scotland bill on the fifth item today is for the committee to take evidence on this bill from the bill team and we welcome the Dave Thompson the head of land reform policy team Ian Turner the community empowerment team leader and Rachel Rainer a lawyer for the Scottish Government welcome to you all and we refer members to the papers concerned and I'll kick off with a question about him since land reform is a specific policy area many aspects of which sit outside the public sector reform agenda is the bill team satisfied that the dialogue and the consultation with stakeholders on community right to buy and crofting community right to buy has been timely sufficient and proportionate and thank you I think Ian would be best place to see in a consultation having me involved with the bill team as a whole yeah in terms of the consultation on the bill and community right to buy as was originally set out there was an exploration consultation was held in 2012 paper was produced ministers and officials went on a series of visits conferences and road shows which were done in collaboration with COSLA around the country with a range of people and organisations now it wasn't just on community right to buy it was on community empowerment as a whole but it was community right to buy was in there there was 447 responses were received on that and the analysis was published in 2013 then following that and more specific consultation a second consultation was done in late 2013 on the topics for inclusion in the bill and on community right to buy this included improvements to the process extension of community right to buy to all of Scotland and also the potential to include provisions on abandoned non-neglected land again a series of meetings and events were undertaken throughout that consultation and 424 responses overall were received an independent analysis commissioned and published on 12th of June 2014 the majority of the responses in that consultation were in favour of the community right to buy elements being taken forward in legislation and that's kind of where we got up to up to the introduction of the bill at that stage as part of when we gave evidence to local government committee in September we've provided some further details to the clerk following our evidence session in a letter to them I'm not too sure if you've seen that so more than happy to provide that as well if there's more details on that That would be very helpful indeed The draft bill didn't contain any clauses with regard to the subject we're discussing in part 4 now The bill didn't but the consultation included questions on community right to buy we didn't have a draft bill element of that So when you said the majority were in favour what sort of size of majority and what sort of detail The 93% were in favour of extending the community right to buy to the oil at Scotland and 83% agreed that there should be a right to acquire land without a willing seller in those terms and on the improvements there was a set of questions which were done on those and in general the majority were in favour of each of those improvements to the bill A large majority It varied depending on the question but in general there was a large majority for most of them, yes Okay, well in that case because it sits more generally in the land reform agenda why is part 4 provision not included in the land reform legislation The initial phase of the the commitment included the changes in the community empowerment bill the fact that it was included in that was obviously there's the very clear connection between community empowerment and right to buy various studies of shown examples of where it works and it was largely in there because it was felt there was over the 10 years of using what was parts 3 and 2 of the land reform act there's been various areas highlighted which need improvement and it's felt better to take action to improve those now while we had this chance rather than wait until some future potential one and it fits very nicely and with community empowerment as a whole as a theme Okay, right that's fine for a start I'm Alec Ferguson Can we supplementary on just one specific aspect that Mr Turner mentioned which was the percentage of people who'd responded saying they approved of a community right to buy without a willing seller was that under the terms of conditions as detailed in the bill or just in general? It was in general it was in terms of a question rather than in terms of specific provisions Right, so it obviously because there was no because there wasn't a draft bill yes it was just in terms they weren't aware of No, that question was not answered in relation to the bill purely as a general question Yeah Right, so I just wanted to clarify that I wonder if I can move on to the policy memorandum particularly in relation to our job which is to try and effectively scrutinise part 4 we are aware that last June the convener of the local government regeneration committee wrote to the minister in fairly critical terms about the policy memorandum stating that it was little more than a superficial overview I know that some more detail has been provided since but I wonder if I can given that the there are only really three pages on part 4 on the policy memorandum and a large number of detail is preceded in just seven bullet points do you feel that enough information is now provided to fully explain the purpose and the intentions of the bill in relation to allowing us to properly scrutinise the part 4 Short answer is yes Given the additional information that's come forward through Finance committee, Delegate powers, Law Reform committee and the local government committee themselves continued engagement with stakeholders I think we've expanded on what was originally the policy memorandum to allow a good level of scrutiny by yourselves How do you strike a balance between if you like encouraging public dialogue and participation one of the buzzwords lately and providing you know and other words making it simple enough for people to engage with but also providing enough detail for you know to really make it clear exactly what the intentions are I think in the policy memorandum that the bill team produced an easy to read guide Yes, we also produced an easy read guide which works alongside the policy memorandum which goes into all the parts and has been ruddly welcomed I think by most stakeholders as an easy way in to the bill to sit alongside the accompanying documents as well Okay, thank you Right, the financial memorandum Good morning to everybody The financial memorandum says there's a large degree of uncertainty on the level of costs I would just be interested in the bill's team view on where the largest area of potential cost is anticipated for for communities and landowners and obviously just why does the financial memorandum not provide a range of potential costs in these areas I mean I think the overall just of it is the fact that the community empowerment and bill as a whole is introducing a much wider range of options for communities and I think as Mr Mackay was saying to the finance committee the fact that there is such a wide range and the options aren't endless as such but that they're numerous and it's very hard to say well there will be x of this type of community action there will be y of that type on the specific right to buy element of it we did put an estimate of the addition on the number of cases we thought would come through but again it is only an estimate of I think 5 to 10 a year the cost of those will obviously vary depending on what the community's wish to purchase so again we've based costs on this particular part of the bill on the previous years experience of cases coming through so you've got a range of costs for example for the ballot between one and five thousand that varies depending on how many people you're balloting so when you add up all these elements that are all ranges of costs it's very hard for the bill as a whole to put a cost on that I mean Ian may be able to to go into more detail on the process for the bill as a whole I think it's right the demand it's a demand driven element of the bill much like participation requests in part three and asset transfer in part five it depends on what it's a right for communities so it depends on what they want to do and how they want to take it forward which assets they want they want to acquire in that way so with local circumstances we'll dictate how much the bill is used and the extension into urban will no doubt arise in the number of right to bias we just don't know what that might be and what the features might be between that and asset transfer which is about acquiring public assets in that way so what the memorandum tries to do is put a unit cost on the various elements of it and those costs will apply in each case but an overall cost we won't know because of the demand driven elements of it Oh again I know on that very point to be well obviously always concerned about unintended consequences for any legislation just what funding schemes are available at communities to help them with some of this work and do you think an increase in demand for applications may have that unintended consequence of eating into another budget if there is one and there's certainly I mean there are a number of funding opens to community bodies through the likes of Highlands and Islands Enterprise from the land Scotland Scottish land fund and we're actively looking at and there's a commitment to extend the land fund that was made at the community land Scotland conference this year and we're actively looking at how that might be done and to what extent and obviously with the move of the right to buy into the urban situation that brings various different funding and schemes that weren't available through the rural only aspect of it so there are various options out there and we're making sure that as we we actively monitor the demand and the types of requests that are coming through that we tailor the funding to suit those and not just about funding but also the support and the advice to communities to make sure that they take the right options in the first place and it's not necessarily about ownership there are other options through the bill but again you know supporting and funding for housing is actively being looked at and will continue to be monitored right through anyway okay and just to follow on from that it's looking at perhaps costs for public bodies obviously there'll be some resource issues with public bodies I just wondered if you'd a good estimate of what potential costs there could be for public bodies and what support there may be if there is again a demand exceeding expectations yeah I mean this was something that was raised through the finance committee as well in the sense that we didn't have clear estimates of exactly what and for the same reasons as we don't know what the demands are going to be or the types of action that communities will take for the same reason that we can't estimate what the additional resource required from local authorities will be and to be fair you know correct me but I don't think they could estimate that in their submissions either if I remember it right now the local authorities generally couldn't provide individual figures and that was part of difficulty in costing the bill as a whole what Cosler did say is that individual elements of the bill won't be overly onerous for local authorities in that way and just to finally finish off on supplementary local authorities in section 22 have to take reasonable steps to ensure that the number of persons entered in the list for allotments are provided has been any thoughts on actually going a little bit further and putting a actual time limit on the time that local authorities have to provide allotments at the moment I believe it's it can take up to three years to get an allotment where I believe the Scottish Allotment and Garden Society are interested in making it a duty for the to be a three year maximum I'm afraid the allotments part of the book isn't particularly my strong point in me for people to give some detail on that but yeah yeah that's part seven of the bill short answer I think in order to make sure I get that right I think I'd have to get back to you properly on that we'll get back to you and write it okay thank you we move on to the delegated powers member random Kara Hilton thank you convener and good morning just looking at the delegated powers member random the delegated powers and law reform committee have raised concerns that section 97c3 on eligible abandoned or neglected land is very vague in respect of how this power is going to be used and the committee have also said that the government's explanation was inadequate in light of the significance of the power that it appears to permit so I'd be interested to hear more about what the thinking behind this power is in particular examples that demonstrate how this power might be used in practice and how ministers indeed intend to use this power I think the range of powers that are in that section of the bill that as you say are quite wide we're actively still discussing with stakeholders and to ensure that we cover all the nuances of this element I mean that that ensure that everybody at each point can come up with an example of what should or shouldn't be included in that and that'll differ between everybody and viewpoints and there will be more that come out as we go on so at the moment we're making sure that we can cover as much of that type of area as possible in terms of the specific powers Rachel may be better placed in terms of of dealing with what they actually cover from a legal sense and then I think we'll give examples of what sort of things we're looking at I mean I think I think the particular power is that you can say that is a 973A power which where land on which there is a building which is someone's home is not eligible land and there's a power to make exceptions to that and that whether there is a need for that is something that is being actively considered but the other but I think that was the power that was the most concern about when you come on to the other powers about providing that eligible land shouldn't include a land that's going to be set out in regulations that's pertaining to land which is someone's home so for example that could be private gardens or outbuildings I think we have some examples of how how we intend to use that I think it was this particular the 973A and that is under sort of active consideration as to whether you know it is still appropriate to take that power when will we get more detail about that particular area I got the sense that you were saying that we might well that it's under discussion the government needs to respond to the delegated powers committee report I think at the beginning at the beginning of December so we'll need to respond to that at that time okay we'll bear that one in mind thank you Claudia Beamish thank you convener and good morning to you all I'd like to turn us we've touched briefly the internally you've already touched on the issue of the nature of of the land in which interests may be registered and at present as I understand at the right to buy provisions of part 2 of the 2003 act apply only to community bodies representing rural areas under 10 000 and section 27 of the bill amends the definition of registrable land and the power of Scottish ministers to define excluded land which you've touched on in relation to housing but there may be other categories as well so community right to buy applies would now apply across Scotland I would like to just explore with with you as a bill team further how community confidence cohesion and sustainability will be affected by extending the community right to buy in your view and what evidence is there to demonstrate this and whilst the 2013 consultation demonstrated widespread support as has already been highlighted for the extension community right to buy what evidence is there that this new right to buy will be used and that's a neutral question again I'll handle it and to to maybe comment on the the consultation process and what they've found through the course of that but I think in general terms and certainly some missions to us through this and through the likes of the land reform review group for example we have certainly got the overwhelming feeling that this is exactly the sort of thing that the communities would like to to as you say to use the buzzword empower themselves but essentially it's to give them the essentially the right to decide what they want to do with their own future and to give them the means to to affect that I mean specific evidence I think that you might be able to to comment a little better on terms of what they found during the course of the consultation it's actually a very difficult question to ask answer in terms of evidence because it does depend on what communities themselves will want to do with the power it's much like community empowerment as a whole is about devolving as much power to communities to take the decisions they want to take so how they want to do it and the way in which they want to do it we want to make sure that it's it's for them to do and it's not for authorities it's not for other people to set their agenda it's for them to do their own I think in general the 2003 act and community right advice has been seen as a success and actually so it's been a success for rural Scotland then it could be a success for the rest of Scotland as well and I think that's what during the consultation and during discussions with stakeholders it's very much feels like that in terms of how they will see it in that way as for the actual evidence is that going to happen I think that we're only actually going to see that in practice when we actually see the bill being used in that way Right I've just got two brief supplementaries on that for the team Could you say whether the there are any practical problems from your perception of extending community right to by to urban areas for instance how ministers will differentiate between conflicting applications for the same piece of land and building and I'll ask for a response to that and then there's another brief supplementary as well Okay I mean practical issues I think that are that are are more readily are more obvious are the likes of there are there are obviously more people within the the area in an urban situation and there might be in a rural situation so things like the ballot you're going to ballot more people there may be more than one owner more likely and I'd say a block of offices or whatever more like multiple ownership so a little practical difficulty is like that may occur and by no means unsurmountable they're just they're recognised on the duplicate application side of things particularly the act at the moment already allows for that to be dealt with I mean essentially it's through if you like comparing the two applications if they're coming at the same side side by side and seeing which one is going to produce the better public interest and benefit the community at the same time I think that overlap may well occur more often than urban areas than it would in rural simply because you'll have allotment societies you'll have toddler groups you'll have local councils phillyw of councils whatever there may be more overlap in that so that may well occur but again it's not something we could say for sure it will happen but again the act does allow for that to be dealt with through just consideration of the two cases side by side I mean this might actually just maybe add a little more detail that so for example in the new part 3a the right for to buy neglecting abandoned land so the new section 97k sets out what happens where two bodies have applied to buy the same land and requires ministers to not decide one application until they've actually considered both and then and considered all the views that they've had on both and then they have to make a decision and then they have to tell obviously both bodies what they've decided so there is also as they've said a process reflected in the bill right that clarification is helpful thank you and and finally could I ask you in relation to the amount of time that community bodies are having to re-register in I understand that the land reform review group had written evidence recommending that re-registration could possibly only be needed every 10 years rather than the five years required now I wonder if you have any comments on that and also think about adopting this longer time frame or if there are any other ways that re-registration of land might be made less onerous bearing in mind that it is community groups and certainly we're we're taking steps to make the the re-registration process itself less onerous may involve just simplifying the form somewhat however in terms of the timescale at the moment we certainly feel that that five years is an about the right length of time for us to take a kind of every changes in the community in terms of what they need in terms of how they want to take things forward 10 years may be too long there may be too many changes within cos at the moment you're sticking with what the the community agreed 10 years ago is that still the same 10 years on we feel five years is adequate but I mean but we're still taking stakeholder opinions on that in terms of some say five some say 10 some say it should be less so yeah I mean we're considering it but at the moment we're sticking with the five those still under consideration yeah thank you so it seems appropriate for us to look at what the meaning of community is at the moment and I expect Donald's going to lead on this one thank you convener good morning panel as we know from from a briefing section 34 of the 2003 act states that the only type of legal entity that can apply to register a community interest in land is a company limited by guarantee it also provides for the use of postcode units in order to define the community that a community body can represent and section 28 of the bill also allows for Scottish charitable incorporated organisations or SEALs excuse me was a stipulation that SEALs have no fewer than 20 members what are the practical implications of extending the bill to SEALs and what other types of bodies might be further specified by regulation by the ministers in the bad complication of extended SEALs is first and foremost one which gives community bodies flexibility and just exactly how they wish to set themselves up and how they wish to go about that business there are some considerations in terms of the protection for the individuals on a community body ensuring that assets are dealt with appropriately should that body be dissolved for example and certainly make sure there's protection on the individual aspect of it the additional bodies which could be again with taking stakeholder opinions on that and some of the ones that have been suggested are the likes of Bencom's beneficial community societies I think it's nice for community interest companies have been put forward so again we're concerned what other ones may be in but as you say there are provisions already there that allow us to add additional bodies I think that's the right way of putting it so it can be expanded and again if if there is enough will and desire out there to specifically add ones in then we can look at that again but certainly at the moment it skews but Bencom's is the other main when it's been put forward at this point for consideration okay thanks with regard to the postcode units do you think the use of postcode units is too general or too restrictive a way to define a community particularly in light of the proposed extension of community right to buy to urban Scotland that's certainly the opinion we've been we've been hearing and we do propose to allow other options for example settlements or locations as defined by I think it's general registers which will allow it's not a more general term but for example the village itself is a location or a settlement so rather than identify all the postcodes similarly with urban areas parts of city of Glasgow are settlements or locations in their own right and can be identified that way essentially the the idea is to give the again the community some flexibility in how they define themselves there is still provision within the act itself to use some other means obviously but they have to let us know what they're using and why they're using it and the well-involved ministerial approval that that is that is okay similarly with the the requirement for a minimum of 20 members there is provision in there that it can be less in particular circumstances but again they have to say what the circumstances are and why you know a small village are probably more relevant to the rural aspect of it than the urban one is now I have to say but there are provisions in there that allows them to to do that yeah I mean those those changes are made to section 34 of the bill and as David said there now will be more flexibility for ministers to make regulations prescribing a type of area so it doesn't have to be by by post code so that will give more flexibility but it will still be by area okay thank you just to explore a definition a wee bit further are there other methods by which a community might be defined and particularly thinking about the likes of arts organisations for example because I've got an arts organisation my constituency who are extremely keen to see this bill go through charities ethnic groups for example as well as other definitions I think you've already mentioned allotment societies and as we particularly interested in your view on community councils or perhaps common grazing committees for example if they had some abandoned land next to them I think in terms of what can and can't be allowed yeah I mean at the moment part 3a just provides for a community body to be a company limited by guarantee it is always an option for an existing group to form a specific company and I think as Dave said you know we're looking you know we're considering what other bodies could be added and as has already been mentioned there is a power for ministers to make regulations setting out other bodies should that be considered appropriate and also that power allows ministers to set out the requirements that a body needs to meet to ensure that it's not just the type of community body that it's an appropriate community body for owning land and it still is based on geographic community rather than community of interest at this stage okay and do you think that the definition that would be acceptable to ministers should be on the face of the bill in terms of community in general yeah and also specific organisations that would be acceptable I think some element that would be acceptable on the face of the bill I think personally I think it depends on how many you're going to list because you could have quite a significant length of list it may be that if ministers are minded to do so that it gets to the stage where rather than a list of specific organisations we you know it may at that point be more relevant to list the characteristics which are acceptable but that's that's not something I'm considering right now at this point but it could be as we get more and more specific bodies added to that list that may that point may come but at the moment it's okay and I think also flexibility is useful for example you know a few years ago skeos didn't exist and it is important to have flexibility to deal with changes that may arise and types of of entity that may may exist in the future okay thank you I'd just like to explore a little supplementary on this regarding experiences that I know of of communities attempting to buy particular pieces of land and finding several chapters in the approach which required them to change their constitutions in order to meet the funding criteria can that be addressed under this question or is it a specific area that you have taken into account? I think the terms that the community body has to meet is a largely dictated by the type of body that they choose to function under for example a company limited began to be able to have a different set of regulations to a skeo to a bencom to a community interest company and equally different funders will have different requirements in order to meet to obtain funding from them I don't think that that's something we can try and cover across the board as part of this what we are allowing is one element we are changing in terms of the memorandums is that unless the body is actively involved in an application up to the point at which the application is proven then after that when it's triggered true in part 2 that period in between where essentially the registrations is there and not active the if they change it during that period at the moment they have to inform the minister every time you change it and we have to prove that change we're removing that element of it so there's some movement there to allow them to change the their articles association in that period as long as they're not actively taking forward an application but it would be interesting to know if the time that it takes to actually purchase land has extended significantly because communities through the funding body that they were looking to get that the cash from were having to change their constitutions because I can think of at least three changes of constitutions in what became a 10-year period of an element that happened in the village I live in in Eventon in Rosshire I can certainly find out of the specific examples and if you mentioned three you've got if you could pass them on that would be great and be handy if you knew some as well talk my head I don't personally have to say but I'll ask the the committee right to buy team to come forward with any examples that they might have because they deal with it day in day out over the last 10 years essentially so that there are any they will know okay let's move on then to late applications Dave Thompson thank you convener and good morning to the panel two or three points here I would like to pick up on but before we do that could the panel maybe explain to me what the reasoning was behind the need to register at all was in the first place I just wonder if it wouldn't simplify things a great deal if communities didn't need to do an early registration but that when they do become aware that land is available which is often a you know quite late on in the process anyway that they would just be able to register at that point so why do we actually need a registration process at all I think that the main thrust of it is to do with the in the land market itself and the individual's rights to sell land in that aspect you see it's our considerations on that one I mean Rachel may know the specifics of exactly where the rights and obligations lie in terms of of the ability to if you like pause or freeze the process of selling land and just how much and at what stage that's appropriate and balanced so the application at least allows us to consider whether or not it's a valid plan for one of a better word that the community has and that it's not simply being used as a blocking measure for example if it's a valid application and it will proceed on that basis so it's essentially a way for us to gauge whether or not it's just a needier reaction whether it's a a viable process a viable prospect but surely you know there's lots of land out there all over the place thousands hundreds of thousands of hectares of it and buildings and all that and communities will often think they're a particular piece of land or whatever well it'll never come in the market because it hasn't done for 500 years and what's the likelihood of it coming forward again in the next 500 years so why would they look to register there might be some obvious examples you know of where they would be able to anticipate maybe but there must be numerous situations where the community really would have no real reason to believe that a bit of land or property is going to come on the market and therefore why would they spend a great deal of time putting together a registration and planning what they're going to do with this land if there's really 99% of the case it's no real chance of that land ever coming on the market so I just get back to you mentioned blocking people could block with a preemptive registration just as easily as they could a reactive knee jerk registration I suppose so I don't think that's a very strong argument I just want to tease out you know why we need early registration and why not allow communities once they see that land has come on the market which will maybe spark in their minds oh my goodness we never thought that that bit of land would be available but we could really do something with that now let's get our application in and it's a fair point and I think the main thing is in terms of balance between the aspirations of community and what they can do with land which, as you say, may well only appear when they realise that there is land available and interfere with the rights of the owner in trying to sell that land what we have done has made changes to the late application element to allow communities who have maybe done if you like, propriety work leading up to submitting an application at the moment the late application process means that it's only relevant if that work was to actually put the application was begun before the land went on sale at the moment they can show it's now sorry the change is now that they can show relevant work so for example if they've identified a need for land it may not be identified exactly which land they may have done work in terms of sounding out funders and whether or not they would be you know if there's potential there there is still some element of work required in there but the focus moving away from having started the application process to have started relevant work I think that's the right definition so we're expanding slightly but yes there is a point at which you've got to balance up the the owner rights to sell the land and the community's aspirations to change I mean is that a Rachel are you any place to comment better? I don't see anything to add I think that actually neatly kind of moves us on in a sense so hopefully you know ministers and yourselves will think about whether they couldn't simplify the bubble by taking out the need to register early at all but if it stays in and it's felt that it's needed and there's good reason for it to be there okay we can talk about that maybe later on but the change in terms of what you just mentioned there Dave about the the need to do and show that you've done early work such relevant work as ministers to consider reasonable has been carried out with a late application you've removed the proposal is to remove the good reasons test which was in there before it strikes me that it's maybe an awful lot more onerous to show that you have carried out such relevant work as ministers consider reasonable I just wonder if you could comment on just really how the good reason test has been used in the past and why it's felt that we need to change it and move on to this new what it looks like a more onerous test that might serve to prevent communities being able to buy I mean certainly intention is not to make it more onerous that's exactly the opposite it may be that in guidance and further regulation we can clarify exactly where we're what the intention is but the idea is is not to make it more onerous by any manner it means in terms of the moving away from good reasons the good reasons has been used in quite a few I think I thought it meant something like a third or 50% of applications now are late applications so we certainly recognise that it needs to be more reactive in how it can be applied and that's where we've tried to go by moving away from good reasons in the sense that the community may not have actively started the application process however and we can as you say relevant work to lead up to that stage that's now something that we can take into consideration it doesn't address the issue you're talking about where all of a sudden you think there's a delightful moment where actually we could use that one but again I mean we're still talking to stakeholders on what they feel about that by all means I don't know exactly how the good reason test has been applied now but a good reason could be we just didn't know it was going to come up and we had no reason to expect it would ever come on the market whereas having to show that you've actually done some work in relation to something that you never expected to come on the market is basically going to be impossible I mean we've certainly provided examples from the cases that have come up from now of where late applications were either accepted or rejected which might clarify what the thinking is at the moment in terms of the good reasons and I can probably supply details from that that'd be helpful Yeah it would actually but just again the general principle of what the effect that this might have I think is important and there's another little thing in the same section which talks about being able to identify the owner as well and that again might be possible in certain circumstances there could be all sorts of ways that our owner isn't identifiable and it just strikes me as I say I wonder whether we need early registration at all it strikes me that things are just looking more difficult for communities compared to the provisions that have been in place for some time in relation to crofting communities for instance Yeah well obviously that certainly not intention and the crofting community right to buy element we're actively talking to stakeholders at the moment in fact we're in Venice tomorrow and then in Hannas and Skye on Monday Tuesday next week talking to particular stakeholders on what they feel the changes could or should be in that element of the bill but yeah I mean again in terms of what the good reasons are and relevant work is that will be developed as the bill goes through and as we talk to stakeholders about difficulties issues opportunities that can be taken through part of that and that'll get refined as we go I have to say And just finally on this point convener on late applications do you think that the timescale with which communities would have to comply are sufficient to if they've done very little other than you know that would require relevant work whatever that's going to mean if they've done the absolute minimum of relevant work is the timescale in the bill sufficient for them to actually do what they would need to do to put together a coherent and reasonable bid for the land We think so obviously but again through monitoring as the provisions are used that's something that we can look to change for example during this one we're already extending the valuation period from six to eight weeks for example so even up to this point we're mourning whether certain time periods in there are sufficient and again with the late application that prospect for changing to that we think we've allowed enough time on that again based on the previous ten years experience what communities can do and do but we'll be monitoring that as we go anyway but at the moment we think it's sufficient First of all a supplementary on that point I think from Cara Hill then Claudia Beamish Just a supplementary to Dave Thompson's questions just now I wonder if you could explain what would happen to an application to register or to buy a land despite the best efforts that a local community couldn't identify the land owner but would this kill off the application or might there be a way to allow it to proceed provided they could show that they've taken every reasonable steps to identify the owner I think you would need to be able to identify the owner so that the owner's views could be taken into account and also to ensure that the land could be transferred I think there are other ways of trying to find owners in practice that has been a problem that the team have come across I don't recall any specific examples where the issue has been not finding the owner at all but again I can double check on that one but off the top of my head I can't think of any That would be interesting if you could check that, I know locally in my area there are areas of land where the ownership is in dispute so it would be helpful to have feedback on that That's helpful Indeed clearly there are large areas of land that we don't of who owns it even among the largest land holdings in Scotland so the question of ownership is pretty important Claudia Beamish had a supplementary a brief supplementary just going back to the definitions of what community bodies can apply and wondering whether you've looked at all in relation to groups which come under Equalities Act as to whether there might be some sort of consideration of for instance I think minority groups who have a wider geographical spread whether there's been any discussion of that sort of issue I mean in general terms what I'm calling interest groups or communities of interest I've certainly come up in discussions but at the moment we're still requiring the geographic element of the definition of the community I'm just aware that that's been an issue for other things like the climate challenge fund We'll move on to the issue of abandoned or neglected land Nigel Dawn and good morning colleagues and I'd like to start quite literally with those words of abandoned or neglected and to ask as I understand it those aren't defined within the bill presumably they have some kind of legal usage possibly definition Could you clarify that please and confirm why you think that's appropriate not to define it within the bill Yeah Although that's still to be finalised I mean at this point in time we think there are two things we need to consider whether it's either going to be abandoned or neglected and essentially it's whether the land has been cared for and whether the effect of what the effect of this care or lack thereof has on the condition of the land itself that's in its broadest terms What we want to do with this element is we want to make sure that we get it right and that we're not excluding or including areas of land which are completely inappropriate I mean it may be better to give you some examples of what we think might be for example an owner has land which on it has a slip way and that's deteriorated to the point that it's almost useless or it is useless it can't be used If they are not willing or able to address that issue and yet the community can either through a means of having the resources to do so, the volunteers to do so or access to a different funding stream they should be allowed to do that in that particular circumstance If that means buying that area it includes a slip way and then developing it then so be it another one might be an open area of land which is overgrown for the broken glass I mean these are maybe serious examples but just to try and give you an idea of where we're going with it and again it's proof that there's a blight on that community that surrounds that area of land or is adjacent to it then if all it needs is the grass cut the glass cleared up some improvements put in and again they aren't willing or able to do so and again the community have put a case forward that they can do so and turn it into something that is much more sustainable for that particular piece of land again we think that they should be able to do it there are circumstances where we are aware that it shouldn't be considered to be neglected by diversity for example just because something is not actively being done to a piece of land that doesn't necessarily mean to say it's abandoned or neglected there are reasons for not cutting grass not seeding particular areas conservation of heritage buildings we're not asking them to all of a sudden rebuild the ruined castle because it's abandoned or neglected that's a heritage building and it should be kept in a position that is felt appropriate for that again we need to look carefully at things like land being held or assembled for future development it is again because of the various nuances in this definition we're taking time to make sure that we get all the representations and make sure we get it right as much as possible thank you that confirms to me that we do have an issue here secondly it suggests to me that there will be a definition to come and it's not there yet is that a fair interpretation because otherwise I think the lawyers are going to have some fun with this he's a lawyer the words have a meaning it's more as they said we're considering if any refinement would be appropriate or whether that is sufficient right because thinking there's a lawyer at my right who's going to come in just half a moment if convener permitting but I guess I'm coming from the position of thinking that if I and I'm not a member of a community group I do need to have a working definition now what Mr Thompson has just told me is a set of very understandable policy considerations but I don't need to tell you other than to put it on the record we don't do law by making up policy we actually do law by writing it down and knowing what it means and I guess that's really my concern that the courts ultimately are going to interpret the words down on this page not the words that you as officials or ministers or I as a parliamentarian might actually want and I guess I'm looking for some feeling as to how we're going to deal with this because I'm not immediately convinced that what's down here is necessarily what you want and I think you're playing back that you may not feel it is either well I mean I think that the definition I agree that it should be in the face of the bill in terms of definition things like that the minister would have to take regard to in deciding whether that definition applies will be followed up with I think regulation I think more than on the face of it but I think the definition you're right should be on the face of the bill itself exactly what that is that's what we're considering at the moment just to make sure that that definition is right right okay Rodd, Carmel one obviously I take it from that that it's a work in progress just one small point of clarification just your view on whether the words holy or mainly simply applied to abandoned or also applied to neglected they applied to both so it is land which is holy or mainly neglected or land which is holy or mainly abandoned I can see that some lawyers might argue that the country that's my clarity on the point okay leave that one there thank you fabulous and of course why not make sure that it's plain and obvious on the face of the bill okay if I could push on with a few more please why this is 97 C3E and an exception is land which is occupied or owned by the crown why please it's an obvious exception we normally do it but why no it's not all crown land it's only the land which is born of a canter or or which is I'm trying to pronounce it I'll get it wrong so that's a very specific type of land it is not all crown land this is excluded it's land which because isn't known or has fallen to the crown that way it is not all crown land but again if I got that anything like right and I don't want to go into the Latin either that's either land which is just of an unknown provenance and therefore falls to the land or else it's failure of succession and we just no idea who actually's got it and so it falls to the crown but I still come back to the question why can't the community there are other ways on which that is dealt with and so that is not included there are alternative ways in which the land which falls to the crown is dealt with and so it just needs to be included in which case can I push on then one of the areas of interest in this might be for a community to do exactly what Mr Thompson alluded to earlier which is to take over an area of land and apart from cleaning it up to do nothing with it in other words development as far as the community might be simply conservation like we actually want this space to be in a natural kind of state is that sustainable development because it doesn't sound like development to me I suppose it would depend on the state it was in beforehand I have to say there is a balance to be struck what we're not trying to do is compare uses my use is better than your use it is on the sustainable development of the lands now sustainable development I think at some point was defined as the development that meets the needs of the present and the ability of future generations to meet their own needs that was the world commission on environment and development came up with that one and that seems to summarise now land that is sitting there overgrown concreted over broken glass isn't meeting the needs of the future by for one of the very simply cutting the grass a lick of paint benches in a nice path to walk through that is meeting if you like that you get your health and wellbeing aspect and being able to have that nice space within a community and it's not a blight anymore can I stop you there because the moment you put in a path or a bench I can credit that with being development might be minute but it would be development if the community actually took the view that what they wanted was effectively wild land and I don't want to define that in other words that space cleared up but nothing more and the paths go where we walk is that sustainable development because a suspected ought to be in the context of what we're trying to do but I'm not sure the words on the page would mean that I think probably the best answer is that it could be it would have to be a case by case basis I mean I don't know about it in terms of definition of sustainable development in a legal terms or a dictionary term but to my mind it's an improvement it may not be sustainable then but it's certainly an improvement that you're right in particular in case that may not cover it Can I suggest the challenges because the bill only has validity if the law sorry I'm coming back to the point, policy is one thing but does the law mean that? I mean the sustainable development of land was considered in the pay act case in relation to the crofting community to buy in the court was confident that it had a clear meaning but also going back to your example of if the community are just going to build a bench or make a path the community want the right to buy being compatible with further achieving sustainable development in relation to the land is only one test it also has to be in the public interest as well so that there are a number of tests which have to be satisfied so it's not just a case of can you show that this will further sustainable development and that's enough to get you over the threshold and the land has to be transferred there are also additional tests that have to be satisfied I'm sure you can see where so are you just going to finish that particular point I need to can we come back to that in a minute this is supplementary thank you very much convener the park decisions are a very interesting one because the community were told that they weren't complying with sustainable development requirements in the crofting rate to buy initially and then eventually the minister said they were and there was a whole list of reasons as to why when they came back to the minister that he agreed that there was a credible sustainable plan there were new activities to diversify power to negotiate et cetera et cetera et cetera so there's a model there as to what constitutes sustainable development following the park case which is a very good guide I think for us as we move forward could I just convener pick up on the reasons why we need the changes here while having mentioned the crofting right to buy there are only two things that apply there sustainable development achievement and that it's in the public interest whereas the legislation the bill here is actually saying there's another test the land must be holier, mainly abandoned or neglected and then there's another test added on as well it's got to be shown that if the owner of the land were to remain its owner that ownership would be inconsistent with furthering the achievement of sustainable development in relation to the land so you've not only got to show and we've had all the discussion about the definition of what holier mainly abandoned is you've then got to show that the current owner wouldn't do anything or improve the land and it strikes me that these additional tests which aren't required in relation to crofting right to buy are very, very onerous indeed and might make it almost impossible for communities to buy and my worry is that if this goes through like this that it could affect the crofting right to buy and my reason for saying that is I would have a worry that if these tests are being put in here to try to deal with ECHR then it would be reasonable and I'm not a lawyer for folk to say well you know if to comply with ECHR you need to add two additional tests to those which are in the crofting right to buy maybe the crofting right to buy legislation is not sound in ECHR terms and we would need to add those additional tests to the crofting legislation that would be my worry on this road it just seems to me to be way over the top and as Rachel Reiner mentioned a minute ago the park case the government won the case there it was challenged in court with the two simple tests that it must be furthering the achievement of sustainable development and in the public interest so I failed to see at the moment why we need to make the hurdles so high extra tests for the general community right to buy and I do worry that if we do that it's an acceptance that we didn't really win the park case and that we maybe need to revisit the crofting law so I've got a number of concerns round that I mean we are content that the crofting community right to buy works and that the test that is currently there is appropriate and as you pointed out the court has upheld that I think in part 3a neglects and abandoned land it's about deciding what is the appropriate test for the problem which you are seeking to address and in part 3a the concern is that neglected and abandoned land in certain cases be a blight can be a problem and so it's deciding what is the appropriate mechanism for saying when should a community when is it appropriate for ministers to decide that that land should be sold without the consent of the owner so it's about making each of the rights to buy fit for purpose for the particular issues that they are dealing with and I don't think that the test in part 3a will have any crossover to the crofting community right to buy that that is considered to be sufficiently robust for that particular for that particular issue well I'm glad we could that reassurance however maybe I wonder if the panel can comment on the ownership aspect which seems to me one that would be very very difficult to apply in practice you have to prove that if the owner of the land were to remain as its owner that that ownership would be inconsistent you'd have to I mean how would you do that you know it did to me it just seems bizarre almost unprovable I mean one example of what that element is trying to address is if the owner currently has a plan in place for that piece of land maybe only recently in place to be fair and either they're waiting for funding they're waiting for planning application or whatever but there are plans in place or in track at that point in time which the application comes in that element is to allow the owner themselves to say this is what I'm trying to do with it here is the proof that I'm trying to do with it and it's not to point might say just because there's a delay in planning or delay in funding that that can then be taken out of your hands of course it's all relevant if those plans were in place five minutes before the application came in that would be considered as part of that application if it was in place five years ago and it's been shown that continually trying to see planning permission which is continually being blocked that the owner is trying to sustainably develop that land in the future so it's about giving that element of allowing the owner to essentially put the case in that I have been trying to do something with this or I am planning to do something with this and not just pay a lip service to that but to actually give us sufficient proof that that has actually been taking place Nigel Don and then Claudia Beamish if I can just come back on that forgive me Mr Thompson but I think I actually understood that the opposite direction from the way that I think you were implying it does seem to me that a landowner putting in an application to do something that he's never going to get planning permission for would be a wonderful way of actually securing the land and making sure it was never brought out by the community and actually it could be the very process of actually not allowing sustainable development by putting up something else that won't get planning permission I am just wondering what on earth see in there is doing there because forgive me I still don't think I've heard a reason why that's there I've got the logic of why it might be there but I have not seen a single physical reason a practical reason as to why you would want it there as I say I think the one he just given me actually works against you on reflection it's not intended to be hard to say but yeah I mean I suppose it's about I mean it's about looking at the plan and its viability I mean as you say putting planning application for something that is never ever ever going to work should I would hope be obvious in terms of the case and then it's down to whether or not that was putting say five minutes before the application came in it's about seeing whether it's as you say the it's likely to be excuse me to find the exact phrase of how the ownership by the current owner is inconsistent with yeah sorry thank you inconsistent with the sustainable development the fact that a planning application is going for something will never happen as you say does not necessarily sustainably point to sustainable development in that land it's always the time to consider that I can suggest that I do quite seriously convener suggest that you might like to go and reflect on what this is really trying to achieve because I could take you straight to the middle of my constituency give you a planning application which is the longest standing planning application in Aberdeenshire council of a large area of land which the owners reasonably want to develop which I think would actually probably stop local communities from doing anything it's not an unreasonable application but I think it would actually I think this is going to give us problems right no yeah we'll come back oh they've scored that quite a bit Claudia Beamish question on that just to take you back Dave to the you said about the land held for future development by an owner and sometimes as we all know land can be held for investment to be sold rather than for future development and I wonder if there's going to be any time scale set on or consideration of a time scale set on how long land can be kept which isn't being developed which might fall into other categories which would enable communities to buy it how long can this go on I know of cases that have gone on for decades yeah I mean I think on that when I say that we certainly have to carefully consider whether that type of land being held for development would or wouldn't be excluded in terms of the definition but I mean the case you put in point is a good one at the moment we're not thinking of specific time scales because it does on a case by case basis allocation basis very quite widely as to what would be reasonable but it's certainly one of the considerations that you would take into account when deciding whether or not an application should be allowed on that area of land like you see if it's been for 10 years and isn't moving, isn't actively being marketed is a completely different scenario from one that's been in for 5 years and has been on and off and the price is reduced over the course of those 5 years to try and sell it it's a case by case basis and we want to be able to give us the opportunity to consider these things on a case by case basis on the other hand it would give the community time to register an interest to buy right moving on to the meaning of community need to some clarification where the amendment to include community benefit companies will be extended to legal entities that can use the community right to buy provisions under part 4 of the bill well or not certainly it's one of the types that have been put forward to us and we're certainly looking at whether or not that should go in but it's one of the the most frequent ones that have been put forward in addition to skills yes so that would be development groups for example I don't know if it's on my head whether that's included in that one and it's magnanimous of what Bencom is or isn't I have to say but also it's in the same way that companies limited by guarantee their articles have to meet certain requirements and the constitution of a skio has to meet certain requirements to be a community body if Bencom's were to be added then consideration would need to be given as to what would be the appropriate requirements of a Bencom and so that would also need to be considered okay we'll see where that goes to turn me to crofting then why given the importance that the land reform review group placed on amending part 3 of the 2003 act that a full consultation was not issued to the bill team are you satisfied that the dialogue with stakeholders has been sufficient and proportionate would it not have been more helpful to bring forward these amendments in the forthcoming land reform bill I mean in terms of the changes to the part 3 of the land reform act on the crossing community right to buy the reason they weren't put as the initial phase of this bill was largely because all of the resources were focused on improving the community right to buy the part 2 element of it and developing provisions for the neglected or abandoned lands I mean obviously as the pace of the land reform in Scotland's increase in the likes of the land reform review group it became increasingly clear that in conversations with stakeholders that it was something that should come forward now as part of this bill rather than in the future for any land reform bill that may be coming along in the future so we thought it was best to deal with now in terms of consultation that's one of the reasons why now we've written out to stakeholders in terms of what we are looking at in terms of changes to the part 3 we're actively speaking to them as I said we're meeting last week in Edinburgh we're meeting tomorrow in Inverness next week a Harrison Sky to get the face to face the land reform review group as well obviously had evidence that we've looked at on that one in particular from the Simon Fraser who had some very good points we're actually speaking to Simon next week as well to get his thoughts on what our proposals are so whilst it wasn't part stage 1 of this bill that's why we're actively pushing that and getting the stakeholder opinions on that now any comments on that for other people then amendments to part 2 and 3 Dave Thompson the letter from the minister for local government planning stated that he would also be seeking to make further amendments to parts 2 and 3 of the 2003 act I would just wonder, given that the land reform review group and others have identified flaws in part 3 of the 2003 act why the new part 3a was based on it based on on the part 3 of the crofting right to back part 3 of the 2003 act part 3a is based on part 3 of the 2003 act that there have been criticisms of that and the minister is saying amendments are going to come forward have these been taken into account already or if that's the case why was the minister in his letter to on the 6th of November saying further amendments are coming along I'm a bit confused by that I think the simple issue is one of timing as much as anything else why it was based on part 3 in the first place is because of the compulsory element of the purchase that felt that the process through the crofting community right to back was a much better template than through the part 2 which is a preemption that really wouldn't met so we used the template to go on the changes are essentially because the changes to part 3 are coming in after the stage 1 and yet the changes to part 3 in stage 1 there's then going to be a a need to tie up the two elements where the changes have been made already in part 3 that's going forward and we'll need to balance part 3 up to mirror that change where relevant as well so it's really a timing one where you're making it's almost a catch 22, you make change to one you need to make sure that the equal relevant change is made in the other so there will be changes and it will depend on what changes are approved for the part 3 changes if you know what I mean particularly explaining it well part 3a isn't identical to part 3 so to some extent there is a case of looking to see do we need to make part 3 do we need to change that to make it consistent with part 3a or other good reasons for the differences or where through the consultation additional changes are suggested to part 3 if we make those then obviously we need to reflect back and say do we need to make those changes to 3a is that relevant to part 2 and so that we can be confident that where there are differences and when will we be likely to see these amendments you know obviously they would need to be dealt with at stage 2 so when are we as a committee likely to see those that are going to affect us I remember about a ton of the years at the end of the summer drafting and things we've got the consultation period in terms of the part 3 change we're going to do now the last visit and that's next week so we'll take those views back on board and take that on as part of consideration and decide what changes we need to make as a result of that so that that process will have to be done and end as the draft next so it would be, I would guess, term of the year maybe Ian's got their idea on time scales I would think that the year will probably be the year last for some of them in the same way that local government minister Darren McKein did an early indication of what the changes to the bill what amendments we might be bringing forward for the other parts of the bill I think we would seek to do that wherever we can in respect to this part of the bill as well and let the committee know as soon as possible where we are minded to make a change so that's what we will do and that will be for the minister to write to the committee at those points in time Other points on the questions just now, which haven't been made so far in this introduction to what seems like a complicated set of arrangements to us I've no doubt we'll find out more as we go along I'd like to thank the bill team and the officials for your evidence just now and we will be taking this forward with further evidence sessions which many of these points will be teased out with the stakeholders who you seem confident are fully supportive so thank you for that I just want to point out to people that we will be moving into private in a minute or two at our next meeting in the Wednesday 26 November the committee will take evidence from the Cabinet Secretary on the Affirmative SSI Scotland Act 1998 functions exercise exerciseable in or as regards Scotland Order 2015 and then on the draft budget the committee will also take evidence from stakeholders of the community empowerment Scotland bill and then consider its letter to the Scottish Government on the wildlife crime 2013 annual report and now close the meeting and ask the public gallery to be cleared and move the session into private thank you