Land reform limits clear in Crofting Commission crisis

ONE of the first things Nicola Sturgeon did as First Minister was to announce further land reform, with landowners in her sights who posed a barrier to development, and the threat of an end to business rate exemptions for the shooting and deerstalking estates.

It is the kind of rhetoric that plays well even in urban areas. Where are the votes in Scotland in support of the big country landowners? But the views of a certain section aside, we do need a strategy for land use that encompasses taxation, planning, and the rights of those who live in the rural areas representing where most of us came from, if not where too few now think of ourselves as empathising with.

That is a wrong view. Our countryside represents more than our mythic, imagined past and it is a tangible present for many fellow Scots; which is why we should be concerned about the crisis at the Crofting Commission. Crofting is what has to keep taking place if Disney is not to take Scotland over above the Highland line, so the breakdown in the commission matters.

It is a statutory body covering an area across vast swathes of our nation, so the commission is vitally important and the crisis smacks of a kind of centralism bordering on imperialism.

There are nine members, six of them directly elected by crofters across the Highlands and Islands, and three appointed by ministers. Why? Ms Sturgeon is happy to lead troops into the breach against the unelected House of Lords, so why does she need to retain one third of the Crofting Commission membership as part of an appointed fiefdom?

No doubt an argument can be made regarding central funds, the role of MSPs and so on. But if the convener faces a vote of confidence because she is one of the three government appointees there are serious matters to explore.

No doubt Susan Walker is competent. She is married to a Skye crofter but she was appointed, not elected, to the body in 2012. Of the 12,000 crofters, almost 11,000 voted in elections to the body three years ago. They expected that one of their elected commissioners would eventually take over the chair, not one of the government appointees and certainly not one who is said to regard herself as executive chairwoman rather than as convener.

This is a fight we do not need. Land ownership and stewardship is one of the biggest issues Scotland has to face and in the crofting lands crofters need to trust the system that is in place.

Those from beyond that area, which approximates to the Gaidhealtachd, then need to learn their lessons for they lead the way in buy-outs and community ownership, models that could become relevant to those of us in the rest of the country.

Some of Holyrood’s finest moments in its brief history of less than one generation have come in its dealing with crofting and land reform. As then Labour MSP Alasdair Morrison declared at the passage of an early land reform Act at Holyrood: “It is done.” But it is not done yet.