CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Form­al Board Paper 4 9^th Septem­ber 2022

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

FOR DECISION

Title: LAND REFORM IN A NET ZERO NATION – CNPA CON­SULTA­TION RESPONSE

Pre­pared by: GRANT MOIR, CEO

Pur­pose

To agree the response of the Park Author­ity to the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment con­sulta­tion – Land Reform in a Net Zero Nation.

Recom­mend­a­tions

The Board is asked to:

a) Approve the pro­posed Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity response (as detailed in Annex I) to the Land Reform in a Net Zero Nation consultation.

Stra­tegic Context

1. The Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment launched its con­sulta­tion titled ​‘Land Reform in a Net Zero Nation’ on 4^th July. The con­sulta­tion closes on 25^th Septem­ber 2022. The Min­is­ter for Envir­on­ment and Land Reform held a pub­lic con­sulta­tion event in Bal­later on 28 July 2022.

2. The core aims of the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ments land reform policy are: a) to increase diversity of landown­er­ship; b) to bring about changes in land use; and c) to cre­ate more oppor­tun­it­ies for com­munit­ies to engage in decision mak­ing about the land around them, and share in the bene­fits it brings.

3. The pro­pos­als in the con­sulta­tion are aimed at tack­ling the issues asso­ci­ated with scale and con­cen­tra­tion of land own­er­ship in Scotland.

4. The Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan 2022 – 2027 sets out the stra­tegic con­text and object­ives for the Nation­al Park. The NPPP has the fol­low­ing spe­cif­ic action

Identi­fy oppor­tun­it­ies to strengthen the role of com­munit­ies and pub­lic author­it­ies in land pur­chase decisions in the Nation­al Park through the next Land Reform Bill.’

Annex I — Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Response to Land Reform in a Net Zero Nation Consultation

1. The Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity wel­comes the oppor­tun­ity to com­ment on the Land Reform con­sulta­tion. The Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan 2022 – 2027 sets out the stra­tegic con­text and object­ives for the Nation­al Park and the expect­a­tion is that any of the pro­posed changes would help to deliv­er the long-term object­ives of the Park.

Cri­ter­ia for Large-Scale Land­hold­ings (Part 4)

1. The cri­ter­ia for large-scale land­hold­ings (3000ha) would cov­er at least 87% of the area of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park. There are about 50 land­hold­ings that are above this threshold in the Nation­al Park. The Park Author­ity thinks that the threshold seems about right for the level of influ­ence estates can have on their sur­round­ing com­munit­ies and their influ­ence on deliv­er­ing net-zero and biod­iversity tar­gets or help­ing to deliv­er on the eco­nom­ic trans­form­a­tion agenda.

2. How­ever, the Park Author­ity would also like to high­light that smal­ler land hold­ings in stra­tegic loc­a­tions (around vil­lages) can have a dis­pro­por­tion­ate influ­ence and so the Park Author­ity pro­poses that a cri­ter­ia should be added that if an own­er has more than 50% of devel­op­ment land around a vil­lage this would also be covered.

3. At present the con­sulta­tion sug­gests that even if fam­ily farms are over 3000ha they are exempt. There does not appear to be a strong ration­al for this as a fam­ily farm over 3000ha still has the poten­tial to cause the same issues as an estate. There is also the issue of when does a fam­ily farm become an estate? If there is a 3000ha size threshold this should apply to all land.

Land Rights and Respons­ib­il­it­ies (Part 5)

1. There is a lot of good prac­tice in the land rights and respons­ib­il­it­ies state­ment and the more that estates fol­low this the bet­ter rela­tions will be between estates, loc­al com­munit­ies and stake­hold­ers. The Park Author­ity thinks that there is a good oppor­tun­ity to integ­rate this part and the com­puls­ory land man­age­ment plan ele­ment togeth­er to make the pro­cess more stream­lined. This would then link any enforce­ment aspects and again poten­tially make the sys­tem more streamlined.

Com­puls­ory Land Man­age­ment Plans (Part 6)

1. Hav­ing a trans­par­ent Land Man­age­ment Plan for major hold­ings with­in the Park would be a huge step for­ward. The Park Author­ity strongly sup­ports this approach. With­in the Nation­al Park every 5 years a Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan is pro­duced that is the stat­utory man­age­ment plan for the place. This is approved by Scot­tish Min­is­ters. It would seem sens­ible if Land Man­age­ment Plans for estates were reviewed every 5 years and with­in the Nation­al Park had to show how they were deliv­er­ing the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan as the expres­sion of gov­ern­ment policy in the area.

2. The Land Man­age­ment Plans will need to be done to a tem­plate to allow com­par­is­ons across hold­ings. Our under­stand­ing is that an estate must have a Land Man­age­ment Plan to be able to access pub­lic fund­ing. With­in the Nation­al Park it would make sense for the Park Author­ity to be the lead body for ensur­ing that Land Man­age­ment Plans are pro­duced and deliv­er on the ​‘pub­lic interest’ as defined in the NPPP. There are how­ever a num­ber of ques­tions that need to be thought through in devel­op­ing this approach.

   a) How strategic/​operational should these plans be and how specific?

   b) How are they amended with­in the 5 years?

   c) What hap­pens if own­er­ship changes?

   d) How does this affect ten­ants on lar­ger estates?

   e) Is there a sign off pro­cess for the Plans?

Pub­lic Interest Test (Part 7)

1. The Park Author­ity sup­ports the prin­ciple that there should be a Pub­lic Interest Test in acquir­ing land in Scot­land. As it is cur­rently worded this test is only applic­able in terms of scale/​concentration rather than wheth­er the use of the land is in the pub­lic interest. The use of the land is covered by the Land Man­age­ment Plan. As cur­rently worded it poten­tially could be used to inter­vene if a landown­er was buy­ing a neigh­bour­ing estate and this would poten­tially lead to issues of scale/​concentration. How­ever, new entrants into the mar­ket would face less issues with the way the test is cur­rently set out.

2. The Park Author­ity wel­comes the notice to sell as a good idea for trans­par­ency (some cur­rent sales are off mar­ket trans­ac­tions). How­ever, with the cost of land being very high it would seem unlikely that 6 months would be enough time for a com­munity to raise the fund­ing and there is a ques­tion about how it links to the cur­rent com­munity buy-out legis­la­tion. Over­all the extremely high cost of land is a major bar­ri­er to com­munity or oth­er groups pur­chas­ing land (see recent sales in Cairngorms NP).

New Con­di­tions for Pub­lic Fund­ing (Part 8)

1. The con­sulta­tion pro­poses eli­gib­il­ity require­ments for landown­ers to receive pub­lic fund­ing from the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment for land based activ­ity. This seems a sens­ible piece of cross-com­pli­ance to ensure that pub­lic fund­ing goes to those estates that can show they are deliv­er­ing the pub­lic interest.

Trans­par­ency: Who owns, con­trols and bene­fits from Scotland’s Land (Part II)

1. The con­sulta­tion pro­poses to intro­duce a require­ment that those seek­ing to acquire large-scale land­hold­ings in Scot­land need to be registered in an EU mem­ber state or in the UK for tax pur­poses. This would aid trans­par­ency of own­er­ship and would seem a sens­ible approach at a stra­tegic level.

Oth­er Land Related Reforms (Part 12)

1. There is one ques­tion in this that has a sig­ni­fic­ant interest for the Park Author­ity. This is how Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment could use invest­ment from nat­ur­al cap­it­al to max­im­ise: a) Com­munity bene­fit b) Nation­al benefit

2. This is a cru­cial ques­tion for the future of rur­al Scot­land. There is a need to ensure that a % of all car­bon cred­its gen­er­ated in Scot­land are taxed and that this fund­ing is ring-fenced for use on deliv­er­ing a just trans­ition, cli­mate mit­ig­a­tion and adapt­a­tion and nature res­tor­a­tion with­in the loc­al area where it is raised. The bene­fits of the car­bon mar­ket can­not just be to landown­ers and/​or com­pan­ies. There needs to be bene­fits to com­munit­ies as well.

3. As rur­al Scot­land will need to be a car­bon sink for urb­an Scot­land if we are to meet net-zero by 2045 this provides the fin­an­cial incent­ive to do this and would make sure rur­al Scot­land bene­fits from the car­bon mar­ket. The Park Author­ity is pilot­ing a mod­el loc­ally and if sim­il­ar prin­ciples were applied nation­ally there are poten­tially mil­lions of £ of invest­ment that could be raised for rur­al Scot­land. This would also poten­tially save sig­ni­fic­ant pub­lic fund­ing in the long run free­ing up resources to be focussed on oth­er areas of pub­lic expenditure.