Crofting and Scottish Land Court Bill: business and regulatory impact assessment

Section 3: Costs, impacts and benefits

Quantified costs to businesses

Crofting

146. The 2010 Act created the Crofting Commission ('the Commission'), which came into being on 1 April 2012, taking over from the Crofters Commission. The Commission is a Non-Departmental Public Body that operates on a day-to-day basis independently of the Government, but for which the Scottish Ministers are ultimately responsible. The Commission's general functions, as set out in legislation^[3], are to regulate and reorganise crofting; promote the interests of crofting; and to keep under review matters relating to crofting.

147. The Commission Board normally consists of six elected Commissioners and three Commissioners appointed by the Scottish Government, led by a Chair. The Board of Commissioners are supported by a staff of 72^[4] led by a Chief Executive. All permanent and fixed-term Commission staff are Scottish Government employees and are part of the Scottish Government main collective bargaining unit for the determination of salary.

148. The Commission is funded by the Scottish Government. For 2025/26 financial year, the Commission received a budget of £4.87 million. Of that, approximately £4.2 million is spent on wages and salaries, with the remainder spent on operating costs. The Commission processes approximately 2,000 regulatory applications and notifications each year, the most common being decroftings, assignations, and sublets - all areas in which the new provisions will impact.

149. Although the Commission are fully staffed for administering their legislative functions, their complement of staff will need to be augmented to implement and deliver the new Bill provisions. Almost all of the new provisions will impact the Commission in one way or another - some will lead to either a staff saving or staff cost, and some are cost neutral.

150. At the close of the consultation in September 2024, the Commission provided a 'Resource Implications Discussion Paper' based on the premise that all the proposals in the consultation would form part of the final Bill. Since then, crofting officials have discussed this matter with the Commission's CEO, Chair and senior staff, and have agreed the following resource implications, as shown in table 1 below. These staff will be required from when the Bill is passed.

Table 1 - Resource Implications for the Crofting Commission

Provision	A4*	B1*	B2*
Rectification of the Crofting Register	+0.5	N/A	N/A
First registration of crofts purchased by tenant crofter	+0.5	N/A	N/A
Commission's power to adjust boundaries	N/A	+1.0	N/A
Power to grant owner-occupier status	+0.5	+1.0	N/A
Crofting Commission power to impose administrative sanctions	+0.5	+2.0	N/A
Crofting census notices	-1.0	-1.0	N/A
Enforcement of duties	N/A	-0.2	N/A
Reporting on breaches of duties	N/A	+1.0	+0.2
Assignations to family members	N/A	-1.0	N/A
(Payment of fees for applications for registrations and notification of first registrations.	-0.5	N/A	N/A
Totals	+0.5	+2.8	+0.2

* Resource Implication cost (+) and savings (-)

151. Many of the new provisions are extensions to existing and similar processes, which has allowed the Commission to make an informed determination as to the impact these changes will have on resources. Where we have required to make some assumptions is in those provisions that introduce a new policy and where the demand on staff, and timing of that demand, is less known.

152. All permanent and fixed-term Commission staff are Scottish Government employees. The total cost of the above staffing estimates, including non-salary costs, on the Scottish Administration, is detailed at Table 2. These costs have been calculated using the average staffing costs following the January 2025 pay award, as published by the Scottish Government, and in addition to basic salaries, include employer costs in respect of both pension and national insurance contributions.

153. In addition to the above, in calculating non-salary costs, we have considered, in partnership with the Commission, essential software licenses and miscellaneous costs such as travel and subsistence, stationery etc. We have estimated this at £1,500 per person per year, irrespective of grade. This is based on existing standard costing.

154. The Commission has confirmed that although it costs around £1,000 in physical IT equipment for a new employee, it already has the necessary equipment to service the number of new staff required. It has also confirmed that any resources required to produce new applications forms, digital applications and workflows, will be covered by existing resources and budget.

Table 2 - Costs on the Scottish Administration (as at February 2025^[5])

Grade and Non-Salary	Gross Cost per annum
A4 x 0.5	£20,270
B1 x 2.8	£127,268
B2 x 0.2	£10,833
Non-salary x 3.5	£5,250
Total	£163,621

155. Further details on the rationale for the resourcing assumptions in Table 1 can be found in the Financial Memorandum for the Bill.

156. The Bill will not result in any new direct costs being incurred by crofters, or other businesses involved in the crofting sector. The Commission does not charge fees for any of the regulatory functions that it undertakes including processing applications from crofters.

157. The £90 fee charged by the Registers of Scotland for registration of a croft in the map-based Crofting Register, will not change as a result of this Bill.

158. Public Notification and Serving of Notices: Further details on this provision are provided under the 'Benefits to Business' section below. However, for one class of business the provision will be felt as a cost rather than a benefit. These are the traditional print media outlets, which legislation currently requires crofters and the Crofting Commission to use in order to advertise applications and promulgate notifications. New provisions will change the requirements to allow the possibility of digital platforms to be used for these purposes, including potentially the Commission website.

159. As detailed below, crofters are estimated to spend around £51,750 per annum on this kind of advertising. The Commission spends approximately a further £33,000 each year. Therefore the print media outlets that currently benefit from this advertising spend may see their revenues decline by a cumulative amount in the region of £85,000 a year. However, this is a relatively small amount in the context of the total advertising revenues for the sector.

Scottish Land Court

160. There are no direct costs to businesses expected as a result of the merger and the Upper Tribunal provisions.

161. Both the Land Court and the Lands Tribunal have a system of fees for court and tribunal users. Once the amalgamation has been effected a new fee structure will be required. As is the case with civil court fees more generally, a full public consultation will be undertaken at that time which will include the full impact assessment process. The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that access to justice is protected through a well-funded system of exemptions from the requirement to pay court fees and the provision of legal aid.

Other impacts

Crofting

162. The Bill is not expected to have any significant impacts beyond those outlined elsewhere in this impact assessment.

Scottish Land Court

163. There are no other impacts on businesses expected. It is not anticipated that there will be any impact on investment as a result of the provisions in the Bill.

Scottish firms' international competitiveness

Crofting

164. No effects are anticipated on the international competitiveness of Scottish businesses, or on Scotland's attractiveness to investors.

Scottish Land Court

165. No effects are anticipated on the international competitiveness of Scottish businesses, or on Scotland's attractiveness to investors.

Benefits to business

Crofting

166. For the individual crofter or other person who engages with crofting regulation, the Bill will have a beneficial financial effect, both by simplifying existing administrative processes and by opening up new opportunities for commercial activities.

167. The main administrative changes that will save costs for service users are the following:

Service of notices and public notification

Any tenant or owner-occupier crofter applying for a regulatory process which requires to be advertised in newspapers; any crofter required to serve a notice on their landlord.

Preventing accidental separation of grazings shares

In the past, some crofters exercising the right to buy and finding the share becoming a deemed croft, have faced significant legal costs to remedy the situation.

Stronger rights for crofters to use common grazings for innovative purposes

Any crofter or grazings committee planning to take forward an initiative on the common grazing, will find the process simpler and less costly to navigate.

Crofter doesn't need consent for environmental purposes

Any tenant crofter wishing to use the croft land for an environmental purpose will no longer require to obtain consent.

Commission's power to adjust boundaries

Crofters whose boundaries need adjustment will find this is possible much more quickly and with fewer legal costs.

Granting owner occupier crofter status

Owner-occupiers of vacant crofts will be able to secure owner-occupier status through a direct application rather than a complex route with many risks and legal costs.

Assignations to family members

Any tenant crofter wishing to assign to a family member who meets the criteria, will benefit from a faster and cheaper process, without the requirement to advertise the application.

Rectifications to the crofting register

Any crofter whose land, or whose neighbour's land, has been incorrectly mapped, will have the chance to have it corrected swiftly and cheaply, provided that there is clear evidence of the correct position.

Simplification of s17/18 decroftings

Any crofter who wishes to decroft a s17/18 feu croft will save on the time and costs of applying for the registration, including the £90 registration fee.

168. Decrofting: Decrofting is a legal term for the process that removes land from crofting tenure by a direction of the Crofting Commission.

169. Currently, an unregistered croft must be registered before it can be decrofted. This includes those crofts that were granted to absentee crofters who obtained title to the croft house site following action taken by the Commission to terminate their croft tenancy - known commonly as s17 feus, named after the relevant section in the Crofters (Scotland) Act 1955^[6]. It also includes those crofts that were granted to elderly crofters who gave up their croft tenancy on condition they obtained title to the croft house site - s18 feus. Both of these types of transactions were stopped when the Crofting reform Act 1976 came into effect.

170. However, the land to which they related continues to be subject to the Crofting Acts until a decrofting direction has been granted by the Commission -15 applications were received in 2023/24. These feu crofts amount to no more than the croft house site and garden ground (average 0.2 ha). This new provision will disapply the registration requirement for these crofts, which costs £90, prior to decrofting.

171. Registration: The Crofting Register is a public list of crofts, common grazings and land held runrig, and is maintained by the Keeper of the Registers of Scotland. It is the legally authoritative, map-based register and provides a definitive record of the extent of, and interests in, land within crofting tenure. In addition to showing the boundaries of land, the Crofting Register also contains information on the tenant and owner-occupier crofter and the landlord of the croft. It currently holds details for about half of all crofts and a third of all common grazings. The remaining crofts and common grazings will require at some point to have a "first registration".

172. In its 2023/24 Annual Report, the Commission reported 773 first registrations and 1,134 subsequent events affecting a registered croft. Currently, 10,505 of the 21,673 crofts are entered in the Crofting Register. On average, there are approximately 760 crofts registered each year.

173. The Bill provisions will extend the powers of the Keeper of the Registers of Scotland to rectify the Crofting Register when she becomes aware of an inaccuracy without being first requested to do so by either a third party or the Commission, and to correct typographical errors in the Crofting Register out with the formal rectification provisions of the Act. This provision was made at the request of the Registers of Scotland and received 93% support in the consultation.

174. Around 80% of rectification applications relate to the size and boundaries of the area of the croft or common grazings. The majority of these errors result from applicant error and there is a financial cost associated with their correction. In 2023/24, the Commission processed 163 rectifications - there were 201 the previous financial year.

175. This provision will provide a simpler and more cost-effective approach to Crofting Register rectification for clear and straightforward inaccuracies. This will allow greater accuracy to be achieved and will minimise the number of Scottish Land Court challenges, thereby providing a more cost-effective approach to maintaining the Crofting Register for all involved, including crofters. As this provision will reduce recourse to the Land Court for rectification, it will help alleviate the operational burden of the Court and result in a more efficient use of public resources.

176. The cost of an application to the Land Court to remove or modify the entry in the Crofting Register in respect of a croft is £28 for the principal application, and where there is more than one applicant each additional applicant costs £18; it is £4 for each respondent. If the case goes to a hearing and/or inspection the fee payable by the applicant is £60 for each day or part thereof the Court sits or inspects. If parties choose to be represented by a solicitor, the cost can vary from £100 to £600 per hour depending on the firm, the solicitor, and the complexity of the case.

177. A further provision, which received 89% support in the consultation, will introduce a trigger for mandatory first registration in the Crofting Register when a crofter exercises their right to buy their croft. Many changes involving a croft are 'triggers' that require the croft to be registered if it is not already in the Register. However, an exception has been when a tenant crofter exercises the right to buy and becomes an owner-occupier crofter. As this process involves a conveyance of a defined piece of land, the additional administration required for entry in the Crofting Register will normally be straightforward.

178. Although this will incur a cost of £90 (as all first registrations do), the registration gives the crofter security over their rights to the land and informs others of those rights. This is a cost that the crofter would, if they chose at a later date to submit a regulatory application to the Commission for a number of reasons, such as a sale, division, decrofting etc, have to pay then, as these changes trigger a first registration.

179. This Bill will also require a tenant crofter to serve notice of a first registration application to their landlord before submitting the application to the Commission. This will allow the landlord an opportunity to advise the crofter of any errors that they see in the application. It will be up to the crofter as to whether they act on any advice provided. Although this may incur a nominal postal charge, by allowing the landlord to see the first registration application before it is submitted, will help achieve a more accurate Crofting Register and see fewer rectifications, avoiding costs to the crofter and the public sector for any correction that is no longer needed after the first registration. This provision was supported by 70% in the consultation.

180. Owner-Occupiers: An owner-occupier crofter is a crofter who owns the title to their croft, which remains in crofting tenure. The owner is subject to crofting duties with the benefit of the corresponding rights.

181. The two most common ways to become an owner-occupier are - a tenant crofter purchases their croft from the landlord, or someone purchases an owner-occupied croft from an existing owner-occupier crofter. The current definition of an owner-occupier crofter is set out in section 19B of the Crofters (Scotland) Act 1993.

182. It is clear that a number of individuals have unintentionally, though in good faith, fallen into the circumstances of being a landlord of a vacant croft rather than an owner-occupier crofter. In some circumstances, the individual may be unaware of the situation. These are individuals who own and physically occupy a croft but, perhaps because of events in the distant history of the croft, do not meet the required conditions for an owner-occupier crofter as set out in the said section. The Commission estimates that such circumstances apply in respect of possibly around 700 crofts.

183. Theoretically, the Commission could ask these individuals to put a tenant in place, but in many cases the Commission has no wish to do so. It has been left for the Commission to deal with this by "letters of comfort", indicating circumstances in which they would not seek letting proposals for these crofts.

184. This provision of the Bill, supported by 83% in the consultation, will allow the Commission to award, by application, owner-occupier status to owners of vacant crofts who meet certain criteria. This makes sense in both policy and regulatory terms, as it will assist in encouraging active use of croft land. It will allow some individuals access to crofting specific grant schemes, such as the Croft House Grant (CHG), which allows tenant and owner-occupier crofters to apply for up to £38,000 to build or improve their croft house, and the Crofting Agricultural Grant Scheme (CAGS) which provides grants of up to £25,000 in a rolling two-year period, to tenant and owner-occupier crofters towards the costs of a range of agricultural operations, in order to encourage and develop production.

185. Appeal Commission Decision: This provision will allow the appeal of a decision taken by the Crofting Commission to remove any or all of the members of a grazings committee, or a clerk of a committee, to be heard in the Scottish Land Court. The only recourse currently open to anyone affected by such a decision is to proceed with an appeal to the Court of Session. Although such a decision is rare, the current appeal process is considered to be disproportionate and expensive. The Land Court already has the power to deal with appeals against any decision, determination or direction of the Commission on an application made to them under the Act, but as this is neither an application nor anything to do with duties enforcement, it does not fall under their remit. The Land Court welcomes this new provision.

186. Assignations to Family Members: Assignation is the term used to describe the permanent transfer, with Crofting Commission consent, of a croft tenancy from the crofter to another person. This new provision will simplify and make cheaper the method of an assignation of a tenanted croft to a family member, removing the need for advert and the right of the crofting community to raise objections, but retaining the right for the landlord to object.

187. Assignations are the most numerous application types received by the Commission and account for nearly a quarter of all applications received. In 2023/24, the Commission received 321 assignation applications. Currently, all assignation applications have to be advertised by the assigning crofter by placing a notice in a local newspaper. The costs of which are covered in the section immediately below.

188. This new provision will remove the advertising requirement for all within-family assignations - those family members listed at s61(2) of the Crofters (Scotland) Act 1993^[7]. Although we do not have the data for the number of within-family assignations each year, we know that historically that it is common practice for crofts to be assigned to family members. So, not only with this new provision save the Commission on resources, as shown in Table 1, it will save many crofters the advertising fee. Conversely, the local publications approved by the Commission will lose out on advertising revenue. However, given that the overall revenue loss will be shared by the 32 approved newspapers/publications listed on the Commission's website, we do not believe the impact will be significant.

189. Public Notification and Serving of Notices: There are a number of existing provisions in the crofting Acts where public notification is required to be made by either an applicant or the Commission. This process involves placing an advert in one or more newspapers circulating in the area in which the subject croft or common grazings is situated.

190. Crofters and stakeholders have pointed out that the newspaper requirement can be overly prescriptive and costly, and fails to allow suitable flexibility in accounting for new or evolving media outlets that may be more appropriate.

Table 3 - Highlights the regulatory applications that require advertising by crofters.

Application Type	Number of Applications Received 2023/24
Assignation	322
Apportionment	43
Division	38
Exchange	5
Letting	63
Subletting	81
Short-term Lets	23
Total	575

191. Crofters are also responsible for giving public notice of the first registration of the croft by placing an advertisement, for two consecutive weeks, in a local newspaper. In 2023/24, there were 773 first registration applications.

192. The Commission is responsible for advertising decrofting applications and when new crofts are formed. In 2023/24, the Commission had to place a notice for 427 decrofting applications. According to the Commission's 2023/24 Annual Accounts, it spent £33,000 on regulatory advertising expenses.

193. The costs of placing an advert depends on the publication and the word count and can vary significantly. Regulatory applications need to be advertised for a week, whereas first registrations need to be advertised for two consecutive weeks. On average, the cost of each advert ranges from £65 to £125.

194. Taking an average cost of £90 per advert, per application, crofters spend in the region of £51,750 in any given financial year.

195. This new provision, supported by 81% in the consultation, will empower the Commission to determine the permitted method to be used for an advertisement or public notice. One proposal under consideration is that the Commission website is used for the purposes of public notification. Moving online would mean that all crofters, including stakeholders and solicitors etc would know that there is only one place they would have to look to get access to public notifications and see what changes are being proposed within their community. The Commission are working on developing a system whereby people can sign up for automatic electronic notifications when a public notice relating to their area is posted on their website. Although it is envisaged that the Commission will want to try and recover the costs of providing such a service, the fee will be a fraction of the current costs.

196. Current legislation also defines the requirement for the serving of a notice and that it must be in writing and either served on the person directly or delivered to their address either in person or by registered post or recorded delivery. This requirement applies to many forms of notice by the Commission or an individual - for example, the Commission must issue an annual notice (crofting census) to every crofter. In 2023/24, the Commission issued 19,917 requests for census completion at a cost of £18,048. Grazings committees also have a responsibility to give notice to each crofter sharing in the common grazing of any proposal to carry out specific work and when summoning a meeting.

197. This new provision will bring in flexibilities in accordance with provisions in the Electronic Communications Act 2000 and related legislation. This will include allowing crofters to give the Commission an electronic address and a preference for communications to be sent to it; and similarly for grazings shareholders to advise their grazings committee of the preferred way they would wish to receive notifications.

198. A further new provision, supported by 83% in the consultation, will introduce more flexible arrangements for public meetings for the appointment of a grazings committee. This provision will make it clear that these meetings may be held electronically or in a hybrid fashion. Online meetings often require less cost and time compared to in-person meetings, and more people may be able to attend as a result. Online meetings also make it easier for participants to pick and choose what part of the meeting is relevant to them, and for them to share documents, plans etc with a group at no extra cost.

199.BThis new provision, which was supported by 85% in the consultation, will enhance the ability of crofters and grazings committees to take forward a range of activities and initiatives on common grazings, especially for environmental purposes.

200. Common grazings are areas of land used by a number of crofters and others who hold a right to graze stock on the land. There are around 1,000 common grazings covering over 500,000 hectares across the crofting counties. According to the Commission's 2023/24 Annual Report, 474 common grazings have a committee in office. If a croft is held in tenancy any shares in the common will be part and parcel, a pertinent, of that tenancy. If a croft is owner-occupied then the common grazing shares are likely to be held as a 'deemed croft' but could have been included in the title as a heritable right.

201. Crofting legislation provides for grazings committees to either amend their existing regulations or make new regulations to assist in the proper management and administration of their common grazings. Legislation recognises the rights of grazings shareholders to use the common grazing for grazing livestock; for cutting peat; gathering seaweed; using heather or grass for thatching; or, with consents, for forestry. It also helps facilitate more and different activities on the common grazings, whether crofter-led or joint ventures between crofters and landowner. However, the provisions relating to other purposes are more restrictive than those for forestry schemes, making it harder for the crofters to secure the necessary consents.

202. This new provision will widen the existing provisions in respect of crofter-led and joint-venture forestry schemes, to encompass also peatland restoration schemes, biodiversity schemes, and other schemes relating to carbon sequestration, habitat restoration or environmental improvements. These should be key options for crofters in modern times and should be made available. In making these changes, it will be easier for crofters to apply for future schemes that support sustainable and regenerative agriculture, including rural development and other related matters.

203. It is not possible to reasonably estimate the level of uptake as this will greatly depend on the various scheme requirements as well as on the number of grazings committees in office. However, the Scottish Government Economic Condition of Crofting Report 2019-2022^[8], reported that 7% of those crofters that responded to the survey had carried out either peatland restoration, biodiversity activities, or forestry/woodland creation on their common grazing during the period 2019-2022. Ten percent of the same people planned to carry one or more of these tasks during 2023-2026. When asked of the obstacles in carrying out these tasks, 35% reported the administrative hassle and 8% cited the lack of a grazings committee.

204. Environmental Use of Crofts: Similar to the new provision for projects on common grazings, the Bill will also give crofters an enhanced right to use their croft for an environmental purpose.

205. According to the Crofting Commission's 2023/24 Annual Report, there are 21,673 crofts and 14,890 crofters. Croft land, excluding common grazings, covers approximately 250,000 hectares across the crofting counties.

206. Currently, a tenant crofter has the right to use the croft for anything which comes under the definition of "cultivation" (which includes horticulture, the keeping or breeding of livestock, poultry or bees, the growing of fruit or vegetables, or use of the land as woodlands). However, if a tenant crofter wishes to use the croft for any other "purposeful use", they can only do so with the consent of either the landlord or the Commission.

207. This Bill will broaden the list of uses of the croft which a tenant crofter can implement without requiring consent. In addition to cultivation, this will include peatland restoration; habitat creation and restoration; using the land for water management; and preserving, protecting, restoring, enhancing or otherwise improving natural heritage or environment. In making these changes, it will be easier for crofters to apply for future schemes that support sustainable and regenerative agriculture, including rural development and other related matters.

208. It is not possible to reasonably estimate the level of uptake. However, the Scottish Government Economic Condition of Crofting Report 2019-2022, reported that 32% of those crofters that responded to the survey had carried out either peatland restoration, biodiversity activities, or forestry/woodland creation on their croft during the period 2019-2022. Thirty-nine percent of the same people planned to carry one or more of these tasks during 2023-2026.

Scottish Land Court

209. The merger of the Scottish Land Court and the Lands Tribunal for Scotland and the Upper Tribunal provisions are not anticipated to have any impact on the costs of goods or materials that businesses might use, or on any import/export processes they may go through. There are no anticipated impacts on the Scottish supply chain.

Small business impacts

Crofting

210. By their nature crofting businesses are almost invariably small businesses. This has been taken into account in the assessment of the costs and benefits of the Bill presented above.

211. The focus of most of the measures in the Bill is on simplifying and streamlining the regulatory processes for the sector, which should be of particular benefit to small croft businesses, which have less capacity to absorb the costs arising from unnecessarily bureaucratic procedures. As noted previously, many crofters will only rarely have cause to make applications to the Crofting Commission for any reason, so it is important that the procedures should be as straightforward as possible for them when they do. This is a key aim which runs through the Bill.

212. Given the preponderance of small businesses in the crofting sector, an exemption for such business types would effectively amount to wholesale deregulation.

Scottish Land Court

213. The amalgamation of the Land Court and Lands Tribunal is primarily administrative in nature and it is not anticipated that there will be any differential impact on small businesses. There are no monitoring, reporting or compliance requirements introduced by the merger. Similarly, no differential impacts on small businesses are anticipated as a result of the Upper Tribunal provisions.

Investment

Crofting

214. No effects, positive or negative, are anticipated on Scotland's attractiveness to investors.

Scottish Land Court

215. No effects, positive or negative, are anticipated on Scotland's attractiveness to investors.

Workforce and Fair Work

Crofting

216. None of the crofting measures in the Bill are considered to be relevant to this.

Scottish Land Court

217. This is not applicable to the measures relating to the Scottish Land Court.

Climate change/ Circular Economy

Crofting

218. As previously mentioned, the Bill includes measures to make it easier for crofters and landowners to form joint ventures to implement projects on common grazings with a focus on environmental and climate change goals. These measures will involve expanding the existing forestry provisions, to take forward initiatives to encompass peatland restoration, biodiversity activities, and other projects relating to carbon sequestration, habitat restoration or environmental improvements. While these types of projects can already be undertaken, the current procedures are more cumbersome than for woodland creation. Given that approximately 30% of land with peat depth of two metres or more is located within common grazings, there is the opportunity for such initiatives to be undertaken, and the potential for generating new income streams for crofters and landowners.

219. Similarly, the Bill will also make it easier for crofters to undertake environmental and climate focused activities on their in-bye croft land. It will do so by broadening the range of activities which a crofter can undertake without requiring consent from the Crofting Commission or landowner, which is currently limited to agricultural and horticultural uses, as well as tree planting. The Bill will expand this to include peatland restoration; habitat creation and restoration; using the land for water management; and preserving, protecting, restoring, enhancing or otherwise improving natural heritage or environment. In making these changes, it will be easier for crofters to apply for future schemes that support sustainable and regenerative agriculture, including rural development and other related matters.

Scottish Land Court

220. None of the measures in the Bill relating to the Scottish Land Court are anticipated to have any impact on the ability of businesses to contribute to climate and circular economy targets.

Competition Assessment

Crofting

221. It is not considered that the crofting measures in the Bill will create any comparative advantage or disadvantage within the sector as they will apply to all crofters equally. Nor will any new barriers to entry be created.

222. The markets for agricultural and horticultural products, which active crofters supply produce through, will be unaffected by this legislation. Similarly other markets that some crofters may contribute to such as tourism will also not be affected by the Bill.

Scottish Land Court

223. The amalgamation of the Scottish Land Court and the Lands Tribunal for Scotland and the Upper Tribunal provisions will have no impact on competition. It is not considered that the measures will impact the number or range of suppliers, limit the ability of suppliers to compete, limit suppliers' incentives to compete, affect consumers' ability to engage with the market, or affect suppliers' ability and/or incentive to introduce new technologies, products or business models.

Consumer Duty

Crofting

224. There is not expected to be any impact on consumers arising from the proposals in the consultation. The regulatory reforms will most directly impact on the Crofting Commission in the performance of its duties, and on crofters and landowners. However, in relation to Crofting Law, crofters and landowners are not consumers - they are subject to its provisions as regulated parties.

225. Consumers do benefit from products, primarily agricultural or horticultural, produced on crofts. However, the proposals are not expected to have any discernible impact on the produce brought to market by crofters.

Scottish Land Court

226. The measures in relation the Scottish Land Court and Upper Tribunal are not expected to have any impact on consumers.

227. Both the Land Court and the Lands Tribunal have the ability to hold hearings throughout Scotland and the ability to hold hearings virtually. That will not be changed by the provisions in the Bill. The amalgamated body will take all circumstances into account when deciding on the most appropriate venue for the affected parties, as is currently the case. Likewise, the hearing arrangements for Upper Tribunal appeals will not change.

228. Both bodies have a system of fees for users. Once the new body is set up, a new fee structure will be required. As is the case with civil court fees more generally, a full public consultation will be undertaken in this regard. This will include the full impact assessment process.