Chamber and committees

The requirements of section 14(2) of the Crofters (Scotland) Act 1993 relating to valuation of a croft apply solely to the purchase of a croft by the tenant of that croft where that purchase is a consequence of an order made by the Land Court under section 13 of the Crofters (Scotland) Act 1993. The provisions relating to the valuation of land under Part 3 of the Land Reform Bill are contained in section 85 of the bill and these make it clear that the consideration will be based on the market value of the land as determined by a valuer. Section 85 does not constrain the valuer to any particular methodology in assessing market value.

Where a salmon fishing abuts croft land it is intended that only the part of the salmon fishing property which actually abuts the croft land should be capable of being acquired through the crofting community right to buy.

The Scottish Executive has no reason to collect such information and has not done so. In any case this is information that can only be readily established through local enquiry. In our view most salmon fishing proprietors will already know whether their salmon fishings are liable to fall within the definition of "eligible croft land". For those that do not it should be relatively straightforward to establish the circumstances of individual salmon fishings on a case by case basis by making local enquiries. A table sent to the Justice 2 Committee on 14 February 2002 listed all the Scottish river systems that are believed to hold salmon and indicated where parts of particular systems were known to run across croft land.

In considering whether any crofting community right to buy application is in the public interest, ministers will be bound to take account of all the information contained in the application, the responses to the application and in further comments from the applicants. In addition ministers will be bound to use all that information to assess the implications and impact of granting or refusing the application for the parties, for the wider local community, for particular sectors of the community, for the future management of the land and for a wide range of public policy issues. Only after having made such an assessment will ministers be in a position to decide whether an application is in the public interest.

In assessing the value of croft land, a valuer would only not take account of the matters set out in section 85(6)(a) where these matters do not arise.

When launching the draft Agricultural Holdings (Scotland) Bill for consultation in April 2002, I announced my intention to include in the bill provisions that would give secure tenant farmers a pre-emptive right to buy their holding when the landlord intended to sell the land. Under these proposals, no landlord would be required to sell land they wished to retain.I have been considering carefully the responses to that consultation. I shall announce my conclusions when the bill is introduced to Parliament, which I hope will be in September.

Under Section 12 of the Sheriff Courts (Scotland) Act 1971 the First Minister may establish an investigation into the fitness for office of any sheriff. During such an investigation the sheriff may be suspended from office. If the First Minister receives a report to the effect that a sheriff is unfit he may make an order removing the sheriff from office. The order would be subject to the approval of the Scottish Parliament.

Sheriffs are independent of the Executive and there is no formal assessment of performance. Complaints about performance may be investigated in the manner described in the answer given to question S1W-27835 today.

Training is not compulsory although the practice is for all new members of the Judiciary to attend induction training at the time of their first appointment. Training programmes are organised and run by the independent Judicial Studies Committee which is funded by my department. The programme has been extended in recent years to include refresher training for experienced people and I am advised that substantial numbers of sheriffs attend training events.

It is open to parties in a case to appeal against a decision of a sheriff to a higher court. If litigants wish to register a complaint about the actings of a sheriff they may write to the Sheriff Principal of the relevant sheriffdom or to the Judicial Appointments Division of the Scottish Executive Justice Department, Hayweight House, 23 Lauriston Street, Edinburgh EH3 9DQ.