Forestry

Part of the debate – in the Scottish Parliament at 9:42 am on 29 January 2009.

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Photo of Roseanna Cunningham Roseanna Cunningham Scottish National Party 9:42, 29 January 2009

There have been so many red herrings so far that the debate should have been on fisheries instead of forestry.

Labour members might well argue that such a long lease—which, by the way, is very typical of commercial leases—is tantamount to a sale, but they can take it from me that a lease is not a sale. If they do not believe me, they need only look at any legal text book for the reality.

However, we have already established that Labour is not opposed in principle to sale. This is the problem: what the Government is proposing is not a massive sell-off at all but the fact is that if we do not raise substantial amounts of money, we cannot undertake the new planting. The proposal is in the Climate Change (Scotland) Bill for a reason, and I note that Labour has avoided that context completely in this debate.