Chamber and committees

Okay. Mr Hughes, as managers, I presume that you are generating substantial amounts of wealth for your investors, but Gresham House itself will be generating substantial amounts of wealth on the back of those markets. How is that wealth then distributed? As I understand it, Gresham House consists of four limited partnerships. Are there any community, tenant farmer or crofter interests or wider community interests in those partnerships? Are those interests involved in management of assets and the market? You could perhaps tell us who is involved with the limited partnerships that comprise Gresham House.

Okay, thanks. Joel Paterson or Stephen Young, do you want to come in?

Thank you.

Do you think that the current projects that are under way and the standards that are being applied will deliver long-term climate mitigation?

Secondly, with the balance of different land use that we have, we could focus entirely on climate, on food production or on a whole range of other uses. Is the balance right going forward, or is there too much of a tilt towards climate, or too little?

We need to get to that end point.

I will come back to a theme that I asked the first panel about, which is barriers to participation by tenant farmers, crofters and community organisations. Can I get your brief reflections on that subject?

I am struggling to see how the huge amount of wealth and benefits that will be generated by these markets will be shared with small-scale community projects, tenant farmers and crofters. How are you making sure that the schemes are accessible to those types of landowners and that they are fully involved in realising and benefiting from them? I will start with Stuart Greenwood.

However, with regard to management of that market, you do not have any communities that are directly involved in the work of Gresham House. They might benefit from some of the investments that you manage in the long term, but there are not actually any communities, tenants or crofters involved in Gresham House itself.

I want to ask about how the interim principles for responsible investment are working. Are they being followed? Do they need to change over time so that we get an higher-integrity market? Should they be codified in legislation? I suppose that the clue is in the title, in that they are “interim principles” for responsible investment, so we are on a journey. However, you emphasised the need for certainty. Where do you see the principles going? Are they working right now to deliver a high-integrity market? Do they need to change and, if so, how?

So, you do not have a view on whether the current principles are the right ones, but you want to ensure that, whatever principles we use, they give certainty to allow greater investment, going forward?