Cunningham blinks first – no occupancy requirement for Crofting Bill

Maybe this is the real politique of a minority administration. Maybe it’s a new Minister getting out from under aspects of a Bill effectively bequeathed by a previous administration and carrying measures she doesn’t believe in. Maybe it’s a Minister who knows she can’t personally carry the argument.

Whatever it is, Environment Minister, Roseanna Cunningham, announced today that an occupancy requirement, which would mean houses built on former croft land would have to be used as main residences, will not be included in the Crofting Bill.

We pointed out before that crofters are pretty adept at making equally plausible contradictory pleas and, as a cultural touchstone, they know they have the power to summon sentiment to their defence.

The Comittee of Inquiry on Crofting was set up under Professor Mark Shucksmth by Jack McConnell’s Labour / Lib Dem administration in April 2007 shortly before they lost power in the election the following month. This Committee of Inquiry was set up in consequence of the failure of their Crofting Reoform Bill in 2006.

The Shucksmith Report was published in May 2008.In their evidence to the Committee, the crofters had said, then, that they saw crofting under threat from crofts sold off profitably as second homes and then taken out of crofting;  and that crofting needed protection from this abuse.

The SNP, coming to power in the May 20o7 election and governing as a minority administration, used the Shucksmith Report as the foundation for its draft Crofting Bill, developed under former Environment Minister, Michael Russell and fronted now by Roseanna Cunningham.

This Crofting Bill was framed with the protection in mind that the crofters had requested from Shucksmith – and delivered it. Houses built on crofting land were not to be taken out of crofting and sold; and croft owners were to be resident for a consistent period of more than half of the year (184 days)  rather than be absentees as second home owners are.

When the crofters saw strict legislative protection against the ills they had identified as undermining to this traditional way of life, they said they didn’t want this at all. It took away their means of getting out of crofting with some security behind them.

There’s security and there’s profiteering.

A crofter can sell a croft – to a crofter, to young people wanting to stay on the land of their fathers, to new entrants to crofting. Or a crofter can sell a croft as a second home, make more than security and add to the threat previously trumpeted – of a growing loss of affordable housing and of a lack of work to keep younger people in sustainable employment in Scotland’s remote communities.

Anyway the Scottish Government has blinked first – as indeed it did on the proposal to sell 75 year leases on 25% of the National Forest Estate.

Politically, for a minority administration, each was probably the wise decision to make There is nothing to be gained in wasting energy on battles you don’t have the headcount to win. And they would not have won on either of these issues. (Although this does beg the question of why start out on these journeys in the first place.)

Land – for all the right reasons, touches all of us viscerally. Both of these issues lent themselves to inviting the worst of politicking – the use of emotion rather than reason to frighten the voting publc into protest.

This happened in the issue of the forest leasing proposals where the opposition never allowed facts to obstruct the wind ups. We read the transcript of the eventual Holyrood debate on the matter – which gave the game away. There it was all reason – with cogent argument presented and considered by both sides.

But the opposition did not pay the public the respect of offering them such reasoned positions. And sadly, in general, the public proved them right in buying a bagful of air. The same thing would have happened with the Crofting Bill had it carried this clause.

But let’s not swallow the myth of the crofter as the innocent rural mystic preserving an ancient way of life. Crofters are as crafty as anyone – they have to be, their lives have always been a battle for survival and they have learned all sorts of ways to fight it – and they’ve won this engagement.

Celebrate their wiles and their power but don’t buy this as the triumph of innocence.

In dropping the occuipancy clause, the Environment Minister made it clear that: ‘… doing nothing is not an option if we want crofting to survive and thrive. Alternatives will have to be found, which is why it is vital to have constructive debate on this issue’.

Ms Cunningham also confirmed there were no plans to end the Crofting Counties Agricultural Grants Scheme and the Croft House Grants Scheme.

Argyll’s MSP, Jim Mather, has welcomed the decision to drop the clause, saying: ‘After much lobbying from elected members in the crofting areas and from crofters’ interests and from others, the Minister has indicated that the residency requirement in the draft bill will not now appear in the Bill itself. That is the occupancy requirement, widely criticised for placing an unworkable role on local authorities, who would have to determine whether those living on decrofted land were doing so for 184 days a year.

‘As Roseanna Cunningham has stated, doing nothing about the problem of speculation is not a viable option.  However, her willingness to redraft the legislation about this measure reflects well both on her, and on the many crofters and others who made their feelings known to her throughout the consultation process.

‘I will continue to consult with the Minister and officials about other aspects of the Draft Bill. I want to see a Bill, when it is put to Parliament, which tackles the real problems in crofting, and heeds the input received from crofters.’