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Mr. Brian Wilson (Cunninghame, North): I will make a brief contribution.
This is an essential amendment in relation to the viability of crofting estates that will be transferred under the Bill. Frankly, I am much less interested in the Bill than in the precedent that it sets for future legislation, which will allow the same right of purchase on a communal basis of privately owned crofting estates. However, the whole history of crofting and estates and the weakness of crofting legislation is that it permits the divorce of crofting communities from the assets that should sustain those communities and make them viable.
In many parts of the highlands and islands of Scotland, we have an absurdity and the reinforcement of a historic wrong, where crofting communities were driven to the edges of the land, living on small areas of land, but were cut off from the vast acreages that lay behind and by that land. Although they have grazing rights on that land, they do not hold sporting or mineral rights and they do not have the ownership of the rivers that flow through that land.
That is nonsense. It has always meant that the communities, which were given security of tenure under the Crofters Holdings (Scotland) Act 1886, were never given the potential wealth that went with that tenure, so people have been allowed to remain on the land on a marginal basis, but have never had the opportunity to develop the full economic potential of their communities.
All that will happen here is that, unless the main assets of these communities are transferred with the estates, that marginality will be perpetuated. It would be absurd and no one would take it seriously in any other context if the Government, in all their munificence, who have been trying--let us be honest about this; there is nothing generous about the Bill--to get these estates off their hands since the early 1980s, after Mr. Edward du Cann's Public Accounts Committee reported on the DAFS--Department of Agriculture and Fisheries for Scotland--estates, did not accept the amendment. Nothing would be achieved if the estates transferred without their primary assets.
Therefore, the amendment of my hon. Friend the Member for Dumbarton (Mr. McFall) is essential, even as a gesture of good will on the part of the Minister, but, as I have said, this is only the appetiser. It has got the subject up and running. The problem for the Secretary of State and the Minister is the assertion that communities have the right to own their own land on a communal basis if, by historical accident, the land happens to be owned by the Secretary of State. However, the equivalent community next door has no such right to own its own land and manage its own affairs if another form of historical accident has visited on it the most vicious and
rapacious landowner in the highlands and islands. That anomaly cannot and will not be sustained, but let us get the precedent right.
On many occasions, the Secretary of State, as crofting landlord, has been prepared to sell to the highest bidder the sporting rights on a crofting estate. That has not been a sign of good will towards crofting communities. If the Bill goes through in its present form, there will be nothing to stop the Secretary of State continuing to let off the salmon fishing and shooting rights and to sub-let the mineral rights to parties other than the communities that have nominally taken over the estates. If that anomaly is not ended by the Bill, it will be done by a future Bill covering not only publicly owned crofting estates, but privately owned ones.
Mr. Raymond S. Robertson:
As the hon. Member for Dumbarton (Mr. McFall) said, the Bill gives the Government the flexibility to address the circumstances of each proposal for a trust on a case-by-case basis. Surely that is right. Ownership of sporting rights runs with the land, although it may be let to other parties. Sporting rights will therefore be transferred automatically.
The Bill would not prevent the Secretary of State from transferring mineral rights at the outset or in future. We would welcome trusts wishing to acquire mineral rights. When a trust wished to acquire the rights, the public interest would normally require that a valuation be agreed and a charge negotiated.
The Secretary of State holds mineral rights over 27 of his 53 crofting estates. The total annual income from those rights is currently in the region of only £17,000. In many cases, therefore, the appropriate charge for the freehold transfer of mineral rights would be modest.
Our presumption is that mineral rights would, when possible, be included in a transfer of assets to a new crofting trust. If a prospective trust is not initially able or willing to assume the relevant mineral rights, we propose that it should be able to benefit from the income while the Scottish Office retains the mineral rights. Such an arrangement offers flexibility to address each case and the aspirations of each crofting trust. Whatever arrangements are agreed must be fair to the trust and the public purse, from where the money to acquire the estates and support them over the past decades came.
With that assurance, I ask the hon. Member for Dumbarton to withdraw the amendment.
Mr. McFall:
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Mr. McFall:
I beg to move amendment No. 2, in page 2, line 15, leave out 'persons' and insert 'the community'.
The Minister is aware of the debate that we had on this is Committee, when the terms "persons" and "community" featured heavily. He said in Committee that the Crofters Commission would take account of local community development when preparing advice to the Secretary of State on the general interests of the crofting community, which it is required to consider, or any other matter that it thinks relevant. On that basis, he suggested that the amendment tabled in Committee was unnecessary.
In addition, the Minister suggested that the term "local community" was uncertain, and could include more than just the residents and the property to be disposed of. That is the point of the amendment.
The wider community interests require to be recognised for simple reasons. As others have stated, those concerned with policy innovation in the highlands and islands know that support, confidence and agreement do not come easily. It is therefore important that the Bill contains a trigger mechanism which will ensure that a transfer takes place only where there is demonstrable local support for it.
Our view is that the Bill is too narrowly drawn and that the interests of the wider community are not taken into sufficient consideration. Indeed, the Scottish Crofters Union expressed its concern to me yesterday and this morning. It points to the fact that a strict legal interpretation suggests that people living on certain areas of land may not reside on original crofting property. In legal terms, a body will acquire the land-owning interest over a piece of property. That interest carries with it certain burdens, such as march fencing, as well as certain rights to sanction development of a non-agricultural nature or forestry, and the right to resume land for a reasonable purpose such as development. Other rights, such as sporting and mineral rights over the property, may also be transferred.
The wider community interest needs to be taken into consideration. If, for example, development takes place, the environmental interests and local economic interests should be high up the agenda. Those interests are protected by local planning authorities and statutory bodies, and those bodies have a set of procedures that aim to gather the views of parties affected by possible decisions. Any individual or township can have an input in the consultative process.
The Scottish Crofters Union recognises that the danger is that rights in land for people who are not resident in the property could undermine crofting development yet, by the same token, it considers it perfectly reasonable that the wider community should be considered when non-crofting developments are being contemplated. At present, it is more common for the wider community interest to be dealt with through wider legislative mechanisms. If, for example, development takes place, planning legislation provides for the wider community's input, as do elements of the criminal law, such as laws dealing with nuisance.
The principle, with which the Scottish Crofters Union agrees, is that the wider community should have greater involvement in any wider development initiatives. It believes that that can best be dealt with through the articles and memoranda of association of any body acquiring property. It is in the interests of that wider involvement that we ask the Minister to focus his attention on the point. Support from communities is essential if the Bill is to achieve its worthy aims.
Mr. Maclennan:
I too have heard from Dr. Fraser Macleod, the director of the Scottish Crofters Union, in terms similar to those described by the hon. Member for Dumbarton (Mr. McFall). In our discussion in Committee about the appropriateness or otherwise of the words
I believe that the words "the community" suggested by the hon. Member for Dumbarton in place of the word "persons" attempts to meet my point and another point, which is the one on which the Scottish Crofters Union has focused--the desirability of the crofting trust having in mind in its establishment the promotion of the interests not just of crofters resident on the land being transferred but of their neighbours in the development of the crofting land.
I take the point made by the Scottish Crofters Union that, strictly legally defined, crofting communities are those associated with crofting land. I remain concerned about the use of the word "persons" for the reasons that I have given, but understand why the Scottish Crofters Union takes the view that to speak of wider community interests would potentially impose on crofters a duty to take into account considerations of those who are not, stricto senso, of that crofting community, and might impose on them burdens such as the construction of fences or other burdens that should not adhere to them as a result of acquiring the land.
"the interests of persons residing on such property",
I was anxious to focus on the apparent restrictions of the use of the word "persons". I preferred the use of the words "the people". It seemed possible that "persons" could be a small number, not necessarily the majority of those who constituted the crofting community. Although I had no doubt that that was not the intention of the legislation, I had and still have concerns that the use of the word "persons" does not sufficiently embrace the interests of all those residing on the crofting estate.
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