At the Black Isle Show today, Liberal Democrats from across the Highlands joined forces to fight for the future of crofting.
The Lib Dem campaign urges the Scottish Government to abandon its Draft Crofting Reform Bill and listen to the clear voice of crofters about what is needed to move forward. A petition is being organised by Ross, Skye & Inverness West MSP John Farquhar Munro and local prospective Lib Dem Holyrood candidate Alan MacRae.
Commenting, Alan MacRae said:
“The verdict from crofters on the SNP’s proposed reforms is emphatically clear.
“Crofting needs to be a profitable enterprise at the heart of the Highland economy. All this Government is offering is new layers of oppressive regulation, and new costs for crofters to bear in registering their land.
“Scrapping the fundamental rights which Gladstone safeguarded for crofters in 1886 will do nothing to remove the threat to the future of crofting or to help crofters. Letting the big banks get their hands on crofts through loan recovery arrangements would present a major new threat of the best land being lost to crofting altogether.”
John Farquhar Munro MSP added:
“We have asked the Government to pause, to extend its consultation, and to listen to the emerging reaction from crofters.
“If it did that, it would begin to understand how badly it has misunderstood the kind of reform which crofting needs. We need to make crofting attractive to young people, and to use the available resources – especially from Less Favoured Area status – to boost productivity.
“It is a feat of Orwellian proportions to argue that the future of crofting relies on punishing crofters with burdensome new regulations, erosion of security of tenure and mandatory charges.”
Charles Kennedy said:
“Edinburgh Ministers and their officials seem always to see crofting as an annoying and untidy scrap of history, in need of normalisation.
“This Reform Bill looks like the latest in a series of more or less abrupt attempts to begin that process. It is a misconceived ambition which misunderstands the Highlands, and the relationship which crofters still have with their land – often extending back many generations.
“It has often been said that a croft can best be defined as ‘an area of land, wholly surrounded by legislation’. This Bill threatens to bury it beneath regulation once and for all, and does almost nothing positive for crofters. It must be abandoned.”
Notes:
· A campaign website has been launched at www.saveourcrofts.org.uk, where people are invited to sign a petition calling on Ministers to recognise the verdict given by crofters during the consultation and abandon the Draft Bill.