Chamber and committees

I think that you are confused about what I am trying to get at. Perhaps it is the way in which I have phrased it to you. When I use the term “obligation”, you seem to be thinking about it from a legal perspective—that is, being legally liable to ensure that something is implemented. What I am trying to understand is whether you are clear about what a land management plan is, what it is there to achieve, how much value it has in the long term, whether there is a requirement for the plan to be taken forward and, if it is not taken forward, what the implications of that are. After all, the danger is that, if we do not get the four or five criteria correct, it becomes a futile process.

What do you mean by “managed as a whole”?

What if you were the third-largest landholder or owner in Scotland but each of the individual sites that you owned did not trigger the threshold for a land management plan? Should such a landholder or owner be responsible for bringing forward a land management plan?

Okay. That is very clear.

Sarah-Jane, I want to go back to your comment that you were surprised that the Scottish Government had—I think that I am paraphrasing—flipped the process and placed the obligation on the seller. Had it been considering that the process should be based on the purchaser?

Yes, we are getting into the weeds of how the system would operate, rather than considering the principle of whether there should be a transfer test or a public interest test. There would be greater transparency in being up front in saying that there will be a public interest test, rather than a transfer test, which is a bit non-specific.

Do you think that that was too high?

Yes, but do you think that amending the bill to give clarity to that would be helpful?

Okay. I turn to the threshold of 3,000 hectares. Do you think that that is the right threshold?

What—the obligations that go with it?

Great—thank you.

Do you agree with all those principles—transparency, awareness raising and engagement—being in a land management plan?