Good morning everyone and welcome to the 23rd meeting in 2017 of the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee. Can I please remind everyone to make sure that their mobile phones are silent? No apologies have been received and I would like to welcome Claudia Beamish from the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee who is acting as a reporter. Dweud amdell a swyddo i swyddo y Llan Manai. Rydyn ni'n uddw i ddim enw sy'n unrhyw. Felly, rwy'n cael ei wych yn bwysig am gyfgaredd Andrew Byer, yn y lleol Gwblig Nfus Rotterlach, Peter Peacock, rydyn ni'n gŵyllol i geshawr Gwblig Llan, John Hollingdale, rhyddau g willstau, unrhyw bodi weithlawn, and Anne Gray, the senior policy officer for land use environment, Scottish lands and estates. We have split this session down into various themed areas. The first theme that we are going to look at will be led by John Finnie. Before I ask him to lead off, could I just ask those giving evidence that if they would like to speak to try and catch my eye and I will bring them in, it might not be possible to get everyone in, not on every theme, but I will do the best that I can. It really depends on how long you answer or give your evidence for. John Finnie, would you like to kick off, please? I would like your comments, please, on the structure of the bill, the ease of comprehension about it and whether any improvements could be made, particularly interested in broadening the ownership of forests.  In general terms, we were happy with the structure and the comprehension. There is one particular section that I think we will get on to later, around sections 9 to 15, where the language causes quite a lot of confusion, but I kind of gather that that is going to be a particular debate of topic. Perhaps the interesting thing for many responders was what the bill does not say, in that it does not have any detail on the future arrangements for the management of forestry in Scotland. That is all a way in the policy memorandum. That was a particular focus of a lot of responses in the original consultation. I think that we understand the technical reasons that it is not in the bill, but nonetheless, we feel that there is a great deal of concern about the structure and also the extent to which the future structure is set. One of the suggestions that has been made by Community Land Scotland, ourselves and so on, is that there should be a statement that the bill should require ministers to make a statement about the future arrangements to make sure that they are clear and that any future change to those management arrangements itself ought to be something that is a matter for parliamentary scrutiny, rather than simply something that could be changed internally without any further reference to external stakeholders or indeed Parliament. Anne, do you want to come in on that? Yes, if I could. I think that we certainly have a number of concerns around the lack of definitions in the bill. It seems fairly loosely drafted to us and needs to hide down a lot more in some areas. We are also slightly concerned that it is a long-standing issue that we have had with the trend towards enabling legislation, framework legislation and then an awful lot left to regulation to secondary legislation. Some concerns around that might be picked up as we go through the evidence session. To echo John's points, I have had a lot of members concerned about the change to forestry being managed as a division of, or the forestry authority moving to division of Scottish Government and then the executive agency, which is also directly controlled by Scottish Ministers. We will definitely be coming on to that later, so that will definitely be picked up on. Peter, do you want to come in on that? I suppose that one of the ways that you can look at this bill is just a technical bill to transfer past arrangements into the new devolved arrangements. At that level, I do not think that it is overly complicated or difficult to follow. Apart from the one bit that John mentioned, the difference between forest land and other land, or non-forest land, as I think the community woodlands association has said, I think that I find that quite confusing to work out that you are calling other land, which is not forest land, but potentially you are still calling it forest land. For the lay person, over time out there, it is very difficult to reconcile what is forest land and what is not. I think that that could be tidied up. That is more a drafting matter than it is something fundamental to the structure of the bill. Peter, sorry, I do not want to stop everyone every time, but a lot of these facts will be coming up, so that is definitely one. I know that the deputy convener is getting a chance to quiz you on that. John, do you want to develop the… Yes, indeed. Another issue that has been expressed is the concern about potential loss of expertise. I do not know if the panel would like to comment on that. That is certainly one of our concerns in terms of the issue of changing the way that forest will be managed. I think that our members are concerned that, if the authority in particular becomes a division of government, we get ministerial churn, and that is completely acceptable and understandable. However, at the upper levels of the civil service, we tend to see quite a lot of churn as well. Forestry is a long-term industry. Obviously, your crop cycle, if it is commercial forestry, is at least 35 or 40 years, and it benefits from long-term expertise not only at the lower practical levels but at the upper levels as well. John. Forestry, like a lot of land-based industries, has a demographic problem, ageing workforce that I probably ought to include myself in, and a recruitment problem is difficult to get people to come into land-based industries. I am sure that agriculture feels the same. We feel that the impending exit from the EU is not going to help with this as well. One bright area currently is that forestry has been quite successful at recruiting mid-career changers, people who come in with great many skills, often very useful skills from previous careers, and coming into the Forestry commission, the authority part, and then moving on to FE or into the private sector as a developer. That is, to my mind, one successful career development path that is going to be lost or potentially will be lost because they will not be coming that way into the division unless it has a very clear identity as a forestry division. Potentially, one of the suggestions is that it has a chief forestry officer and it has a very clear forest identity to make sure that it is seen by people as being really fixed to the industry rather than simply the part of the Scottish Government that administers forestry grounds. Jamie wants to come in slightly on that, if I may, to develop that theme a bit, and I think that John John wants to push it a bit more, I think. Thank you, convener. Good morning, panel. Just to pick up on some of the points that have been made about expertise and trying of staff. Obviously, the civil service works in quite a different way to how the Forestry Commission currently works in the way that people move around the business internally. What is the evidence to suggest that there may be expertise lost if those functions are brought into the Scottish Government and the civil service? Is there any suspected changes to recruitment processes to the way people move around into departments from one part of the Government to another? I hear the concerns, but I do not hear any evidence to suggest that there are reasons for the concerns, if you see what I mean. If I might come back in, we see in the civil service that there has certainly been a culture that, at the upper levels, people are generalists. They can move from justice to housing to forestry to ag and so on. As long as they have some core skills around running those departments and policy analysis and strategic skills, they can move on. I do not want to say that that is not a valuable thing. I think that it is. I think that, particularly in the case of forestry, there is just a concern that forestry is such a long-term industry, and there is such a benefit to people with very long-term memories in forestry that have been around for a length of time. I cannot offer you much more than that, but I think that that is a fairly solid reason to have a careful think about the way things are going to be. I will let Peter come in. If I may, I would like to come back to John, and then Gail would like to come in. I do not think that I have any evidence to offer you on this, but I have evidence of the fear that this might happen. That is where people are anxious that what would happen is. John Hollandeil has said that it comes from taking the forestry commission, which is a very distinct organisation, with a very good reputation and is highly regarded for the expertise that it has on the way that it addresses policy and the way that it advises ministers and so on, and does that very successfully and has done over a long period of time. The worry is that, as it comes into the mainstream civil service, that gets diluted, as has been referred to by Anne Gray, that the opportunity for transfers within the civil service perhaps becomes easier, and that way you might lose some of the expertise or you bring other people in who have got to learn the job in a way that they would not do in quite the same way in the forestry commission, which tends to be more self-contained. That is where the worries come from, and to keep the forestry commission would provide reassurance. Having said that, the way that we have come at this in our evidence is that people made representations about that during the consultation phase on the bill. The Government saw all of that, and they have still continued to propose what they were proposing, so I take that as more or less subject to Parliament's approval, clearly, as a bit of a done deal from the Government's point of view. We have tried to address if that were the case what we would do about it. We have made two suggestions. One is that you require ministers to have a duty to make sure that they have the expertise to fulfil the functions of the bill. That might mean nothing at one level, but, on the other hand, it sends a pretty clear signal that Parliament and others have been concerned about this, and ministers are therefore put under a duty to make sure that they have that expertise. That becomes a matter that Parliament can scrutinise ministers on it over time, so that is one device. The other device was to make sure, as John touched on earlier, that in making the administrative arrangements that the Government is proposing to make for a division within the department, that they are required to set out a statement, either in the forage strategy or otherwise, of how they intend to administer the arrangements. If they were proposing any significant change, and that might raise further concerns about expertise, they should be required to report that to Parliament and consult on it before they make that change. It is not seeking to stop this, but it is trying to make sure that there are some disciplines around how that would operate to try and guard against the concerns that people clearly have got. That is where we are coming from on that. Andrew, before I bring you in, there are a few committee members who would like to come in, and I do want to come back to John, because I know that he has something else on this. If I bring Gail in and Claudia in one after the other, all of you could consider those, and then I will come back to John, so Gail. Good morning, and thank you, Peter, for clarifying that. I am not saying that any of the worries and concerns about loss of expertise are not valid, but the Government has already given an assurance that the process will not result in a loss of expertise and that it is going to be a dedicated forestry division. There is no talk about moving to other departments either. When we were on mull, Simon Hodge of Forestry Enterprise Scotland said to us that he already felt like a Government department and that he did not see much changing, so I wonder if you have any comment on that. Claudia, can I bring you in and then ask the panel to answer both of you at the same time? Thank you, convener, and good morning to the panel. From the perspective of my committee, which has an oversight of biodiversity, I would simply like to ask for a very quick response as to whether, within the forestry functions, there should be a reference to it on the face of the bill, and if so, what? I am going to bring Andrew in, which I guess will probably maybe tackle what Gail said, and then somebody else in to tackle Claudia's question. I am supposed to draw a comparison with a part of Government that we are perhaps more familiar with, and that is what was formally the department and probably still is to most farmers. Rural Payments and Inspections Directorate now, although I think that it has a more official name there. We do see that as having a distinct identity. We do see it as having a skillset and a slightly different mentality to other parts of Government, but there is no doubt that over time it has been brought closer into the mainstream of Government, and I think that the relationship with farmers has suffered because of that. I do not have any particular comments about forestry, but I do think that it is possible to have the structure that is being proposed, but there are certainly things that you need to guard against. Does anyone want to come back on Claudia's point, Peter? I will come back on both Claudia Beamish's point and Gail Ross's point. On Claudia Beamish's point, I was going to pick this up later under the questions about functions, because we would be suggesting that biodiversity as a part of a function would be put on the face of the bill, but I will maybe come to that later. I take the point that she is making. To me, that is a matter of reassurance rather than a matter of change per se, and that is why we suggest that the devices that we have provide some measure of reassurance at Parliament have got a bit of a handle on that over time. It was not simply left to the administrative discretion of the particular minister or, indeed, the head of the department at that time to make changes. There was some kind of mechanism to allow Parliament to scrutinise change, given the concerns that people have clearly got. They may not be fulfilled and, therefore, those provisions may not have to be used, but if they were there, I think that they would provide some kind of reassurance. I am just going to bring John back in, because I think that the final part of that was interesting. It is another question about the organisational arrangements, and at the moment of the situation where research is GB and indeed should be international as well, do you have any concerns about the research function? If so, how could they be addressed in the new arrangements? John, do you want to tackle research? Yes. Obviously, research is not really in the bill, and I understand that there are a lot of discussions and negotiations going on behind the scenes that I am not particularly privy to, so I do not know where the kind of desired landing point of that is. Our feeling has been that we would like to see forest research continue as large a body as possible, a body with a UK-wide remit. I think that is particularly important given some of the plant health issues that it deals with that clearly do not respect any borders. Whether the future version of that is a kind of forest research limited that is perhaps a joint venture between the three Governments or three departments, or whether Scotland leads on certain sections and England and potentially Wales lead on others, we do not have a fixed view as to which of those is best. What we do not think would be a sensible way to do would be to have a complete divorce and try and end up with a forest research Scotland because we do not think there is enough of a critical mass to sustain two or three forest research bodies. I see will nodding in agreement, so I am assuming that that maybe wraps that question up. Can I move on to the second theme, which Richard is going to lead on? Good morning, panel. We touched on it slightly a minute ago, forestry functions. Section 2, the bill stated that the Scottish ministers must promote sustainable forest management and must prepare a forestry strategy. Several of the panel have already written in in regard to this theme. Can I ask you, should the bill specify matters that the Scottish ministers should have when preparing the forestry strategy, if so what would you propose to include? Do you think that the bill should require a draft forest strategy to be scrutinised in Parliament before the final version is published? I will also have another question after that. I think that there are two distinct and very important questions that Richard is raising. Who would like to kick off? Peter, I am going to take you and then Ann and then John, OK. On the second question, should there be greater scrutiny? Yes, I think is the answer to that. I mean that draft should be consulted on. Our preference would be that the statement should go to Parliament for approval and not just be tabled in Parliament. That might be seen as overkill, particularly by the Government, but that's done the less hour view that it provides an opportunity for scrutiny at that point. So I think yes to your second question. On developing the sustainable forest management strategy, our view would be that ministers should take a range of other things that they are not required to have regard to. In that respect, our suggestions are trying to bring greater alignment between the proposed bill and existing statute that is to do with land that is already being passed. For example, in the Community Empowerment Act in the land reform act and in the climate change act, there are particular matters that are there. I know that ministers are required to have regard to the land rights and responsibilities statement and, indeed, the climate change bill in drafting and carrying out their functions in relation to this bill, but I think that it would be helpful to have some of those things on the face of the bill. I just touch on some of the things that are there to give you a fuel for what's in other bills. There's quite a focus on other land bills about economic and social development, and the part that land can play, whether that's forest or other land, can play in economic and social development. There are questions about the realisation and fulfilment of human rights and the observance of human rights, the jobs, housing and so on. There are basic human rights in relation to that. There's reference in other bills to regeneration, to social wellbeing, to public health, to inequalities, to ownership diversity, which was touched on earlier by John Finnie. There's reference to ministers having regard to the international covenant on economic, social and cultural rights in other bills and to internationally accepted principles and standards of land management and to biodiversity to come to Claudia Beamish's point. For me and for Community Land Scotland, having a bit of a discipline on ministers when considering the strategy to have regard to these sorts of matters—I mean, I'm not suggesting that's the actual list, but those are the kind of things that I think could be strengthened in the bill—and then you'd have not just a technical bill, which is trying to transpose one piece of pass legislation into the modern day for the devolution purposes, but you've got something that's slightly broader in how we want forestry to be in the future and what the part forest land and other land that Forest Scotland could engage with, what the function of that is societally. It's not just about growing trees, it's a much broader range of things and to try and capture that by creating a discipline on ministers to have regard to those things when drafting the strategy. That's the way we would go about it. Peter, that was a very full answer. Anne, I'm going to let you come in on that. I'll give a brief answer. On sustainable forest management, I think it's an entirely appropriate purpose in relation to forestry land. However, we would like to see a definition around sustainable forest management on the face of the bill. There's one given in the policy memorandum that seems entirely sensible and appropriate, and we think that that should appear on the face of the bill rather than sit behind it. I think that on a strategy entirely appropriate that we have a strategy, and I would agree that it should be widely consulted on. We'd also like to see a fairly regular review period, possibly not more frequently than around 10 years, but it is something that we should keep under review, and we'd like to see something in the bill about a review period as well. Sorry, can I just push you just so I understand on the review process? You have forest plans that are long-term, and you have shorter reviews to take into account things that have happened with maybe five-year intervals and then a major review at 10 years. Are you suggesting that it should just be 10 years, or are you suggesting that there should be a lesser review every five years and a major review every 10 years? I think that when we're talking about an overarching Government strategy, then 10 years is probably frequently enough. I think that with forest plans and regional approaches, that's a slightly different territory. I think that we feel very strongly that there should be an open consultation. The bill is quite light on the details of what consultation there might be, and that the strategy itself is subject to parliamentary approval rather than simply being put before Parliament. We think that if we're going to have a consultation, then it probably needs to be a technical clause saying that there's one year to make it happen, or so on, after the bill's implemented. Otherwise it will be very much a rush job to get it in the day the bill passes. We certainly feel that there should be a fixed review period. We've gone for five years, but perhaps 10 with a refresh at five would be fine. We've noted that 2019 is the centenary of the Forestry Act. It's quite a good opportunity. This would time quite well to use the strategy as an opportunity to celebrate the past 100 years and to set up Scottish Forestry for the next 100 years. That's quite a long time by a scale even for forestry. There's a good opportunity there to use it as a big exercise in promoting sustainable forest management on SFM. We think that that's the right hook, and we agree that the definition that's in the policy memorandum is the one that we should adhere to, and it would be helpful if it was in the bill. I don't think that sustainable forest management is going to be relevant to any other bill that goes through Parliament. It's not one of things like sustainable development itself that's used widely. It's quite a technical term, and it would be useful to have it set. This is how we understand what it means today. The one point that we wanted to make is that sometimes sustainable forest management is taken as being the same as simply complying with the UK Forest Standard. While we agree that the UK Forest Standard is the appropriate minimum standard for all forest management, we want to hopefully, and the bill and the associating policy make it clear that in managing the national forest estate and in incentivising private landowners that Scottish Ministers are looking to go above and beyond the minimums of UK Forest Standard, FE already does that through the work on national forest estate for recreation and biodiversity, and the Forestry Commission authority side does that by incentivising landowners through grants. We want to see that carry on, not revert back to UK Forest Standard as the basic standard everywhere. Andrew, do you want to come in on that? Richard, do you want to come back with another question? I can hear that Andrew and John Holling have nearly answered my second question, good anticipation. Basically, to the other members, should the sustainable forest management be defined in the face of the bill or in an associated order, and do you think that there should be explicit mention of forestation in new planting in the bill? I said that I would like to see a definition on the face of the bill. In terms of forestation, I do not think that that is something for the strategy, I think that that is a very current desire and a very laudable one. However, if we want the bill to become an act to stand the test of time in 20, 30 years' time, we might be where we want to be in Scotland in terms of forestation and it might not be appropriate to want to continue to see more and more planting. For the longevity of the bill, it would make sense that that desire sits with a strategy and with policy rather than in legislation. On the definition, I think that there should be some requirement on the face of the bill to have a definition. I am not convinced that the definition itself needs to be on the face of the bill because that would be something that no doubt over time would adapt and change and therefore leave scope for it to be amended more easily than having something on the face of a bill. However, if there was a requirement that ministers publish a statement about what their definition is, that would be sufficient to give reassurance. As John Haalandale said, that is a very particular thing for forestry. It is not a broader purpose and therefore it would be appropriate to make some requirement like that. As for the forestation targets and new planting, I would agree with Anne Gray that that should be something that sits within the strategy and not on the face of the bill. I would like to move on to the next theme, which will be led by the deputy convener, Gail Ross. Yes. Peter, you started to touch on it earlier on before we had to stop you. I am sorry about that. Are you clear about the difference between forestry land and other land? If not, what can be done to make those definitions clearer? Peter, as you have got cut off in mid-flow, I will let you start on that and I am sure that everyone else will want to come in. I am clear about the difference, but I do not think that the bill is at all clear on what the difference is. I found it very confusing. In principle, in section 10, it talks about forest land as both forest land and other land, but it uses the term forest land for all the rest of the bill in effect. I just think that that is confusing for people. If the forest land Scotland still has two distinct purposes, which I hope it has about forest land and other land for sustainable development, you have to define it in that kind of way. John Hollandeil, his evidence that I was reading, has talked about forest land and non forest land, and that might be sufficient. However, to make a clear distinction throughout the terminology in the bill, I think that it is really quite important, otherwise people will be pretty confused about this. You would like to come back. John, I have read your evidence, if you would like to clarify that, please. I think that there is a sensible and laudable intention there to recognise that forestry in land Scotland will manage areas of forestry in areas of non forest land. What is causing the confusion is the national forest estate, where we are at the moment, already includes a whole range of types of land. Some areas that are not covered in trees but are managed in conjunction with forest land, forestry bits, woodland, whatever you want to call them, and then other bits that are managed for wind farms, agriculture and so on. There is a sensible intention there. The way is probably to simply pull apart the holdings and classify. This is forest land that is managed for sustainable forest management. If there are areas currently in the national forest estate that are used for agriculture for instance, we just classify them as non forest land, and then any new additions, any new land that Scottish ministers either acquire or transfer, because I assume it will be possible for them to transfer land from other Scottish Government bodies, simply slots into one of the two classifications. I understand that. There are some forests that are bought with open land above the tree line, which is integral to giving the forest the right environment for a mixture of species. Would you separate those two, or would you keep them the same? One of the issues has been, as I have seen it, the Forestry Commission planting up some areas of open land to make up shortfalls. Do you feel there is a danger there? I think that is a policy issue in terms of planting areas that they should not plant or a technical issue. My feeling would be where you have open ground, whether it is above the tree line or unplantable bog in the middle of a forest or whatever. If it is managed coherently as a forest unit, then you keep it as a forest unit. The management practice defines that. If areas being planted that should not be planted, then that is a slightly different issue. Potentially, of course, as climate changes, natural regeneration might push the tree line higher, so the boundaries of the forest are not absolutely fixed. Ray, do you want to come in and then I would like to bring Ann in, if I may? That is just a very short supplementary question to that. We have had some concerns that, because the bill covers both kinds of land, forestry land and other land, that land currently in forestry may then become other land. What protections would be in the bill to protect forestry land, especially if we were trying to increase the national forest? Do you want to start on that and try to bring in some of the other points? I think that you have reflected a concern of ours that it is not clear in the bill what takes precedence. Will forestry land always be managed under the sustainable forest management purpose and will other land always be managed under the sustainable development purpose or not? I think that there is a confusion there. That certainly needs sorted out in the bill. John, you are looking to say that you want to come back in on that. I was just going to say that there is a difference between a classification issue and an actual practical management issue, it seems to me. There may be areas that are classified currently because they are on the national forest estate, but they have nothing to do with forestry. Reclassifying them as non-forestry, if it is a starter farm, it is still on the national forest estate, or if it is being leased to a croft common grazing, for instance. It is still at the moment forestry land, but that does not reflect the reality of what is happening there. The issue that you are talking about is whether land practically gets managed differently. It is a policy thing. The Scottish ministers have a presumption against removal of trees without compensatory planting, unless there are overriding environmental reasons for doing so. You will be aware, in caseness in Sutherland, that areas of forest have been cleared to be restored for bog. That is a practical management issue to meet another Scottish Government policy. I do not think that it is the classification issue that we are talking about here. Peter, I am going to bring you back in because you started this off saying that you were confused. I hope that you are now completely clear on the definition between two lands, so you are going to tell us that. I am becoming less and less clear as the conversation goes on. On Rhoda Grant's point, I am not sure—I have not thought about that particular angle, and I am not sure that the bill itself could safeguard that. It comes to what John Hollandeill said. It is a question of how the owners and managers of that land, the forestry commission currently or the forest enterprise or the new arrangements in the future, classify things. There is an operating principle that, once you have allocated land to the forest category, as opposed to the other land category, you would not—I cannot think why they would want to reallocate it to other land if it was diminishing the amount of forest that we have got, because that would run completely contrary to all the targets that they have gotten. I cannot think that they would want to do that, but they could have a requirement to report on that if they went to re-classify it in that direction and therefore threatened in any way the forest targets. You could get a reporting requirement that brought that to light, but I do not think that that is a matter for the bill, I do not think. I think that the issue is whether you take it out of forestry and put it into a wind farm. I think that it becomes very complicated. I am not sure that I am any clearer as a result of that conversation, so maybe John, we could move on to your next theme. I will get more clarity on the next bit. I will continue with definitions in such like a movie section 13 that talks about the management of land to further sustainable development, subsection 1, furthering the achievement of sustainable development. That has already been mentioned. I think that at least two of you, Mr Bohr and Ms Gray, in your submissions, specifically, can bring that up. The question really is, is the term sustainable development familiar and workable, or do we need some kind of definition? From our perspective, I think that it is reasonable to have a purpose around land that is not forestry land, if the new land agency is to manage other land and it will, and sustainable development seems entirely appropriate. It is a very broad concept, and one that is very difficult to pin down to absolute definitions. Our concern with it comes in when it is used in conjunction with the compulsory purchase powers, that is our main concern. Because there is no criteria given around how that compulsory purchase powers will be made around the purchase of that land. I do not want to cut you short. Are you moving on? The compulsory purchase falls very neatly into the next theme, on which you will get a chance to expand on. If you could leave that side of it, and see if you could develop on the sustainable development part. From our perspective, our thought was that it is incredibly difficult to define sustainable development, but it seems to be a reasonable purpose under which the Government would manage other land in its ownership. The convener, if we leave aside the compulsory purchase, are there any other reasons why we would want a definition of sustainable development? I think that it would be incredibly difficult to create a definition in law. You make that point in your submission. I think that that is such a thing. Andrew wants to come in on that, and then Peter, I think. We would echo the comments that have been made. I think that the difficulty in defining it for us speaks to the malleability of it. It can be turned to all different sorts of purposes. We are concerned, for example, about being used to buy lands for renewable energy developments and seeing that as a continuing trend. We are concerned that it could be used to purchase farms. Again, we are drifting into the compulsory purchase area. We made a comment in our written submission about perhaps providing examples, maybe not nailing it down to a particular definition, but trying to give it a bit more form. It is an area that we think needs work. We are not against the concept of sustainable development, but without any kind of limits to it, there is a risk that it could become very contested and quite divisive in the longer term. Maybe you would want it to be something that could be changed over time, so would it not be in the face of the bill if we were doing a definition? Should it be somewhere else? The mechanics of how it is done, I am not quite sure. I have a strong opinion here and now on that. We understand that you cannot, with something like sustainable development, be absolutely precise, but it is just about giving it a bit more structure. My next question would be that, is the bill the right place, the right vehicle, to take forward provisions on the management of non-forest land for sustainable development? I am going to bring Peter in on that, if I may. John, he wants to come in on the last one, whereas I am pretty sure that he will have a view on that. If I can respond to the last one too, because I think that this is quite important. Sustainable development is an important principle, an important concept. It is well established and has been around for many years now. It has caused no real practical problem that I can detect. I think that there is a lot of debate about it, but I cannot detect any real practical problem that has come from the current position. It has certainly added to thinking about a whole range of issues around the environment, on climate, on land management and so on, and it has led to other action. You will not be surprised to know that you are not the first committee of Parliament to wrestle with this question. I am sure that Mr Stevenson, in wearing former hats, will have wrestled with us very directly. I have encountered it in my past life as well. It has been the subject of a lot of debate in Parliament, and at no time has Parliament ever sought to try and define it on the face of a bill. I think that there is good reason for that. The other thing to be clear about is that this has been the subject of court challenge. Scottish ministers have been challenged on the definition of sustainable development in the case of the park crofters that took place a number of years ago. Lord Gill, I will read you what Lord Gill said when judging on that. In my view, the expression of sustainable development is in common parlance in matters relating to the use and development of land. It is an expression that will be readily understood by legislators, ministers and the land court. I am fair to take Lord Gill's judgment on that. On the second question, if I may. I think that this is the right place to have something about other land. Here is an opportunity that the Parliament has got. This is picking up, as I recall, a manifesto commitment from the Government. It was elected on that manifesto to have a land agency. That in turn picked up arguments that were around at the time of the Land Reform Act and the creation of the Land Commission. There was an outstanding issue that had to be resolved that there would be a place for the Government to have other land. The Forestry Commission and the Forest Enterprise, given their expertise in land management, which is extensive, albeit in a forestry context, would nonetheless see an appropriate place to put the wider holding of land by Government for a range of sustainable development purposes in the same place and try to apply some of that expertise about land in that context. I do not think that you would have a stand-alone bill that would deal with that. It is not uncommon for billows to pick up other things on the way that this is a reasonable fit. I welcome the fact that this is in the bill. I think that there is an opportunity here for Government and Parliament and the people of Scotland over time to be able to manage other land in appropriate ways in the public interest. I think that it is appropriate to have it here. Anne, do you want to come in on that? We do have some concern about this issue of other land. We recognise that the national first estate is broader than just forestry land, and that needs to be recognised. It is not to say that we are entirely against the idea of other land being acquired by the agency and managed for sustainable development purposes through that agency. We also have a concern of how far that might extend. Are we likely to see things like natural nature reserves and elements of the Crown Estate being managed under that agency? If so, is that the best way to do it? Is that structure right? Our concern is that we could get to a situation in which an agency has multiple objectives. How does it sort out those multiple objectives? If the specialism within competing—I do not want to use the word competing—but alternative agencies, there is a way of discussing how they might find an appropriate balance between different objectives. If it all sits with one agency, there is a concern that one thing will override other interests or that the agency just gets stuck and cannot make a decision and move forward. Is that something that we need to worry about now, or is that something that a bridge we could cross when we came to it, if that did become a problem? I suppose that by creating a provision in this bill, we could get to—it allows that expansion, that worrying expansion to happen, but I am not quite sure how the bill would appropriately restrict that expansion. It possibly is something that we note and worry about when it happens. I will let John have one more question to sum up the theme. I am afraid that we will have to move on to the next one, which is inextricably linked. Maybe that can be a brief answer. Is it clear to you when sustainable forest management applies and when sustainable development applies? John, I would ask you to answer that specific question. I do not think that I am absolutely clear, but if you gave me a list, we could sort them. I think that the distinction and putting both in the bill reflects the reality of where Forest Enterprise and Forestry Commission are now, the over the last 25 or 30 years, the range of activities that they carry out and the range of government agendas that they seek to deliver has vastly broadened from a very timber-focusing to now as forest education and start farms, all of which is delivering the Scottish Government agenda. Having sustainable forest management and sustainable development as two platforms, two bases to work on, allows a much more sensible way forward than simply trying to make everything fit under sustainable forest management and making that almost anything that we want it to mean. It is more sensible, and if you had a list of possible initiatives, we could all sit down and we would pretty much all fit them one to the other. I do not think that there would be a lot of difference between that. If I can, just one observation here, but I think the importance of remembering the individual, personal, small-scale circumstances compared to the national agenda, national objectives. For agriculture, in some parts of the country, I do not think that anyone would describe it as sustainably done, but forestry has developed in particular areas. It has delivered national objectives, but it has expanded to a point where it has compromised the critical mass of agricultural activity and agricultural systems in that area. We are probably meeting our objectives in forestry there and doing sustainable forest management, but has that been sustainable for the individuals in that industry in agriculture in that area? We are not against the idea of sustainable development here, but it is just to remember that it can operate at all different scales, be it an individual farm, a forest region, a forest district or nationally. I am going to leave that there and move on, if I may. The next theme is going to be led by Mike. We now turn to the acquisition, compulsory purchase and disposal of land sections of the bill, which are perhaps the most controversial area because we have disagreement in the evidence presented to us. As Peter in particular might know in his past experience, I am always loath to give ministers powers that they neither need nor have in this particular case ever used. It is an interesting concept that we are transposing compulsory purchase powers in particular into this new bill when they have never been used and given that power to ministers. I would like to ask the panel for its views, particularly on the power to give ministers the power to compulsory purchase. I am going to do that because, in your evidence, you all have strong views on this. I am going to start on my right of the panel with Andrew and work to my left, say Andrew first, please. I think that recognising what you have said there about the fact that it has not been used in comparable circumstances, we are seeing examples that across the country of where the compulsory purchase system is not working for individuals, it is broken. A number of organisations that are far more expert in this area than us have commented on the fact that it is in need of major overhaul. Given that we have a system that we believe needs serious looking at, it seems an odd time, an odd decision to extend it in this bill to further sustainable development. We think that if it has never been needed and it is not working for it in other realms, then it really is an inappropriate time and an inappropriate route to go down. It is not perhaps going to be used on a regular basis, it may never be used, but I think that the fact that it would sit there and that that power would be there would always affect discussions. That is how we see it often happening. Here is the offer, take it if you do not. We have compulsory purchase power, so we will have it anyway. That is where the discussion in a number of cases in the past has gone. If we are growing our forest asset as we are without this, we are not quite sure why it is necessary now to have it. I am going to bring Peter in, and I want to bring in Stuart, because he has got a full up to that. Peter, do you have a different view? I have a very different view. I am not only entirely relaxed about it being in the bill, but I would welcome it being in the bill. In fact, I think that it would be a huge emission if it was not in the bill. The controversy here would arise by not giving ministers this power, not by giving them this power, in my view. If I say that, just because something has not been used in the past, partly because of the sheer complexity, which is something that Andrews alluded to of using it, I mean, when I was a council leader, I can remember many times trying to persuade the lawyers, you know, couldn't we use our powers to help resolve this situation? I can think of ransom strips and things that were held that caused real difficulties to communities in that territory at that time and to economic developments of various kinds, and I was always told that it's just impossible to use these powers. It wasn't that there was no need or no desire. It was very, very difficult to you. That's the right and proper thing, because compulsory purchase means that you are taking something from somebody else that is currently theirs, and they've got property rights in that. So there needs to be hurdles. I tend to agree with Andrew if the current arrangements are not working, review the arrangements, that's not a reason for not putting these powers into the bill. They would subsequently be reviewed in any review of compulsory purchase. I think that it would seem very odd to me that ministers would not have the right or the ability to do compulsory purchase when they thought that that was essential in any given circumstance, and you can't anticipate the circumstances of the future, so I think that it is absolutely right that it's there, and it's absolutely right that the ministers have the opportunity to do that, and they can't go around willy-nilly just buying up land. I mean that there are umpteen hurdles to get over. The thing is, in the public interest, you've got to demonstrate that very clearly before you could take action. There are a whole range of challenges that can be made to the process as you go through the process. You've got to prove that it's the only way you could get the land. There are no alternative ways that you could meet the need by other lands, so this is not straightforward for ministers. Nonetheless, it's an important power to have. I'll hold on, mate. Can I just bring Stuart in and remind panel members that each one of you will want to have your view on an emotive subject like this, and I'm hamstrung by time as well, so keeping the answers short. If I could bring Stuart in, I might, and then I'm going to bring John in. Thank you, convener. My question is tiny and simply for Andrew who used the word extended to describe what's in the bill in relation to compulsory purchase. My understanding has been that this is merely a restatement of the status quo ante. Could you perhaps justify your use of the word extended or reconsider it? I have an understanding that there are compulsory purchase powers there already for sustainable or for forest management, but for delivery of sustainable development, this would be something new. Mike, you wanted to say something, sir. I wanted to follow up on that because, specifically, my question is when do you think the compulsory purchase powers, if they're in this bill and their passes, would be appropriately used? Because nobody has been able to tell us or give us specific examples when these powers would be used, the fact that they've never been used is another issue, but when would they be used? I mean, Peter's mentioned ransom strips, but is that actually the case? Are there issues where you think that these powers could be used? John, do you want to try on that and maybe come back if we've got time to ask Peter for a specific example where it might be used? John? Briefly, on compulsory purchase powers, I tend to agree with Peter, but also with Andrew that the process does need review, but that's not a reason not to have the powers in the bill. In terms of a specific example, the one that strikes me is potentially where forest enterprises have a forest that's actually landlocked and inaccessible and they cannot remove the timber. The owner of the surrounding land refuses to sell a section of land that would be sufficient to put a road in to extract the timber, for instance. Whether they're a live case, I'm aware of cases where that has been the case in the past and a solution has eventually been found, one or two cases where the community has bought the forest and managed to find a solution where AFE couldn't. That might not even pass the compulsory purchase test, but it certainly would have been helpful had there been plenty of examples to illustrate where the powers are going to be used. Can I say one thing about disposals? Are we covering that? I'd like to stay on compulsory purchase, if I may. John, if I can just make an observation, you know land when it's purchased, if it has access restrictions, it's probably reflected in the purchase price. Maybe that's part of the process as well. If it is to open up land, then perhaps there is compensation due to the compulsory powers being used. We don't feel that the case has been made at all for having those compulsory purchase powers in the bill. The only explanation that I've had for why they're there is that we didn't want to lose a compulsory purchase power around forestry in a previous legislation that we wanted to carry over. We didn't want to lose it, but it's never been used. I think that there was a public inquiry in England years ago that suggested that it wasn't really a very good idea to use it, and it's not been used since. The only explanation for extending that to sustainable development purposes is one of equity. We just want equity in the bill, so we want it to apply to both purposes. It's a very broad power. We don't think that it should be there, and I want to be absolutely clear about that. If it is going to be there, there absolutely needs to be clearer criteria around how it will be used for sustainable development purposes. There is no definition of the land that it might apply to, if there is any exemptions or exclusions from land that it might be applied to. There is no criteria under which an assessment or judgment would be made about whether it would be appropriate to compromise the private use of land and take it into the public sector. I think that we've had a sort of balance for you, if I may, and I'd like to move on and move to the next scene, which is Rhoda. If I could just remind everyone to keep your answers short, we have quite a few more themes to get through, and I would like to hear your views on all of them, as I'm sure with the committee. Section 19 of the bill refers to the definition of a community body. There is other legislation that defines community bodies. Does this definition work along with those other definitions? Should it be amended to fit better with, say, the community empowerment act? Who would like to go on that? John, sorry. There are two things. Firstly, the Community Empowerment Act has four separate definitions of community bodies. One of the problems is that it wouldn't be possible to come up with a definition that matches all of those. Our view of sections 18, 19 and 20 is that they aren't necessary to be on the bill at all and should be removed as we understand it. The Forestry Commission currently has powers to delegate its functions for forestry management to community groups. Scottish ministers don't need those powers transferred to them because they already have those powers. Forestry Commissioners needed them as a special exemption to allow leasing. Prior to 2010, that wasn't possible at all, so it was possible for Forestry Commission to lease land for agriculture, for instance, but leasing woodland for woodland management just wasn't allowed under the 67 act, so it had to be amended to add those powers. They're in the bill because of the general process of if it's in the Forestry Act, we'll transfer it, but we don't believe that those powers are necessary. Scottish ministers already have the powers to lease, sell and buy sections 17 of the act of the Forestry and Land Management Act will give Scottish ministers the powers to dispose of land. The Community Empowerment Act sets out the mechanisms by which community bodies, as defined in that act, can apply to acquire land from Scottish ministers and other public bodies. Section 18, 19 and 20 doesn't really add anything at all, so I think that we can talk about whether the definition should be changed, but I think that it's not necessary for it to be there at all. It's a very positive intention that we welcome from the Scottish Government to demonstrate their commitment to the community empowerment agenda, but we actually don't think that it's necessary here. Peter, I'm going to give you the opportunity, not with just a yes and no answer but a short one, if I may. I would just say that I think that John's got a very good reason to point out that the only part that I would make to the committee is that that should be tested with the bill team in the minister, if I could suggest, so that if there is something that we are missing that gives an additional power, that would be worth having. I can't see it at the minute, but if not, then I think that what John said would commend itself. I believe that there are powers to delegate the functions. I know that the Scottish Government can at least sell whatever, but the bill in section 18.1 talks about delegating their functions under section 9 and 13 to a community body. I'm sorry, that's maybe a wee bit technical of the government. Our understanding is that that arose because of this original restriction on the forestry commissioners who weren't allowed to delegate forest management functions, so that's where the language came from when the amendment was made in the Public Services Reform Act of 2010. That was the language that was used, but I think if you look at the explanatory notes of the bill, I think it's section 38. It makes it very clear that this only applies to land that's being let to communities. So if you were looking at matching the Community Empowerment Act, the definition that you need is the one that applies to communities that are letting, which is the one in part three of the Community Empowerment Act. Once you lease the land, then you can, as part of your lease contract, you can set out what the requirements of the lease are in terms of managing it in a certain way to UK forest standard, et cetera, et cetera, but section 17 of this act gives ministers the power to dispose of land by sale, lease, gift, and I think to anybody, so without any caveat at all. So it would seem rather strange that you then needed to set up a, if you can lease the land to any private individual or any other organisation, why do you need to define special rules about these functions for community bodies? I mean, just stepping back, your view on disposal is actually that when ministers dispose of land, it should be with a commitment for whoever's taking it on whether it's buying or leasing it to continue to manage it to UK forest standard. We think it's important that land doesn't go out of forestry, but— Can I just push you a wee bit on that, is that obviously most land, forestry land that would be sold would be subject to planting agreements and therefore standards would be there implied anyway. Currently in the Parliament, the Parliament's agreed that Scottish ministers may dispose of land from the forest estate, providing that they replace that land and grow trees on the land. This bill is taking away that, so effectively the forest estate could be reduced. Just in line with what you're saying, are you comfortable with that? A yes or no answer would be fine. We would like to see that policy of recirculating the monies from disposal continue, so that kind of answer. I mean, I think repositioning the estate is not necessarily a bad idea. We wouldn't want to see the wholesale sell-off without kind of the proceeds being reinvested. Roger, unless you've got a follow-up to that. I'd like to move on to the next theme, which Fulton will be leading. Thanks, convener. I'm going to ask about failing. Do you think that the provisions in the bill on failing are an improvement on the provisions of the forestry act 1967? Just in the interest of time, I'll just ask the second question as well. Do you think that there's anything missing from the bill or anything that should be removed? Who would like to go on that fairly specific question? Ann, would you like to start on that? We do have concerns against the issue of too much being left to secondary legislation. I think that there are exemptions that existed in the original legislation or previous legislation that we would like to see on the face of this bill for clarity. There's a slightly odd definition around failing as well that I think needs to be reviewed as not wholly accurate. However, our main point is that the failing regulations from the 1967 act have served us very well up to now. We've not taken those over wholesale. A lot of the detail that was in there is proposed to be dealt with under secondary legislation. There's a concern—again, it comes back to the long-term nature of forestry—that, particularly for investors investing in commercial forestry, they would like as much certainty as it's not a very certain business to get into if you're waiting for your crop for 40 years, but they would like as much certainty around regulation as it is possible. Our preference would be to see more on the face of this bill. So you would want, in terms of the second question, that you'd want more put into the bill around this rather than anything that's there removed as such? Yeah, yeah. John, do you want to add to that, Tolo? Two things. We weren't particularly sure that it all needs to be added into the bill. We're also slightly unsure about entering all felling notices and registration—the putting notices to the keeper of the land registry and so on—and whether that was an absolutely necessary step and whether that's going to add quite a lot of bureaucracy in practice. So we haven't quite seen that that's a necessary step to happen. Okay. Neither Peter nor Andrew are catching my eye. I say, Fulton, if you are happy, I may move on to the next theme, which is Peter. Yes, thanks, convener. I mean, we've kind of touched on it already with the last question, but my theme is on regulations on felling. We know that this part of the bill does lack detail, since much of the detail will be provided in regulation. We've heard that already, but are the final content that much of the detail on felling will be in regulation? As an example, there are exemptions to the need for a licence to fell 3s that are included in the face of the First Reacts in 1967, which will be in regulation under this bill. Do you have any other concerns about other regulations related to this bill? You covered that in a bit of detail. I think that just to reiterate what I said before, we would prefer to see more on the face of the bill and less left to secondary legislation. I'll also echo that we have concerns about the requirement to register felling notices with registers of Scotland, not in principle, but just in terms of whether it's proportionate, whether it's really necessary and whether it creates an awful lot of extra working costs that's just largely unnecessary. And that point, I think, Stuart wanted to pick up on and actually widen that. So can I bring Stuart in at this stage, please? Yes, thank you, convener. Let me first direct my question to Anne, because in the evidence provided by SLE you talk on the subject. Since your position is that register of Scotland registration should not be required, how do you envisage that the purchaser of forest land that has obligations, which would, under this bill, be registered with Scotland? How would they know, how would the lawyers who are advising somebody in purchasing lands be aware of the obligations, which are a cost to the purchaser if they're not at registers of Scotland? That's a fair point. Forestry commission register is not part of solicitor's search, but I don't think that there's been a problem up to now. I think that people that are getting into buying, certainly commercial forestry, are well aware of what they're getting into and the obligations around that.  Do forgive me, I understand that. I think that we all understand that, but I just go back to my fundamental question. How would they know of these obligations? Through their advisers. How would their advisers know? Because they are part of the industry and they understand the obligations and the way that it works. So are you trying to tell the committee—and this may be perfectly proper that you do so—that every adviser knows of every such order throughout the whole purview of the forestry state in Scotland? I do understand the point that you're making. Yes, in theory, if you want to be sure, things need to come back through solicitor's search. My point is really about proportionality and whether there is a problem here that we are trying to address through this measure or if there is not a problem, does the extra cost and burden merit the effort? What understanding do you have of the cost? Well, as I understand it, the forestry authority, the regulator, would be required to decide how much information it passes over to registers of Scotland. Registers of Scotland would be required to add something new to the register, so there's a cost there in terms of the public powers. Equally, John made reference to the same topic. Are you aligned with SLE on this? That would be a curious alignment, but I say that there's a lot of similarity, I think, in a view. My understanding at the financial memorandum, I think, says 1,000 potential notices at £60 a year. I have no information on whether that's accurate. I'm reading entirely from memorandum, but that 1,000 seems like a lot and a lot of staff time. In terms of how would anybody know, present on the Forestry Commission website, there's a very good web-based utility that's open to the public. You can find any piece of land in Scotland that you're interested in, go and find out whether there have been any forestry grant scheme, Scottish Forestry Grant scheme projects. Whether or not it has felling licences on it, I'm not absolutely sure, but it wouldn't be a difficult thing to add that, I think. That would be a much more straightforward and open and transparent place of having a kind of open web-based system run by the Forestry Commission or the Scottish Government Forestry Division, as it will be in the future. I would have thought that that would be a sufficient way of available for someone doing due diligence on a purchase. Therefore, you would place a duty on the Forestry Commission and its successors to, as the bill does, provide the land register number that describes the land or alternatively, identify the deed in the register of say scenes that is there. In particular, land selling can break up a previous registration, for example, in the register of say scenes that might split a property. You end up with the same administrative burden, but you're merely saying that the Forestry Commission should carry at no cost to the person owning the forest. Is that what you're suggesting? No, I don't know the technicalities. I was suggesting that, by making it on a publicly available web database with a felling licence reference number, anybody who was interested would be able to find that there was a felling licence or some other notice to comply affecting the land that they are interested in would be able to go to the Forestry Commission or successors and ask for more details. In those cases, when it's needed, finally, therefore, you're simply saying that there should be a register, but it should be published by the Forestry Commission and not the interests of Scotland. I think that using their existing web-based system seems like a simpler way than using the register of Scotland, who are going to be very, very busy with a huge amount of land registration. But it should be done. Yeah, I think that information can be made available in a much simpler way. Claudia Beamish, you wanted to come in very briefly and then I need to go to the last theme, which is Jamie Greene. It's actually a broad question about land reform, so perhaps I should ask it at the end. Okay, I'll move on to the next theme then. I'm going to ask each of you to answer this question as succantly as possible, so Jamie, if you'd like to leave on it. Thank you, convener. I'm going to move on to the financial memorandum of the bill. First of all, are you content with the financial memorandum and its current form? Does anyone have any view on the costs of this restructuring, rebranding, reorganisation, where that money should come from, existing funds within the Forestry Commission, or should it be externally provided by additional funding from the Scottish Government? I'm going to go straight to John, because I think I suspect you may have a view on that, and it might allow others to formulate theirs if they haven't got them already, John. Yeah, I'll take it in two particular things that we focused on, the IT bill. I noticed the financial memorandum has a very high, very large variance, which obviously is a matter of concern, and in some ways the whole idea about integration of computer systems is something that fills the Forestry sector a bit with alarm, because their experience of that has been SRDP process, and the committee is well aware of the issues with not only the cost of systems, but actually making them work in the first place. I don't need to say any more on that, I don't think. The other section is the branding, and there's a cost there of four million as an estimate, I don't have the means to argue with that, but I would worry about the rate of implementation, and whether or not that formerly includes the physical costs of staff to actually change the infrastructure, because this isn't simply changing the letterheads and the sign outside the building and the website, there's a huge amount of physical infrastructure in Scotland's forest that will have to be changed, someone will have to do that job. If it's being done in a year or two years, does that mean that every staff do that and nothing else, or are that in effect additional contractors will come in to do that work and will that bring additional expense? We're concerned that the policy seems to be well, it will be found within other forestry commission budgets and our experience or our fear is that that means it will be taken away from social and environmental projects, all the kind of good positive things that forest enterprise does at the moment will be used in a rebranding exercise. So we said we think the money should come, if there is extra money required it should come as a one-off. John, that is quite a full answer. Can I sort of ask everyone to be as brief as possible and only add to that or disagree with it? If that's possible, whatever your views, Andrew, do you have a view on it? No additions to that. Peter, do you want to say anything? I've never found financial memoranda as an entirely reliable guide to reality, so I think that this is within the ranges that you'd normally expect and I've got no particular comment to make on that at all. As to whether there should be additional resources, I'd say it would always be nice to get that so that there's no cost to the programmes that John Hollande has mentioned. On the other hand, this is a once-in-a-how-many-decades expenditure. It's probably spread over a period of years, so I don't think it's the biggest issue. Any comments on a very cheap computer system by current standards? What I picked up was the rebranding. Back to the original point of, is this really necessary at all? If we just have Forestry, Commission Scotland and don't go down the route of taking this into division and agency of government, then we don't need to incur these costs. There's a much more straightforward and potentially sensible route that would save us all quite a lot of money. Claudia, I can let you in very briefly if it's a brief question. It is very brief, and I'd appreciate a brief answer. I'd like to ask if this bill, in the view of the panel, facilitates opportunities for wider community ownership of Forestry and Woodland in tandem with other relevant bills. If not, what you would like to see in three sentences at the most, please. A yes, no answer, and maybe a two-sentence addition. That's what that very short sentence is for us all. Who would like to lead on that? Ann, would you like to start? I think that it does offer opportunities for communities to become more involved in forestry ownership and management. I think that our only comment is that we would like to see a better alignment. John's point about better alignment in terms of definitions for community bodies within community and power acts, but we feel that it does that. John. I'd say that I don't think that the bill does. I mean, that's made comments already on sections 18 and 19-20, but I don't think that's the bill's job. I do think that the strategy will have an important role to play in stressing the future management arrangements, ensuring that forestry land Scotland carries on the very good work that it's done historically through the national forest land scheme and now through the community asset transfer scheme. It's been a policy matter for forestry commission to advance land reform, and I hope that the strategy makes sure that it carries on doing so in the future. John, you stretched that out a bit. Peter. I agree with that last point. I think that sums that up rather well. In our evidence, we've suggested that we would like to see communities being given a right to ask the new arrangements that the forestry land Scotland to own land on their behalf potentially, as a means, as a sort of interim step to them potentially buying land, or to manage the land in conjunction with forestry land Scotland. I think that there's something that additionally could be put in to give communities in the spirit of other pieces of legislation rights to interact with a new body in that direction. That was a very long three sentences, Peter. Andrew, your chance. Whether it does or doesn't change the facts, I think that it does send a very clear message that that's the direction of travel and communities are being encouraged into this. Thank you all for coming and giving evidence to the committee this morning. I'm now going to suspend the meeting for five minutes until we get the next panel sorted. We now remain on agenda item 1 to hear evidence on the Forestry and Land Management Scotland bill. I'd like to welcome the new panel, first of all Willie McGee, the co-ordinator of the Forestry Policy Group, Charles Dundas, who is the Scottish Public Affairs Manager for the Woodlands Trust, Malcolm Crosby, the chair of the Forestry Commission Trade Unions, Dr Maggie Keegan, head of policy and planning the Scottish Wildlife Trust and Scottish Environmental League, and Professor David Miller, knowledge exchange co-ordinator of the James Hutton Institute. Thank you very much for being here this morning. We have divided the session into themes and I will try where possible to give everyone the chance to answer the questions. I would ask you to look at me if you want to be brought into the theme. I would suggest if you look away from me, you won't get in. Please, when you're speaking, also do look at me because there may be times when I might encourage you to be briefer with your answer. I hope that that will never arrive. That situation will not arrive. The first theme will be introduced by John Finnie. Thank you, convener. I'm sure that you'll recognise much of this morning panel. I'm going to ask the same question as I opened the last session with, and that was, do you have any comments on the structure of the bill? How easy it is to understand and could any improvements been made? Perhaps a Mr McGee, I read with interest your response, which says that we approve of the bill as far as it goes. We want to see the long title embrace the potential. We believe that forestry serves a wide range of functions, especially in respect of rural development and for communities. That's one of the main reasons that we looked at the long title. We said that that actually encompasses what we're looking for from the bill. The structure and clarity, was it that you were asking the understandability of it? The structure we're relatively relaxed about in terms of how the bill was set out. We believe that it could be much more innovative in its thinking to encompass much of what forestry we think can achieve for other Scottish Government policy objectives such as land reform and rural development, small business development. We would like to see, as the bill progresses, much more focus on those. In the first session, there was much debate about sustainability, and we think that the answer, in many cases, is the focus on enterprise and small-scale community. The breadth of ownership is very difficult in Scotland to make definitive statements about something like forestry ownership. We recognise that it is an opportunity to diversify ownership, but we would like to see on the bill some means by which we would be able to measure the scope and extent of different types of ownership in forestry in Scotland. I have been involved through the national forest land scheme and now cats replacement with that, working with communities on a number of things. Generally, the will is there within the forestry commission to do those things. The practical application of that is often the difficulty. For example, with renewables communities, it is desperate to want to do that, but the finances do not stack up. The facilities are there for us to do it. The willingness is there for us to do it. Maggie, you indicate that you want to come in. Yes, I just wanted to set out links response and Scottish Wildlife Trust response to the whole bill, our approach has been to look at it through the lens of the natural environment and native woodlands and what opportunities arise from that, and to optimise the asset of forests. We have probably come a long way since the first act in terms of not just about timber production and the economy, but forests deliver so much more in terms of ecosystem services. It is about whether the bill helps to realise the assets that occur in Scotland. David, do you want to come in on that? Yes, thank you very much. I might just observe that the title raises some interesting expectations, I would say, with the description reference to land management. I dare say that we are going to come to that, but what we expect of Scotland's land and the role that Scotland's land plays for its communities and more widely. What it does do, I think, is given opportunity to see where land can be part of that pathway to the sustainable development goals and some big picture stories, given that woodland and trees and forests occupy such a high proportion of Scotland's land and the type of land that represents carbon-rich soils, land and key water catchments and so on. Charles, you have not said anything. I feel sure that you have a view. I think, in terms of the structure, it is workman-like. It sets out to do what it needs to do in terms of transposing the 1967 Forestry Act into Scottish legislation, but I do not think that we should kid ourselves that this does much more than that. There are a few sweeties thrown in in terms of a statutory forestry strategy and a commitment towards sustainable forest management, but it does not radically shake up the way that forestry is managed. Hopefully, that will be done by the policy that is implemented by the Scottish Forestry Strategy, which is not covered within the legislation. John, do you want to develop that about? I have a question specifically for Mr Crosby, and that is about the concerns about the separation of FCS and FES. Can you outline your concerns on that, please? Yes. I have worked for the commission for 37 years. My whole process has been about integration, working with what we call the Forestry Commission as opposed to the enterprise. I work with colleagues on that, which then feeds into the work that I do currently on renewables, such as stopping wind farms from falling too much. The debate earlier on was about forest land and non-forest land. The whole point of forestry is to bring all those things together. The staff bring those things together. The work that goes on between the policy people, the delivery people and the regulatory people is what makes it work. It is the integration of the staff, the partnerships and the understanding, the knowledge of each other and why we are coming from what we do that makes the Forestry Commission successful. If we split those off into two separate things, it will not happen overnight. Gradually, people will drift off. The Scottish Government has a slightly different agenda. The Forest Enterprise has a slightly different agenda. It will just get that gradual moving apart and it is not going to deliver what the forestry bill wants it to. Do other panel members share that? Yes. It is not a very good excuse, but we did not major on structure in our submission. Partly because we got the feeling that this was a done deal, we met civil servants more than 18 months ago, and their parting shot to us was why worry about the Forestry Commission being wrapped in the arms of Victoria Key. In terms of an example, you would look at Wales and see what has gone badly wrong with forestry where it has not worked in terms of a change. From our point of view, and by our community, small-scale environmental groups that we represent, Forestry Commission was the only Government department that listened. ARPID certainly did not, SEPA very rarely, SNH fairly toothless. The Forestry Commission changed the way that they worked because of their status and the way that they took advice, if you like. They had advisory groups, the native woodland advisory group, the forestry for people advisory group. We, the forest policy group, were set up as an adjunct to those advisory groups. We do not see the Scottish Government being listening and flexible in a way that the Forestry Commission has done over the last 20 or 30 years. There is no other department that you can look at that would have achieved the same object. The same outputs and outcomes for communities and for land management. Charles, do you share that view? I think that the woodland trust made no bones about the fuss that we made about the consultation and the change to the structure. Like Willie, I think that we felt that the Forestry Commission Scotland, that forestry authority side, the regulatory and policy side, was one of the best functioning public bodies in Scotland. I would trust the FCS to deliver on biodiversity targets or implementation of the land use strategy far more than many other areas in Scottish public life. Our concern through this change was not only are you robbing Scotland of a standalone forestry policy and regulatory body and the kudos that comes with that by bringing in-house alongside everything else that the Scottish Government does, but you are opening it up to that possibility of diluting the expertise within the organisation, which I am sure we will touch on later. That is three sort of opinions quite clear. Maggie, do you have a view on that and I would like to come to you, David, if I may? Our view is quite similar. Link did have concerns and they were the same thing about regulatory and policy functions and we will probably touch on expertise because we did, I do not know if you are going to move on to that, but it is about maintaining that. It might be okay for the first few years, but 10 years, 20 years down the line, will it still be the same, will we still have the forces in the Scottish Government as civil servants? Also, the Bill talks about sustainable forest management is about getting the balance, as is sustainable development, between economic interests, social interests and environmental interests, and it might become more of a political. We see that there is a risk that those decisions might become more political if it is taken into the Government as a directorate, rather than more at arm's length. David, do you want to… My comment was going to reflect on our experience when constructing the research agendas with Scottish Government and across our diversity of different policy groups and the cameras partners of which Forest Commission has won. The comment would be found that access and the horizontal connections are very good in general terms, with no doubt some specific issues. The observation would be made, then, that that could be part of bringing the good reputation and evidence that colleagues here have just referred to of Forestry Commission in its openness and approachability from communities and industry into other parts of Government and part of the evolution of regulation and people. David, that seems like a positive spin to the concerns of the others. John, do you want to follow that up? Yes, indeed, convener. Given the concerns that have been voiced, would official recognition of the role of Forestry by the civil service be having a chief forestry this way, any of your concerns? All the hands are going up. I am going to bring Charles in first and then Malcolm. You do not need to touch it, the sound man. Yes, they would. Our submission makes reference to both those things. Maintaining that expertise within the organisation is very important in recognising the role of a trained forester and ring fencing roles such as chief forester, heads of divisions and the conservators within each area of the organisation as trained foresters would do a lot for maintaining that element. In response to Mr Greene's question to the earlier session about an example of losing expertise, I would point to when the Royal Commission on Ancient and Historic Monuments was merged with Historic Scotland, a unit was set up within the Scottish Government to work on policy. I will consider that an analogous to a division within the Scottish Government. One year after that merger, the staff within that had been scattered to the forewinds across the culture division, filling in gaps here and there. I appreciate that it would probably be more difficult to do that with Forestry given its dominance within the Government, but it is still a concrete example of how, once you are in Victoria Key, you can start getting distracted unless there is some security and ring fencing of the organisation. I will bring Malcolm in and then maybe I could ask John to widen that question about Malcolm. The difficulty is, if you split it up, it is not going to work to our mind. Our paper recommendation is that it should be retained as one piece. If you do split it up, you need something to head it. Head of Forestry is difficult. I was talking to one of my colleagues just yesterday who is a health adviser who has come from the NHS. We have brought in to Forestry all those other skills. We have an education advisory as a teacher. We have had somebody who looked after drug rehabilitation offenders in Glasgow who came from the social sector. They have come into the Forestry commission, so we call them Forestry, but they are not. The ministers and the officials have said, yes, we will recognise Forestry as a profession in the Government. We are much, much more than that. Our staff do a whole range of stuff. We have all those experts and we bring them in. They pick up the culture that we have within the organisations that can do organisations that deliver things on behalf of the policy makers. That is how we succeed. If you split them up, you are just gradually going to get that disintegration. People are proud to work for the Forestry commission. John Jones, get one. Thank you, convener. Could anything be included in our alongside the ball to reassure that the new organisations fit for purpose? Maggie, can I bring you in on that? I was quite taken with what Peter Peacock said in his last evidence. If we are going to have it like that and it appears that that is the direction we are going, you do need the checks and balances in place. Some of the structures that come with the Forestry commission, as it is, is like the national committee for Scotland, which has an advisory role. You have the regional forestry forums that he took evidence from. It is what is going to happen to those in the future. Then, of course, you get the annual reporting and planting and restocking targets. That goes on to the financial accounts that go to the Parliament, and they can be scrutinised. Is that level of scrutiny still going to happen when it becomes the directorate of the Scottish Government? Willie, do you want to come in? David, I will bring you in, if you would like to come in. I would reinforce that point. Part of the strength of the commission's structure, as it is at the moment, is its answerability to a national committee. When I talked in my first comment about stakeholders, the Forestry commission has consistently listened through regional fora. We would want that to be maintained, and not to be told well that it will appear in some piece of policy later down the line. If it is in the statute, if it is in the bill, whatever comes next has to have an advisory committee, as is like a national committee, and that we would maintain those listening groups in terms of the regional fora, that would be a great step forward. David, do you want to add anything to that? One quick observation about the sorts of fora that have been referred to is that there are new ones emerging, and part of that could include the land use strategies expectation of the regional manus partnerships. Where do those fit into the governance structures of holding to account, but also exploring visions? It is just another complication, but it needs work through. The next theme is Richard. If I can go back to the theme from the first panel, in regards to forestry functions, and I note that the Woodland Trust and SE Link have written in in regards to those, but particularly Woodland Trust suggested that a duty to promote sustainable forestry management should be placed not just on ministers but also on the public bodies and private landlords. Do you agree? I am sure that you vote. I would like me to come in on that. I am sure that Maggie Keoghan votes. Yes, I do agree with my point. Not always, but in this case, yes. Yes, I think that this is an example of what I was referring to in that very first answer, that this is a workman-like bill that does the job of transposing stuff. It does not have great vision for the future of forestry, which I know that the Scottish Government does. If I can suck up for a minute, I would like to commend the Scottish Government for the role that forestry plays in its new programme for government. It is a jewel in the crown of what Scotland does, and I am glad to see it recognised as such. I apologise. Things like that duty on sustainable forest management are great, but in terms of the legislation, it is only covering a small percentage of Scotland's forests. If we wanted to be really radical, why not say that anyone who owns a forest has to manage it sustainably? That would be visionary. That is my point. Maggie, do you want to come in on that? Yes, we would agree with that. Obviously, the way that private owners manage the forest is when they get the grant, then the UK Forest Standard kicks in, but that sort of kicks in for usually the five years when the grant is being delivered, but it is the intervening time, so things like deer management, which is part of sustainable forest management, could help to address that problem over making sure that the time between the planting of the forest and the realisation of the commercial aspect of the timber production has still been managed in a sustainable way. That is missing. Another thing is that native forests in Scotland are a very rare resource. Even in the UK Forest Standard, there is only 5 per cent that has to be required to be planted in a commercial forest plantation. As we know with the Scottish biodiversity strategy, we are not even hitting the targets of 3,000 to 5,000 plantings a year of native forests. In terms of this bill helping to address other government objectives, it is not really—it could be doing more. David, do you— I know that in most or at least many of the functions of our forests, the distinctions are really public and private except in terms of public goods. Those might be their role as a carbon sink. Biodiversity landscapes, those sorts of functions are irrespective of who actually has title for that area. Part of the direction of travel, which at least we interpreted as this indicating, is the role of forestry in the bigger picture of land in Scotland. The functions therefore need to be thought across about what we are looking for, rather than necessarily the distinctions of public and private. The onus then would be on all aspects of land, and all aspects of woodland had at least shared the visions of where and what we are wanting from them. Malcolm, before we bring you in, Richard, do you want to widen that slightly? There was also, when the woodlands first went on about planting and deforestation. You made a comment earlier on what I thought was quite funny. Sweety is a bit interesting to know what this—I know that you are doing a bit of sucking up, but I wonder what the Sweety's are. However, can I ask the question that the convener wants me to ask? Do you think that there should be an additional provision in the bill relating to the forest strategy or a commitment to further planting? I am sure that Charles will be bursting to grow that one. I am going to let Malcolm come in first. I just wanted to make a point about the difference between the public and the private sector. A lot of frustration, if you like, with being in the regulatory sector is that you are only able to persuade people to do it. You are relying on grants and incentives and encouragement. The national forest estate is about delivering it, and we use that support from ministers to do it. Much as we might like the private sector to do it, if you are going to do it, you need to have money. If you want people to do it, you have to pay for them.  I was really back to the comment from David. Those of us who swim in the sea of forestry draw a very clear distinction between public benefits that arise from the public estate and private sector. Malcolm has just alluded to the mechanism by which public goods are derived from the private sector. In respect to how you view it and ownership, I would suggest that, in the main, where you have public estate or something like common ownership and the common goods, there is an underlying commitment already in there to achieving sustainable forest management with all its public benefits, whereas in the private sector that is not necessarily the case. Charles? Yes, the issue of a forest station, the 1967 Forestry Act, the Westminster Act that this is bringing over into Scottish legislation, is quite clear about one of the duties of the Forestry Commission is to plant more trees. It was interesting in the previous session that you had earlier this morning that there was some reticence amongst people to put that on to the face of the bill. They said that maybe at some point we are going to have enough trees in Scotland. I raised a quizzical eyebrow at that point. I am not sure that there will ever be a point where we will not have a need to be planting more trees in Scotland. A comment in that particular question? Absolutely, but in terms of other things that are missing, I will mention very briefly, deer management, deer woodland creatures, the existing forest enterprise Scotland is the biggest deer manager and most efficient deer manager in Scotland. If we are talking about a duty to manage forestry sustainably, deer is going to play a huge part in that in the coming years. This is a legislative vehicle that would give an opportunity to talk more about deer. I am aware that the committee might want to leave that entirely to the Ecclare committee in Graham Day, but we all have to pull together if we are going to tackle what is arguably the biggest threat to woodland and Scotland, even bigger than climate change. Claudia, do you want to come in on that before I bring in? Perfect opening, convener. Thank you. Not just Graham Day, but the whole committee has profound concerns about the issue of deer management. That leads me to my question. If people could answer briefly, that would be helpful. There have been a lot of multiple benefits highlighted by the panel and the previous panel. I wonder the degree to which the panel thinks that, in section 4, the preparation of the forestry strategy, whether there should be issues beyond climate change and reference to land rights and responsibilities that should be added on the face of the bill, or whether it should be perhaps at the start of the bill that all aspects of the multiple benefits should be taken into account throughout the issues in the bill. Who would like to go first on that, Maggie? The forestry strategy is one of the most important documents. Obviously, it is going to direct ministers in promoting sustainable forest management, so it is an incredibly important document that is going to come out. Obviously, like others have said, we believe that there should be wide consultation on that, and it should go to committees and Parliament. Obviously, that is not on this bill at the moment. That is one point to make. However, I agree with you that it only mentions with reference to regard to the land use strategy and the land rights and responsibilities statement. Of course, it will impact on so many other things. In the policy memorandum, it says that those are already recognised. Five years down the line, who is going to look at the policy memorandum? Nobody is going to look at that. You need to see those things on the face of the bill to show that they are important and how they are all integrated. Then we might start to get land use and public goods integrated, because that can deliver so much more. It should be delivering the nature conservation act. Willie, wide consultation on the first strategy? Absolutely. I would like to endorse what Maggie has just said. The purpose of the strategy should be to deliver across Scottish Government objectives. Since we are on the strategy, I heard in the last session the figure of the five years in terms of reporting. One of the positives to come out of deer legislation is that, because there is a requirement to report, it has remained quite high on the Government's agenda. We would wish to see either three or five yearly reporting on the Scottish Forest strategy. Charles, do you want to comment on that? I would certainly agree that policy integration with all the other strategies that the Scottish Government has, not least Scottish planning policy or Scottish economic strategy, all have to be integrated with the forestry strategy. It would do no harm to have them expressly mentioned on the face of the bill. Whenever you raise that, and I have the experience of previous bills trying to get policy integration there on the face of the legislation, the answer is always given by civil servants that that is happening anyway. The Scottish Government works in a very joined up way. If so, you have nothing to fear from putting it on to the face of the bill. I agree with my colleagues on that. Do you agree that the strategy should be consulted on? No, absolutely. We have benefited massively from having a Scottish Forestry strategy over the past 15 or so years. What we have suffered from, I will say, is not having it updated over the last decade. I would argue that anyone who looks at this document from 2006, Willie and other foresters will look at it and recognise good forestry practice, but it does not reflect good policy integration with the rest of what Scottish Government says. It even says that it is Scottish executive at the top. That is how old it is. Not only should it be consulted on, but I would recommend that it is done on a five-yearly basis rather than every 10 years. We consult on practically everything else. I do not see why we should not consult on the forestry strategy. Our land management plans go out to widespread consultation. Our strategic plans go out to widespread consultation. We have nothing to fear. That is what we do. We listen to people and we develop agendas accordingly. The function should be up front for contextual reasons, because there is no reason to argue against it being consulted on in the most effective ways. What I might add to that discussion is what the boundaries of such a strategy might look like geographically. Do those boundaries consider the strategy for the immediate non-forest land and the prospect of the evolution of the land that is under prospective management? Does that strategy for land include consideration of what is not currently forested, what could be added, and where it might explore the aspirations that are set out for the multiple benefits? David, you are going to get me kicked very shortly by the deputy convener who is going to come on to that subject. Claudia, if the answers are sufficient, I would like to move on to the deputy convener, Gail Ross. Thank you. Good morning. Are you clear about the differences between forestry land and other land and are there any changes needed?  Are you clear in the differences? I think that there are opportunities. There is clearly already known forested land within the area of the estate. The question seems to me to be what the opportunities that are set out of obtaining of land, of purchase, of replacement and whether you build that into forward thinking, and where the boundary that I was heading to is where fair forest land intersects with our urban environment. What is the link between trees and green infrastructure, which fits in with planning policies that I mentioned earlier, and where will forestry be part of the local awareness of our cities and urban populations? The strategy, geographically, I think, should be considering where there are plans or aspirations for the known forest land and then think through what the implications of that might be, which could be considerable. I am clearer now because I have heard all the evidence sessions. I have been sitting listening on my laptop. It worked a lot clearer than I was. Having said that, what is not clear is if land that is other land is soon to be planted up with trees, if it is unsuitable, so if it is like deep peat, blanket bog, is that still going to be managed for sustainable development? I am sure that we will come on to that, but I think that some more clarity in the bill will help people and in the future when we are not having these debates. It is an entirely artificial dichotomy, which is completely unnecessary. As I said about strategies that we consult on, we have wind farms, which I spend my time making sure that they are keyhold rather than falling large areas so that they become genuinely part of the forest. We have peat bogs, which we manage. We do deforestation, if it is not appropriate. We have talked about the urban area. One of the biggest initiatives that we have had over the last 10 years is woodlands in and around towns, which is precisely to move us into the urban areas. This is about bringing the benefits of woodland to those who live in urban areas and making sure that we are working in those areas where the vast majority of people live. The work that we did in Glasgow with Drumchappel and Easterhouse has just been fantastic and the transformation of those communities as a result of what we have done. The non-forestry definition is coming from this forestry and land bit and the concern that whether we might be bringing in and land and it might not be forestry. We manage lots of bits that do not have trees on. We consult, so we do not go and plant up peat bogs. Yes, we did in the past. We have learnt from our mistakes. We now go out and consult. We do not do that. The issue of non-forestry, to me, is entirely artificial. It should be part of our strategies that we work with the relevant experts to look after the land in the best way. I think that it cannot be disputed that it is inelegantly drafted here. As previous sessions have shown, it causes confusion. A possible solution to that confusion is where the bill refers to forestry land. It essentially means the national forest estate, and if it was to use that terminology, things might be clearer. Although the concern, certainly among environmentalists, is that if you have land that exists within the national forest estate but is not forested, you are then putting a duty on that land to be managed according to sustainable forestry management. Some environmentalists read that as it will be planted up with trees that will not necessarily be appropriate. However, the definition of sustainable forestry management, which is the Helsinki definition, which is in the policy memorandum, is that a key element of sustainable forest management is that it is not done to the detriment of other ecosystems. Therefore, I think that you have got a check and balance in there that will prevent my colleagues from being worried that there is a march towards a forestation of every square inch of Scotland, which I am sure none of us want to see. Willie, do you have a… Well, Brady wants to come in and then maybe Willie can get a chance to answer. Just a wee question on that. Forestry land is actually the national forest estate. Given that time will elaps from now and from the bill going forward, do you think that that definition will continue? I would have thought that there is a clear definition of difference between the land held by the Forestry commission, and that is what the bill is trying to point out, that it will hold non-forestry land as well. I will let you come back and then I am going to bring Willie in. I think that it was maybe confor that in a previous session suggested that a very elegant solution would be to define forestry land as land that has forest trees on it and other land as everything else. That would solve that problem from my point of view.  I do not really have very strong views on it. I think that the other land, I would agree, has been brought in there just because there is land that is held by the Forestry commission or the national forest estate. I do not think that there is any intention to do anything like our forest. Malcolm, and then Maggie, very briefly, if I could ask you. My previous role before I went into renewables was forest planning, which is that the whole point is to bring everything together so that your plan includes everything. All the land that is not planted is equally important in that land as anything that has trees on it. If you try to distinguish that, it just becomes impossible. A couple of quick points, because forestry land is the activity of forestry, not the forest itself. That is the potential that it might become forestry, even though it may not. We are looking through the lens of forestry commission now as the advisers about getting the balance right in 10 years' time if it is subsumed into the directorate of the Scottish Government. There may be different priorities. Obviously, with trying to obtain targets that are quite difficult to reach, there is a risk that forestry land becomes a risk. There is no doubt about that. I am going to move on, if I may, to John, to introduce the next thing. It is continuing with the management of land and, particularly, section 13, further sustainable development. I quite liked your quote, Mr McGee. I do not know if you are quoting somebody else when you say that sustainable development has been described as the slipperiest piece of soap that you will find in the bathtub. I am interested to know what thoughts people have around section 13 and the management of land for sustainable development.  It was not my expression, but I was fully behind it. I mean, what we were trying to do was to say that when you use expressions like that, it comes back to the forest strategy. You can put as many of those expressions in as you want, but to actually see tangible results coming out the other end in the spirit of what you mean, the sustainable forest management or sustainable development is a bit more tricky. What we were trying to do was to say that if we had a commitment, to manage, as I mentioned earlier, where you were attempting to use forestry for rural development, combined with good environmental practice, furthering recreation, all those different aspects that are included in other Government strategies, then you would be getting somewhere towards grasping that slippery piece of soap. Charles? My understanding of section 13 is that if you are going to have this big, dare I say, monolithic agency that will manage, in the future, all of Scotland's publicly owned land, then you will need some sort of principle on which it will manage land that is not forestry. So they have chosen sustainable development, which makes sense. In terms of defining sustainable development, we have been through the battles of the land reform act last year. I think that the Bruntland definition of sustainable development is well recognised and commonly used within the Scottish Government. I am relaxed that that does what it intends to do. Malcolm? Well, again, I am at risk of repeating myself. It is all about integrating. I worked through with the forestry commission side of things on the woodland removal policy, so that that was integrated. Sustainable development is what we do. We have now got 1,000 megawatts of installed capacity on the national forest estate, Wind and Hydro. That is sustainable development, but we integrated it into the forest. Yes, if somebody wants us to manage something else in the earlier session today, somebody mentioned about the risk of we might end up by managing national nature reserves. We already manage a large number of SSIs, a lot of which are not forestry SSIs. We already manage those things. That is what we do. We bring in the necessary experts. If we are not the relevant authorities because we have been trained to silviculturalists, we bring people in and they become part of our culture. Do you feel that it is going too far to have two separate phrases? They are sustainable forest management and sustainable development. Should we be trying to come up with one? I would not pretend to be an expert on legal definitions of things. I know a lot more people here and know far more about other bills and how they affect those things than me. I just know that we, as an organisation, work with ministers to deliver what they ask us to do. That, to me, is what our purpose is. Maggie, are you relaxed about sustainable development? I think that I know what it is. I think that Link has given up on asking for the definition of sustainable development on bills because the same arguments are trotted out. As long as everybody is clear what it means, we should leave it at that. I suppose that it depends on what top Trump's sustainable development, top Trump's sustainable forest management, but both of them are about balancing the economic, social and environmental interests. That is what they are both about. From my point of view, if we are looking at other land, which is to be managed for sustainable development, is eco-housing sustainable development? Could that be planted in native woodlands? It might happen in the future. Who would decide? Would it be ministers who decide that that should go ahead or be a planning authority because we are talking about houses? It is not clear how these sort of decisions are going to be determined. David Cymru will comment on the sustainable development by coincidence. Next month is the 30th anniversary of the Bruntland report, so the definition of that report is still contemporary and still the underpinning of most of the rest. I am not entirely certain on my ground here, but I would have thought that Bruntland following Rio summit was part of the underpinning of what evolved into the national forest standard and best practices from the forest commission. I would have thought that sustainable development is the picture within which the sustainable management of forests is one element. People are a core part of that, but the thing that I would bring to attention is that, while thinking about what we want for the land, we should at least give consideration to the pathways to change. What we must not do is cut off our options by a decision that was poor or all considered or short term when, as naturally our trees demonstrate, the game plan here is 50, 100 and several hundred years down the line. Sustainable development has to be taken in the long term. We need to think through joining up the thinking of what we want with the strategy with the land that is currently trees and the land that is not, and where those will change between each other. Not all land will remain in trees, as we have found with the flow countries, and other land will become wooded. I would go with sustainable development and sustainable forestrys parallel. Are you saying that there would be a danger in a tight definition of sustainable development because, in a few years' time, we would need to change it again? I think that the definition of sustainable development I would keep, that Bruntland one, and then it's how we refine it and tag it for realities in our landscape. We've got the evidence of where we've changed our mind and therefore changed policy because other pictures or bigger pictures have become apparent. What I'm really trying to say is that there are certain aspects that might be slightly more sectoral—whatever the sector—that may, on occasions, be shorter-term, and that those could head off or corral some of our activities and mean that our options aren't as flexible into the future. I'm going to leave that there and ask Mike to lead off on the next one. I'd like to focus on compulsory purchase. We told that bill transfers not just to powers of ministers from the 67 act, but actually increases them and develops them. We're also being told in evidence that these powers have never been used in the half century since the 1967 act. I'd like to know from you some of your submissions, but in today's evidence what are the panel's views on compulsory purchase powers in the bill and are they required at all? Who would like to lead off on that? Charles, your evidence is clear, I think, but I'd like to hear. I agree with my evidence. I think that a lot of fuss is being made about this, partially because I consider a huge amount of those powers to be duplication of powers that Scottish ministers already have. Therefore, it's almost irrelevant as to whether they take them here or transfer them over. In terms of principle, the fact that they have not been exercised in several generations would suggest that there is no cause to have them. Therefore, if I were Cabinet Secretary, I would consider it a great PR opportunity to say, look at me, I'm turning down powers that I could have, but I'm not Cabinet Secretary, so I will be refreshing and useful, but I don't see any reason why those powers need to be transferred. Not least because those powers are replicated in other legislation already. Particularly in terms of sustainable development, that's what the land reform bill gave compulsory purchase order powers to manage land in a sustainably developed way. Charles, first you praise him, and then you say you want his job. Willie, perhaps you'd like to come back on anything there? I think that there's one point in what Charles said that I would agree with him, and that is that it's a facet of rolling powers over from the 67 act. I'm not sure that it was ever intended to work in the way that our previous panel were fearful of. There seemed to be a great deal of unrest about it. I'm a little bit more sanguine than Charles, I think. If I was a Cabinet Secretary, even though I didn't use the tool in the toolbox, I would quite like to have it there just in case. I think that there's quite a lot of fuss for a relatively innocuous line. Malcolm, do you want to— Briefly, our style is to try and work in consensus. It doesn't really make much difference to us whether it's in the bill or not. We don't want to use it because we would much rather work by working with people. David, do you want to come over to Maggie? The links view was the same as the woodland trusts. If it's going to be retained in the bill, there need to be protocols and guidance put in place to make sure that the power is not abused in the future. Mike, do you want to come back? I've just got a question, if I may, on disposal of land. The current policy, as far as the forest estate is, is that land can be disposed of. I think that it's called rationalisation and reorganisation of the forest estate, providing land is purchased to replace it. That's the parliamentary position. I'm not sure that's where it's been interpreted. Are you happy that forest estate should be sold off, or do you think that there should still be that caveat on it? Maybe I could just ask Willie to start and then Malcolm. I can see you're all sort of thinking about answers. Maybe we'll start on the left this time or my left. David, do you want to start then? I'm sorry, I don't mean rotating in a forestry sense. The way in which our land is used is going to be into the future, given the time horizons that we look at for trees. Climate change is going to mean that some areas are better or worse for considering certain types of land use. They will be better or less or well suited. There may be new opportunities for certain crops to be grown, tree crops as well, in certain areas. Therefore, there might be other areas that you want to relinquish, because in fact we're not gaining any benefit in particular. It may not be quite as extreme as a flow country example, but there may be other areas where the presence of trees is not contributing significantly. That might be well down the line. It could be decades down the line, but if that is setting up the framework for that, then that rotation of land and land use in and out of a particular use would seem to be both sensible and astute planning. Sorry, I should have perhaps made myself clear. I understand the rotational use of land, but what I was trying to ascertain is whether you'd be comfortable with the forest estate reducing in size by disposal of land. Perhaps Maggie, do you have a view on that? Well, we believe that it should be a transparent process, but what it should do is, with the money, it should be reinvested for the people of Scotland into our standing examples of forests, either by acquisition or creation. It shouldn't just be sub-tuned into Government coffers. We don't want to see the forest estate diminishing size if there are places where it could be expanded. That's how we want to see a careful disposal and re-acquisition. There are several types of disposals. There are what we call repositioning ones, and there's rationalisation. Unfortunately, a lot of those have an impact on our members. If you sell off more of the estate, we've got less work. Things get pushed out to contract and that, and that's not in the interests of our members. The repositioning one, which I think is the one you're talking about, is where the money is recycled into to buy new land. It diminishes the size of the estate because, in general, we're selling off things that are cheaper because they're less attractive and we're buying more expensive land, and then we've got to pay to plant if that's what the case. The difficulty is that, with any organisation that reduces its management structures and its office structures and its delivery mechanisms, is that if you keep on shrinking the number of offices, more and more of the forest gets further away from the office and more difficult to manage. There has no doubt been a lot of disposals that have led to our loss of jobs, which is certainly not in our interests as union representatives, and it has diminished the size of the estate, and it's diminished what we can do because we have now moved out of large areas where, particularly, Charles Wood really wants us to be working with communities, and we no longer have these connections because of disposals. The repositioning means that our estate is shrinking. Charles? Yes. We've just been through a round of repositioning, or as it's been rechristened, new woodland investment is what it's called, but it's basically selling off some land to create money. The most recent round was inspired by the SNP manifesto pledge to plant up x acres of former opencast mine and turn that into forestry, but to get the money to do that, the Forestry Commission is having to dispose of some sites. We've worked with Forest Enterprise to try and make sure that the formula that they use to work out which sites they're going to select protects the most important woodland that we feel needs to be maintained within the public ownership to ensure that it's protected best. There are certainly some sites that are in that current round that we don't think should be being sold, should be retained and protected by the state. The solution that we have to that is conservation burdens, a legislative device that would be registered on the deeds of the property and transfer over that would ensure that the new owner had to maintain a certain level of ecological value on the site. They haven't been used yet and, frankly, if they're not being used by our state to protect land, I don't know who else is going to use it, so the woodland trust will continue to try and ensure that Forest Enterprise or its successor bodies will start to put burdens on land as they dispose of them to ensure that they remain protected. Willie, do you have a shorter addition to that now? In principle, the Forest Policy Group sees nothing wrong with repositioning or new woodland investment. We're a very conscious Malcolm of the capacity reduction within Forest Enterprise. I think that a lot of it is in the detail. I think that the idea of selling remote, rural, conifer blocks to fund land reclamation where private companies have gone bust or walked away from their responsibilities is not a tremendously good one, especially given the very high costs of reclamation and the money that is needed. Broadly, we would see Forest Enterprise as a mechanism for diversifying woodland ownership. Whether it was in partnership with communities or leasing to communities, you've talked about disposal, but the new object heaving over the horizon is lease. It's quite feasible that, in the near future or at some point, you're going to get big private companies wanting to come in and take on large elements of the state forest. In that instance, we would be a lot more uncomfortable. It's not that, per se, the private company wouldn't manage it to a high standard and still provide public benefits, but we would want it to have a degree of openness, transparency and consultation before anything like that happens. Maggie, I'm afraid that time is going to force me to ask Radar to lead into the next theme, please. Can I ask about the definition of community in the bill, and if you're content with how it is in the bill and if it sits with other legislation, or if you're, in the same mind as our previous panel, who thought that all the section 18, 19, 20 of the bill dealing with communities wasn't required because the Scottish Government already had those powers? John Holling's answer in the first session would broadly mirror our views, so there are many things in the bill that we think, like Charles has commented about acquisition and compulsory purchase, that the definition of community is well-phrased in other bills, so we're not hung up on seeing it defined again in the bill. Everyone's nodded at that stage, and unless there's a complete diverging view, is there a follow to that? I understand that you're happy with the definition of community in the bill, but do you think that it needs to be there at all, like the previous panel, in those sections?  No, I'm just attempting to clarify that it's the fact that it doesn't need to be there that we agree with. Therefore, the definition is caught up in the previous legislation, or the three definitions in the previous legislation. Sorry, Maggie. Consistent across bills so that everybody knows what community is, that's the point that we need. Malcolm Ew. Very briefly, we have used the NFLS definition, and we've moved to the CATS definition to be satisfactory. As I asked the previous panel as well, I'm going to ask the panel about your views on failing, and if the provisions in this bill are an improvement on the Forestry Act or if there's anything missing from the bill or something there that shouldn't be happy, I hear your views on that. I'm sort of looking around. Malcolm, do you want to? Well, I don't claim to be an expert on failing provisions within the Conservancy side of things. We deliver what we're required to do, as I say, whether they need to be in the act or not, and whether they need to be charged, I don't think it's for us to have a view on. Charles? Yeah, I have a slightly hot take on this that is different from others. I think that previously you heard a lot of people say that they would like to see more detail in the bill. They're not happy about the principle of moving things over into secondary legislation. I would generally agree with that, but I would caveat it quite strongly with the fact that we have, in the Woodland Trust, experience of certain failing practice, which could be described as taking advantage of a loophole within the 1967 act. That was a loophole that was no prospect of closing because it would require primary legislation at Westminster, of which there was no prospect. Therefore, the moving of a lot of the detail about failing into secondary legislation gives an element of flexibility that, certainly, in the example that we would have, would have delivered better results for forestry as an outcome. However, that is just one example. Sorry, just to clarify that, because you've created an example. Was that one example? No, no, a number of examples of the same practice. What was this? Well, this is an example. Within failing regulations, you're allowed to take out five cubic metres per quarter for your own use. I don't want to get everyone doing this now by advertising it, but if you own a forest and you want clear failing element for development, if you subdivide your property into between four different owners, you then have access to 20 cubic metres. If you do those in the corners of those four, you get one little unit. If the next day is counted as the next quarter, then suddenly you've got 40 cubic metres removed and you've essentially perfectly legally clear felled site for development. Obviously, working with colleagues in the forestry commission, we've been able to stamp down on that, but it's a loophole that exists within the current legislation, and we're working with civil servants in the framing of this secondary legislation to try and close that up. Sounds a bit devious to me. Peter, do you want to follow on with that? My question is about regulations on failing, and it's a particular Scottish environment link, so it's focused firstly on your shelf, Maggie. You seem to have some particular interest about section 23, Filling Exemptions, and then you're also considerably worried about off-site compensatory planting. Can you explain your concerns about these issues, and once you've done that, the other members of the panel share your concerns? I think it's where, if you're required, so we're trying to look at scenarios where it would be inappropriate to plant trees, because there's some places where there's other ecosystems that should remain in place. So what we're thinking is, well, there may be occasions where, if you are required to restock on other land, as it says, then how do you know that that land is always going to be suitable for tree planting, and that was the point that we wanted to make? It was just the unintended consequences of one thing leading to another. That might be a very low risk, but in bills you always have to look at unintended consequences. Okay. Mal can want to just, I think, you want to pick up. Just very quickly, when you're invited to plant land, you need to have permission, and that's got to go through the Conservancy and be approved. And, you know, if it is unsuitable because of another environmental priority, I think it'd be highly unlikely that it would get approved. Everybody else agrees? So, Maggie, your concerns are maybe not so acute, as you might think. Yes, we're always looking for unintended consequences, which are there. Okay, Stuart, sorry. Yes, the next section. This would be quite brief. Charles Dundas, you made reference to registration of environmental burdens in the registers of Scotland, and said that was a good thing to do, although it wasn't happening. Now, the bill provides for registration of various matters related to felling. Is that a general indication that you think the registers of Scotland is the best place to keep records of ob