���˿���

Yes, but let me continue a little bit further. There is a need for flexibility and up-front collaborative working. It is good that Tim Eagle has reflected on that with some of his amendments. Ultimately, we are talking about a backstop and saying that the law is the law.

We have seen that, with the register of controlling interests, which is a minor requirement on landowners that was brought in several years ago, there are issues with compliance—we will return to that issue in later amendments. It is important to have the right deterrent in place, as well as ensuring that the right collaborative work with the commissioner and individual landowners can be done. However, let us be clear: this is not about crofters with 5 hectares of inby land; it is about sizeable holdings and businesses with—we have just agreed—1,000-plus hectares. Those are major businesses and if, with all the support that is available, they cannot meet the requirements in the bill, there should be a hefty deterrent and a requirement to fulfil the obligation.

I wanted to address the issue of cross-compliance again, but I am happy to accept the cabinet secretary’s reasoning around amendment 412, which was that, looking at it from the subsidy point of view, requiring cross-compliance with the subsidy regulations in relation to the land management plans and all the other obligations in the bill is probably the right way to do it. The fact that that reasoning is on the record gives me confidence that it is another thing that farmers will have to do before they get subsidies and support.

I will leave it there. Did somebody say that they wanted to come in?

It was you! It has been a long day. In you come, Bob.

I agree. The tone of members’ contributions to the discussion seemed to suggest that they expect fines to be a fairly regular occurrence, but I hope that they are not. I hope that there are never any fines because that relationship is good. The existing tenant farming commissioner, Bob McIntosh, has set the tone. It has to be about—

I think that we are all wound up enough right now.

I would like to press amendment 53.

Okay.

I believe that I have already wound up.

As I have said, I will not move amendment 5.

Amendments 127A and 127B relate to group 3 amendments on the definition of contiguous holdings, which we debated last week. We have had a constructive conversation with the cabinet secretary and I look forward to discussing, ahead of stage 3, how the bill will work on the ground. I hope that, in those discussions, we can agree a definition of “nearby land” that will reflect the need for community consultation. Therefore, I will not move those consequential amendments.

Amendment 26 would require land management plans to include information about how landowners

“engage with communities in relation to the development of the plan”

and how that engagement

“influenced the development of the plan”.

Including that information would support meaningful engagement between communities and the landowner, improve transparency about how that engagement impacted the plan and address a recommendation in the committee’s stage 1 report. I ask committee members to support amendment 26.

I do not intend to move Ariane Burgess’s amendment 334, which sought to do a similar thing by another route. Instead, I urge members to support amendment 26.

Amendments 29 and 2 seek to strengthen the obligations on landowners to increase biodiversity on their land and the restoration of beneficial ecosystem processes. Amendment 29 would remove the phrase “or sustaining” from section 1, leaving landowners to manage land in a way that contributes to improving biodiversity only. It would not create an inadvertent loophole whereby biodiversity levels would be sustained at the current levels, entrenching the status quo and the poor status of Scotland’s environment. Removing the words “or sustaining” would help to ensure that LMPs are forward looking and ambitious. It would encourage landowners and managers to think about how their actions can improve soil health, restore habitats, bring back native species and support the dynamic self-will processes that make ecosystems resilient and productive. It would align with Scotland’s broader commitments to a just transition, biodiversity targets and nature-based solutions to climate change.

Amendment 2 recognises that, given Scotland’s high concentration of land ownership, a relatively small number of landholdings hold huge potential to contribute to the repair of Scotland’s ecosystems. Figures from the Scottish Rewilding Alliance show that, of the 623 landholdings that cover more than 3,000 hectares, just 19 seek to restore natural processes at scale. On many large landholdings, natural processes have been interrupted and held back by human intervention, such as the straightening of river channels and habitat fragmentation.

Amendment 2 would ask large landowners to consider how their land could be managed to restore natural processes though, for example, river re-meandering, native woodland regeneration and natural grazing patterns. Although other policies, legislation and funding levers exist to encourage large landowners to restore nature at scale, having that requirement in the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill would underline the importance of restoring natural processes in responding to the climate and nature emergencies. It would also underline the targets that will be set in the Natural Environment (Scotland) Bill. I thank the Scottish Rewilding Alliance for supporting amendments 29 and 2.

In a similar vein, amendment 320 seeks to place a duty on public bodies to set out in their LMPs how they will manage their land for nature recovery. Publicly owned land should lead by example in tackling the climate and nature emergencies, and the amendment would help to ensure that nature recovery is a core stated responsibility. Scotland’s public land provides a major opportunity to restore natural processes at scale. Those areas can act as demonstration sites for rewilding and ecological restoration. Including nature recovery in land management plans would ensure that public land actively supports the return of functioning ecosystems. When it comes to land in public ownership, there is a particular responsibility to ensure that management decisions deliver the greatest possible benefit for the people of Scotland now and in the long term. The amendment would embed the public interest in land that is managed by public bodies. I am grateful to the Scottish Rewilding Alliance and Community Land Scotland for drafting amendment 320 on behalf of Ariane Burgess.

Amendment 395 continues the thread from the previous group about the growing pressures that are being exerted on Scotland’s land market by the rise in natural capital investing. As more landowners might seek to enter that market in the coming years and convert land use to activities such as forestry planting to create carbon credits, we must make sure that that is done in a responsible manner. Both local communities and nature have to benefit from such schemes, and there is a real risk that, in landowners’ hurry to enter the new market, natural capital schemes could deliver little ecosystem restoration or community benefit. The schemes must deliver genuine biodiversity improvements and be transparent and fair. The amendment would require landowners to set out in their LMP how they intend to comply with the Scottish Government’s principles for responsible investment in natural capital, which have already been launched.

Just to be clear, cabinet secretary, will the kind of detail on ecological restoration that I laid out earlier be expected to be in a land management plan, as appropriate to the holding?