Natural Environment (Scotland) Bill - Stage 1 - proposed amendments

On 30 September 2025 the Scottish Parliament’s Rural Affairs and Islands Committee (RAIC) published a Stage 1 Report on the Natural Environment (Scotland) Bill. You can view the Report here and background information about the parliamentary process here. The Bill aims to “support the protection and restoration of Scotland’s natural environment on which everyone in Scotland depends”.  It covers four distinct policy areas, three of which will apply across Scotland and one, Part 3, which is specifically about updating the Scottish National Parks legislation.

 The National Parks (Scotland) Act 2000 (the 2000 Act) was the first Act passed by the Scottish Parliament which allowed the subsequent designation of first the Loch Lomond and the Trossachs and then the Cairngorms National Parks.  The Act is now 25 years old, relatively ‘fresh faced’ compared to the National Parks legislation in England and Wales which recently reached a 75th anniversary milestone. However the original law in England has been updated and amended by subsequent legislation several times.  The 2000 Act, while clearly based in part on the older Westminster legislation is quite distinct - for instance Scotland’s National Parks have 4 statutory aims rather than the three “purposes “ south of the border.

What is being proposed?

The Scottish Government is proposing a number of amendments to update the four statutory aims of National Parks, to alter the duties for public bodies in relation to National Parks and to confer new regulation-making powers on Scottish Ministers to develop a fixed-penalty notice regime for enforcement of National Park byelaws. It is also proposed to make a minor amendment to the Land Reform legislation to ensure that any future National Parks can become Access Authorities as that legislation currently just refers to the two existing Parks.

What do we think of the government’s proposals?

SCNP are generally supportive of the changes proposed but there are further improvements to strengthen the legislation that should be made.  We submitted evidence to the RAIC on Part 3 of the Bill as introduced (jointly with APRS) earlier this year which you can read here.

 We are supportive of the access authority change which is really a tidying up of the legislation and was acknowledged as uncontroversial in the Stage 1 Report. We feel that the proposed arrangements for fixed penalty notices are probably a pragmatic and proportionate approach to byelaw enforcement in most instances in which that has to be resorted too.  However, we would like the Scottish Government to give guidance and support on the approach to be taken in deploying this, particularly to ensure that enforcement (rather than engagement and education) does not become the initial response to a byelaw infringement.

 We very much welcome the proposal that the existing duty on public bodies and officials to “have regard to National Park Plans” is strengthened to “facilitate the implementation of National Park Plans” which should help to improve collaboration and the delivery of Park aims. Similarly we welcome the introduction of a new duty on public bodies to “have regard to the National Park aims (although ideally we would like to see this wording become “seek to further the National Park aims).

What do we think is missing?

Ideally we would like to see the new wording of the duty on Public Bodies and officials to become

 “To seek to further the National Park aims”. This would have more ‘teeth’ than “have regard to” and is the wording recently introduced to the equivalent legislation relating to English National Parks.

 We think that it is important that the Sandford Principle, as worded in the existing 2000 Act, is expanded in reach to apply to any bodies or officials which the proposed new duty to have regard to the National Park aims affects.  Currently, the Sandford Principle, as expressed at section 9(6) of the 2000 Act only applies to the National Park Authorities (NPA).  The Principle gives guidance on applying the aims in instances where there is perceived to be a conflict between the four aims which ideally are intended to be achieved together and are not seen as hierarchical.  However, under the guiding Principle the first aim, which covers the conservation of the natural and cultural heritage, has to be given more weight by the NPA if it conflicts with any of the other three.  We think it is logical that bodies required to “have regard to the aims” are given the same guidance in applying them in relation to their work where it affects National Parks.  SCNP have long called for Scottish Ministers to direct NPAs to give greater weight to the Sandford Principle and to issue clear policy direction that the primacy of the first National Park aim applies to all public bodies operating within National Parks (Unfinished Business, 2013). The Natural Environment Bill is an opportunity to do this in legislation.

 The changes to update the National Park aims are pretty modest, but do introduce a list of “sub-aims” to inform their interpretation which include references to access and recreation, biodiversity and climate.  Currently there is no mention of landscape or scenic value in that list and we suggest that as National Parks are Scotland’s foremost Protected Landscape designation there should be.

Changes to the process of designating a new National Park in Scotland

Following the decision of the Cabinet Secretary not to move forward with designating a new National Park in this Parliament, SCNP and APRS submitted some comments to the Scottish Government and to the RAIC about potential changes to the process of proposing, reporting on and designating new National Parks in future.  Some of those changes would require amendments to the 2000 Act where the statutory parts of the process are laid out.  The RAIC Stage 1 Report notes that the Cabinet Secretary in evidence to them said she saw the designation of new Parks as being distinct from modernising the legislation and the Report obligingly recommends that the designation process could be reviewed at a later date. Notwithstanding that, amendments to modify the process could be put forward by MSPs at Stage 2 of the Bill’s passage.

The Scottish Parliament is scheduled to hold a stage 1 debate on the principles of the Natural Environment (Scotland) Bill on 30 October 2025.