 Thank you, that ends the budget statement from the Deputy First Minister The next item of business, is a debate on motion 15181 In the name of Eileen McLeod in the land reform Scotland I'll give some moments to say to the Member I wish to return to the point of order made yesterday Sabun, gan hynny nesaf, rwyf wedi i gwrthwynt ar gyfer 1930, nid oedda auxiwn i ni'w, ond rwyf wedi gael yn olygu chwarae gyda'r Gwyrddwater Gwyrddwr, lle mae'n meddwl gwaith ar gyfer ein cyfurdd i'r 28 Lywodraeth sy'n meddydd, i wneud ar gyfer ei gweithio ar gyfer Fyafio. Mae'n meddwl gwaith ar gyfer ein cyfurdd ar gyfer Fyafio, a fydd wedi gweithio yn gyffinfaith o'r reisartiau sy'n g wipedb.] Mae cy staircase 술w πουşallahau eich d tunes которое'a ristaf studiwyr ni'r unig a'i gennym bod yn griffodiad neu awyrau. Rhe sy'n ei cym Julye Marnead na'n rhoi maes collifau a chylet solic пес gyda'i ddano. Fy modd hynny, hi, rhaid aid i chi'n rhaid ag yr adnod, yr gyflonto sydd cymeradol i hyn o ddonesnu i'n credu, ond gan blaidaeth yn wneud i led Fellow Loser ac m puntoa iddweithg urnol yってるgau i'r me seized lieg i mewn. nhwnt y cwrinwyddiad, sy'nkaet i gaeli eich pethau, yn ydych chi'n rhodaeth mewn ddaeth o realisticoedd y Government a'i ddawod hyn o'r ddwylliant ar gyffredinol i eu cynghlyfan y peirfawr, mae'n gweinio i gyweithio i wneud gyda'i wneud wneud sy'n ei gweithinol yn y gwybodaeth sydd i gaeli i gweithio i gweithio i gwylwg a'i adliadol. Dw i ddweud hynny mae'n cychwynmeth o cosfyn am gyfer y dyfodol y stage 1 yn ei ddweud. A wneud, oherwydd, wrth i'n meddwl gallol, rhai'n mynd gondol yn gynnwys yn ei wneud i gyntaf, ymgwrddon ni… wedi'u gweld yn gondol i gael ei dddangos llawer o gynnwys wedi eu chymdeithasol. The fact that the committee was only informed by an email to the clerks last night indicated that it would not happen. Y cymunedigau yr pobl wedi cael ei fod yn ddynnu'n ei gondol sy'n y 4 december. Rwy'n dechrau rwy'n dweud o'r bwysig o'r ddau cyfnodd ar gyfer y Parlymydd. Mae Gweithredu yn mynd i'r bwysig o'r hefyd o'r ysgrifetai bod yn gweithio i nawr i'r llwyth a'r ffmwy o'r bwysig. Rwy'n dechrau i'r bwysig o'r ddau cyfnodd. I ask my hon Minister to express my gratitude to Rob Gibson and other members of the rule affairs, climate change and environment committee for the scrutiny over this session over a wide range of land reform issues. The committee's scrutiny of the bill has benefited significantly from the committee's already extensive knowledge of many of the issues at the heart of this bill, and it builds on the evidence provided by groups, individuals and of course, to the Scottish Government's consultation on the future of land reform in Scotland as well as those that contributed to the extensive work of the land reform and agricultural holdings review groups, not least the tireless work of the review group members themselves. It has been a massive task that is reflected in the detailed stage 1 report that the committee published just over a week ago. On that, let me respond directly to the point that has been raised by Sarah Boyack in the chamber just now as well as in the chamber yesterday, because at more than 140 pages the committee's report provides substantial comments and recommendations and we are now giving very serious and careful consideration to the committee's recommendations across all parts of the bill and I very much look forward to debating those issues today and I intend to submit our response to the committee shortly in line with the protocols agreed with this Parliament. It is a job that we want to get right rather than rush because I am really keen that we have the opportunity today to be able to listen to all the views across the Parliament and to be able to reflect that in members' views in our response. This is a debate on the committee's stage 1 report and we want to make sure that we have the right provisions in this bill that are not rushed so it is important that we have the opportunity to listen to all the views in the Parliament. I am grateful to do so and I hear what she says but would she accept that it does set us at a bit of a disadvantage when we have no clues the Government's response to the stage 1 report? I am disappointed that she shows no sign of remorse whatsoever. Is this a debate on the committee's stage 1 report and I am very keen to make sure that we are giving an opportunity to members across the chamber to be able to reflect their views so that we can use that in our response to the committee's report. It is a very complex bill and we are very careful that we want to take careful consideration of all the views that are represented. I am grateful to the minister for giving way. I think that she will appreciate that we are being asked to vote this evening on the general principles of the bill, a bill that the committee report has very exhaustively scrutinised and suggested a whole range of potential changes. It would be very interesting before we vote this evening to know whether the Government accepts all or any of these proposals in the committee report. We do not have that information. That will be a matter for stage 2, the consideration of the committees, but we will also be giving an indication in any case. This is the committee's report at stage 1. I believe that we started this process with a good bill. I know that we can make this an excellent bill. As the First Minister said last week at the Human Rights Innovation Forum, this Government welcomes the growing interest in the role that human rights can play in achieving a fairer and wealthier society. Land reform is a vital part of the Government's aspirations for a fairer, more equal and socially just Scotland. Underpinning the bill is an ambition to fundamentally change the framework of legal and social rights and responsibilities to determine how our land is used and governed to address inequalities and to ensure that our land delivers the greatest benefits to our economy and to all of our communities. I am strongly encouraged by the committee's support for many of the general principles of this bill and of the measures within the bill. Certainly, the creation of a land rights and responsibilities statement under part 1 of the bill and the establishment of a dedicated Scottish Land Commission in part 2 underlined this Government's commitment to considered long-term reform and putting an end to the ad hoc stop-start nature of land reform that has limited progress in Scotland to date. We must recognise the contribution of landowners and managers across the public, private, third and community sectors and the positive relationships that already exist between landowners, tenants and communities in Scotland. In doing so, we must also recognise the need to take steps to ensure that good practice is extended across the whole of Scotland. Part 4 of the bill has a vital role to play in encouraging and improving the engagement between our landowners and communities. I am pleased to see the committee's welcome of the principles behind this part of the bill in its report. As well as ensuring co-operation and engagement, it is important to ensure a fair balance of rights between those who own the land and those who work, live and depend on the land. At times, what can be achieved through voluntary and co-operative approaches may be limited. Although both the committee and the Scottish Government have agreed a voluntary approach to deer management that should be given the chance to deliver and substantial support has been provided to do so, it is becoming clear that more meat to be done in this area. Can I ask the minister to read the sections of our report, which we discussed in great detail? The committee is deeply unhappy about where we have ended up with deer management. Across the parties, there is a sense that we need urgent action and more provisions in the bill and that the voluntary approach is absolutely not working everywhere. I set the point that Sarah Boyack has made around the need to have an urgent review. That is something that we will be giving careful consideration to in our response to the committee's report. I also welcome the committee's support for further powers for Scottish national heritage. Part 8 of the bill will deliver the additional powers to intervene where it is shown that deer management is not delivering in the public interest. I look forward to the committee and the Parliament's on-going involvement as we focus on the 2016 review and take the necessary actions to address the outcomes from that review. Part 10 of the bill is also about promoting positive relationships while ensuring a fair balance of rights between those who own the land and those who work, live and depend on the land. It is encouraging to see some of the committee's support for many of the measures in part 10 and the principles behind those measures. I also welcome the committee's support for the need to enable and empower communities across Scotland to have the confidence, the opportunity and the resources to own land for the benefit of the community. The committee's support of the principles behind the provisions in part 5 of the bill to introduce a community right to buy land to further sustainable development is important in helping to achieve that aim. I hope that the committee and colleagues here today will recognise today's confirmation from the Deputy First Minister that the Scottish land fund will be extended to £10 million for 2016 and support the work of the Government's short-life working group on the 1 million acre target. The group's report was published just last week and it sets out a detailed action plan to ensure that communities and landowners across Scotland have the support and the resources needed to understand and realise the benefits of community ownership. That report of the short-life working group on community land ownership is just one example that this bill is not the end point in Scotland's land reform journey. I am very encouraged by the breadth of discussion on and support for the bill and the Scottish Government's wider land reform agenda. Throughout the consultation and the drafting processes, we have worked extremely hard to consider the wide range of often conflicting views and ideas around how we own, use and manage land in Scotland. Some of those conflicting views are evident even within the committee's report. There are no easy answers to those complex and important issues, but it is important that we continue to strive for better solutions and there is always room for improvement. I acknowledge that. I acknowledge that there is more work to do in that regard. As part of the stage 1 process, both the Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee and the Delegated Powers and the Law Reform Committee's scrutiny of the bill has been highly valuable in highlighting potential areas where improvements can be made and we will seek to respond fully to all concerns and recommendations in our response to the stage 1 report. In fact, we have already confirmed our intention to replace the regulation-making power in section 79 in part 10 with substantive provisions at stage 2, which will support 99 to 1 act tenant farmers to leave their holdings with dignity and security and increase opportunities for newer farmers. We have written to the committee outlining details of the intended proposal and will continue to work with the committee and stakeholders as the provisions are developed ahead of stage 2. We also intend to confirm our intention to bring forward amendments to strengthen the level of scrutiny for a number of the delegated powers contained in the bill. Further consideration is also on how best to provide Parliament with more information on the intended use of the delegated powers and to provide more detail and clarity about the provisions that are causing concern at stage 2, as requested by the committee. I appreciate that this will be of specific importance for further detailing why the reintroduction of business rates for shootings and deer forests in part 6 is not only fair but will have a proportionate and reasonable impact on our rural communities, while also raising additional revenue that will help us to support community land ownership through the Scottish land fund. As development and scrutiny of the provisions in the bill has highlighted, those are complex issues that require detailed consideration and thoughtful development, so while we are keen to bring forward additional measures where possible, we also have to be realistic about what is possible within the time available. There is a lot to be considered within the committee's specific recommendations on how to go further in part 3 to ensure the transparency and accountability of land ownership in Scotland, but I am confident that the current provisions in part 3, along with our wider commitments to complete the land register and develop a new land and property information system for Scotland, will go a long way to deliver that increased transparency. That is a complex area. Specific proposals to go further have to date, struggled to provide effective solutions, and we are certain that some suggestions would be outwith the competence of this Parliament. However, there is more that needs to be done, and we are committed to continuing to consider what measures can be taken forward to achieve that aim. We cannot, in conclusion, roll back hundreds of years of history overnight, nor can we fix all the problems in one easy step, but we can, and we must focus on taking this next step in our journey. That bill will make a series of key changes to the way in which land is governed to ensure that responsible and diverse land ownership is encouraged and supported, that transparency of land ownership in Scotland is increased, that communities are helped to have a say in how land in their area is used, a thriving tenant farming sector in Scotland is supported, and that issues of fairness, equality and social justice that are connected to the ownership of access to and use of land in Scotland are addressed. I am confident that the majority of members here today will support the principles behind the most fundamental of our land reform objectives. I look forward to continuing to work with committee members, with all members of this Parliament, and with the people of Scotland as this bill progresses to make sure that we get the detail right and that we achieve our radical ambitions for this bill. On behalf of the Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee, Mr Gibson, on behalf of the Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee, up to nine minutes, please. Thank you, Presiding Officer. This land reform bill generated a huge debate across Scotland about the very land that we stand on. The Racky Committee's extensive programme of engagement ensured that the report that we are debating today was informed by as many views and experiences as possible. The huge response to that engagement is testament to how much this bill means to so many people. We received 200 written submissions to the committee, held formal extensive meetings in Orkney, Skye and Dumfries and travelled to the Isle, Dura, the Borders and Fife to hold public meetings to hear local people's views. Following that wide consultation, we have produced a constructive report that clearly shows how to make sure that this bill fulfills its radical potential in practice. Supportive comments included those by Dr Callum McLeod at the University of Edinburgh, who wrote that the committee's scrutiny and report provides a valuable public service in anchoring the bill to land reform as the art of the possible. The bill is bold in its ambition and must be made clear in its detail. We share the Government's vision for land reform in Scotland and support many of the measures in the bill and the principles behind them, but the bill needs to be strengthened and clarified to fully deliver the ambitious radical change that many people want to see. Before I go into details, please note that Alec Ferguson descended from our conclusions on part 10 relating to agricultural holdings and also to some specific issues in part 5 on a new community right to buy, and Jim Hume descended from our conclusions on a right to buy for 1991 act tenants. Those members will speak for themselves, no doubt. Many parts of the bill have our full support, subject to recommended improvements, in particular the establishment of both a land rights and responsibility statement and a Scottish Land Commission, which are the most radical departure from past land reform bills. The statement must focus on land as a national asset for the benefit of all of Scotland's people, underpinning this whole process and clearly setting out a fundamental vision for land reform, which is itself rooted in international human rights obligations. Doing that will underpin the Land Commission's work to guide Scotland forward on the land reform journey year by year. However, amendments must ensure that the statement and the Commission's strategic plan and work programme are debated and endorsed in this Parliament. We support at least one of the commissioners to be a Gallic Speaker, as is the case with organisations such as the Crofting Commission and the Scottish Land Court. We strongly support and principle subject to recommended amendments, both engaging with communities and giving them a right to buy land to further sustainable development. To improve engagement between communities and landowners in part 4, much more than guidance is required. Local people need to know who a person of significant control is on behalf of landowners. The consequences of non-adherence to this approach must also be spelled out. The introduction of a right to buy to further sustainable development in part 5 requires the Government to clarify whether that is intended to empower communities particularly or is it actually seen as deterrent to landowners. The proposed tests for communities are set at such a high level that they need amendments such as section 47 to turn the only practicable way into the only or most practicable way and with the definition of harm broaden to include potential impacts on the sustainable development objectives of the community. All agreed that access to information is essential. For many, this is the heart. I'm grateful to the member for taking that intervention. He's just mentioned that it's so important about access to information. Was the committee happy with the point that was raised by Sarah Boyack earlier about just how late some of these information points have been given to the Parliament? With your respect, that has nothing to do with the issues that I'm talking about. In the report, we will see the response of the Government in due course. Your remarks should be addressed to the Government. All agreed that access to information is essential. For many, this is the heart of our current land problems. Evidence shows us that proposals in part 3 will fail unless they improve transparency and unmask some of the murky ownership models that exist in the world of shell companies, tax havens and other things. Knowing who owns controls and benefits from Scotland's land is a basic human right. The evidence underlined in the bill does not go far enough to solve the problem. It must be strengthened so that information can be required rather than requested and so that anyone in Scotland can ask for that information as people in other European countries can do at this time. However, we need to go even further. We have asked the Government to consider several options, including requiring those who want to buy land to be entities registered in the EU, having to provide a Scottish contact point and being required to name those who will benefit from the ownership of land in Scotland. Part 6 of the bill, which seeks to reintroduce sporting rates, needs far more work. It is fair in principle to tax sporting estates and enterprises, but as the detail emerged the Government's case to see this as a money-raising exercise to boost the land fund was unclear. The Government must provide a thorough, robust and evidence based analysis before the start of stage 2 to convince us. Current deer management practices in party are deficient in many areas. It is in the public interest for the bill to strengthen powers by SNH to ensure early action, if found necessary, by a mid-2016 review without waiting for further legislation to be passed. I thank the member and would he agree with me that in view of the 2014 report on deer management from SNH that this is even more significant and important? Those reports show a lack of progress, but also the times that SNH has done deer counts has also lacking, and that has to be amended. Turning to the agricultural holdings aspect, which accounts for around half of the bill, it looks to address hotly debated issues and contested tenancy disputes in many communities for many years. Everyone agrees that we want a thriving tenant farming sector in Scotland. The big question is how we get there. We support the bill's aim to remove barriers to the 1991 act, Tenants Buying Farms, force the sale of a farm if landlords in breach of the lease introduce anamnesty for tenants to log improvements they have made and tighten rules where landlords decide to make improvements to a farm. However, other proposals are too often left to secondary legislation, such as changes to the way rent is set, measures to allow tenants to retire with dignity and for new entrants and young blood to enter the sector. We must have more detail on those provisions before stage 2 because the annual drain on secure 1991 tenants with moves towards limited duration tenancies fails to ensure tenure security and sustainable agriculture. The majority of the Racky members support giving 1991 act tenants a conditional right to buy their holding to finally resolve that recurrent problem and move on. As ever, ECHR issues need to be applied proportionately because the long-term reduction in tenancy security is detrimental to human rights. Other issues, not currently in the bill, should be considered as amendments. For example, the future for small landholders, the often poor condition of tenant farming houses and the lack of affordable rural housing more widely are intrinsic to a sustainable rural Scotland of which people can live and work. Many eyes are now on this Parliament to see whether we can deliver the land reform people want to see. I hope that we can match the ambition of the Scottish people and change our relationship with land so that everyone can feel connected with it, involved in the way that it is managed and benefit from its use. The land reform bill is a good start and we hope that it passes stage 1 today. However, members across the chamber should realise the scale of the work ahead and the role of international human rights to underpin radical land reform. We cannot ignore, warning, by Scottish land and estates, of huge financial penalties should land reform laws interfere with their entrenched property rights. Is this land owner view legitimate? One witness, human rights lecturer Kirstine Shields disagrees. The thrust of this radical bill, the temper of this committee's report, both championed the interests of a fairer Scotland. Michelle puts it succinctly. Is it legitimate to disturb property rights? Is it legitimate not to? Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. First of all, I thank the fantastic team that has supported the committee throughout this work and also the many communities and many witnesses and members of the public and organisations that have given written or oral evidence. That has helped immeasurably in the committee report that we have put together. It is long but this is a long and complex bill. I would say that it is also a crucial bill. It will have ramifications across the whole of Scotland and its aims to deliver a more equal country, to tackle concentrated patterns of ownership in Scotland and to give communities a say in and influence in the use of the land that they depend on and a fairer balance of power between landlords and tenants. Those are worthy aims and objectives and we support them in Scottish Labour. This bill follows on from the 2003 land reform act and this year's community empowerment act. It draws on the land reform review group and agricultural holding group's work. There is so much more that we need to do to make sure that the bill is fit for purpose and delivers the ambitions that we would support. That is why I am deeply disappointed that we do not have the Scottish Government's response to our stage 1 report today. We had expected it and it will impact on our capacity to come forward with amendments over the recess. I would assume that this gave the Government a fantastic opportunity to tell its members how they intend to strengthen the bill in the light of the revolt in the SNP conference in October. Today, our job is at least to get to the headlines. I would start off by saying that the bill must be strengthened in relation to human rights, so we need to see recognition of the international covenant on economic and social rights and cultural rights and the voluntary guidance on the responsible management of tenured fisheries and forests in the context of national food security underpinning the objectives of this bill. It needs to be on the face of the bill. That will help bolster the purpose of this bill and put the context of human rights in a way that we can debate and reflect on. The land rights and responsibility statement is an important start, but it needs to be subject to consultation and it needs to integrate with biodiversity and climate change issues and be consistent with the land use strategy and the national planning framework. We would particularly welcome the new land commission, but we would highlight that they need the skills and experience among the commissioners and not just a range of knowledge but grounding in the equalities and empowerment challenges that are at the heart of the aspirations in this bill. The information about control of land and knowledge about land and who owns it and who controls it will be absolutely crucial as to whether this bill delivers transparency and accountability. That is why we need to know who the request authority is. I think that the ministers need to clarify that for us. The land reform policy review group gave an important recommendation when they suggested that EU registered entities would deliver transparency of ownership and it would deliver the capacity to make sure that taxes are paid where they are due to be paid. That provision is not on the face of the bill. Under questioning, I do not think that ministers gave us convincing answers and certainly today in the chamber we have not had convincing answers about how the bill might change. I am sure that I am not the only member who this week has had dozens of emails from constituents wanting that clarity on the face of the bill. That is something that we need to think about over the next couple of weeks in framing our amendments to make sure that the bill does not fail the test. On page 54, the committee is clear. Clarity of ownership, crucially, who controls ownership and who benefits ownership. A named person that communities consult and a registration process that is transparent and effective. Those are the building blocks that we need to see in place. If ownership is clear and known, then it will be so much easier for communities to be engaged in the crucial decisions relative to the land that they are interested in. Not in every day-to-day decision, but really big decisions. I think that the bill needs to make that more clear. We need to learn the lessons from the 2003 act. The guidance is crucial from the Scottish Government. Communities are not going to be able to read the bill. If it took us 141 pages to come up with our conclusions, the bill is going to be even more difficult. We picked this up in our visit to Fife. It needs to be made fit for purpose for communities and penalties for lack of engagement. In part 5, we strongly support the principle, the new principle in this bill, of a community right to buy land to further sustainable development. It is something that we would hope to see in the community empowerment act, but we welcome it in this bill. Sustainable development is a well-used, well-established term and is featured in several pieces of legislation since the Parliament was established. However, there is more detail that could be put into the bill, particularly in relation to how ministers will judge significant harm and significant benefit. We also need to clarify the land that is registered under the community empowerment act and the land reform act to make sure that it is all brought together to ensure that communities and landowners have clarity. A key new provision that I think the committee has rightfully asked for consideration on is the issue about how we deliver good quality land for housing and good quality buildings for housing. An issue raised by the land reform group was not just the idea of a community compulsory purchase order, but the possibility of a compulsory sale order. For example, we have an empty building or vacant or derelict land that could be used to deliver sustainable development, which is not currently being realised. I hope that the ministers will look at the issue and consider bringing forward amendment at stage 2. It is certainly something that we are looking at. It is an area that would definitely help to improve the strength of the bill and it would definitely be something that, if the minister is able to work on this over the next couple of weeks, would be a huge improvement. It is supported by Community Land Scotland and Shelter Scotland. If the minister is able to give me a good answer, I would be delighted to take an intervention. We are just about the point to say to Boyack in relation to the compulsory sale orders that have been taken forward at the moment through our housing and land reform team. It is part and parcel of the nine recommendations that were made by the land reform review group. I know that there was a lot of consultation that took place over the summer around that and there was a report that was produced. The ministers are currently considering that at the moment. Boyack, that was a very helpful intervention, minister. I am hoping that you will now come to the right conclusion in the light of that report. We would certainly be keen to push this in the amendment stage. In part 6, the inclusion of shooting in deer forests on the valuation role is something that we are absolutely supportive of from the Scottish Labour Party. However, we do think that there was an awful lot of opposition to this section of the bill and we think that more evidence, particularly in the business regulatory impact assessment, could be provided. We crucially need to know that local authorities and assessors will have the necessary resources to carry out this piece of work. It is hugely important that it is done fairly and there are particular concerns about very small holdings. We need clarification on that. We support the new measures on common good land, the tidy up existing legislation and accurate mapping of common good land will increase transparency and is definitively a good thing. On deer management, we very much support the comments made by the committee convener Rob Gibson. We do think that there are clearly areas where the system is not working. While the proposals in the bill will provide some help, it does not go far enough and we need to see biodiversity problems properly addressed with urgent action with stronger powers for SNH to act. That is something that we would like to see in the final version of the bill. Access rights, we think, are important and the new provisions again should help to lead to more access and more effective access. I will not be able to do justice to the agricultural holding section of the bill. It has been extremely difficult to scrutinise this part of the bill because the Scottish Government told us at the outset that they had not finished working on those provisions. We are getting on not quite a weekly basis but almost that more information from the Scottish Government. We support the aim of a vibrant, tenanted sector with support for new farmers with a capacity for long-standing farmers to leave their tenancies with fairness and to have access to good housing, but that requires a great deal of work to be done. We welcome the tenant farming commissioner, but we think that the codes of practice need to be enforced on a statutory basis to deliver fairness across the whole country. I want to record that we are being drift-fed by the Government's responses. It is not just that it makes it difficult for us as a committee to consider all those potential amendments, but it is very difficult for those people who are not in the Parliament to see the full picture. It is complex. It is a hugely important bill and we do support it, but we think that that problem will emerge as a major challenge for us. If I can just say that the Government's amendments are now due on 13 January, our own amendments are due on 15 January and we have a recess between now and then. We need to make sure that this bill is the best bill it can be to deliver for the people of Scotland and not just to deliver for the people of Scotland, but to be a bill that will stand the test of time and that is something that we need to deliver together. If the Scottish Government can tell us when it will give us a response to stage 1 debate, that will help us immeasurably. I thank the clerking team for the extraordinary good job that they did in bringing this report together. Time is very tight, so I must come straight to business. As I look at parts 1 to 9 and 11 of the bill, there is a great deal that we can agree with within them, although it has been extraordinarily difficult to be certain of the full consequences of much of it due to the amount of detail that has been deferred to a future Parliament through secondary legislation. So, we don't have any great difficulties with parts 1 to 9 of the bill, some colleagues will mention some later, or at least their general principles. In any concerns we do have, we will seek to remedy at stage 2 by amendment and by way of example under the community's right to buy land in order to further sustainable development. The Minister told us in Dumfries that in a 50-50 situation where the land managers' interests and the community's interests were deemed to be equal, the community's right to buy would override the land managers' interests. I don't agree with that, but it's something that we can and will seek to amend. I do have one exception however in these parts of the bill, and that's at part 6, which is the reintroduction of sporting rates. I have a real difficulty that goes beyond the serious concerns that have been highlighted in the committee's report. It was quite clear that the Government has not really thought this proposal through, that it has no idea how much it will raise or even costs to raise, that it has no idea how much it wants to raise or even has became very clear in our Dumfries meeting really why it wants to raise it at all. The minister said that it was about fairness and she said it again today, but I struggle to think of to whom this measure would be fair. It's certainly not the many field sports businesses across the south of Scotland which put millions into the local economy while competing with similar businesses across the border. If you impose sporting rates on those businesses you will put some of them out of business. I agree with the committee that the case for change has not been made and I really hope that the Government will heed that. Overall, there's nothing within what I call the land reform part of this bill that would have caused us to vote against the principles of it. It's within part 10 that relates to agricultural holdings that I have a real difficulty. I want to use my remaining time to explain why and indeed why we will be voting against this bill this evening. I've always believed that this part of the bill should have been a stand-alone piece of legislation and I still believe that to be the case. The subject is worthy of deep and meaningful debate and there exists right now a willingness on all sides of this sector to continue that debate to achieve a long-term sustainable solution to a sector that is beset by a number of problems. The twin aims of the bill are laudable. They are to further empower tenants while creating an environment that encourages those who have land to let it. I have never agreed more with anything that this Government has put on paper. Presiding Officer, as I've said in dissenting to this section of the bill, this bill cannot achieve those twin aims and I actually believe that most of my colleagues on the committee would agree with that. What's more, the stage 2 amendments proposed by the Government that would replace the bill's intention to introduce conversion to MLDTs for 91 act tenants with an assignment for value model will guarantee the exact opposite reaction of those aims. As indeed will the late addition to the committee's report that raises once again the spectre of an absolute right to buy, a right coincidentally consigned to the legislative dustbin by the Cabinet Secretary himself exactly seven years ago tomorrow. Something is wrong here, Presiding Officer. The Agricultural Holdings legislation review group, chaired by the Cabinet Secretary himself, looked at the assignation for value model and specifically rejected it. Now the Cabinet wants to reintroduce it and that simply highlights a tragic dilemma that has emerged within this part of the bill. The AHLRG saw the sense of gradually allowing 91 act tenants to wither on the vine and be replaced over time with modern, vibrant 21st century letting vehicles. The Cabinet Secretary, in what I can only suppose is a desperate search for his defining legacy, now seems intent on mothballing 91 act tenants in perpetuity and that is exactly why this bill will not create an environment to encourage the letting of land. If he continues down this route, his legacy is more likely to be the killing off of the tenanted sector rather than its reinvigoration and I don't genuinely believe that that's what he seeks to do. Presiding Officer has been mentioned, the Rural Affairs Committee and the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee have urged the Government to be ultra cautious with ECHR aspects of this bill and I want to begin to draw to a close with a warning. We thought we'd passed a competent bill in 2003 and yet all too recently we have seen the tragic consequences of the fact that we did not and I'm sure anyone involved will have noticed that it was the tenants who have borne the brunt of our mistake. The dangers inherent within this bill's proposals are far greater than they were in 2003 and I would urge the Government to scrutinise microscopically the ECHR implications of every aspect of this bill to ensure that it isn't the tenants once again who become its victims. That does not bear thinking about it. Presiding Officer, the Cabinet Secretary's legacy could be the man who saved the tenanted sector rather than the man who destroyed it. The only way to achieve that accolade is to withdraw this section of the bill, accept that more time needs to be given to working on that long-term sustainable solution and take it up again in the next Parliament. There is a glorious prize to be won, a renewal of trust between landowner and tenant, a truly reinvigorated tenanted sector and a restoration of the tried, tested and traditional way into agriculture for young and new farmers alike and the appetite to achieve that is out there. However, that prize cannot be achieved through this bill, but I firmly believe that it can be achieved and the time is right. Surely, this is worth more than any pre-election headline about landlords and tenants and the passing of an ill-thought-out bill that is more than likely to end up in the European courts. I now call on Nigel Dawn on behalf of the DPLR committee. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I'm grateful for the opportunity to speak this afternoon in my capacity as the convener of the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee. The committee has continuing concerns about the bill. Firstly, I should note that the Government has latterly provided reassurances that amendments will be lodged at stage 2, which will address some of the issues highlighted by the committee. In particular, the committee welcomes the commitment to develop the policy in respect of the power in section 79 of the bill regarding conversion of secure 1991 act tenancies more fully on the face of the bill. We encourage the Scottish Government to share the amendments proposed with the Parliament as early as possible. The committee, however, remains particularly concerned about two powers within the bill. Section 35 subsection 1 confers power on Scottish ministers to make regulations enabling persons who are affected by land to access information about persons in control of that land. The committee is concerned about the absence of policy development, which appears to have precluded the inclusion of more detail on the face of the bill and has prevented the committee from being in position to scrutinise the power fully. The committee recognises that regulations creating a scheme for disclosure of information about individuals are likely to be both substantial and significant. It is not, in the committee's view, appropriate to delegate the development of such a significant policy to regulations. The committee invites the Scottish Government to develop the policy regarding disclosure of information more fully on the face of the bill at stage 2. If it is not in a position to do so, then the committee believes that an enhanced form of affirmative procedure should be attached to that power. Similarly, the committee continues to be concerned about the power in new section 38M of the Agricultural Holdings Scotland Act 2003 inserted into that act by section 81 of the bill. That provides that the Scottish ministers, made by regulations, make further provision about the sale of an agricultural holding in relation to which the land court has, under new section 38L, varied an order for sale to allow the holding to be offered for sale on the open market. The power is a significant one, which will permit the process to be set out wholly in regulations. The committee considers that matters with which power to deal should be set out more fully on the face of the bill. That brings me to more general observations about the delegated powers in the bill. Firstly, the committee found much of the information provided by the Government in the delegated powers memorandum in oral evidence and in the initial response to the committee's report to be inadequate and insufficient to enable the committee to form a clear view about the purpose and effect of some of the powers. Secondly, the committee remains concerned about the absence of policy developments in relation to powers that could interact with individual ZCHRs. We are, as a committee, thinking that this approach is wholly unacceptable. The committee considers that policies that may interact significantly with individual ZCHRs should be developed in full on the face of the bill rather than deferred to regulations. Finally, the committee reiterates its concerns and expresses more recently in relation to the Community Empowerment Scotland Bill that powers have been taken as a substitute for thorough policy development in advance of the introduction of a bill, leaving the committee with framework bills. To conclude, the committee welcomes the information from the minister that amendments will be lodged at stage 2 to respond to some of the committee's concerns. However, the committee would welcome further reflection on the powers in sections 35 and inserted section 38M of the 2003 act. Thank you very much. I now move to the open debate. I invite members who have not yet pressed a request to speak but to do so. Colin Grahame Day, to be followed by Johann Lamont's six-minute speeches, please. The bill represents an opportunity to deliver bold and meaningful land reform, but we have to get the legislation right, right in the public interest and just as importantly right for the people who live and work in our rural areas, which in particular will be affected by it. The draft bill was a good start. I think that the Racky Committee reported the influence by some very helpful contributions from stakeholders, which offers worthwhile suggestions on how to build on that. However, we are still at the relatively early stages of the process, which offers ample opportunity to better shape the bill. I want to focus my contribution on a number of areas where there is just such scope. There is virtually unchallenged acceptance of the appropriateness of the people of Scotland having the right to know who owns controls and derives benefit from land. Indeed, Doug McCarram of Scottish Land in the States, commenting on circumstances where land ownership is masked by companies or trust, has said, and I quote, "...it's crucial a clear point of contact and face of the trust or company is identified and ideally also the beneficial owner if there is one behind that." So the only debate here, surely, is over how we secure the greatest and most effective degree of transparency. The committee makes a number of recommendations in this regard, creating a power to require rather than request information and impose sanctions for non-compliance would be one positive step forward. And creating a series of asks within a fit for purpose registration process, requiring those who wish to buy land and register title in Scotland to provide a named contact point in Scotland and detail on who will actually control land and may benefit from that ownership and control. And, frankly, any other information that could justify a way to be required as part of a registration set up which delivers real transparency and accountability is another. We should and we must push the envelope here. As the report says, the draft bill could also do with being toughened up in the area of deer management. The bill as it stands proposes a set of interim measures which could be deployed. It should a planned review commenced at the end of 2016 indicate a need for a stringent statutory scheme to be introduced. And it should be acknowledged that the plans around this review are in keeping with the recommendations of the Iraqi committee in its 2013 report. However, formal and anecdotal evidence left the committee unconvinced that the necessary changes in practice will, at least in some areas, be delivered by the end of 2016. And with Scotland's 2020 biodiversity targets in mind, we cannot take further risk here, hence the committee calling on the government to ensure the review kicks off within 2016 and certainly within a timeframe that positions the government to take action where it is required come the end of the year. I am therefore heartened by the minister's commitment to look at the issue. Those areas where fully functioning deer management plans are in place will have nothing to fear. Those where heels are being dragged need to know that they have only months to get their act together. If nothing else, that will focus minds. As Rob Gibson highlighted earlier, we also want the Government to amend the bill to arm themselves with the powers that were recommended by the land reform review group, which could be deployed as necessary at the conclusion of the review. Moving on, the report calls on the Scottish Government to bring forward an amendment to section 252, which lists the codes of practice that may be prepared by the tenant farming commissioner and includes a statutory code of conduct for land agents as a priority. Other than transparency, if there is one aspect of the report that represents common ground for multiple stakeholders, then this is it. There is not a member of the committee or an MSP representing a rural area who has not heard horror stories about the actions of some land agents. I urge the minister not only to accept the committee's recommendation but to ensure that any amendment leads to the consultation over and implementation of such a code being delivered in timely fashion. If we are ever to improve relationships between landowners and tenants, then getting a grip of those land agents whose approach to their work is hardly conducive to create a harmonious environment is essential. The committee's report calls for a number of amendments to the draft bill, but just as important it is calling for greater clarity and information around the regulation-making powers contained within it. Any bill of this size and complexity will contain a significant number of regulation-making powers. We know that. The issue with this one is an absence, at least at this stage, of detail around a number of important provisions that will be left to secondary legislation. I welcome the minister's commitment to look at this and look forward to receiving a positive response as far as one can be provided. Similarly, our call and that of the DPLR committee for consideration of the nature of the scrutiny processes for these regulations should be heeded. By the time they come before Parliament, we will have an election and a number of members, intimately acquainted with the detail and evolution of the primary legislation, will no longer be around to bring their expertise to bear. Just as we need to get the bill right, we need to ensure that the related guidance is as it should be. I am conscious of time and look forward to other contributions. I will draw my remarks to a close by saying this. Like other members, I suspect that I am counting the hours until the Christmas recess. It has been a tough six months going through the land reform bill and the rural affairs committee. However, in common, I am sure with my committee colleagues that I look forward to returning to the land reform bill in the next year and helping to ensure that it realises its very obvious potential. I am now calling Joanna Lamont to be followed by Angus MacDonald. Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. Can I offer my congratulations to the committee for producing what I thought was a very thoughtful and challenging report on what is an issue of importance to people across Scotland? We only have to look at the passion in the evidence given to the committee to see that it is something that people really care about. I also commend the convener of the committee, Rob Gibson, on what I thought was a very powerful speech outlining the position of the committee itself. Of course, it is an issue that is very dear to the heart of the Labour Party. I am proud of the work that we did in government in making some significant progress in relation to land reform, and I hope that this can build on that work. First, it is important to recognise that addressing the significant imbalance of the ownership of land in Scotland is simply an issue of justice. Our history is scarred by the experience of all too many families who were cleared from their land or delayed the opportunity to work the land by those who gave little regard for the consequences for those people. Indeed, I was learning only last night that my own great-grandfather was cleared from his home and dumped on the shoreline on the island of Tyrie, and if you look at the sense of that time, you can see that he did have an impact very immediately on his family. The current concentration of land in the hands of a few gives graphic illustration to the reinforcing impact of inequality in our society, and that is why it should matter. However, every bit is important that the question of land reform is also an issue about the economy. It is important that communities are able to tackle the depopulation from the flow away from too many of our rural and island communities, which was a hallmark of my parents' generation and led to my classroom in Glasgow, being full of children from Tyrie, Islay, Lewis, Skye and beyond. We have seen excellent examples of how economic activity has been stimulated through community ownership with a focus on job creation and local enterprises and linking into the great opportunity that the internet gives us to allow business to thrive in remote communities. With land concentrating too few hands, some communities have suffered in the past from benign neglect with a lack of interest and indifference, which has led to a paralysis in local development. In other cases, there are those who would prefer large swathes of our land to be left as a playground for the few, whose interests are therefore an indirect conflict with local communities who want jobs and homes for their young people. It is evident, as I have said, that, with community ownership, there is an increased level of activity of innovation around renewables, for example, and community enterprise. I would ask the Scottish Government what role it perceives for community development Scotland in supporting that focus by local communities. It is, of course, too essential that accessing the right to buy should not be overly bureaucratic and should rather have a presumption in favour of local communities, given how significant it can be for those communities and for Scotland's diverse economy. To state the obvious, it cannot simply be that they have a theoretical right. It must be one that can be exercised. It is essential that land ownership is transparent. I note that the committee report says that the bill should be bold in its ambition and clear in its purpose. This is particularly important on the issue of land ownership and I regret that the proposal on transparency has not been followed through. I cannot understand why there has to be an inhibition on who can seek information on who owns land, for example, but it is also a particular regret that the proposals to ensure that legal entities wishing to own land in Scotland should have to be a registered place of business within the European Union. That feels to me to be something very logical if we are going to be able to challenge those who own the land. It should be a fundamental right to know who owns, controls and benefits from the land and this needs to be addressed, I believe. How can we encourage dialogue between owner and community if we cannot even establish who the owner is? In conclusion, I would seek assurance from the minister and encourage the Scottish Government to reflect on the potential significance of community land reform in an urban setting. I say that not simply because our cities are full of the descendants of migrants from the islands and highlands who reflected in past times failures of the land ownership system. However, we also know that, in more populated areas in our towns and cities, there are problems with land ownership and with land neglect. It can cause blight, it can prevent development and result in lost potential. In urging support for the bill but recognising the challenge of still facing the Scottish Government given the strength of feeling on those issues, I urge the Government to respond to the committee report but also to recognise that there is energy and commitment in our urban communities as well as our rural communities that can be harnessed to ensure that land use is more productive for those communities and for our economy as a whole. Many thanks and now Colin Angus MacDonald to be followed by Tavish Scott. Six minutes are thereby please. Thank you, Presiding Officer. It's certainly been quite a journey since June as we've travelled the lengths and breadth of the country, taking evidence during stage one and taking well over 200 submissions of written and oral evidence, which has been extremely helpful in bringing our stage one report to conclusion. However, before I run out of time later, Presiding Officer, which I normally do, I join the convener and others in paying tribute to the work of the Iraqi committee clerking team and SPICE, whose help and assistance has been immense. As teams go, they're up there with the best, if not the best, and I look forward to continuing to work with them as we complete stages two and three of the bill in the coming months. It's clear that the bill has helped to ensure an energising and exciting debate around land reform throughout the country, which will no doubt continue in the next few months and after the bill becomes an act. It's clear that, while the bill is radical, there simply isn't the time or capacity to address every single issue that needs to be addressed, which is why the proposal to create a Scottish Land Commission will help to move the outstanding issues or any unfinished business forward and will ensure that they're not kicked into long grass but dealt with in a timely manner. On the issue of the Land Commission and the proposal for six commissioners, I'm particularly pleased that the committee calls on the Scottish Government to ensure that there's a Gaelic speaker amongst them, as Rob Gibson, the committee convener, has already referred to. If this Parliament and the Scottish Government are to show Gaelic the equal respect that has been legislated for in this chamber through the Gaelic Language Act, then they both need to put their money where their mouths are. There's already a legal requirement that there should be a Gaelic speaker on the Crofting Commission and on the land court, so to ensure the new Scottish Land Commission has an understanding of the complex history that has left land ownership where it is today in Scotland, I firmly believe it's imperative that the land commissioners have the knowledge available to them that will come to them. Otherwise, the bill will legislate for a Gaelic name. Yes, certainly. Minister, Eileen McLeod. Just to make the point to Angus MacDonald, when he's raising in relation to one of the commissioners being a Gaelic speaker, it's just to give him reassurance that we too agree. The Scottish Government absolutely recognises the cultural importance of the Gaelic language, and so that's why we've committed to take forward a stage 2 amendment, and we very much hope that in the public appointments process that we're able to appoint at least one commissioner with the required expertise and who's also a Gaelic speaker as well, but that's also been a matter for the Scottish Land Commission. Angus MacDonald. I very warmly welcome that commitment from the minister. It gives the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government the opportunity to highlight that Gaelic is a living language and that we do show it equal respect. The release of the committee stage 1 report a week last Friday at the registrar of Scotland offices at Merro Bank House coincided with the news that the Parky State community buyout had reached a successful conclusion, which I'm sure was music to all our ears. It's been 12 long years since the park trust was formed, and 11 long years since the community agreed to pursue a buyout from a hostile absentee landlord. It's hoped that this bill, when completed at stage 3, will ensure a situation like the park buyout saga can never happen again. Of course, the provisions in the bill at part 5, particularly sections 38 to 65, introduce a new right to buy land to further sustainable development, which are in addition to the community right to buy and crofting community right to buy, which are already in place and were recently amended by the Community Empowerment Act, along with the new provisions relating to extending the community right to buy to abandoned or neglected land. However, the proposed new right to buy for communities to further sustainable development contained in the bill is very welcome, but the committee is asking the Government to consider whether the test thresholds are too high and whether communities will be able to make full use of the provisions. One aspect of the proposals is that our committee recommends that the Scottish Government considers the benefits of local authorities, other public bodies and or Scottish ministers being able to buy land for present or future community use or as a buyer of last resort and considers whether the bill could be amended in this regard at stage 2. However, it is perhaps worth noting at this point the NFUS's concerns regarding this aspect of the bill until the threshold on community right to buy is properly defined. Turning briefly to part 6 of the bill, where the committee has significant concerns regarding the introduction of non-domestic business rates for shooting and deer forests, throughout the stage 1 period it became abundantly clear to the committee that, while strongly supporting the principle, there was still a great deal of further detail required. That is why we are calling on the Scottish Government to provide a thorough, robust and evidence-based analysis of the potential economic, social and environmental impacts of any and sporting rates exemption as soon as possible, and certainly before the start of stage 2, if the committee is to be in a position to support this part of the bill, which it would clearly like to do. However, there is no doubt in my mind that if removal of the rates exemption was successfully introduced in addition to raising funds for the Scottish land fund and possibly other options such as funding for modern apprenticeship training in rural areas, it will also be another step towards a more balanced rural land market. In closing, the committee wishes to see the bill strengthened, as I am sure the minister and the Scottish Government do. However, it is clear that we must be realistic about what can be achieved in the given timetables. As land reform is an on-going process, what is not achieved in this bill can be dealt with in the next session of Parliament and by the new land commissioners in the Scottish Land Commission. However, this is a good bill, so I am sure that if we all work together with the Scottish Government in the run-up to stage 2 and beyond to stage 3, we can make it better. Charles Kennedy, in his last speech at a Scottish conference, made a very Charles Kennedy-esque contribution on land reform. He was missed for many reasons across all the politics, but he was certainly the passionate west hounder when it came to land reform. I suspect to be much in this bill that he would agree with as we do on these benches. I have reflected on Sarah Boyack's point of order on the start of this debate. The minister said in her opening remarks that the bill was complex and she is entirely right about this, but she also said that the bill was not being rushed. The more I have heard this debate today, my concern about this is that we are rushing an extremely complex piece of legislation. If I heard some of the remarks that the convener of the delegated powers committee made and the convener of the rural affairs committee, not only is this a complex bill, but the Government has already said that they are going to bring forward profoundly important amendments at stage 2 and we will have to see what happens at stage 3. From a parliamentary point of view, Angus MacDonald is absolutely right about what he has just said. The need to scrutinise a major piece of legislation at the tail end of a Parliament and to get it right is a very significant challenge for this Parliament indeed. I wonder whether or not this debate should not have been on a motion to take note to allow the debate that the minister rightly said she wanted to hear. For the Government to bring forward its stage 1 debate at the stage that it had provided its full response to the Iraqi committee's very full deliberations, which, as Sarah Boyack was pointing out, run into hundreds of pages and no doubt many tens of recommendations. I hope that the Government might slightly reflect on that. Sarah Boyack and John Lamont also mentioned the land reform that we passed back in 2003, which Jim Wallace then, Deputy First Minister, took through Parliament. The point that I remember well from that bill was that the bill changed remarkably from its early introduction, in a parliamentary sense, all the way through to the stage 1 debate. I think that that reflected particularly well on all those who contributed to that debate at that time and who made clear their wish to see aspects strengthened and aspects changed. It also, if I may say, reflected well on a Government who prepared to listen to that. I hope that this current Government will do the same with this complex and challenging legislation. Many measures in this bill, as I have suggested, we believe are positive. The transparency around who owns the land that the Minister rightly mentioned, and indeed other members have mentioned as well, is profoundly right and should be taken forward in all the right ways. I do get a little concerned by the pretty tidal debate that tends to happen around landowners and who or what they may be. I came across an article in the Scottish Wildlife Trust magazine the other day about Glen Feshey, which is one of the most fantastic parts of Scotland that is owned by Dane Andis Poulson. He, of course, since 2006, has culled deer, he's regenerated the pine forest, he has made fundamental changes to habitat management and habitat restoration and is surely, as the SWT put it, absolute exemplar for all that can be good about both working with our community, working with people who live in that area and who depend on the land, but also doing all the right things for a part of Scotland that is now better than it was before under his stewardship of that substantial part of our country. I think that that makes a very good point that there are many many good landowners in the country. I think that what we're looking at in the bill is where we don't know who actually does own the land and it's not possible to have a conversation with those people. I agree with that point that Sarah Boyk made. It's exactly the point that I was making about land transparency and the measures that are in the bill, which many of us would like to see strengthened and that is a very fair observation. I want to just touch on the agricultural holdings aspects to this bill and as Rod Gibson made clear, it is half the bill. I too share the view that these two things should not, frankly, be lumped together. This is complex legislation. We got it wrong in 2003. All of us who were there will remember that it was on a cross-party basis that we got it all wrong. Indeed, there was huge pressure on the Government of the day to make that legislative change and it was supported by all parties. It is a difficult area of law. We can absolutely agree, as Alex Ferguson put it, with the very clear aspiration in the principles of the bill about the vibrancy of the tenancy sector and encouraging and ensuring that there is a greater amount of tenancy land available to letter and Scotland. That is as right as it should be, but what we must ensure we don't do is to put tenant farmers through years and years more of complex legal mechanisms that will only benefit lawyers and whether it be taken down by ECHR, as I think Graham Day was rightly mentioning, or by other legal challenges. I can't think of anything that would be worse for encouraging the tenancy rented sector than this Parliament passing rush legislation, which makes the situation worse than it was before. That will not be the Minister's intention. It won't be the Government's intention, but it is so important that we don't rush the complexity of that issue and simply get it wrong. I was very taken with the group that the Cabinet Secretary chaired to review this area. I also thought that the appointment of Andrew Thin as the interim tenant commissioner was a very sensible one. Andrew Thin is a substantial figure who has already with the many groups made substantial progress on rent reviews, the tenants improvements, limited partnerships and landlord tenant obligations. All those issues need to be taken forward in exactly that spirit. Indeed, I saw in the briefing that the NFU proposed or submitted for today's debate that they recognise the importance of the statutory powers being properly and proactively enforced in this area. There is great goodwill to make this work, great goodwill to move forward in this area, but I worry rather about the stage to a member that the Minister confirmed that the Government is going to bring forward. It seems to me that if we move into some area around the right to buy, we will be again bogged down in the courts. Again, the only people who will benefit from that will not be tenants but will be lawyers. The bill is important and needs to be properly scrutinised. The issues that have been raised by many members today lead us to need as much time as this Parliament can give to ensure that scrutiny takes place. I would like to thank the clerks and the rest of the team in Spice and elsewhere for all the work that they have put in over the past period in relation to the bill. I would like to deal with some of the fundamental issues around the bill and the committee's report. Land, obviously, is a national asset. It has to be used in the public interest and it must be used for the common good. Those are just fundamental things that we must take into account when looking at any land issue. I believe that Land Reform, this bill, is probably the most important issue that the Parliament has dealt with certainly in this past session and maybe in its existence. If you consider who owns the land, let's look at Sam 24. The earth is the Lord's and everything in it, the world and all who live in it. If you look at Leviticus, God says that the land shall not be sold forever, for the land is mine, for you are strangers and sojourners with me. What that means is that fundamentally nobody owns the land, but God had a manoeuvre, didn't own the land, they were tenants. We are stewards and we must look after the land. Both theologically and practically, land and community are inextricably linked and each must benefit the other. So, land and community are paramount and all of society must benefit from the use of land. Of course, much land now is used for hunting, shooting and fishing. Here's what Neil Gunn had to say about the rights of the people in his novel, Butcher's Groom. The men also went hunting, the hill for deer and the river for salmon, and so ancient had been their gaming rights that no new laws or restrictions in favour of landlord or lessee could ever convict them in their own minds of poaching. If poaching, it must be called and so much the greater zest in its pursuit. Again, if you look at Neil Gunn's novel, the reason I'm quoting these things is to put this into a kind of historic context. The Duke of Sutherland in talking to his good lady wife said, it really comes to this that what benefits the landlord benefits the nation. I admit that what has been said by some of your Gallic enthusiasts has sometimes irritated me. A landlord must have absolute power over tenancy arrangements on his own land. If you cannot within the law do what you like with your own, the whole basis of our state is dissolved. I simply will break no interference in the slightest degree with my absolute ownership of my own lands, and that goes right against the tenancy argument that related to Adam and Eve. Fortunately, most landowners don't think like that anymore, but believe you me, there are landowners out there who do think like that. The law that allowed clan chiefs to claim their people's land for themselves was made by the rich and powerful, for the rich and powerful. Of course, I accept that there are good landowners, but this legislation is not about good landowners, it's about dealing with the bad ones. Scottish Land and Estates has been said earlier on today that it is still flexing its muscles and threatening the Government with multimillion pound legal threats if we go ahead with this. Of course, ECHR is an extremely important issue, and this bill must comply with ECHR. There are other things such as the international covenant and economic, social and cultural rights, which we also have to take account of, and also the UN voluntary guidelines on responsible governments of tenure of land, fisheries and forests and the content of the national food strategy. This land reform bill is dealing with a complex issue, there's no doubt about that. In my local paper, one of them, the West Helen Free Press, the editor seemed to think or doubt that the Scottish Government was committed to any kind of radical land reform at all. Now, this is a radical bill. The Land Commission, once it's created, will be looking at land issues day in, day out, week in, week out, month in, month out for evermore, and registration of land will ensure we know who owns the land. Just briefly thank the minister for comments about a Gaelic speaking commissioner. Just put this picture in your mind. If the six land commissioners, including the tenant farmer commissioner, were all Gaelic speaking crofters from Sutherland, or indeed were all merchant bankers from Edinburgh, which land commission do you think would do the best job for the people of Scotland? Finally, we do need to deal with a conditional right to buy for 1991 secure tenants. We need to give them the opportunity because this is a boil that needs to be lanced. There could well be conditions with a prescribed time frame, a choice to sell the holding to the landlord if the tenant wished, a choice to accept a lower value with a lifetime tenancy to say age 65, and also a right of preemption for the land and favour of the land owner should the tenancy be sold on. This is a debate that we need to have. We need to deal with this issue. If we don't deal with it, it's going to sour the whole thing as we move forward. I'm pleased to be able to speak today on the significant bill that Parliament has been considering. The bill introduces a whole range of new proposals, many of which are commendable in their aims but some of which are ill-thought-out and potentially damaging to jobs, to farming and to the right to own property. It is because of this that my party will not be supporting this bill at stage one. It is our belief that the Scottish Government needs to go back and think again on land reform. There are a number of provisions in this bill that would not be in the interests of landowners or communities in the borders in my constituency. Part 6, which would reintroduce business rates for shooting in deer forests, the vast majority of which run at a loss, will inevitably cost jobs in my constituency. Reintroducing rates could also have the perverse effect of ensuring that shooting is only carried out on larger states. Resulting in poorer land maintenance and a rise in deer populations. In the borders, the estates will be put at a competitive disadvantage to those across the border in North Northumberland, meaning jobs will certainly be lost. Unusially, for an SNP-dominated Parliament, the committee report notes that the case for change in this area has not been made. The Scottish Government appears too quick to stereotype landowners as wealthy individuals who are not working in the interests of local communities or the land they own. As the NFUS put it, the them and us attitude is not an accurate portrait. The reality is that they are, more often than not, hard-working stewards of the land who contribute to tourism, employment and housing. The most worrying example of that view is in part 5 of the bill, which would allow the Scottish Government to force landowners to sell their land if ministers decide that they are not using it in the way that they wish. I accept that the bill would allow this provision only to be used to further sustainable development, only when significant harm was identified to the community if the land was not transferred, coupled with significant benefit to the community if the land is transferred. However, the bill defines neither sustainable development nor significant benefit or harm. The problem with this is that the right to buy is potentially very wide-ranging to a much greater extent than existing rights to buy. MSPs are therefore being asked to approve them in principle without knowing how they would work in practice. The provisions clearly interact with the European Convention of Human Rights, most notably the rights to peaceful enjoyment of possession. The Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee has said that they were, and I quote, unable to confirm to Parliament whether those powers are to be exercised in a manner that is compatible with ECHR. The report noted that this is a matter of concern to the committee, and it should be a matter of concern to all of us here today. I am concerned that those provisions are rooted in SNP ideology that the state knows best, but at the very least there are clearly questions to be answered over whether those provisions are proportionate and therefore legal. No one in this chamber wants this legislation to be challenged in the courts, which is currently drafted as a very real possibility. I thank the member for taking an intervention. He was talking about the rest of Europe. Does he know that we heard at committee level that France, for example, has a system like Saffaire that controls very much the cell of any kind of land and is a lot stricter at what is proposed in this bill? I am not familiar with that particular French act of Parliament. What we are considering today, the concerns that have been raised by the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee, are concerns that we need to take on board. I would suggest that the Scottish Government needs to reflect on the bill and ensure that it is amended to ensure that there is no issue about compatibility with ECHR. There are other areas of concern over part 5 of the bill. For example, it is unclear whether the intention behind those provisions are to act as a deterrent to any landowners currently causing significant harm or rather to empower communities by providing realistic ownership opportunities. As the stage 1 report puts it, it would not be appropriate for Government officials to provide advice to third parties seeking to exercise their new right to buy as well as processing and then deciding on applications. At some of the intentions behind the bill, my party fully agrees with, but in too many cases the stage 1 report concludes that the bill in fact fails to achieve many of its aims. First, the provisions are designed to improve the transparency of land ownership, something that I agree needs to be tackled, does according to the committee unlikely to deliver the improved transparency about those who not only own land but control or benefit from land that the Scottish Government is seeking. In part 10, which my colleague Alex Ferguson has dissented, will not only fail to meet the stated aims of the bill, it will make things worse. The bill seeks to reinforce the rights of tenants while encouraging people with land to let their property. There are defects in the current acts of Parliament governing the bill, but the complex changes proposed by the bill will not diversify land tenure. Again, concerns were raised by witnesses and the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee that too much in this part of the bill was left to secondary legislation. When the committee visited the Scottish Borders, it was this part that dominated discussions. The Cabinet Secretary has admitted that he is limited in amendments due to time constraints. I cannot support a bad piece of legislation that will make an already complex area of the law even worse. At the very least, this part of the bill should be taken out and improved. At this legislation, it is far from satisfactory. Perhaps because it tries to do too much, it fails to achieve so many of its aims. Because of the damaging proposals over a new right to buy, the reintroduction of rates for sporting estates and the problems surrounding the sections concerning agricultural holdings, my party will be unable to support this bill at stage 1. However, as Angus MacDonald said earlier this month, the park community in Lewis Bottery State followed a 13-year struggle, despite legislation that was supposed to make that easier for them. It was only due to their perseverance that they achieved that goal that many other communities would have given up years ago. We need to make sure that, when we are bringing forward new legislation, we are not putting new barriers in front of communities seeking to buy their land. There are many natural barriers already. For instance, you need a majority of the community to agree, and anyone who works with communities will know that having that level of agreement is difficult, almost impossible. It only happens when the current situation is untenable. Similarly, people do not want the responsibility of managing an estate. If the estate is being well run and managed currently, why would you? There would be no community benefit and no advantage. Finally, in order to carry forward such a plan, you need strong community leaders with staying power. Many communities that would benefit from owning their own land simply do not have the leadership and it never progresses. You need a number of people with knowledge and stamina to lead a buy-out, and they also need to keep their community with them every step of the way. Therefore, I would argue that there are natural checks and balances in the system without adding others. Obviously, a buy-out needs to be in the public interest and it must have the goal of sustainable economic development. The bill before us today should not make this harder. In the Highlands and Islands, the land reform movement is of particular importance because history tells us of the clearances and of the land raids. The fight against poverty, the fight for equality has always come down to who owns the land and who has the right to work it. That still resonates today, possibly because of our history. People having been driven off the land or into poverty, as Johann Lamont said, have been moved to the poorer land of the shore because of others' lack of concern for their work and their wellbeing. Sadly, we see that still happening today. Less so in the Croft and County, where people have the right to their Crofts and a degree of security. However, many of those scenarios are still played out in farming tendencies. They desperately need security and the right to have a say over their own destiny. It is true for all who work in the land. We must right the wrongs of the past. Clearances appear like ancient history until you look around your communities and see that many are still struggling to survive because of the clearances. If you walk through many highland glens, you will come across ruins of villages that were once vibrant communities. We really need people to return to those glens. There are powers to create new Crofts but that has stalled. How can we build our economy and improve our services without people? The land reform goes much wider than simply the land. The land is a driver for the wellbeing of our communities. It is an economic driver, one of our prime resources. Where it is being managed for the benefit of the community, we see communities flourish and grow. Where it is not, we see them wither and fail. Depopulation has haunted the highlands and islands since the clearances. I hope that the bill will help. However, given the new land commission and HIE power to address depopulation and repopulation, it might go a long way to righting those past wrongs. People living and working on the land should also know who that land belongs to. Far too often, estates are owned by faceless companies or a string of companies and it is impossible to know who you should turn to when you need to make improvements or changes. Offshore companies often hold sway with no accountability at all. The bill looks at who should own land and how transparent that owner should be. People have a right to know who owns the land that they work. Back when we considered the Land Registration Scotland bill, there was an opportunity to include the need for a register of beneficial owners in that bill. Sadly, the Government defeated that amendment. That said, I welcome the change of heart. I suspect that it is in some way due to the minister's intervention and I very much welcome that she has taken that stance. I cannot understand why such transparency would be a problem. We need to strengthen this part of the bill. When you go and open a bank account, you have to prove who you are that you will not use it for fraudulent purposes and the like. Anyone who has opened one recently will know the hoops you have to jump through. Land is an asset. It is often a currency in which people hold their wealth, they receive tax breaks and the like. Surely the same checks and balances must be required when you are buying an estate. A number of speakers have spoken about ECHR. An individual's human rights is always secondary to the human rights of wider society. I firmly believe that ECHR is not a barrier to land reform. In fact, it is a driver to land reform, taking account of the wider human rights of our communities. I welcome the bill. I hope that it will be greatly strengthened at stage 2, because if it is, parts of the country that I have been ignored for far too long will be empowered to build their own futures. That will not only be a benefit to them, it will be a benefit to all of us. I now call on Alison Johnstone to be followed by Mike Russell. Before I begin, I would like to say that I agree with colleagues who would have liked to have seen the Government's response to the bill. I wonder if we could look at dates, have a bit more liaison and make sure that that happens in the future. Land is limited. It is also emotional and personal. Our homes are on land. We live off the land. Nations are defined by their land. We all need land, but access to it and ownership of it is unequal. The land inequity that we see today in Scotland is vast and totally out of step with many of our European neighbours. Patterns of land ownership in our neighbouring nations are typically 1,000 times less concentrated than in Scotland. Not only do relatively few people own most of Scotland, but around a quarter of all the states over 1,000 acres have been held by the same families for over 400 years. That is the history that we live with today and which this Parliament is slowly beginning to overcome. Land reform, as we hear, is a broad topic. It is rural and urban, but it also concerns the marine environment. It is inextricably linked to local democracy, fiscal policy, land prices and human rights. Scottish Greens have always seen radical land reform as a vital element of the journey to a more sustainable, equal and prosperous Scotland. I hope that this bill is the start of the Parliament taking a renewed and sustained interest, be that through greater devolution, empowering local authorities through tax reform or community empowerment. In this bill, the provisions on transparency are important. Who owns and benefits from land is a key question, and I believe that the electorate is entitled to full transparency about who really owns Scotland. There is no simple way to deliver complete transparency, but unfortunately what the Government proposes is unworkable. It limits those who can make requests under section 35 and contains no measures in section 36 to compel any company in, for example, Grand Cayman to reveal anything at all about who is in control of it. It is unenforceable, and it will continue to allow Scottish land ownership to be involved in complex schemes of tax avoidance and evasion and secrecy. The best option on the table by far is to allow only EU registered companies to own land, and we welcome the committee's recommendations on this point. Fiscal reform is also a core part of land reform. I fully support bringing shootings and deer forests back on to the valuation role. Of course, no-one likes to pay tax, especially if it is a tax that they have had an exemption for, but there is more than enough evidence that this should occur. As Andy Wightman, Land Reform expert, puts it, why should caravan sites, pubs and local shops subsidise those who occupy shootings and deer forests, the hair salon, the village garage, their subjector rating and deer forests and shootings pay nothing? The land reform review group made it clear that there is no clear public interest case in maintaining the current universal exemption of agriculture, forestry and other land-based businesses from non-domestic rates. Conclusions from the House of Commons, Scottish Affairs Committee report this year also raised similar concern that the exemptions are not having the desired impact and that these exemptions should be open to the same level of scrutiny as other government spending. That they could in fact be pushing land prices up and undermining the Scottish Government's commitment to increasing land and community ownership. Bold land reform is needed for Scotland and this can help to deliver more affordable homes. Current rates exemptions for vacant and derelict land and for empty industrial buildings both incentivise land in urban areas to stay vacant and all of this land could be used for homes for people. There are almost 11,000 hectares of derelict and urban land vacant in Scotland and a massive demand for affordable homes. I thank the member for taking the intervention. The point that she makes about sporting rates in relation to garages is odd to me because, whereas sporting rates will be levied in Scotland as an extra tax, there is no extra tax on garages. Alison Johnstone, I am sure that the member will agree that when we have a situation where the King of Dubai, who is the Prime Minister of the UAE, is paying absolutely nothing and a local caravan site is paying some £12,000 a year, there is a massive discrepancy. I simply do not see the case that some local businesses are subject to NDR and shooting estates and the like are not. I was speaking about vacant land in Scotland and the fact that we have so much of it is untaxed and we have massive problems with homelessness. We heard earlier today that there are 54,000 homeless households in Scotland. What about the deplorable situation that Andrew Stoddor and his family found themselves in? This has brought tenant farming rights up the agenda again and rightly so. It was clear that poor housing issues jumped out during Racky's evidence gathering and I learned that homes under agricultural tenancies are exempt from minimum standard. There are clearly improvements to be made here and I support the calls for a right to buy for tenants in specific circumstances and I would like to, in closing, flag up a couple of things that Scottish Greens think should be included in the bill. There are numerous examples of common land, not on the register, passing quietly into private ownership. We should create a new protective order for land without an identifiable owner and this should require the keeper to conduct a public consultation to help ascertain what is needed. We should be able to ascertain the true legal status of the land well before any title is registered. Finally, we have left on the statute book a piece of legislation called the division of commonities act 1695. It was one of the legal tools used to privatise vast tracts of common land. This law should be repealed to protect the few patches of common land that remain to signal our break from the land tracts of the past. We will support the bill today but there is much to be done before stage 2. Thank you. I am pleased with the opportunity to contribute to the debate and, as a member of the committee, helped to shape what is a good bill into an even better piece of legislation. I want to assure the minister that she has a strong support on those benches and, indeed, outside the chamber in the task that she has said she is undertaking to do that, and it can be done. The bill is complex and wide-ranging. I have not time to touch on every single issue in it and I want to associate myself with much that the convener has said about the key issues. I just want to mention the issue of transparency. I am old enough to remember the ground-breaking work of John McEwen, who died in 1992, at the age of 104, who devoted his whole life to asking the question, who owns Scotland. He and many others who have pursued that aim would be incredulous if a Scottish Parliament, which did not even exist when he lived, did not answer that question and answer it fully. That question must be answered. The key overriding intent of the bill is to redefine the relationship of the people of Scotland with their land. That task has to rest upon the four founding principles of this Parliament. Our approach to land needs to be accessible, accountable, based on equality, and it must further the sharing of power. It is vitally important that the Parliament accepts that the rights of property are not the only rights that can be exercised or are legally enforceable in 21st century Scotland, and it is then important that the Parliament takes steps to make that acceptance real and effective. The convener quoted Christine Shields, who rated in the spectator some weeks ago. She pointed out that there is a political and legal obligation on the Scottish Government to pursue land reform as a human rights measure. Human rights issues are not peripheral to this bill. They are central to them. They are the reason for moving forward, and they must be embedded in the work of the Land Commission. Land is an asset for the whole of Scotland, not just for those who are wealthy enough to buy it or lucky enough to inherit it. The people have a right to benefit from Scotland's land. Communities and individuals must be able to enforce those rights, which must include the right to be consulted. I have constituents in Carrick Castle in Lochgoil in my constituency who know that only too well. The planning law hasn't been able to protect them from an individual who's bought 12.5 square miles of land, is building what appears to be a hunting lodge and hasn't asked anybody for permission except the national park. The community has been ignored. Parts 1 and 4 of the bill have to be strengthened to ensure that such abuse cannot and does not happen in 21st century Scotland. In part 4, as the minister knows, the language of the policy memorandum needs to come on to the face of the bill to prevent landlords, including state landlords, including local authorities, refusing to ask and refusing to listen. Secondly, communities must be able to obtain land from those who either do not wish to work with their fellow citizens or are not using the land to benefit their good. I very much welcome the minister's comment today in response to Sarah Boyack on the issue of compulsory sale order. I'm glad that it's being considered. There are circumstances—there may be fewer numbers—but there are circumstances where a minister should be able to order the sale of a property to a community. Thirdly, dear management requires urgent action, and part 8 needs to be imbued with a much greater sense of determination as do the actions of SNH. I was a minister who started off the merger between the dear commission with SNH, and frankly I expected better of it. In reality—and this is SNH's own admission—no one knows how many deer there are in Scotland, and in many places no proper counts have taken place for a decade or more. If a third of the deer population is not culled every year, then the size of the herd will increase. That leads to environmental degradation but is also cruel to the animals themselves. It's unconscionable that it's being done as deliberate policy. It's intolerable if it's merely as a result of incompetence and a system that doesn't work. There is a need to take legislative action, in my view, sooner rather than later. Tying the matter to environmental sustainability would be a good start, as the Scottish Wildlife Trust has suggested. Finally, the tenancy proposals are moving in the right way, but they still give too much power to the landowner and too little to the tenant. I very much support the cabinet secretary in his desire for stability in the tenanted sector, but he knows I'm sceptical regarding the ability to secure in a single bill both means to increase tenants' rights and to inculcate new confidence in those that let land. I therefore believe—and it's not the view of the committee, but it's my own belief—that the state in the end will have to intervene to make land available for tenenting, as indeed was the case in the 1948 act. That's presently outwith the scope of the bill, but I do think that it's something that the Land Commission will in the end have to consider. But it is necessary now to come to a conclusion about the right to buy for 1991 tenants. It's not good enough for the Law Society to dismiss the issue as one that should never be raised again, as it did in their briefing for this debate. It is a core matter for many of my constituents in places such as Islay or Bute. It's not an issue of lofty legal abstraction. It won't go away and it has to be resolved. The bill should also tackle the plight of the small landholders whose situation has not yet been rectified, despite attempts to use crofting law and whose rents in places like Arran are being raised again. Finally, although there are many other things that might be and will be discussed here today, there's an overriding imperative that we must all remember as this bill moves, I hope, to its next stage. The issues of the bill are certainly emotive for some, but they are emotive because they are about how people not only earn their living, but how they live and how they have lived. Scotland will be the richer if we engage more and more people in the issue of land and its relationship to our collective future. We'll also be the stronger if we ensure that our legislation recognises that rights are about more than money and that equality and equity need to be embedded. The bill is a good attempt to take these matters further. With the help of many outside this chamber and inside, we can take those steps and do something worthy of our country in the 21st century. Thank you. If members keep to the six minutes, I might be able to call everyone. Jamie McGregor to be followed by Hans Alamallek. Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. I refer members to my agricultural interests and the register of members' interests. I thank those organisations for their briefings in advance today and colleagues on the Racket Committee for their stage 1 report. I draw the Parliament's attention to the National Farmers Union of Scotland briefing, which states that any land reform must focus on what is done with the land rather than who owns it. I also concur with Alex Ferguson about the need to revisit the agricultural holding section outwith this bill because, as drafted, it cannot achieve. The twin aims of reinvigorating the tenanted sector while creating an availability of land if it is encouraging an environment that discourages the amount of land available. There has been a lot of rhetoric from the Scottish Government and I want to start by putting two basic facts on the record. Fact 1, private landowners currently contribute significantly to the Scottish economy as economic studies have shown. There are many examples of good practice and significant investments being made which are helping to sustain jobs, provide affordable rural housing and boost economic growth in often fragile and remote rural communities. All of us should welcome this. Fact 2, the costs of maintaining land and estates in good order are very significant. Drainage, ffencing, upkeeper buildings, agriculture and domestic cross compliance issues, to name just a few, are all practical costs. In many cases these costs would fall on the public purse if ownership was transferred from individuals and this must be factored into any decisions on land tenure where there is such a pressure already on public expenditure. That is surely a very serious consideration. You say that if the land was taken over by communities that the support of it might fall on the public purse, isn't it the case that many private landowners rely on the public purse in order to maintain their land right now? It is true that landowners receive EU subsidies to do with agriculture. That is true. The Scottish Conservatives are clear that community ownership does play a positive part in terms of land management. Again, there are some good examples, but so too does private land ownership. It was, of course, the Conservative Government in 1974 who introduced the Land Tenure Reform Scotland Act and in the 1990s we introduced the 10th Transfer of Crofting Estates Scotland Act. At the highly successful Future of Crofting Conference, which I helped to convene with Jean Urquhart in Inverness last weekend, I saw a famous Scottish author and land reform expert, Professor Jim Hunter, who told me that the Conservative Government's record on land reform was better than that of any other party. I thought it was good of a man who may not be a natural conservative to speak so frankly and truthfully and give credit where credit is due. We are also supportive proposals in part 4 of the bill to increase community engagement, which provides benefit for everyone concerned, and look to the Scottish Government to produce appropriate guidance on this. I do share concerns expressed in relation to aspects of part 5 around community right to buy. It is to be regretted that this risk stopping investment from the states and that these provisions could impact on landowners who already managed their land well, whether through agriculture, forestry, sporting or any other land-based activity. Ministers have said that landowners have nothing to fear, but this is contradicted in relation to the sustainable development intervention powers and the Scottish Government needs to look harder at this problem and address the concerns. I also support the comments made by Alex Ferguson about the potential impact on individuals' ECHR rights. We are all aware that, with the Salveson-related claims, we are on the midst of the fallout of a previous breaching of ECHR as a result of previous land reform legislation. How does the Scottish Government think the compensation bill, how much is the bill going to be for settling these claims and what assessment have the ministers made of the cost of future compensation claims if certain provisions in the bill are passed as they stand or indeed if they are taken further? On part 6, the reintroduction of non-domestic rates for shooting, I have serious concerns that this extra tax is a retrograde step that can only lessen the vulnerability of enterprises by making them non-competitive with those across the border. They employ people in some of our most under-pressure rural communities. By doing this, the Government may drive away a very important land activity to the rural economy resulting in unemployment and less money to the Scottish Government. I welcome the Racky Committee's call for the Scottish Government to provide a thorough analysis on this. On the deer management proposals in part 1, I will wish to flag up concerns about deer managers about the suggestion that even greater powers should go to SNH to allow them to set coal targets. Deer management is by its very nature a ground-up approach and a top-down approach runs contrary to the nature of deer management with its cross-sectoral collaboration. I can't leave land reform without mentioning the Scottish Gamekeepers' excellent document, A View for Moreland, a future for Moreland in Scotland. There it is, the need for a locational strategy. I implore the Scottish Government to study this remarkable document in detail since it contains so much practical and scientific knowledge on Scotland's open moreland, which makes up such a huge area of our land, over half of our country in fact, in order that we can make the most of this unique asset, which Scotland is lucky enough to possess. That is after all a Scottish forestry strategy that should also be a Scottish moreland strategy by the Scottish Government. I am afraid that the Minister is listening since he is chatting. I wish them well to get to grips with it. I hope that the minister is hearing my good wishes. It's too busy in conversation. I'm afraid that I don't think that the minister is listening since they are chatting. Mr Malik, please continue. I will repeat for her benefit. I was wishing her well to get to grips with the deformer. I know that she's very keen to try and do a good job on it. In order to build up on what has been done in Scotland and other countries... Sorry, I'll give it to you. Minister, to thank the member for his comments and just to say or just clarify something with the rule of your secretary. I'm Zalaam Alik. That's fine, thank you. In order to build up on what has been done in Scotland and other countries, we need to look closely at both policy and practice in recent years. Since the first set of reforms in Scotland, the debate has developed and issues of human rights, the environment and transparency of ownership have become increasingly important. And why not? I think they are all equally important. Land reform is not just about the ownership of land but also about how it is used. We must strive to get a balance between land rights and responsibilities between the rights of tenants and their landlords. The Scottish Parliament's Rural Affairs, Climate and Change of Environment Committee reported on the land reform bill. Scotland states that reforms should firmly be set within the complex of international human rights obligations. I believe that this is very important. I agree with the suggestion by the Scottish Environmental Link that many final stages should have full definitions of what is meant by terms such as community assets and sustainable development of land reforms. This is important for the bill to become comprehensive and concept statement of policy and be a meaningful challenge. Other important point is that if the reforms are to be meaningful, the thrust for the proposal new rights to buy for communities must have the opportunity to further stability and development. I would like to support the committee's query asking the government to consider whether the test thresholds are too high and whether communities will be able to make full use of this provision. There is no point in giving enablement legislation if they cannot be used in practice. I have experienced land and land reforms in different countries. It is a mine field so much confusion, particularly land which has shareholders must be very clearly defined in terms of ownership as well as value because there is nothing worse than land disputes and destroying families as well as businesses. I know for a fact that Nicola Sturgeon and I of First Minister was very keen to see this bill brought forward and delivered for the people of Scotland. However, I do notice that the sharing of information has been very, very slow and I also feel that the government has let not itself down, not Nicola Sturgeon down, but the people of Scotland down with sharing this information far too late. I genuinely believe and I understand it is difficult. I am not trying to criticise the minister but I have to say that the team has let her down because I know the minister personally who has been very active in other committees and it is not like her whatsoever. I am just hoping that we can get more information before the recess so that people can have a better study of what is being proposed because I think it is very important. This is something that a lot of countries have grappled with. It is not easy, I appreciate that and I give that to the minister but I think that sharing of information at this early stage is very important because we need to get this right. There is nothing more worse than rushing it at the last minute. I wish the minister well and I look forward to getting the information as soon as so that we can all actually have a better look at that because I think that delivering the right policies for the people of Scotland is very important and I am sure that the minister herself would want to see that happen as well. Thank you very much. I would like to recommend a book that everybody should read to better understand the passion with which we should deal with land reform and that is Tom Johnson, famously possibly the best Secretary of State for Scotland that we ever had and his book, Our Scots Noble Families, where we really know how the land was acquired by some of the landowners who are still there today. There is no doubt that the act in 2003 was welcome and it has only, I think, fed the desire for more and better legislation around land reform. I will not go over some of the issues that have been covered already by others and, in particular, some of the highland estates referred to by Rhoda Grant and how they came about, but I would like to challenge perhaps John Lamont's point about the people who own the land, who know best how to work the land. He said that it is not the case in defence of land, and he said that the state does not know best. I would suggest that nothing that we are talking about is about the state knowing best, but it is, in fact, about the people who live on the land and the communities that are there who really do know best. The evidence is really there for all of us to see. Less than two weeks ago, the park estate achieved ownership of its 28,000 acres. I have no doubt that it will follow egg, ascent and storage use in showing that more and more people will live there and more and more jobs will be created. It can benefit the people who live there and the communities far more than an absentee landowner that was the situation that they had until two weeks ago. I think that we should celebrate the fact that they have achieved that 13 years it has taken them to own the land. If the land reform act means that no other community has to go through that, then bring it on. In addition, I would really like to highlight the absence. We have had two acts on crofting in this Parliament that really have not delivered very much for the crofters. I think that she might agree with that. Will she try to make the Government certain that this act will deliver for tenant farmers? I thank Jeremy McGregor for raising that issue because here we have a ludicrous situation where somebody who can own 28,000 acres in Lewis is not required to meet any of the regulation that somebody who owns 20 acres in Shetland or anywhere else does. Really, we have to look exactly what we are asking for here. Of course, we have argued about the crofting act. Of course, the whole thing needs to be renewed, but that is not what we are arguing about in the potential bill. I would like to look at tax havens and the link between corruption, offshore corporate property and land ownership. It is clearly established in recent Transparency International report that land ownership in offshore jurisdictions such as the British Virgin Islands, Jersey and Guernsey is particularly common in London. 75 per cent of properties under investigation for corruption are using offshore ownership to hide their identities, but the problem is not confined to South East England. Another investigation recently found that, as much as 750,000 acres in Scotland, most of it in highland estates are owned in offshore tax havens. That is a disgrace and it makes it potentially impossible to find the real owners as there can be a series of shell companies and trusts, particularly if they are registered in those offshore secrecy jurisdictions. The legal means to reveal ownership are not available. Consequently, the review group has made a strong recommendation to tackle the problem. The review group recommends that the Scottish Government should make it incompetent for any legal entity not registered in a member estate of the European Union to register title to land in the land register of Scotland and to improve traceability and accountability in the public interest. I think that that is an issue that many would like to see. Andy Wightman has been a long campaigner to highlight those issues. He is clearly having a success, as is the Government, in raising the issue around land reform. I know that other members will be the same. I had over 200 people email me about the debate today. There is an interest. It is the mass of people who have responded to the consultation, too. It is individuals who recognise the injustice. As late as the mid-80s, we paid a feudal tax to our feudal landlord on a very small bit of land in Ullipol. I am right in saying that something like 400 years before that, England had stopped being a feudal country. That act is long overdue. Change is desperately needed. People must be able to access the land. The Stoddart family has been cited. There is a school in north-west Sutherland that sits in the middle of a Loch. I thought that it was quite romantic that it was there, but it is there because the then landowner refused to give them land. When he was pressed by the council and forced for it that there could be a compulsory purchase order, he offered the Loch. I had to take it. I am afraid that I must close, but I cannot call Michelle Aratt. I am just saying that there are many wrongs to be righted. The bill is welcome as the first step in that long road. Thank you. Many thanks and to now call Christian Allard, your right four minutes or so please. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I very much appreciate it. I welcome the land reform bill and I shall repeat it about fairness, equality and social justice. That point of social justice has very much been used by a lot of the contributions so far and a relation to what it is all about. Mr John Lamond was very kind enough to take an interruption for me, but we need this kind of radical reform to bring us to update us to what our European neighbors are, in which place they are already regarding land use and land reform. It's very, very important that this decision is seen as something to update Scotland to the 21st century. I spoke about SEFA in France, for example, and I will encourage the members to look at what the system will say in France, and how it works. It will be surprised, a lot stricter, a land arbitrator that is proposed in this bill. I do welcome the establishment of a tenant farming commissioner, and I think that has been welcomed by all sides, and that should be enough. I think it should be enough to create that level playing field between tenants and land owners. However, we are in a journey with this land reform bill, and my plea to all involved in land ownership and tenants is to make it work. As a substitute of the committee, I participated in some of the deliberation of the evidence gathering, but I didn't participate in the writing of this report, and I have to thank the committee for this fantastic, very, very big piece, a lot of pages to go through, and I've got to admit I didn't go through all of them, but I do disagree with one point. I thought I didn't find any recommendation in it regarding the update of the role of common good land, and I would have thought that would have been a perfect opportunity to do so, and I know, as a minister, I would say that the Cabinet Secretary's closing will say that the community empowerment bill dealt with identifying common good land and the disposing of it, but it's exactly that, President, officer. It's identifying it and the disposing of it. What's missing is how to acquire more order of it, and I didn't share some of the evidence from one particle, and I would not say who it is. Who did tell us that common good land has no future in Scotland. All the others absolutely, but it has. And I think the empowerment, the community empowerment, didn't deal that way about the common good land, and it would be great that you could find either a stage two or by another means to try to identify something about how we could use that common good land to be something part of Scottish land reform. Why it would be good, because let's not forget we are trying to identify within the next 10 years all the land which has not been identified. We don't know which owners are, and I think all this identified and identified land should go automatically into the common land, common good land. It should be automatically going to it, and then thereafter the communities can decide what they want to do with it. So I repeat, it's not only about disposing but acquiring more. Peter Pickock called for a modernisation of the 10, and he said that we can get more of it, but not less of common good land. And I do agree with him. Another witness said that local authorities are mis-landing and mis-using common good land in our own communities. So we need to pay attention to this. So I think, Presiding Officer, I would like to say that we are on a journey on this land reform bill on this stage. One, it's very important. It's a step forward, and I really look forward to the Government's response and to know how we can do it at stage too, and I would love to be able to participate it as a substitute as a committee. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Many thanks, and we now turn to the closing speeches, and I call on Murdo Fraser, six minutes please. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. This is a very serious and important bill. The debate has lacked perhaps a little colour. I think that I will think wistfully back to the comments of my late colleague, not late former colleague, Billy. He can use to liven up these debates with rather colourful language, but I'll avoid going down that particular route this afternoon. I just want to maybe just start or just be reiterating the point that I made in an intervention earlier to the minister. I do think that it is a regret, and it's been echoed by a number of members around the chamber. We didn't get the Scottish Government's response to the committee report, because we are being asked in a short time to vote on the general principles of the bill. I think that it would have been very helpful to get a steer from the Scottish Government more than we have heard from the minister so far as to how it will address some of the concerns and points raised in the committee report. It's unfortunate that that's not happening. The Scottish Government would like to present its land reform bill as a radical programme, but it is more realistic to see it as something of a hotspot of unconnected provisions of various degrees of seriousness and complexity. Some of those are welcome, and some of those we would take the viewer undoubtedly damaging to the economy of rural Scotland. My colleague Alex Ferguson set out his concerns in relation to the agriculture holdings part of the bill, and I'm not going to go over the detail of that, but I think that one thing is abundantly clear, both from his contributions from others that we've heard. There is no consensus either here in the chamber nor with or in the committee, nor is there even more importantly amongst external stakeholders as to the way forward in terms of what is a very complex area of law. Against this backdrop, the Scottish Government now has to come up with a final set of proposals in the new year, and before the bill completes its parliamentary process, there will be less than 12 weeks of parliamentary time available. It seems to be that that is in no way sufficient to allow proper consideration and proper consultation in what is a very complex area. In the committee's report on page 91, there is reference to the need for a significant amendment to what is currently being proposed. If that is the case, I would question whether the time is available. If the Scottish Government is indeed a listening Government, as they say, what they need to do is take this whole section out of the bill and bring back separate legislation on agricultural holdings in the next Parliament if they are in a position to do that. I do not think that it is good enough to leave so much to secondary legislation, given the importance of those issues. In that respect, I would echo many of the concerns raised by Tavish Scott. In relation to other provisions of the bill, we made it clear that we are supportive of proposals to increase the transparency of land ownership. We are skeptical as to the creation of a new Scottish Land Commission. I suspect that there are not many people in rural Scotland who believe that what the rural economy needs is yet another quango interfering in their activities. We have concerns about aspects of the extended right to buy for further sustainable development, as Alex Ferguson said. That is an area where, undoubtedly, there is a conflict of rights. That is identified in evidence presented to the committee. Where a landowner is utilising land in a fashion where it is well and sustainably managed, for example, for productive agriculture, the landowner could still have that land forcibly transferred to a community. We would question whether that gets the balance right. The biggest model in the whole bill is in relation to the proposed reintroduction of non-domestic rates for sporting rights. The Scottish Conservatives have been clear ever since the bill was proposed that we see that as a damaging proposal, which will simply take money out of the rural economy and potentially adversely affect employment. We were also concerned that the bureaucracy involved in levying those rates would be disproportionate to any sums that are actually recovered. It is gratifying to see the committee sharing some of those concerns. In particular, a great deal of evidence was heard by the committee about the difficulty in defining shootings and deer forests and how they would be assessed for rates. When she gave evidence to the committee, the minister was far from convincing in her arguments in support of what was being proposed. A reliable figure could not even be given for the predicted revenue, with the Scottish Government simply stating that the figure of £4 million could be raised, quoting that from the £2 million revenue raised 20 years ago. I am projecting forward with inflation. What kind of assessment was made when the same people were suddenly not taxed any more for the same thing? The Government, in 1994, took the decision to remove rates. First of all, because rates were not payable in England and Wales, and therefore there was a distorting effect in relation to particularly estates in the south of Scotland and in the Scottish borders. Secondly, the cost of collection at that stage was getting disproportionate in relation to the amount that was being brought in, which seems to me still a very live issue. I appreciate the majority of the committee believing that the principle of non-domestic rates on large profitable commercial shooting enterprises is justified, but it is telling that the committee unanimously believed that the case had not yet been made for what the bill proposed and the committee were concerned about a lot of the detail. The committee's conclusion that there is, and I quote, a lack of clarity about the purpose, delivery, impacts and likely outcome of these proposals is one that we would strongly agree. In conclusion, we feel that, in many ways, the bill is a missed opportunity. There is no overarching vision for the future of rural land in Scotland. There is too much focus on who owns the land rather than the more personal question of how that land is used. The minister, in opening remarks, talked about land owners and those who live and work on the land, as if they were two quite separate communities, when, in fact, in 99 per cent of the cases, they are exactly the same person. At best, the bill will be a distraction from the real issues that rural Scotland faces, depopulation, lack of connectivity, poor-quality jobs and the continued loss of local services. While there are some measures on the bill that we would support, overall, we think that it is more likely to damage and assist rural communities, and for that reason, we will not be supporting the bill at stage 1 today. Many thanks. I now call on Claudia Beamish. Seven minutes please. Over 200 written submissions came into the rural affairs committee on this bill. We have traversed Scotland in the quest for a real grasp of the complex issues involved and taken evidence, importantly, away from the Parliament in Orkney, Dumfries and Skye. I want to thank the committee clerks, particularly for the organisation of the visits and also for the work of SPICE. I know what a big task there will be for the clerks and SPICE in January and February, so I wish them a good break. Tonight, I want to speak strongly in favour of this bill and in support of the committee's stage 1 report. I want to acknowledge the comments of our convener and our deputy convener, and in relation to land agents, in case I forget to say that, particularly the remarks of my colleague Graham Day. As others have outlined this afternoon, the bill must be more clear in its detail and there must be as much as possible on the face of the bill. Although the time is short, we will all continue to work hard to make the best possible bill. It is not acceptable to say that we can leave this or that to the new land commission to deal with. Also, we must ensure that the policy memorandum is crystal clear in expressing the intentions of the bill. Anything left to regulation must, in the view of Scottish Labour, be by affirmative motion, and that is to echo also the words of our colleague Nigel Don. With Andrew Studard as a constituent, I have seen the stark realities of legal challenge and the confusion and suffering that the consequences of this can entail. Article 1, protocol 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights states that, I quote, the right peaceful enjoyment of possessions is its aim. As stated in our committee report, and I quote again, it is significant however that the rights protected by article 1, protocol 1 and article 8, right to respect for privacy and family life, are not absolute rights and its states may interfere with them in order to pursue public interest objectives, provided that such interferences pursue a legitimate aim in the public interest and do so in a proportionate manner. I say, let there not be a reason for the Scottish Government to have to run scared of the fairness that this bill will produce, but let us make this a clarion call to test and test and test the bill and its aims before and during the process of the bill so that we do not have problems afterwards in this respect with ECHR. Let us not forget, as stressed by Mike Russell, Sarah Boyack and others, the other international human rights obligations examined by the committee in oral evidence. In the words of our committee report, it is vital that the committee gives due prominence to other obligations. That is in the public interest. I am also quite clear that sustainable development must be at the heart of this bill. The Scottish Government did not quite get there in the view of Scottish Labour with the Community and Parliament Act and we are pleased to see the direction in which that is going so that the fusing of economic, social and environmental imperatives are there for rural Scotland. I commend Joanne on her very much looking at the principles behind the bill and stressing that this is a justice issue. As a previous convener, the Equal Opportunities Committee, I am keenly aware of the equalities issues in this bill and how the legislation should be judged against the nine protected characteristics. I ask the Government to take great care in considering our committee recommendations in this respect and the evidence by NHS Health Scotland encapsulates a health argument succinctly, particularly in regards to part 5, community right to buy to further sustainable development. The land rights and responsibilities statement will play a fundamental role in ensuring that we move forward together. One of the environment links recommendations is that land use and land ownership are inextricably linked and there is a real opportunity for the land use strategy to help to secure meaningful land reform if the two processes are adequately co-ordinated. I hope that the Scottish Government will take cognisance of the comment that the committee highlights. Can the cabinet secretary give some reassurance on those synergies in the closing remarks? Rhoda Grant has argued for writing the wrongs of the past in the Highlands. I want to be regional for a moment as well. As I have emphasised in previous debates and on committee, there has not been the support in South Scotland and other regions beyond the Highlands for capacity building and advice. I believe that the community land fund is fundamental here. Definitions of community is complex for a multitude of reasons and the jury is still out on communities of interest in relation to the bill, and I am still open minded about the possible need for an amendment on that. The tenant farmers forum compromise, turning to part 10 of the bill, always in my view meant the lowest common denominator, which did not reflect the need to protect tenants. Confidence to let has always been a concern expressed by Scottish land and estates. Clarity now in this bill on its face must be achieved for part 10, as a culmination of so much work within this and previous parliaments. Scottish Tenant Farmers Association rightly expects, and I quote, the establishment of a strong tenant farming commissioner equipped with sufficient powers to create and enforce statutory codes of practice. In order to ensure a vibrant, tenanted sector, which is also sharply focusing on the needs of tenants' rights and responsibilities and how those fit with the concerns of land owners, we must be sure that the new forms of tenancy work for a modern Scotland. The MLDTs are a concern still, and much work needs to be done on this in the committee's view. The modern repairing leases are an interesting possibility that needs further investigation. Fundamental to a fair way forward for tenant farmers is the development of the rent review process, and the work of the modelling group is essential, and the group should be congratulated on carving out a clearer way forward. However, there are still outstanding issues that we will reflect in this committee. Productive capacity, not least. A clear process of where you go must, of course, also be on the face of the bill to prevent further complications in the future. I welcome, in relation to asignation and succession, section 79 suggestions from alternatives from the Scottish Government, and the flowchart, if I understand it right, seems to provide on first analysis a more straightforward and fair series of steps for arrangements. Thank you. There is yet to be a response from the STFA on this, but I want to identify that Scottish Labour's comments on this are that we see a way forward, and the majority of the committee supports some form also of a limited right to buy. Dave Thompson is right that we must address this in the bill, because it is a matter that will not go away and must be resolved. We support the passage of the bill through stage 1 this afternoon in the hope that this will be a resonant way forward for the whole of rural Scotland, and that we can work together to make the bill clear, effective and unchallengeable. Thank you very much. I now call in Richard Lochhead to wind up a cabinet secretary you have until 6.30. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I first recognise that there have been many powerful contributions from members that have featured in this very important debate. I also want to add my thanks to the Rural Affairs Committee for their hard work on the bill, and Rob Gibson and his opening remarks, of course, referred to the extensive work carried out by members, and of course they had essentially a tour of Scotland that met people from all kinds of backgrounds and all kinds of settings to discuss the implications of land ownership and all the issues around that for the future of Scotland. The energy of this debate in Parliament and outside underlines the very extensive interest in land reform in this country and the ambition that people are expressing for a radical land reform bill. Everyone anticipates except the Conservative Party, who clearly have said that they are voting against this land reform bill, which is not a surprise, but it is something that Scotland needs badly, and the Conservatives, unfortunately, do not want to support progress. If he even suggested that perhaps this bill is illegal or that it is not competent—and I have to politely remind him, of course—this bill has been endorsed by the Presiding Officer within the competence of the Parliament, and it should not be scaremongering on those points. I also want to make the point to Murdo Fraser and others on the Conservative benches that this is not an urban versus rural issue. This is not about damaging the rural economy. This is about supporting the rural economy. In my experience, and I am sure that I have spoken to many people in this chamber, the demand for land reform is largely coming from rural Scotland. This is something people living in rural communities want to see happen. I am grateful to the cabinet secretary for giving away. At least by how taking £4 million in rates out of rural businesses is going to help the rural economy. For those of you who have looked into the issue, we do not suspect the reason why the Conservative Government in the mid-1990s removed the sporting rights from rates. It was because of economic hardship. It was because the Conservative Party wanted to help out its land-owning colleagues, and that was the reason. There is no evidence whatsoever that the estate suffered economic hardship due to rates pre-1995, when the Conservatives made that move. I just want to assure the Parliament that the Government is listening to the views expressed by members in this stage 1 debate, and more importantly, to the views of the Rural Affairs Committee that have put forward the proposal that the Parliament supports at stage 1. Many members have referred to the history of land reform in Scotland. Scotland's land has formed the backdrop for our tumultuous history, most notably the Highland clearances, but also other key moments in our nation's stories, such as the industrial revolution and subsequent expansion of our towns and cities. Legislators have tackled land reform down the generations, but we could never rely on the House of Commons or the House of Lords, and even Winston Churchill said that it was an obstacle to progress to do enough. However, the advent of the Scottish Parliament in 1999 provided the opportunity for land reform to be given the attention that it deserves. Since the evolution of land reform has been the focus to achieving a number of ambitions around fairness, equality and social justice for the people of Scotland, as many people refer to. The 2003 act was landmark legislation, and we have been on a journey ever since then. Since 2007, the Government has updated modernised land registration, converted tenants' rights under very long leases into ownership and, through the recent Community Empowerment Act, improved community and crofting rights to buy and introduced new rights to buy abandoned and neglected land for communities. We have also continued to support and promote community land ownership, reintroducing the Scottish land fund in 2012 to provide £9 million over four years and, of course, to set a target of 1 million acres of land and community ownership by 2020 briefly. I thank the cabinet secretary for taking intervention. We are desperately keen to know the areas where the Scottish Government agrees with the committee so that we can form our amendments and where you are going to be doing my work. Can you tell us when you will respond to the committee paper? Will it be one report or a series of reports? We will respond to the committee very shortly, but many members have made the very valid point that this is a very complex issue and we should not rush issues. The committee's report only came out about a week and a half ago, and therefore we are taking time to take very seriously the views that are expressed by the committee in the report, and we will reply to them. The rest of the measures that we have taken include the independent land reform review group that was set up and, of course, the agriculture holdings legislation review group as well. It is the work and the recommendation of these groups that underpin the proposals in the bill before us today. We know that land reform cannot be obsessed with tackling historical injustices. We cannot rewrite history or fight the battles of the 18th or 19th century. Today, land reform is just about as much of a council of states as it is country states. Land reform is about communities that need access to land for five-side pitches or affordable housing, or it is about tenant farmers looking for security to invest and diversify. The debate has to be a contemporary one as well about how our land can help to realise our nation's potential and aspirations. We are now writing the next chapter in land reform. In establishing the land commission, we are ending the stop-start nature of land reform and placing the land reform across urban and rural Scotland on a very permanent basis, and Ailey MacLeod articulated many of the aims of the bill in its opening remarks. However, the bill is also about supporting a thriving tenancy sector in Scotland, and, indeed, much of the bill makes changes to agricultural holding legislation. Therefore, I think that it is a pity that the Conservatives are saying that they are going to vote against the bill because of this particular part of the bill, because Michael Russell made the point quite rightly that this is about sharing power in Scotland. The reason why we have to have measures to create a vibrant tenancy sector at the moment is because many people believe that the power is with the landowner, and we also need to ensure that we can power tenant farmers in Scotland at the same time. I thank the cabinet secretary for taking a brief intervention. He will also realise that Michael Russell shares with me the view that this bill cannot achieve the twin aims that it sets out to do, so why does he insist on persevering with it? The reason why we are bringing forward agricultural legislation is because there is a decline in the amount of let land in Scotland. The reason we have a decline in let land in Scotland is not because we are bringing forward agricultural legislation. We need the legislation to try and halt the decline in the amount of let land in Scotland. As we all know, there has been a massive decline in the total area of let land in Scotland, including cross but excluding seasonal let, fell by 44 per cent from 1982 to 2015. That is why we have a number of ambitious measures in this bill to help older tenants, for instance, to move on and reassign their tenancies to new entrants or those who want to progress within the sector. We have to do a lot more to help new entrants, again, as many members refer to. That includes more publicly-owned land for letting to new entrants in Scotland. We are working with the Forestry Commission and we have nine new units that are being let to new starts, and we will continue to take that forward. Many other members mentioned the Tenant Farming Commissioner. I do not have much time left, but I want to say yes. We have an interim tenant farming commissioner who is doing a good job just now, trying to build relationships between tenants and landlords. That is why we have a permanent tenant farming commissioner being proposed by the bill. We are in the midst of a momentous groundswell of support for action on land reform. That is about ensuring that one of our greatest assets benefits the many, not the few. This bill is not a one-off, it is not a quick fix. It does not have all the answers, and none of us in this chamber have all the answers. However, this bill will implement effective and radical land reform in Scotland. It will knock down some of the obstacles communities and our citizens face in fulfilling their potential and controlling more of their own destiny. Good landowners should have nothing to fear, but bad landowners—and there are bad landowners in Scotland—will know that the law has empowered communities and individuals. Of course, we need to know who the landowners are in the first place. We need to know who owns Scotland. People who own land need to know that they have rights but also responsibilities. People in communities need to be empowered to act when those responsibilities are not being fulfilled. The bill and the committee's report are milestones on Scotland's land reform journey. A journey that started with feudalism, but will take us to fairness. Those milestones will help to make Scotland a better country and urge Parliament to support the land reform bill at stage 1. That concludes the debate on the land reform Scotland bill, upon your order, Mr McDonald. In his statement this afternoon, the Deputy First Minister said, in light of the excellent progress on the Aberdeen western peripheral route, I am today confirming that work will begin in 2016-17 on the improvements to the Hoddigan roundabout. That statement did appear to represent a complete change in the Government's plans, which had previously been that work on the roundabout would not begin until after work on the Aberdeen western peripheral route was completed at the end of calendar year 2017. On closer examination, however, the budget document at page 127 commits only to progress design and development work on the A90 Hoddigan roundabout. Design and development work, which has already been under way for some time. The infrastructure investment plan, as issued today, says explicitly at page 107, planned to begin construction following completion of the AWPR. Transport Scotland, only a few minutes ago this afternoon, appeared to have no knowledge of any change in Government plans, which would lead work to begin in 2016-17 on the improvements to the Hoddigan roundabout. Mr Swinney, I am sorry that he is not here to listen to this point of order, but I am sure that he would not have wished to mislead Parliament by suggesting that there had been a change in Government plans or timetables for this project when there had not. I ask that the Deputy First Minister give an early opportunity to clarify the meaning of his statement on this matter this afternoon. As I have said many times before, what a member or a minister says in his chamber is not a matter for me. As he rightly says, the Deputy First Minister is not here, but I am sure that he will reflect on what he has said. The next point of order is from Gil Paterson. Presiding Officer, to the people of the Hoddigan roundabout Merry Christmas. That was not a point of order, Mr Paterson. John Mason, is this a point of order, Mr Mason? It is the same as the previous two. If you have a point of order, make it now, Mr Mason. Presiding Officer, we have raised this before that there has clearly been an abuse over the last two days of points of order, and I would appeal to you again to consider restricting the use of points of order. Mr Mason, as I have told you both in writing and in this chamber, matters of points of order are for me to determine not for you. The next item of business is consideration of motion number 15109, in the name of Don Swinney on the Financial Resolution for the Land Reform Scotland Bill. I call on Richard Lochhead to move the motion. The question on this motion will be put to decision time. The next item of business is consideration of business motion number 15189, in the name of Joe Fitzpatrick on behalf of the Parliamentary Bureau setting out a business programme. Can I ask any member who wishes to speak against the motion to press a request to speak but now? I call on Joe Fitzpatrick to move motion number 15189. No members ask to speak against the motion, therefore I now put the question to the chamber. The question is that motion number 15189, in the name of Joe Fitzpatrick, be agreed to. Are we all agreed? The motion is therefore agreed to. The next item of business is consideration of free parliamentary Bureau motions. I would ask Joe Fitzpatrick to move motions number 15190 to 15192, on approvals of the SSIs on block. The questions on these motions will be put to decision time to which we now come. There are three questions to be put as a result of today's business. The first question is that motion number 15181, in the name of Aileen McLeod on the Land Reform Scotland Bill, be agreed to. Are we all agreed? The Parliament's not agreed. We move to vote. Members should cast their votes now. The result of the vote on motion number 15181, in the name of Aileen McLeod, is as follows. Yes, 100. No, 15. There were no abstentions. The motion is therefore agreed to. The next question is that motion number 15109, in the name of John Swinney, on the financial resolution for the Land Reform Scotland Bill, be agreed to. Are we all agreed? The motion is therefore agreed to. I propose to ask a single question on motions number 15190 to 15192, on approval of SSIs. If any member objects to a single question being put, please say so now. No member has objected to a single question being put there for the next question. Is it motions number 15190 to 15192, in the name of Delford's Particle, on approval of SSIs, be agreed to? Are we all agreed? The motion is there for agreed to. That concludes decision time. I now close this meeting.