21 March 2002

The Mountaineering Council of Scotland (MCofS) has welcomed the outcome of the Scottish Parliament's Stage 1 debate of the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill.

MSP's voted 92-16 in yesterday's debate to accept the principle of the Bill, and to enable its passage to the Stage 2 process, which will see the Justice 2 Committee making a series of amendments to the current draft.

MCofS President, John Donohoe, was in Parliament to witness the debate, and made this comment afterwards:

"After a very shaky start, with the launch of a poor draft Bill in February last year, the process of introducing modern access laws for Scotland is now back on target. The commitment shown by the vast majority of MSP's to improving our access laws was very encouraging. For the many people who, over the years, have campaigned for a recognition of the importance of access and sought a change in the access laws, this is indeed a historic day that we have had to wait a long time to see."

Bill Aitken, the Tory spokesman on Land Reform, made this statement in his opening speech.

"With regard to access, I have to ask what the problem is. … It was difficult to find any contemporary judgments to assist, but what was clear from the evidence was that the vast majority of people who seek to access the land do so without let or hindrance and have done so for years."

David McLetchie, the Scottish Tory leader, went on to say:

"At present, the public enjoys a freedom to roam subject to very few limitations imposed by either the civil or criminal law. The Bill will turn that freedom into a statutory right of access, accompanied by various exemptions, exceptions, provisos and regulatory provisions."

Roseanna Cunningham (SNP) spoke in favour of the Bill, and in addressing the issue of trespass, highlighted a recent access incident involving an MCofS member.

"On a philosophical point, the minister appears to have got himself into a bit of a mess on the law of trespass. The fact is that there has long been a widely understood and accepted de facto right of access in Scotland. We are making that de facto right statutory because it was being challenged increasingly, often to the detriment of ordinary people. Those challenges continue right up to today. There are reports in The Scotsman today. Last week, I was written to by a constituent who was ordered off a vehicle track on an estate in Perthshire."

Mike Dales, MCofS Access & Conservation Officer, was also in the gallery to watch the proceedings, and made this comment:

"This process is now unstoppable, and there will be new access legislation in Scotland next year. The nature of the access disputes that we see reported to the MCofS office demonstrates how severely the de facto right has been challenged in recent years and how urgent the need is for a statutory right to be enshrined in law. However, let us not lose sight of the work that still needs to be carried out. The MCofS will continue to work with colleagues in other recreation bodies throughout the rest of the Parliamentary process to turn what is still a flawed Bill into a workable Act for the 21st century."

In his opening address to the Parliament, the Rural Development Minister, Ross Finnie, intimated that he is willing to reconsider the Scottish Executive position on the controversial issue of commercial access to land, currently contained in clause 9(2)(a) of the Bill. Mr Finnie also stated how important the scale of the response to the written consultation exercises had been, and that most responses had been on the issue of access.

The MCofS will be keeping mountaineers informed of progress with the Land Reform Bill via this website.

The full transcript of yesterday's Stage 1 Land Reform debate is shown on the Scottish Parliament website

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