Am Bratach No. 200
June 2008
editor@bratach.co.uk

‘Dangerous’ Shucksmith raises crofter temperatures

The Shucksmith report on crofting, published last month, has been described to us as a "dangerous" document offering "Eastern block" solutions to the challenges facing today's crofter.

The 98-page report — whose main recommendations are to be found here — continues the theme of the Land Reform (Scotland) Act of 2003, which gave land purchase rights to so-called crofting communities rather than to crofters. Chaired by planning expert, Mark Shucksmith, the report of the Committee of Crofting Inquiry advocates draconian powers for a new decentralised regulator — a federation of local crofting boards — which would replace the Crofters Commission, while crofter-managed grazings would be turned into township development committees, with non-crofters controlling over 40% of the votes. In addition, it appears that a number of other rights and freedoms not nessessarily laid down in statute, yet hallowed by custom, would be swept aside.

Among the proposals are that:

• Croft houses would be tied to residency through a "real burden" unless intervention came from the local crofting board
• Subject to the landlord's interest, a crofter wishing to assign or transfer his croft, or forced to do so through failing to fulfill the residency condition, would have three options, including the assignation or transfer of crofts permitted within families provided they satisfy the size and number criteria for occupying crofts set out from time to time by the local crofting board
• No crofter would enjoy the absolute right to decroft their house and garden, but would require consent from the local crofting board
• Each local crofting board would have the power to suspend (or not) the tenant's right to buy
• The emphasis given to new entrants and young people in the evidence would require local crofting boards to determine whether land should be released from inactive crofters for new crofters to enter crofting
• In making decisions about enforcing regulation, the local crofting boards would use information from a range of sources, including township development committees' monitoring of "crofting plan" implementation and their annual reports on occupancy and use of crofts. Township development committees, with their non-crofter element of membership, would replace grazing committees in the governance of townships
• No change would be made to those rights given to individual crofters in the 1886 Act, namely security of tenure, succession, fair rents and the value of their improvements, but the rights would only be enjoyed by those resident on or near their croft and using the land beneficially
• All sub-lets and tenancies would require the consent of the local crofting board and unofficial sublets would be outlawed
• The committee proposals would require all crofters to reside on their crofts and actively work the land, a rule to be "enforced rigorously". The committee claims that this would make many more crofts available to new entrants at realistic prices

The powers and likely disposition of the federation of crofting boards and township development committees are contentious partly because of the level of surveillance they would introduce.

North West Sutherland's senior Scottish Crofting Foundation office bearer, Allan MacRae, Torbreck, Lochinver, holds strong reservations about the tone of the report. He said: "They talk about safeguarding the crofting culture in the public interest. People will only work together when it's in their interest, not because government decrees it. And government can't decree these things. It's like being in an Eastern Block state - that's what you're looking at."

He continued: "I think myself that the crofting foundation needs to consult its members on this. These are very fundamental changes that are being proposed and I think they
have to listen to their membership."

Said crofter David Forbes of Rhivichie, Rhiconich: "It's a very dangerous and an entirely negative report.

"Up here quite often families are away; they have sons and daughters who come back and support the croft financially, but they're not going to support the croft if they don't think they're going to have an unassailable right to inherit the tenancy.

"People should be aware that they're going to lose out - everyone who has a croft is going to lose rights and lose out financially."

Mr MacRae is irritated by the committee's proposal that crofters would be required to follow different rules in different districts. "This idea that different boards should treat crofters differently in different parts of the Highlands - I am certainly opposed to that. Absolutely. That is really undermining the crofting interest very much.

"They'll be four crofters and three people from other organisations on these new boards, but I think we all know who will be calling the shots. Nobody's fooling anybody."

We invited the Scottish Government to comment on the report. A spokeswoman said: "We are currently examining the detail of the committee's report and do not believe it is right for us to speculate at this point. Neither is it right to interpret Mr Shucksmith's arguments."

Over three days we invited the foundation to comment, finding senior officials either on leave or away on business, but a round robin letter from the chief executive to members extols the report, describing the proposals as "ground-breaking recommendations for action that will secure a sustainable future for crofting."

Although the leadership of the crofters' representative organisation appears to have made up its mind on what it calls "our inquiry, our report", it is committed to staging at least some "local level" meetings, though not necessarily in North West Sutherland. Note: Shucksmith bypassed this densely crofted region in his search for evidence.