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23 December 2002
No Corners Cut on Land Reform Bill
Letter from Pauline McNeill
MSP and Convenor of the Justice 2 Committee
Scotland on Sunday, Letters, 15 December 2002
THE members of the Scottish Parliament's Justice
2 Committee are perturbed by the way in which the article pieced
together by Magnus Linklater (Land reform falls foul of Scotland's
own kangaroo committee, December 1) took quotes out of context and
crafted our report to make it look as if it was less than thorough.
This has undoubtedly been the most difficult piece
of legislation to date that we as a committee have been asked to
scrutinise. This is mainly because of the size of the bill and the
nature of legislating in this area. Magnus Linklater accuses the
committee of not delivering justice to the Land Reform Bill. The
truth is, I suspect, that Magnus does not really agree that the
parliament should give a meaningful statutory right of access the
countryside, otherwise he would have supported the committee's findings
which were delivered after eight weeks of evidence plus the longest
stage two procedure of the Scottish Parliament to date.
Incidentally, the Rights of Way Society were represented
by Bruce Logan when he gave oral evidence as part of the Scottish
Countryside Network and their written evidence has been considered
carefully.
As for the committee's rejection of the advice
given to us by the rural affairs committee of the Law Society, there
is in fact a lack of case law relating to open land as opposed to
building or curtilage. Cases which we were presented with show those
tended to involve other criminal offences.
There is, of course, no statute on trespass apart
from the 1865 Trespass Scotland Act, which concerns camping without
permission and the lighting of fires. The SNH advice is probably
the best policy, which is that we should focus on the law we are
trying to create because it is meant to clear up that confusion
that clearly does exist.
I am not alone in my belief that we should create
the way for more landowners in Scotland; there are too few. This
cannot happen unless more land becomes available and much of it
will not be for some time to come. The committee has made sensible
changes to the right-to-buy provision, ones the Executive have conceded
as a result of our Stage One report completed earlier this year.
There will be further changes to this bill at
Stage Three.
Pauline McNeill, MSP
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