Crofting and Scottish Land Court Bill Stage 1 Briefing

Community Land Scotland welcome the introduction of this Bill as a starting point for reforming crofting for the 21st century.

Crofting is a crucial part of the culture, economy, repopulation and land management of the Highlands and Islands. It supports communities in often fragile, rural areas and has a close relationship with community ownership. Many of our members, and founding members in 2010, were crofting community landowners. There is a particularly close relationship between crofting and community ownership. Last year figures were released by the Scottish Crofting Federation that almost 25 per cent of Scotland’s 21,000 crofts are now on community-owned land.

We are broadly supportive of the technical changes set out in the Bill. The Bill’s focus on simplifying and strengthening existing legislation and improve the regulatory function of the Crofting Commission, most importantly around provisions that seek to prevent misuse, neglect, absenteeism and excessive decrofting are very welcome. We also welcome the potential to enable environmental initiatives on croft land, especially when the risks and benefits of such initiatives are equally shared.

However, the Bill could have gone further in terms of comprehensive reform of crofting. There needs to be a clear commitment across Parliament for a future Crofting Bill which builds upon Prof. Mark Shucksmith’s 2008 Inquiry on crofting, and should include: addressing the escalating market in croft tenancies through tighter regulation, restricting individual rights to buy on newly created crofts, creation of new crofts on public land and expansion of the crofting model across Scotland.

You can read our full briefing below which addresses the current Crofting Bill and works through the legislation chronologically focusing on areas for amendment and strengthening.