Chamber and committees

I have some quick-fire questions before I let Monica Lennon come back in, and I fear that they will be for Don Macleod and Jill Robbie.

You said that what the bill sets out in relation to the community right to buy is fearfully complex and that we have not sorted out the previous arrangement. Does the bill make sense on community right to buy?

You can.

Douglas Lumsden will ask the first question.

The concern is that some of the smaller holdings—and there are very few of them, as Grierson Dunlop was right to point out—fall outside the crofting counties. The complexities of making them part of crofts make it easier to make them agricultural tenancies instead or to bring them in line with agricultural tenancy. I would be interested to hear what others have to say about that.

Ben Macpherson has the next questions.

Thanks, Ben.

Mark, I think that you have some questions now.

If someone diversified a proportion of the holding to the extent that farming the remainder of the holding became impossible, would that be allowed? Is there a concern about that?

I want to check that I understand what you are saying. Let us take the example of a 600-hectare farm. Let us say that a proposal was made to use 300 hectares of it for Christmas trees, for example, because the existing farmer wanted to run a smaller number of sheep and cattle. Subsequently, it would be impossible to farm a greater number of sheep and cattle, because the land would be being used for Christmas trees. What rights does the landlord have in that situation, or does he not have any?

My other question is about the encouragement of diversification. A lot of farms have more than one house, but the farm itself might produce enough work for only one family and, as a result, the houses are sometimes used as holiday lettings or, indeed, places where retired or younger members of the family can live. That sort of thing is not covered the rent review—and is, in fact, excluded. Is that right?

If the deemed landlord were the landowner and they had to do all that work, would it not be reasonable for them to expect some return for that in the rent? If the deemed landlord was the tenant, obviously they, too, would need to offset some of the costs that they incur for all their work.

I see that committee members have no further questions, so without opening this up to a long diatribe about everything that we have missed, I just want to ask you whether there is anything in particular that we have missed and which we ought to be thinking about in future sessions. I ask that you limit your comments in that respect, but is there anything that you think that we need to concentrate on?