Chamber and committees

I have to ask this question on the back of that: is this going to result in more or fewer tenanted farms?

Fewer—okay.

Thank you very much. It has been a long session, and I am sorry that we have taken more of your time than we had anticipated. However, it is a complex bill, and we will be struggling to come to terms with it over the autumn, too, as we complete our scrutiny of it. Thank you very much for your time and for sharing your views so freely.

We will now move into private session.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the 22nd meeting in 2024 of the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee. Our first item of business is to decide whether to take in private item 3, which is consideration of the evidence that we have heard on the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill. Do we agree to take that item in private?

Members indicated agreement.

The second and main item of business is our second stage 1 evidence session on the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill. This is the first panel of legal advisers that the committee will hear from during our scrutiny of the bill, and it is likely that we will have a second such panel after summer recess.

I am pleased to welcome Gail Watt, who is the convener of the property and land law reform sub-committee at the Law Society of Scotland. Our next witness is Fergus—how will I get this right? Am I about to pronounce your surname incorrectly?

Perfect. I got it right, through you. Fergus Colquhoun is an advocate at the Faculty of Advocates. I also welcome Dr Jill Robbie, who is a senior lecturer in the school of law at the University of Glasgow, and Don Macleod, who is a partner at Turcan Connell.

Like last week, I want to declare an interest that I have in a farming partnership in Moray. It is all set out in my entry in the register of members’ interests. Specifically, I declare an interest as an owner of around 500 acres of farmland, of which around 50 acres is woodland. I declare that I am a tenant of around 500 acres in Moray under a non-agricultural tenancy and that I have another farm tenancy under the Agricultural Holdings (Scotland) Act 1991. I also declare that, sometimes, I take on grass lets on an annual basis.

The deputy convener will now make a somewhat shorter declaration.

Oh, perfect. Thank you very much.

We will go through part 1 of the bill, and then we will suspend the meeting briefly to allow for a changeover of witness. Don Macleod will step down and Grierson Dunlop, who is also a partner at Turcan Connell, will take over. Dr Jill Robbie will leave us at that stage, too, because part 1 is her specialty.

Let us move on to questions—the easy bit. I ask each of you to explain briefly your experience in land management. We will start from my right—the witnesses’ left—then work along the line. Gail Watt, will you say a wee bit about your experience?

The first question will come from the deputy convener.

I apologise to Ben Macpherson.

Mark Ruskell wants to come in briefly with a supplementary question.

I will talk about expectation and community input. Let us say that consultation goes on and one of the community inputs is to create a mountain bike track from A to B—that is what the community would like, because that would give it some input into a local business. If that is put into the management plan, who pays for it? Does the funding have to go in the management plan, or will it all be down to the landowner to fund it if the community wants it?