There are still points of contention but the prospect of changes to tenancy legislation has taken a step forward this week.
The Scottish Parliament’s cross party rural affairs, climate change and environment (Racce) committee ,chaired by the SNP’s Rob Gibson has written to farm minister Richard Lochhead summarising the committee’s views.
Even after extensive evidence taking sessions these views are not fundamentally different to the recommendations made by the Agricultural Holdings Legislation Review Group (AHLRG) and serve more to highlight some of the more sensitive pressure points, the main one being the assignation of tenancies by tenants who wish to retire.
Mr Gibson wrote: “This issue was the most hotly contested in evidence to us with few signs of the spirit of consensus which was clear on other issues.”
He pointed the finger at landowners’ organisation Scottish Land and Estates (SLE) and said he was “disappointed with some of the unhelpful evidence” given.
SLE had argued that extending the rights of assignation by a tenant to a third party who was not a close relation would be a human rights issue which would see the landlord potentially making a large compensation claim against the government.
It does seem however that the SLE representation, although poorly received in the evidence session, may have been noted.
The Racce letter stresses “the importance of ensuring that landlord’s rights and tenant’s rights are appropriately balanced.”
Mr Lochhead might well think that is easier said than done.
The committee has come out strongly in favour of the appointment of a Tenant Farming Commissioner and says it believes it “essential” that he or she has the ability to enforce a statutory code of practice. This is the only point where dissent is noted with Conservative member Alex Fergusson MSP formally disagreeing.
Rent setting and rental reviews are identified as having caused more tensions in the industry than any other issue.
Here the Racce members come down in favour of the AHLRG proposal to use productive capacity of a farm as the basis for setting a rent rather than by using comparables which rely, according to the letter, on “a market that does not exist”.
Arguments that were made in evidence that using productive capacity could actually cause more legal problems than the use of comparables has in the past, are acknowledged in the letter but to all extent and purposes dismissed.
The hugely political and contentious issue of granting tenants an Absolute Right To Buy is, if anything quietly shunted out of sight. The report notes that the Scottish Tenant Farmers’ Association (STFA) regards the omission of ARTB as the “biggest weakness” of the AHLRG review but beyond that there is little attempt to place it back on the agenda.
There has been a Scottish Government ambition to wrap agricultural holdings legislation up with the wider Land Reform Bill but Mr Gibson notes this as a “challenge” given the complexity of the issues and the limited time available in this parliament.