With the Scottish election due to take place on 7 May 2026, the Scottish Countryside Alliance attended the SNP party conference in Aberdeen last weekend to get a flavour of what may be in their election manifesto. Unfortunately, it was rather lacking in rural affairs, but independence featured heavily on the agenda, unsurprisingly.
We attended several fringe events over the weekend:
- Renewable energy - the need to upgrade the current transmission network to cope with the supply of energy across the UK. How can renewable energy be utilised fairly by local communities that are hosting network infrastructure? Delegates expressed concerns that energy companies gave very little back to local communities. They commented that it would be more useful for companies to offer a reduction in energy bills for locals rather than offering grants for community projects.
- How can the SNP make a fair North Sea transition a reality – discussing the transferable skills of oil and gas industry workers to renewable energy and retaining this skilled workforce. Scotland as a renewable energy powerhouse, becoming energy-rich and reducing our reliance on diminishing fossil fuel supplies.
- The future of farming and crofting – A fringe event run by NFU Scotland. Topics raised included how new entrants into farming can access suitable land, food resilience and the need to import food given that Scotland cannot grow all the food required for the population and dispelling the myths of farmers being “subsidy junkies” and demonising the industry.
- What Scotland wants: Real land reform – Revive hosted a fringe event that was straight out of the Green Party Conference books with bold, sweeping statements made on behalf of all Scots, as the title of the talk suggests. All significant landowners must pay a higher rate of tax was the suggestion, just for owning land. They couldn’t help, however, revealing the undercurrent reason for this event and that was to stop shooting and fieldsports in Scotland. Tax landowners until they sell up was the ask.
- Transparency International UK and The Ferret held a joint session detailing their work in uncovering secret landowners and money laundering techniques through Scottish land and property. An informative session, chaired by Emma Harper MSP.
The team were able to catch-up with the First Minister, John Swinney to ask whether rural affairs will be a component of the SNP manifesto for the 2026 elections. We also caught up with Emma Harper, MSP and member of the Rural Affairs and Islands committee. We had a very enlightening conversation about deer management, muirburn and ultra-processed foods in schools, to name a few topics under discussion. Follow-up meetings and joint projects will feature as a result of these conversations, and we will ensure to keep our members well-informed as we progress with these valuable ventures.
All in all, it was a very informative weekend in Aberdeen, catching up with partnership organisations and exhibitors including Scottish Sea Farms, who we will be visiting in the near future.
We are now pulling together our manifesto for the 2026 elections, and we would love to hear from our members and supporters about what rural issues are important, so please complete this short survey and make the rural voice heard at Holyrood!