A leading land reform campaigner has criticised the decision of a review group set up by the Scottish Government not to investigate the plight of Scotland's tenant farmers.
Andy Wightman also said the former moderator of the Church of Scotland, who chairs the group, had decided to discuss its work with the organisation representing Scotland's landowners, without giving the same detail to the public who are paying for its work.
Mr Wightman said the Land Reform Review Group (LRRG) had been given the task of formulating radical proposals to take forward land reform but, in its interim report published two weeks ago, it said it would be taking no further interest in land tenure as it affected Scotland's tenant farmers.
He said he learned at the Scottish Land and Estates annual meeting that review group chairwoman Dr Alison Elliot had made clear that, while she would have liked to examine farm tenancies, the timescales and lack of specialist knowledge had been the deciding factor against it.
Mr Wightman said: "This was a shock to all those who had submitted evidence on the topic and particu- larly to tenant farmers some of whom, as the report noted, were 'fearful of speaking at open meetings, or even of putting their concerns on paper, because of possible recriminations should their landlord hear they were expressing these views in public'."
However, a Scottish Government spokesman said: "The LRRG consultation has brought forward a wide range of issues on a broad range of subjects – including farm tenancy. This is an area already being considered by the Tenant Farming Forum and as such the group, as its interim report states, will now concentrate on community-right-to buy issues."
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