Union support for crofting

SIR, – Thank you for highlighting the Sleat General Grazings Committee’s call for the abolition of the Crofting Commission.
We’ve been heartened by the positive comments we’ve received. However, we’re concerned that our proposal is seen by some stakeholders as a knee-jerk reaction to the recent issue arising in Lewis.
We would like to make it clear that this is not the case. We first highlighted our concerns in regard to the competence and integrity of the commission with commissioners in March, 2014.  
In the interim, nothing had been done to address our ongoing concerns.
Whilst it may be news to the Crofting Federation (The SF, July 16) that not all crofters have had the positive experience of the commission which they appear to have had, we would hope they can acknowledge there are crofters who do not wish to see the continuation of a commission that has singularly failed.  
Its failures are not limited to the issues we’ve raised and we have been left with no alternative but to call for their abolition. We believe the continuation of the current commission will only accelerate the decline of active grazings committees.  
It is becoming impossible for committees to work with an organisation which has continually shown itself to be exceptionally difficult to deal with.
We acknowledge that the SCF is entitled to support the commission, but we hope that they will accept our offer to meet with us to gain an understanding of why we reject the call for crofters to continue to support the commission.
We were also disheartened to see in the same edition of The SF,  the federation’s response to our call for the abolition of the commission, which was to launch and unjustified attack on NFU Scotland.  
It is unfortunate that the standard response of the federation to any question is to launch an attack on the organisation representing many of their fellow crofters.  
The Sleat General Grazings Committee has continually received the highest level of support from the NFUS on the many difficult and complex questions we have raised with them.  
The commitment of Jake Sayles, our local group secretary, to crofters and farmers is clear to anyone who has had the opportunity to meet with him, as is that of Lucy Sumsion, the NFU’s crofting policy manager.
Jonathan Hall, NFUS director of policy and his team continue to work with the NFUS Skye and Loch Duich branches to address the issues affecting crofters.  
The Sleat General Grazings committee thanks NFUS for its continued support and rejects the suggestion that NFUS has not been supportive of crofting.