The next item of business is a debate on motion S4M-15181, in the name of Aileen McLeod, on the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill.
On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I return to the point of order that I made yesterday, which was to register the fact that, 23 hours before the debate that we are about to have, we had not seen the Scottish Government’s response to the Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee’s stage 1 report.
After you asked the Minister for Parliamentary Business to speak to the relevant ministers, I was genuinely shocked when, at 6.45 pm last night, we received information from the clerks to the committee that the Scottish Government had changed its mind and would no longer give us its response in advance of our debate.
That is unsatisfactory. It is not just a matter for the committee members. We have a break for recess, and it is an issue of transparency and accountability for the stakeholders and members of the public who have a huge interest in the bill.
I hope, Presiding Officer, that you will be able to reflect on that and communicate with the Government that it is not helping the transparency and accountability of the bill.
I thank Sarah Boyack for advance notice of that point of order.
As the member is aware, there is an agreed protocol between the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government in relation to the handling of committee business that covers how the Government should respond to stage 1 reports by parliamentary committees. Although there is no requirement that a response be made in advance of the stage 1 debate, I understand that in this case, as Sarah Boyack says, the committee was given assurances by the Government that it would have a response on most issues in advance of the debate. The committee was informed only last night, via an email to the clerks, that that would not happen.
The committee’s report has been available to the Government since 4 December. The Government will have been aware of the timetable for stage 1 that was agreed to by the Parliament. The minister may wish to reflect on the handling of this situation, which is disappointing and is not very helpful.
I now call on Aileen McLeod to speak to and move the motion.
16:05
I begin by expressing my gratitude to Rob Gibson and the other members of the Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee for their scrutiny of a wide range of land reform issues over the course of this session.
The committee’s scrutiny of the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill has benefited significantly from its already extensive knowledge of many of the issues at its heart, and it builds on the evidence provided by groups, by individuals, by the more than 1,000 respondents to the Scottish Government’s “Consultation on the Future of Land Reform in Scotland” and by those who contributed to the extensive work of the land reform and agricultural holdings review groups—noting, not least, the tireless work of the review group members themselves. It has been a massive task, which is reflected in the detailed stage 1 report that the committee published just over a week ago.
On that, let me respond directly to the point that has been raised by Sarah Boyack in the chamber just now and yesterday. At more than 140 pages, the committee’s report provides substantial comment and recommendations, and we are now giving very serious and careful consideration to the committee’s recommendations in relation to all parts of the bill.
I very much look forward to debating the issues, and I intend to submit our response to the committee shortly, in line with the protocols agreed with the Parliament. It is a job that we want to get right rather than rush. I am keen for us to take the opportunity to listen to all the views from across the Parliament and to reflect members’ views in our response.
This is a debate on the committee’s stage 1 report, and we want to ensure that we have the right provisions in the bill, which have not been rushed, so it is important to take this opportunity to listen to all the views that are expressed in the Parliament.
I hear what the minister says, but would she accept that it sets us at a bit of a disadvantage when we have no clue as to the Government’s response to the stage 1 report? I am disappointed that the minister shows no sign of remorse whatsoever.
This is a debate on the committee’s stage 1 report, and I am keen to ensure that we give members across the chamber an opportunity to reflect their views, so that we can use them in our response to the committee’s report.
This is a very complex bill, with complex provisions, and we very much want to take careful consideration of all the views that are represented.
The minister will appreciate that we are being asked to vote this evening on the general principles of the bill, a bill that the committee report has exhaustively scrutinised while suggesting a whole range of potential changes. It would be very interesting, before we vote this evening, to know whether the Government accepts all or any of the proposals in the committee report. We do not have that information.
That will be a matter for committee consideration at stage 2.
Members: Oh!
But we will also be giving an indication. It is the committee’s stage 1 report that we are discussing.
We started this process with a good bill, and I know that we can make it an excellent bill. As the First Minister said last week at the human rights innovation forum, we in the Government
“welcome the growing interest in the role that human rights ... can play in achieving
a
“wealthier and fairer society”.
Land reform is a vital part of the Government’s aspirations for a fairer, more equal and socially just Scotland. Underpinning the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill is an ambition to fundamentally change the framework of legal and social rights and responsibilities that determine how our land is used and governed, to address inequalities and to ensure that our land delivers the greatest benefits to our economy and all our communities.
I am strongly encouraged by the committee’s support for many of the general principles of the bill and the measures within it. The creation of a land rights and responsibilities statement under part 1 of the bill and the establishment of a dedicated Scottish land commission under part 2 underline the Government’s commitment to considered, long-term reform, putting an end to the ad hoc, stop-start nature of land reform that has limited progress in Scotland to date.
We must recognise the contribution of landowners and managers across the public, private, third and community sectors, and the positive relationships that already exist between landowners, tenants and communities. In doing so, we must recognise the need to take steps to ensure that good practice is extended throughout Scotland.
Part 4 of the bill has a vital role to play in encouraging and improving engagement between landowners and communities, and I am pleased to see the committee’s welcome in its report for the principles behind that part of the bill. It is important to ensure, as well as co-operation and engagement, a fair balance of rights between those who own the land and those who work, live and depend on the land.
At times, what can be achieved through voluntary and co-operative approaches may be limited. Although the committee and the Scottish Government have agreed that a voluntary approach to deer management should be given the chance to deliver, and substantial support has been provided for that, it is becoming clear that more may need to be done in that area.
I ask the minister to read the sections of the committee’s report in which we discuss in great detail the fact that the committee is deeply unhappy about where deer management has ended up. There was a sense among members across the parties that we need urgent action and more provisions in the bill, and that the voluntary approach is absolutely not working everywhere.
I accept Sarah Boyack’s point on the need to have an urgent review, and we will consider that carefully in our response to the committee’s report.
I welcome the committee’s support for further powers for Scottish Natural Heritage. Part 8 of the bill will deliver additional powers to intervene where it is shown that deer management is not delivering in the public interest. I look forward to the on-going involvement of the committee and Parliament as we focus on the 2016 review and take the necessary actions to address the outcomes from it.
Part 10 of the bill is also about promoting positive relationships while ensuring a fair balance of rights between those who own the land and those who work, live and depend on the land. It is encouraging to see that there is support from the committee for many of the measures in part 10 and for the principles behind those measures.
I very much welcome the committee’s support for the need to enable and empower communities throughout Scotland to have the confidence, opportunity and resources to own land for the benefit of the community. The committee’s support of the principles behind the provisions in part 5 of the bill to introduce a community right to buy land to further sustainable development is important in helping to achieve that aim.
I hope that the committee and colleagues in the chamber will recognise the Deputy First Minister’s confirmation today that the Scottish land fund will be extended to £10 million for 2016 and support the work of the Government’s short-life working group on the 1 million acre target. The group’s report, which was published just last week, sets out a detailed action plan to ensure that communities and landowners across Scotland have the necessary support and resources that enable them to understand and realise the benefits of community ownership.
The report of the short-life working group on community land ownership is just one example of the fact that the bill is not the end point in Scotland’s land reform journey. I am very encouraged by the breadth of discussion on, and support for, the bill and the Scottish Government’s wider land reform agenda.
Throughout the consultation and the drafting processes, we have worked extremely hard to consider the wide range of—often conflicting—views and ideas around how we own, use and manage land in Scotland. Some of these conflicting views are evident even in the committee’s report. There are no easy answers to those complex and important issues. However, it is important that we continue to strive for better solutions, and there is always potentially room for improvement. I acknowledge that there is more work to do in that regard.
As part of the stage 1 process, the scrutiny of the bill by the Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee and the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee has been highly valuable in highlighting potential areas in which improvements can be made.
We will seek to respond fully to all concerns and recommendations in our response to the stage 1 report. In fact, we have already confirmed our intention to replace the regulation-making power in section 79 in part 10 with substantive provisions at stage 2 that will support Agricultural Holdings (Scotland) Act 1991 tenant farmers to leave their holdings with dignity and security, thereby increasing opportunities for newer farmers. We have written to the RACCE Committee outlining details of the intended proposal, and we will continue to work with the committee and stakeholders as the provisions are developed ahead of stage 2.
We also intend to confirm our intention to bring forward amendments to strengthen the level of scrutiny for a number of the delegated powers in the bill. Further consideration is on-going on how best to provide Parliament with more information on the intended use of the delegated powers, and to provide more detail and clarity at stage 2 about the provisions that are causing concern, as requested by the committee.
I appreciate that that will be of specific importance for further detailing of why the reintroduction of business rates for shootings and deer forests in part 6 not only is fair but will have a proportionate and reasonable impact on our rural economies while raising additional revenue that will help us to support community land ownership through the Scottish land fund.
As the development and scrutiny of the provisions in the bill have highlighted, the issues are complex and require detailed consideration and thoughtful development. Therefore, although we are keen to bring forward additional measures where possible, we must be realistic about what is possible in the time available.
There is a lot to be considered in the committee’s specific recommendations on how to go further on part 3 to ensure the transparency and accountability of land ownership in Scotland. I am confident that the current provisions in part 3, along with our wider commitments to complete the land register and develop a new land and property information system for Scotland, will go a long way to delivering increased transparency.
The area is complex. To date, specific proposals to go further have struggled to provide effective solutions, and we are certain that some suggestions would be outwith the competence of the Parliament. However, more needs to be done, and we are committed to continuing to consider what measures can be taken forward to achieve the aim.
Will the minister take an intervention?
I am just about to finish.
We cannot roll back hundreds of years of history overnight and nor can we fix all problems in one easy step. However, we can and must focus on taking the next step in our journey. The bill will make a series of key changes to the way in which land is governed to ensure that responsible and diverse land ownership is encouraged and supported; that transparency of land ownership in Scotland is increased; that communities are helped to have a say in how land in their area is used; that a thriving tenant farming sector in Scotland is supported; and that issues of fairness, equality and social justice that are connected to the ownership of, access to and use of land in Scotland are addressed.
I am confident that the majority of members will support the principles behind those most fundamental of our land reform objectives. I look forward to continuing to work with committee members, all other members of the Parliament and with the people of Scotland as the bill progresses to ensure that we get the detail right and achieve our radical ambitions for the bill.
I move,
That the Parliament agrees to the general principles of the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill.
I call Rob Gibson to speak on behalf of the Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee.
16:17
The Land Reform (Scotland) Bill has generated a huge debate across Scotland about the very land that we stand on. The RACCE Committee’s extensive programme of engagement ensured that the report that we are debating today was informed by as many views and experiences as possible. The huge response to that engagement is testament to how much the bill means to so many people.
The committee received 200 written submissions, held formal external meetings in Orkney, Skye and Dumfries and travelled to Islay, Jura, the Borders and Fife to hold public meetings to hear people’s views. Following that wide consultation, we have produced a constructive report that clearly sets out how to ensure that the bill fulfils its radical potential in practice. Supportive comments included those of Dr Calum Macleod at the University of Edinburgh, who wrote that the committee’s scrutiny and report
“have provided a valuable public service in anchoring the Bill to land reform as ‘the art of the possible’.”
The bill is bold in its ambition and must be made clear in its detail. We share the Government’s vision for land reform in Scotland and support many of the measures in the bill and the principles behind them, but the bill needs to be strengthened and clarified to fully deliver the ambitious and radical change that many people want.
Before I go into details, I ask members to note that Alex Fergusson dissented from our conclusions on part 10, relating to agricultural holdings, and on some specific issues in part 5, on a new community right to buy, and that Jim Hume dissented from our conclusions on a right to buy for 1991 act tenants. Those members will no doubt speak for themselves.
Many parts of the bill have our full support, subject to recommended improvements, including part 1 on the establishment of a land rights and responsibilities statement and part 2 on the establishment of a Scottish land commission. Those are the most radical departures from previous land reform bills.
A land rights and responsibilities statement must focus on land as a national asset for the benefit of all Scotland’s people. It must underpin the process by clearly setting out a fundamental vision for land reform that is rooted in international human rights obligations. The statement will underpin the land commission’s work on guiding Scotland forward on the land reform journey, year by year. However, the bill must be amended to ensure that the statement and the commission’s strategic plan and work programme are debated in and endorsed by this Parliament.
We want at least one of the commissioners to be a Gaelic speaker, as is the case with organisations such as the Crofting Commission and the Scottish Land Court.
We strongly support in principle, subject to recommended amendments, those parts of the bill on engaging with communities and giving them a right to buy land to further sustainable development.
To improve engagement between communities and landowners, which the bill seeks to do in part 4, much more than guidance is required. Local people need to know who a person of significant control on behalf of landowners is. In addition, the consequences of non-adherence to the guidance must be spelled out.
Part 5 will introduce a right to buy to further sustainable development, but the Government must clarify whether that is intended to empower communities or to deter landowners. The proposed tests for communities are set at such a high level that amendments are needed to sections, such as section 47, to replace “the only practicable way” with “the only or most practicable way”. In addition, the definition of harm must be broadened to include potential impacts on the community’s sustainable development objectives.
All committee members agreed that access to information is essential.
Rob Gibson said that access to information is important. Does the committee agree with the point that Sarah Boyack raised about just how late some information has been given to the Parliament?
With due respect, that has nothing to do with the issues in the report that I am talking about. We will see the Government’s response in due course, and Liz Smith’s remarks should be addressed to the Government.
For many people, access to information is at the heart of our land problem. Evidence shows us that the proposals in part 3 will fail unless they improve transparency and unmask some of the murky ownership models that exist in the world of shell companies, tax havens and trusts. Knowing who owns, controls and benefits from Scotland’s land is a basic human right.
The evidence underlined the fact that the bill does not go far enough to solve the problem. The bill must be strengthened so that information can be required rather than requested, and so that anyone in Scotland can ask for that information, as people in other European countries can. However, we need to go even further. We have asked the Government to consider several options, including requiring those who want to buy land to be entities registered in the European Union, requiring them to provide a Scottish contact point and requiring them to name those who will benefit from the ownership of the land.
Part 6, which seeks to reintroduce sporting rates, needs far more work. It is fair in principle to tax sporting estates and enterprises but, as the detail of the provision emerged, the Government’s case to see this as a money-raising exercise to boost the land fund was unclear. To convince us, the Government must provide a thorough, robust and evidence-based analysis before the start of stage 2.
The deer management practices in part 8 are deficient in many areas. It is in the public interest for the bill to strengthen SNH’s powers to ensure that it can take early action, if found necessary by mid-2016 review, without it having to wait for further legislation to be passed.
Will the member take an intervention?
Briefly.
I thank the member. Would he agree that, in view of SNH’s 2014 report on deer management, the issue is even more significant?
The report showed a lack of progress, but deer counts by SNH have also been lacking. The bill must be amended in that regard.
Provisions on agricultural holdings account for around half the bill and try to address hotly-debated issues and tenancy disputes that have existed in many communities for many years. Everyone agrees that we want a thriving tenant farming sector in Scotland, the big question is how we get there.
We support the bill’s aims of: removing barriers to 1991 act tenants buying farms; providing for forced sale of a farm if a landlord is in breach of the lease; introducing an amnesty for tenants, to note improvements that they have made; and tightening rules in cases in which landlords are seeking to make improvements to a farm.
However, other proposals are too often left to secondary legislation, such as changes to the way in which rent is set and measures to allow tenants to retire with dignity and to enable new entrants and young blood to come into the sector. We must have more detail on those provisions before stage 2, because the annual drain on secure 1991 act tenants and the move towards limited duration tenancies fail to ensure tenancy security and sustainable agriculture.
The majority of RACCE committee members support giving 1991 act tenants a conditional right to buy their holdings, so that we can finally resolve a recurrent problem and move on. As ever, European convention on human rights issues need to be applied proportionately, because the long-term reduction in tenancy security is detrimental to human rights.
Other issues, which are not in the bill, should be considered at the amending stages, such as the future for small landholders, the often poor condition of tenant farmers’ houses and the lack of affordable rural housing more widely. We must resolve such issues, which are intrinsic to a sustainable rural Scotland in which people can live and work.
Many eyes are on this Parliament. People want to see whether we can deliver the land reform that they want. I hope that we can match the ambition of the Scottish people and change our relationship with land, so that everyone can feel connected to it, be involved in how it is managed, and benefit from its use.
The bill is a good start and we hope that it passes stage 1 today. However, members of all parties should realise the scale of the work that lies ahead and the role of international human rights in underpinning land reform.
You must close, please.
We cannot ignore the warning by Scottish Land & Estates of huge financial penalties should land reform laws interfere with entrenched property rights. Is that landowner view legitimate? One witness, Kirsteen Shields, a human rights lecturer, thinks that it is not legitimate. The thrust of this radical bill and the temper of the committee’s report champion the interests of a fairer Scotland.
You must finish, please.
Ms Shields put it succinctly when she said:
“the question should not be ‘Is it legitimate to disturb property rights?’ but ‘Is it legitimate not to?’”
16:27
I thank the fantastic team that supported the RACCE committee throughout its work and the many communities, members of the public and organisations who gave written and oral evidence, which helped us immeasurably in putting together our report.
The report is long, but this is a long and complex bill. It is also a crucial bill, which will have ramifications throughout Scotland. The bill aims to deliver a more equal country, tackle concentrated patterns of land ownership in Scotland, give communities a say in and influence over the use of the land on which they depend and provide for a fairer balance of power between landlords and tenants. Those are worthy aims and objectives and Scottish Labour supports them.
The bill follows on from the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003 and the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015, and it draws on the work of the land reform review group and the agricultural holdings legislation review group.
However, there is so much more that we need to do to ensure that the bill is fit for purpose and delivers on the ambitions that we share. That is why I am deeply disappointed that we do not yet have the Scottish Government’s response to our stage 1 report. We had expected to have the report, and our not having it will impact on our capacity to draft amendments over the recess. I had assumed that today’s debate would give the Government a fantastic opportunity to tell Scottish National Party members how it intends to strengthen the bill in light of the revolt at the SNP conference in October.
Today, our job is at least to get to the headlines. The bill must be strengthened in relation to human rights. We need recognition of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the “Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security” to underpin the objectives of the bill—that needs to be in the bill. That will help to bolster the purpose of the bill and put it in the context of human rights in a way that we can debate and reflect on.
The land rights and responsibilities statement is an important start, but it needs to be subject to consultation and it needs to integrate with biodiversity and climate change issues and be consistent with the land use strategy and the national planning framework.
We particularly welcome the proposal that there be a Scottish land commission, but we highlight that the commissioners should have relevant skills and experience and not just a range of knowledge but a grounding in the equalities and empowerment challenges that are at the heart of the aspirations for the bill.
Information and knowledge about who owns and controls land will be crucial to whether the bill delivers. We need transparency and accountability, and that is why we need to know who the request authority will be. Ministers need to clarify that for us.
The land reform review group made an important recommendation when it suggested that restricting registration to EU-registered entities would deliver transparency of ownership and the capacity to ensure that any taxes that are due will be paid. However, that is not provided for in the bill. I do not think that ministers, under questioning, gave us convincing answers on the matter and we have certainly not had convincing answers in the chamber today about how the bill might change. I am sure that I am not the only member who has had dozens of emails this week from constituents who want the bill to provide that clarity. In framing our amendments over the next couple of weeks, we need to think about that in order to ensure that the bill does not fail the test of transparency.
The recommendations on page 54 of the committee’s report make it clear that we need clarity about ownership and who controls it and benefits from it, with a named person that communities can consult and a transparent and effective registration process. Those are the building blocks that we need to have in place. If ownership is clear and known, it will be so much easier for communities to be engaged in the crucial decisions relative to the land that they are interested in. I am talking not about every day-to-day decision, but about the really big decisions. The bill needs to make that clearer.
We need to learn the lessons from the 2003 act. The guidance from the Scottish Government will be crucial, because communities will not be able to read the bill. It took the committee 141 pages to come up with our conclusions, and the bill will be even more difficult for communities. We picked up on our visit to Fife that the bill needs to be made fit for purpose for communities and we need penalties for lack of engagement.
We strongly support the new principle in part 5 of a community right to buy land to further sustainable development. We hoped to see that in the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015, but we welcome its inclusion in this bill. “Sustainable development” is a well-used and well-established term and it has featured in several pieces of legislation since the Parliament was established. However, more detail could be put into the bill, particularly in relation to how ministers will judge “significant harm” and “significant benefit”.
We will need to clarify the land that is registered under the community empowerment legislation and under the land reform legislation and ensure that it is all brought together so that communities and landowners have clarity.
The committee has rightly asked for consideration of how we deliver good-quality land and buildings for housing. The land reform review group raised not just the idea of a compulsory purchase order but the possibility of a compulsory sale order where, for example, an empty building or vacant or derelict land could be used to deliver sustainable development but that is not being realised. I hope that ministers will consider such a provision and lodge amendments on it at stage 2. We are certainly considering the matter. Such a provision would definitely help to strengthen the bill. It would be helpful if the minister could work on that over the next couple of weeks. The idea is supported by Community Land Scotland and Shelter Scotland.
Will the member take an intervention?
If the minister can give me a good answer, I will be delighted to take an intervention.
I make the point to Sarah Boyack that work on compulsory sale orders is being taken forward through our housing and land reform team. It is part and parcel of the nine recommendations that were made by the land reform review group. A lot of consultation took place around that over the summer, and ministers are considering the report that was produced.
That was a helpful intervention, minister. I hope that, in the light of that report, she will now come to the right conclusion. We would certainly be keen to push the matter in the amendment stage.
The Scottish Labour Party supports the inclusion of shootings and deer forests on the valuation roll, but there was an awful lot of opposition to part 6 of the bill, and more evidence, particularly in the business regulatory impact assessment, could be provided. Crucially, we need to know that local authorities and assessors will have the necessary resources to carry out that work. It is hugely important that that is done fairly and, given that there are particular concerns about very small holdings, we need clarification on that.
We support the measures on common good land. They tidy up existing legislation. The accurate mapping of common good land will increase transparency. That, by definition, is a good thing.
We very much support the comments on deer management made by the committee convener, Rob Gibson. Clearly, there are areas where the system does not work. Although the proposals provide some help, the bill does not go far enough. We need to see biodiversity problems properly addressed with urgent action and SNH given stronger powers to act. We would want to see that in the final version of the bill.
We accept that access rights are important and the new provisions should lead to more—and more effective—access.
I will not be able to do justice to the agricultural holdings part of the bill. It has been extremely difficult to scrutinise that area, because the Scottish Government told us at the outset that it had not finished working on the provisions. We are getting—not quite weekly, but almost—more information about that from the Scottish Government.
We support the aim of a vibrant tenanted sector, with support for new farmers and a capacity for longstanding farmers to leave their tenancies with fairness and to have access to good housing. However, that will require a great deal of work.
We welcome the tenant farming commissioner, but the codes of practice will need to be enforced on a statutory basis to deliver fairness across the whole country.
We are being drip-fed the Government’s responses. That makes it not only difficult for the committee to consider all the potential amendments, but difficult for people who are not in the Parliament to see the full picture. The bill is complex and hugely important, and we support it, but that approach will emerge as a major challenge for us.
The Government amendments are due on 13 January and our amendments are due on 15 January and we have a recess between now and then. We must ensure that the bill is the best that it can be in order to deliver for the people of Scotland and that it stands the test of time. We need to deliver that together. If the Scottish Government can tell us when it will give a response to the stage 1 debate, that will help us immeasurably.
16:36
I, too, thank the clerking team for the extraordinarily good job that it did in drawing together the report.
Timing is tight, so I must come straight to business. As I look at parts 1 to 9 and 11 of the bill, I see that there is a great deal that we agree with, although it has been extraordinarily difficult to be certain of the full consequences of much of it, due to the amount of detail that has been deferred to a future session of Parliament through secondary legislation.
We do not have any great difficulties—colleagues will mention those that we do have later—with parts 1 to 9 of the bill, or at least with their general principles. Any concerns that we do have we will seek to remedy at stage 2 by amendment. By way of example, under communities’ right to buy land in order to further sustainable development, the minister told us in Dumfries that, in a 50:50 situation, where the land manager’s interests and the community’s interest were deemed to be equal, the community’s right to buy would override the land manager’s interests. I do not agree with the provision, but we can and will seek to amend it.
My one exception is part 6, which is the reintroduction of sporting rates. My difficulty goes beyond the serious concerns that have been highlighted in the committee’s report. It is quite clear that the Government has not thought through the proposal, that it has no idea how much the proposal will raise or cost and that it has no idea how much it wants to raise or even, as became clear in our Dumfries meeting, why it wants to do it at all. The minister said then and again today that it is about fairness, but I struggle to think to whom the measure will be fair. It will certainly not be fair to the many field sports businesses across the south of Scotland, which put millions of pounds into the local economy while competing with similar businesses across the border. If sporting rates are imposed on those businesses, some of them will be put out of business. Therefore, I agree with the committee that
“the case for change has not yet been made.”
I hope that the Government heeds that comment.
Overall, there is nothing within what I call the land reform part of the bill that would have caused us to vote against the bill’s general principles. It is with part 10, on agricultural holdings, that I have real difficulty, and I want to use my remaining time to explain why that is the case and why we will be voting against the bill at decision time.
I have always believed that the provisions in part 10 of the bill should have formed a stand-alone piece of legislation, and I still believe that to be the case. The subject of agricultural holdings is worthy of deep and meaningful debate, and there exists right now a willingness on all sides of the sector to continue that debate to achieve a long-term sustainable solution to the problems that beset the sector.
The twin aims of part 10—to further empower tenants while creating an environment that encourages those who have land to let it—are laudable. I have never agreed more with anything that this Government has put on paper but, as I have said in dissenting on this part of the bill, the bill cannot achieve those twin aims, and I believe most of my colleagues on the committee would agree.
What is more, the Government’s proposed stage 2 amendments that would replace the bill’s intention to introduce conversion to modern limited duration tenancies for 1991 act tenants with an assignment for value model will guarantee the exact opposite of those aims, as indeed will the late addition to the committee’s report, which raises once again the spectre of an absolute right to buy—a right that, coincidentally, was consigned to the legislative dustbin by the cabinet secretary exactly seven years ago tomorrow.
Something is wrong here. The agricultural holdings legislation review group, which was chaired by the cabinet secretary, looked at the assignation for value model and specifically rejected it. Now the cabinet secretary wants to reintroduce it, and that simply highlights a tragic dilemma that has emerged in this part of the bill. The AHLRG saw the sense of gradually allowing 1991 act tenancies to wither on the vine and be replaced over time with modern, vibrant, 21st century letting vehicles. The cabinet secretary, in what I can only suppose is a desperate search for his defining legacy, now seems intent on mothballing 1991 act tenancies in perpetuity, and that is exactly why the bill will not create an environment to encourage the letting of land. If he continues down this route, his legacy is more likely to be the killing off of the tenanted sector than its reinvigoration, and I genuinely do not believe that that is what he seeks.
As has been mentioned, the Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee and the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee have urged the Government to be ultra-cautious with the ECHR aspects of the bill, and I want to issue a warning. We thought that we had passed a competent bill in 2003, yet all too recently we have seen the tragic consequences of the fact that we did not. I am sure that anyone involved will have noticed that it is the tenants who have borne the brunt of our mistake.
The dangers that are inherent in the proposals in the bill that is before us are far greater than those that were inherent in the bill that we considered in 2003, and I urge the Government to scrutinise microscopically the ECHR implications of every aspect of the bill to ensure that it is not the tenants who once again become the victims. That does not bear thinking about.
The cabinet secretary’s legacy could be that he was the man who saved the tenanted sector rather than the man who destroyed it, but the only way for him to achieve that accolade is to withdraw this part of the bill, to accept that more time needs to be given to working on a long-term sustainable solution and to take it up again in the next session of Parliament.
There is a glorious prize to be won—a renewal of trust between landowner and tenant; a truly reinvigorated tenanted sector; and a restoration of the tried, tested and traditional way into agriculture for young and new farmers alike—and the appetite to achieve that is out there. That prize cannot be achieved through the bill, but I firmly believe that it can be achieved and that the time for that is right. Surely that is worth more than any pre-election headline about landlords and tenants and the passing of an ill-thought-out bill that is more than likely to end up in the European courts.
16:43
I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in the debate in my capacity as the convener of the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee, which has continuing concerns about the bill.
First, I should note that the Government has latterly provided reassurances that amendments will be lodged at stage 2 that will address some of the issues that the committee has highlighted. In particular, the committee welcomes the commitment to develop the policy in respect of the power in section 79, on conversion of secure 1991 act tenancies, more fully on the face of the bill. We encourage the Government to share the proposed amendments with the Parliament as early as possible.
However, the committee remains concerned about two powers in the bill. With regard to section 35(1), which confers power on Scottish ministers to make regulations enabling persons who are affected by land to access information about persons in control of that land, the committee is concerned that the absence of policy development appears to have precluded the inclusion of more detail on the face of the bill and has prevented the committee from being in a position to scrutinise the power fully.
The committee recognises that regulations creating a scheme for disclosure of information about individuals are likely to be both substantial and significant, and it is not, in the committee’s view, appropriate to delegate the development of such a significant policy to regulations. The committee therefore invites the Scottish Government to develop the policy on disclosure of information more fully on the face of the bill at stage 2, and it believes that, if the Government is not in a position to do so, an enhanced form of affirmative procedure should be attached to the power.
Similarly, the committee continues to be concerned about the power in proposed new section 38M of the Agricultural Holdings (Scotland) Act 2003, as inserted by section 81 of the bill. It provides that Scottish ministers may, by regulation, make further provision for the sale of an agricultural holding in relation to which the Scottish Land Court has, under new section 38L of the 2003 act, varied an order for sale to allow the holding to be offered for sale on the open market. That significant power will permit the process to be set out wholly in regulations, and the committee considers that the matters that this power will deal with should be set out more fully on the face of the bill.
That brings me to some general observations about the delegated powers in the bill. First, the committee found much of the information that was provided by the Government in the delegated powers memorandum, in oral evidence and in the initial response to the committee’s report to be inadequate and insufficient to enable the committee to form a clear view about the purpose and effect of some of the powers.
Secondly, the committee remains concerned about the absence of policy development in relation to powers that could interact with individuals’ ECHR rights. We, as a committee, think that that approach is wholly unacceptable and consider that policies that might interact significantly with individuals’ ECHR rights should be developed in full on the face of the bill instead of being deferred to regulations.
Finally, the committee reiterates concerns that were most recently expressed in relation to the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Bill that powers are being taken as a substitute for thorough policy development in advance of the introduction of a bill, which leaves the committee with framework bills.
To conclude, the committee welcomes the intimation from the minister that amendments will be lodged at stage 2 to respond to some of the committee’s concerns, but it would welcome further reflection on the powers in section 35 of the bill and proposed new section 38M of the 2003 act.
We now move to the open debate. I invite members who have not yet pressed their request-to-speak buttons to do so.
16:47
The bill represents an opportunity to deliver bold and meaningful land reform, but we have to get the legislation right in the public interest and—just as important—right for the people who live and work in our rural areas that will be particularly affected by it.
The draft bill was a good start, and the RACCE Committee’s report, which was influenced by some very helpful contributions from stakeholders, offers worthwhile suggestions on how to build on that. However, as we are still in the relatively early stages of this process, we have ample opportunity to shape the bill better, and I want to focus my speech on a number of areas where there is just such scope.
There is a virtually unchallenged acceptance of the appropriateness of giving the people of Scotland the right to know who owns, controls and derives benefit from the land. Indeed, Doug McAdam of Scottish Land & Estates, commenting on circumstances in which land ownership is masked by companies or trusts, has said:
“It is crucial that a clear point of contact and ‘face’ of the trust or company is identified—ideally also the beneficial owner if there is one behind that.”
Surely the only debate, then, is over how we secure the greatest and most effective degree of transparency, and the committee makes a number of recommendations in that regard. It would be a positive step forward if there was a power to require rather than request information, with sanctions imposed for non-compliance, and if there were a fit-for-purpose registration process that included a series of asks of those who wished to buy land and register titles in Scotland, requiring them to provide a named contact point in Scotland, detail on who would control the land and might benefit from that ownership and control and, frankly, any other information that could justifiably be required as part of a registration set-up to deliver transparency and accountability. We should and must push the envelope here.
As the report says, the bill could also do with being toughened up in the area of deer management. As it stands, the bill proposes a set of interim measures that could be deployed should a planned review at the end of 2016 indicate a need for a stringent statutory scheme to be introduced. It should be acknowledged that the plans for that review are in keeping with the recommendations of the RACCE Committee in its 2013 report. However, formal and anecdotal evidence left the committee unconvinced that the necessary changes in practice will, at least in some areas, be delivered by the end of 2016. With Scotland’s 2020 biodiversity targets in mind, we cannot take further risks. That is why the committee has called on the Government to ensure that the review kicks off in 2016, and certainly within a timeframe that positions the Government to take action where it is required come the end of the year. I am therefore heartened by the minister’s commitment to look at that issue. The areas in which fully functioning deer management plans are in place will have nothing to fear. Areas in which heels are being dragged need to know that they have only months to get their act together. If nothing else, that will focus minds.
As Rob Gibson highlighted earlier, we also want the Government to amend the bill to arm itself with the powers that the land reform review group recommended, which could be deployed as necessary at the conclusion of the review.
The report calls on the Scottish Government to lodge an amendment to section 25(2) of the bill, which lists the codes of practice that may be prepared by the tenant farming commissioner and includes a statutory code of conduct for land agents as a priority. Other than transparency, if there is one aspect of the report that represents common ground for multiple stakeholders, that is it. There is not a member of the committee or, probably, an MSP who represents a rural area who has not heard horror stories about the actions of some land agents. I urge the minister not only to accept the committee’s recommendation but to ensure that any amendment leads to the consultation on and implementation of such a code being delivered in timely fashion. If we are ever to improve relationships between landowners and tenants, getting a grip of land agents, whose approach to their work is hardly conducive to creating a harmonious environment, is essential.
The committee’s report calls for a number of amendments to the bill but, just as important, it calls for greater clarity and information on the regulation-making powers that are contained in it. We know that any bill of such a size and complexity will contain a significant number of regulation-making powers. The issue with the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill is an absence, at least at this stage, of detail around a number of important provisions, which will be left to secondary legislation. I welcome the minister’s commitment to look at that, and I look forward to receiving a positive response in so far as one can be provided.
Similarly, our and the DPLR Committee’s calls for consideration of the nature of the scrutiny processes for those regulations should be heeded. By the time they come before Parliament, we will have had an election and a number of members who are intimately acquainted with the detail and evolution of the primary legislation will no longer be around to bring their expertise to bear. Just as we need to get the bill right, we need to ensure that the related guidance is as it should be.
I am conscious of the time and look forward to hearing other contributions, so I will draw my remarks to a close.
Like other members, I suspect, I am counting the hours until the Christmas recess. It has been a tough six months going through the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill in the Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee but, in common with my committee colleagues, I am sure, I look forward to returning to the bill in the next year and helping to ensure that it realises its very obvious potential.
16:53
I offer my congratulations to the Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee on producing a very thoughtful and challenging report on an issue that is important to people across Scotland. We have only to look at the passion in the evidence to the committee to see that people really care about the issue. I also commend the convener of the committee, Rob Gibson, for a very powerful speech that outlined the committee’s position.
Land reform is, of course, very dear to the heart of the Labour Party, and I am proud of the work that we did in government to make significant progress on it. I hope that the bill can build on that work.
It is important to recognise that addressing the significant imbalance in ownership of land in Scotland is simply an issue of justice. Our history is scarred by the experience of too many families who were cleared from their land or denied the opportunity to work the land by people who had little regard for the consequences for them. I learned only last night that my great-grandfather was cleared from his home and dumped on the shoreline on the island of Tiree. If we look at the census of that time, we can see that that had an immediate impact on his family. The current concentration of land ownership in the hands of a few graphically illustrates the reinforcing impact of inequality in our society. That is why it should matter.
However, every bit as important is that land reform is also about the economy. It is important that communities are able to tackle depopulation and the flow away from too many of our rural and island communities, which was the hallmark of my parents’ generation and which led to my classroom in Glasgow being full of children from Tiree, Islay, Lewis, Skye and beyond. We have seen excellent examples of how economic activity has been stimulated through community ownership, with a focus on job creation and local enterprise, and through linking to the great opportunity that the internet gives us to allow business to thrive in remote communities.
With land ownership being concentrated in too few hands, some communities have suffered in the past from benign neglect, but lack of interest and indifference have led to paralysis in local development, while in other cases, there are people who would prefer that large swathes of land be left as playgrounds for the few, and whose interests are therefore in direct conflict with the local communities that want jobs and homes for their young people.
As I have said, it is evident that community ownership results, for example, in increased activity in innovation around renewables and community enterprises. What role does the Scottish Government perceive for Community Development Scotland in supporting that focus by communities? It would be significant to have a commitment on that.
It is essential, too, that accessing the right to buy is not overly bureaucratic and that there is a presumption in favour of local communities, given how significant the right to buy can be for them and for Scotland’s diverse economy. To state the obvious, I say that it must not simply be a theoretical right, but one that can be exercised.
It is also essential that land ownership is transparent. The committee report states that the bill
“should be bold in its ambition and clear in its purpose”.
That is particularly important with regard to land ownership. I regret that the proposals on transparency have not been followed through. For example, I cannot understand why there is to be an inhibition on who can seek information on who owns land. It is also a particular regret that the proposal to ensure that legal entities wishing to own land in Scotland should have a registered place of business in the European Union was not accepted. That proposal seems to me to be a logical step to take if we are going to be able to challenge those who own our land. It should be a fundamental right to know who owns, controls and benefits from the land, so I believe that that issue remains to be addressed. How can we encourage dialogue between a landowner and a community if we cannot even establish who the owner is?
I seek assurances from the minister about those aspects and I encourage the Scottish Government to reflect on the potential significance of community land reform on urban settings. I say that not simply because our cities are full of the descendants of migrants from the islands and Highlands, whose migration reflected in past times failures of the land-ownership system. We also know that in more populated areas—our towns and cities—there are problems with land ownership and land neglect, which can cause blight, prevent development and result in lost potential.
I urge support for the bill, but I recognise that challenges still face the Scottish Government, given the strength of feeling about land issues. I also urge the Government to respond to the committee report and to recognise that there is energy and commitment in our urban communities as well as in our rural communities, which can be harnessed to ensure that land use is more productive for those communities and for the economy as a whole.
16:58
It has certainly been quite a journey since June, as we have travelled the length and breadth of the country taking evidence during stage 1 and have taken well over 200 submissions of written and oral evidence, which has been extremely helpful in bringing our stage 1 report to a conclusion.
I will probably run out of time later in my speech, as I normally do, so I will join the convener and others now in paying tribute to the work of the Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee clerking team and the Scottish Parliament information centre, whose help and assistance have been immense. As teams go they are, if not the best, up there with them. I look forward to continuing to work with them as we complete stages 2 and 3 in the coming months.
It is clear that the bill has helped to ensure an energising and exciting debate around land reform throughout the country, which will no doubt continue over the next few months and after the bill becomes an act. The bill is clearly radical, but there simply is not the time or capacity to address every issue that needs to be addressed, which is why the proposal to create a Scottish land commission will help to move forward any outstanding issues or unfinished business and ensure that they are not kicked into the long grass, but are dealt with in a timely manner.
On the proposal that the land commission have six commissioners, I am particularly pleased that the committee calls on the Scottish Government to ensure that there is a Gaelic speaker among them. Rob Gibson, the committee’s convener, has already referred to that. If the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government are to show Gaelic the equal respect that has been legislated for in this chamber, through the Gaelic Language (Scotland) Act 2005, they should both put their money where their mouths are. There is already a legal requirement that there should be a Gaelic speaker on the Crofting Commission and the Land Court. I firmly believe that, to ensure that the new Scottish land commission has an understanding of the complex history that has left land ownership in Scotland where it is today, it is imperative that the commissioners have available to them the knowledge that would come with a Gaelic speaker.
I reassure Angus MacDonald that we agree that one of the land commissioners should be a Gaelic speaker. The Scottish Government recognises the cultural importance of the Gaelic language, which is why we have committed to lodging a stage 2 amendment on the matter. We hope that, in the public appointments process, we are able to appoint at least one commissioner with the required expertise who is also a Gaelic speaker, but that will be a matter for the Scottish land commission.
I very warmly welcome that commitment from the minister. It gives the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government the opportunity to highlight that Gaelic is a living language and that we must show it equal respect.
The release of the committee’s stage 1 report, a week ago last Friday at the Registers of Scotland offices at Meadowbank house, coincided with the news that the Pairc estate community buyout had reached a successful conclusion. I am sure that that was music to all our ears. It has been 12 long years since the Pairc Trust was formed and 11 long years since the community agreed to pursue buyout from a hostile absentee landlord. It is hoped that, when the bill completes stage 3, it will ensure that a saga such as the Pairc buyout can never happen again. The provisions in part 5—in particular, sections 38 to 65—will introduce a new right to buy land “to further sustainable development”. Those provisions are in addition to the community right to buy and the crofting community right to buy, which are already in place and were recently amended by the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015, and the new provisions relating to the extension of the community right to buy “abandoned or neglected” land.
The proposed new right to buy for communities “to further sustainable development” that is contained in the bill is very welcome, but the committee asks the Government to consider whether the test thresholds are too high and whether communities will be able to make full use of the provisions. The committee recommends that the Scottish Government consider the benefits of local authorities, other public bodies and/or Scottish ministers being able to buy land for present or future community use as a buyer of last resort, and that it consider whether the bill could be amended in that regard at stage 2. It is worth noting the NFU Scotland’s concerns about that aspect of the bill until the community right to buy is properly defined.
I turn briefly to part 6 and the committee’s significant concerns regarding the introduction of non-domestic business rates for shooting and deer forests. Through the stage 1 process, it became abundantly clear to the committee, which strongly supported the principle, that a great deal more detail in the policy is still required. That is why we are calling on the Scottish Government to provide, as soon as possible, a thorough, robust and evidence-based analysis of the potential economic, social and environmental impacts of ending the sporting rights exemption. That must certainly be provided before the start of stage 2 if the committee is to be in a position to support part 6, which it would clearly like to do. There is no doubt in my mind that, if the rates exemption were successfully removed, in addition to raising funds for the Scottish land fund and possibly for other options such as funding for modern apprenticeship training in rural areas, that would be another step towards creating a more balanced rural land market.
The committee wishes to see the bill strengthened—as, I am sure, the minister and the Scottish Government do—but it is clear that we must be realistic about what can be achieved in the given timescales. As land reform is an on-going process, what is not achieved in this bill can be dealt with in the next session of Parliament and by the new land commissioners in the Scottish land commission. Nevertheless, it is a good bill and I am sure that we can, if we all work together with the Scottish Government in the run-up to stages 2 and 3, make it better.
17:04
In his final speech at a Scottish conference, Charles Kennedy made a Charles Kennedyesque contribution on land reform. He is missed throughout politics for many reasons, but he was certainly the passionate west Highlander when it came to land reform. I suspect that he would agree with much in the bill, as we Liberal Democrats do.
I was reflecting on Sarah Boyack’s point of order at the start of the debate. In her opening remarks, the minister said that the bill is complex and she is entirely right about that. She also said that the bill is not being rushed, but the more I have heard today, the more concerned I am that we are rushing an extremely complex piece of legislation. Having heard the remarks of the conveners of the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee and the Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee, it is clear that this is a complex bill. The Government has already said that it will lodge profoundly important amendments at stage 2. We will also have to see what happens at stage 3.
What Angus MacDonald has just said is also absolutely right. The need to scrutinise a major piece of legislation at the tail-end of a parliamentary session, and to get it right, is a significant challenge for Parliament. I wonder whether today’s debate should have been on a motion to take note in order to allow the debate that the minister said she wanted to have, and then for the Government to bring its stage 1 debate when it has provided its full response to the Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee’s very full deliberations, which—as Sarah Boyack pointed out—run into hundreds of pages and, no doubt, many tens of recommendations. I hope that the Government will reflect on that.
Sarah Boyack and Johann Lamont also mentioned the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003, which Jim Wallace, the then Deputy First Minister, took through Parliament. I remember well that the bill changed remarkably from its introduction to Parliament through the stage 1 debate, which reflected well on all those who at that time contributed to the debate making clear their wish to see aspects of the bill strengthened or changed. If I may say so, it also reflected well on a Government that was prepared to listen; I hope that the current Government will do the same with this complex and challenging bill.
Many measures in the bill are positive. As the minister and other members have said, it is profoundly right to have transparency about who owns land; that should be taken forward in all the right ways. I get a little bit concerned about the tired old debate that we tend to hear about landowners and who or what they might be. The other day, I came across an article about Glenfeshie in the Scottish Wildlife Trust’s magazine. Glenfeshie, which is owned by a Dane, Anders Povlsen, is one of the most fantastic parts of Scotland. Since 2006, Povlsen has culled deer, regenerated the pine forest and made fundamental changes to habitat management and restoration. He is surely an exemplar for all that can be good about working with the community and people who live in the area and depend on the land, and for doing all the right things for a part of Scotland that is now better than it was before such a substantial part of our country came under his stewardship.
It is a good point that there are many good landowners in the country, but the bill is about when we do not know who owns the land and it is not possible to have a conversation with them.
I agree with that point. It is the very point that I was making about transparency and the measures that are in the bill that many of us would like to be strengthened. That is a fair observation.
I want to touch on the agricultural holdings aspects of the bill. As Rob Gibson made clear, those provisions make up half the bill. I share the view that the two issues should not be lumped together. We are talking about complex legislation. We got it wrong in 2003; all who were there will remember that we got it wrong on a cross-party basis. There was huge pressure on the Government of the day to make the legislative change, and it was supported by all parties. We are talking about a difficult area of law.
As Alex Fergusson put it, we can agree with the clear aspiration in the principles of the bill about the vibrancy of the tenanted sector and about encouraging and ensuring greater availability of land to let. That is as it should be. However, we must ensure that we do not put tenant farmers through years and years of complex legal mechanisms that will benefit only lawyers.
Whether the issue involves ECHR, which Graeme Dey mentioned, or other legal challenges, I cannot think of anything that would be worse with regard to encouraging the rented tenanted sector than Parliament passing rushed legislation that makes the situation worse than it was before. That will not be the intention of the minister or the Government, but it is important, because of the complexity of the issue, that we do not rush it and get it wrong.
I was taken with the group that the cabinet secretary chaired to review the tenanted sector, and I thought that the appointment of Andrew Thin as interim tenant commissioner was sensible. He is a substantial figure who has already worked with many groups to make substantial progress on rent reviews, tenants’ improvements, limited partnerships and landlord-tenant obligations. All those issues need to be addressed in exactly the same spirit. I saw in the briefing that was provided by NFU Scotland for today’s debate that it acknowledges the importance of the statutory powers being properly and proactively enforced.
There is great good will to make the proposals work and to make progress. However, I worry about some of the stage 2 amendments that the minister said the Government will lodge. I think that if we move into a discussion of the right to buy we will get bogged down in the courts and, again, the people who will benefit will be the lawyers—not tenants.
This bill is important and it needs to be properly scrutinised. The issues that have been raised by many members today mean that we need as much time as Parliament can give to ensure that proper scrutiny takes place.
17:11
I, too, thank the clerks and others in SPICe and elsewhere for all the work that they have done over the past period in relation to the bill.
I will deal with some of the fundamental issues in the bill and the committee’s report. Obviously, land is a national asset. It has to be used in the public interest and for the common good. Those are fundamental issues that we must take into account when we consider any land issues. I believe that land reform—in the form of this bill—is the most important issue that the Scottish Parliament has dealt with in this session and perhaps in its existence.
If we consider who owns the land, it is helpful to look at psalm 24, which says:
“The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it,
the world, and all who live in it”.
Further, Leviticus says:
“The land shall not be sold forever: for the land is mine; for you are strangers and sojourners with me.”
That means that, fundamentally, nobody owns the land but God. Adam and Eve did not own the land; they were tenants. We are stewards and we must look after the land. Theologically and practically, land and community are inextricably linked, and each must benefit the other. Land and community are paramount, and all of society must benefit from the use of land.
Much land is used for hunting, shooting and fishing. Here is what Neil Gunn had to say about the rights of the people in that regard in his novel, “Butcher’s Broom”:
“The men also went hunting the hill for deer and the river for salmon; and so ancient had been their gaming rights, that no new laws or restrictions in favour of landlord or lessee could ever convict them in their own minds of poaching. And if poaching it must be called, then so much the greater the zest in its pursuit.”
I quote these passages to put the issues that we are discussing into a historical context. Elsewhere in Neil Gunn’s novel, the Duke of Sutherland says to his good lady wife:
“It really comes to this … that what benefits the landlord benefits the nation … I admit that what has been said by some of your Gaelic enthusiasts has sometimes irritated me. A landlord must have absolute power over tenancy arrangements on his own land. If you cannot, within the law, do what you like with your own, the whole basis of our state is dissolved. I simply will brook no interference, in the slightest degree, with my absolute ownership of my own lands.”
That goes right against the tenancy argument that related to Adam and Eve. Fortunately, most landowners do not think like that any more but, believe me, there are landowners who do. The law that allowed clan chiefs to claim their people’s land for themselves was made by the rich and powerful for the rich and powerful.
I accept that there are good landowners. However, the bill is not about good landowners; it is about dealing with the bad ones. Scottish Land & Estates is still flexing its muscles and threatening the Government with multimillion-pound legal challenges if we go ahead with the bill.
The ECHR is extremely important and the bill must comply with it. We also have to take account of other things, such as the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the United Nations “Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security”.
There is no doubt that the bill deals with a complex issue. The editor of one of my local papers, the West Highland Free Press, seemed to doubt that the Scottish Government was committed to any kind of radical land reform. Well, the bill is radical. Once the land commission is created, it will consider land issues day in, day out, week in, week out and month in, month out for evermore. The registration of land will ensure that we know who owns it.
I thank the minister for her comments about a Gaelic-speaking commissioner. I ask members to consider this: if the six land commissioners, including the tenant farming commissioner, were all Gaelic-speaking crofters from Sutherland, or were all merchant bankers from Edinburgh, which land commission would do the best job for the people of Scotland?
We need to deal with a conditional right to buy for 1991 act secure tenants. We need to give them the opportunity, because that is a boil that needs to be lanced. There could be conditions with a prescribed timeframe, the choice to sell the holding to the landlord if the tenant wished, the choice to accept a lower value with a lifetime tenancy to, say, the age of 65 and a right of pre-emption in favour of the landowner should the tenancy be sold on. We need to have that debate and deal with the issue. If we do not, that will sour the whole thing as we move forward.
17:17
I am pleased to speak on this significant bill that the Parliament has been considering. It introduces a range of new proposals, many of which are commendable in their aims, but some of which are ill thought out and potentially damaging to jobs, farming and the right to own property. Because of that, my party will not support the bill at stage 1. The Scottish Government needs to go back and think again on land reform.
A number of provisions in the bill would not be in the interest of landowners or communities in my constituency in the Borders. Part 6, which will reintroduce business rates for shootings and deer forests, the vast majority of which run at a loss, will inevitably cost jobs in my constituency. Reintroducing rates could also have the perverse effect of ensuring that shooting was carried out only on large estates, which would result in poorer land maintenance and a rise in deer populations. Estates in the Borders will be put at a competitive disadvantage to those that are across the border in north Northumberland, which will mean that jobs will certainly be lost. Unusually in a Scottish National Party-dominated Parliament, the committee report notes that the case for changing that policy has not been made.
The Scottish Government appears too quick to stereotype landowners as wealthy individuals who do not work in the interests of local communities or of the land that they own. As the NFUS has put it, the them-and-us attitude is not an accurate portrait. The reality is that landowners are more often than not hard-working stewards of the land who contribute to tourism, employment and housing.
The most worrying example of the Scottish Government’s view is in part 5, which allows the Government to force landowners to sell their land if ministers decide that they are not using it in the way that ministers wish them to. I accept that the bill allows that provision to be used only to further sustainable development, and only when significant harm to the community if the land was not transferred has been identified, coupled with a significant benefit to the community if the land was transferred. However, the bill defines neither sustainable development, nor significant benefit, nor significant harm. The problem with that is that the proposed right to buy is potentially very wide ranging, to a much greater extent than existing rights to buy. MSPs are being asked to approve the provisions in principle without knowing how they would work in practice.
The provisions clearly interact with the European convention on human rights—most notably the right to peaceful enjoyment of possessions. The Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee has said that it was
“unable to confirm to Parliament whether these powers are to be exercised in a manner that is compatible with ECHR.”
The committee’s report noted:
“This is a matter of concern to the Committee.”
It should be a matter of concern to all of us.
I am concerned that those provisions are rooted in the SNP ideology that the state knows best. At the very least, there are clearly questions to be answered over whether the provisions are proportionate and, therefore, legal. No one in the Parliament wants the eventual legislation to be challenged in the courts but, given how the bill is drafted, that is a real possibility.
The member referred to the rest of Europe. Does he know that in the Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee—on which I am a substitute—we heard about the SAFER system in France, which very much controls the sale of any kind of land? That system is a lot stricter than what is proposed in the bill.
I am not familiar with that French legislation. We are considering the concerns that the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee raised, which we need to take on board. I suggest that the Scottish Government needs to reflect on the bill and to ensure that it is amended so that there is no issue about compatibility with ECHR.
There are other concerns about part 5—for example, it is unclear whether the intention is for the provisions to act as a deterrent to any landowners who are causing significant harm or to empower communities by providing realistic ownership opportunities.
As the stage 1 report points out, it would not be appropriate for Government officials to be providing advice to third parties that were seeking to exercise the new right to buy as well as processing and deciding on applications.
My party fully agrees with some of the intentions behind the bill, but the stage 1 report concludes that, in too many cases, the bill fails to achieve its aims. First, the provisions that are designed to improve the transparency of land ownership—something that I agree needs to be tackled—are, according to the Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee,
“unlikely to deliver the improved transparency about those who not only own land, but control or benefit from land, that the Scottish Government is seeking”.
Not only will part 10—on which my colleague Alex Fergusson dissented from the committee’s comments—fail to meet the stated aims of the bill, but it will make things worse. The bill seeks to reinforce the rights of tenants while encouraging people with land to let their property. There are defects in the current acts of Parliament that govern that, but the complex changes that the bill proposes will not diversify land tenure. Furthermore, concerns were raised by witnesses and by the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee that too much in part 10 is being left to secondary legislation.
When the committee visited the Scottish Borders, part 10 dominated discussions. The Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs, Food and Environment has admitted that he is limited in producing amendments because of time constraints. I cannot support a bad piece of proposed legislation that will make an already complex area of the law even worse. At the very least, part 10 should be taken out and improved.
The bill is far from satisfactory. Perhaps because it tries to do too much, it fails to achieve many of its aims. Because of the damaging proposals over a new right to buy, the reintroduction of rates for sporting estates and the problems that surround the sections on agricultural holdings, my party cannot support the bill at stage 1.
17:24
Land reform is unfinished business, and the bill will not be the last word on the matter. It sometimes appears that we have come a long way since the Assynt crofters struggled to buy their land, but—as Angus MacDonald mentioned—the Pairc community in Lewis bought its estate earlier this month following a 13-year struggle, despite legislation that was supposed to make purchasing land easier for such communities. It was only due to the community’s perseverance that it achieved that goal; many other communities would have given up years ago.
We need to ensure that, when we introduce new legislation, we are not putting new barriers in front of communities that seek to buy their land. There are many natural barriers already. For instance, a majority of the community needs to agree to the purchase, and anyone who works with communities will know that getting that level of agreement is difficult; indeed, it is almost impossible, and happens only when the current situation is untenable. Similarly, people do not want the responsibility of managing an estate. If the estate is currently being well run and managed, why would they want to take on that responsibility? There would be no community benefit and no advantage.
Finally, in order to carry forward such a plan, communities need strong community leaders with staying power. Many communities that would benefit from owning their own land simply do not have the leadership, and the idea never progresses. A community needs a number of people with knowledge and stamina to lead a buy-out, and those people need to keep their community with them every step of the way.
Therefore, there are natural checks and balances in the system without others being added. Obviously a buy-out must be in the public interest and must have the goal of promoting sustainable economic development. The bill that is before us today should not make that harder.
In the Highlands and Islands, the land reform movement is particularly important given what history tells us about the clearances and the land raids. The fight against poverty—the fight for equality—has always come down to who owns the land and who has the right to work it. That still resonates today, possibly because of our history, with people having been driven off the land or into poverty—as Johann Lamont said—by being moved to the poorer land on the shore because of others’ lack of concern for their work and wellbeing.
Sadly, we still see that happening today, although less so in the crofting counties where people have rights to their crofts and a degree of security; but many of those scenarios are still played out in farming tenancies. Tenants desperately need security and the right to have a say over their own destiny, and that is true for all who work on the land.
We must right the wrongs of the past. The clearances appear to be ancient history until you look around and see that many communities are still struggling to survive because of the clearances. If you walk through many Highland glens, you will come across the ruins of villages that were once vibrant communities. We really need people to return to those glens. There are powers to create new crofts, but that process has stalled. How can we build our economy and improve our services without people?
The land reform issue goes much wider than land. The land is a driver for the wellbeing of our communities. It is an economic driver, and one of our prime resources, and where it is managed for the benefit of the community we see communities flourish and grow; where it is not, we see them wither and fail. Depopulation has haunted the Highlands and Islands since the clearances, and I hope that the bill will help. Giving the new land commission and Highlands and Islands Enterprise powers to address depopulation and repopulation might go a long way towards righting those past wrongs.
People living and working on the land should know to whom that land belongs. Far too often, estates are owned by faceless companies or a string of companies, and it is impossible for people to know to whom they should turn when they need to make improvements or changes. Offshore companies often hold sway, with no accountability at all. The bill addresses the issue of who should own land and how transparent that ownership should be. People have a right to know who owns the land that they work.
Back when we considered the Land Registration etc (Scotland) Bill in Parliament, there was an opportunity to include a register of beneficial owners in the bill, but sadly the Government defeated that amendment. That said, I welcome the change of heart, which I suspect is in some way due to the minister’s intervention. I very much welcome the fact that she has taken that stance. I cannot understand why such transparency would be a problem, and we need to strengthen that part of the bill.
When someone opens a bank account, they have to prove who they are and that they will not use it for fraudulent purposes and the like. Anyone who has opened an account recently will know about the hoops that one has to jump through. Land is an asset and is often the currency in which people hold their wealth, and they receive tax breaks and the like. Surely the same checks and balances should be required for those who are buying an estate.
Several members have spoken about the ECHR. An individual’s human rights are always secondary to the human rights of wider society. I firmly believe that the ECHR is not a barrier to land reform; in fact, it is a driver of land reform if we take account of the wider human rights of our communities.
I welcome the bill and I hope that it will be greatly strengthened at stage 2. If it is, parts of the country that have been ignored for far too long will be empowered to build their own futures, which will be of benefit not only to them but to all of us.
17:30
I, too, agree with colleagues who would have liked to have seen the Government’s response to the stage 1 report before the debate. Perhaps in future we can look at dates, have a bit more liaison and ensure that we have the Government’s response.
Land is limited. It is also emotional and personal. Our homes are on land, we live off the land and nations are defined by their land. We all need land, but access to and ownership of it are unequal. The land inequity in Scotland today is vast and totally out of step with the situation for many of our European neighbours. Patterns of land ownership in our neighbouring nations are typically 1,000 times less concentrated than in Scotland. Not only do relatively few people own most of Scotland but around a quarter of all estates over 1,000 acres have been held by the same families for more than 400 years.
That is the history that we live with today and which the Parliament is slowly beginning to overcome. As we have heard, land reform is a broad topic that covers rural and urban areas as well as the marine environment. The issue is inextricably linked to local democracy, fiscal policy, land prices and human rights. Scottish Greens have always seen radical land reform as a vital element of the journey towards a more sustainable, equal and prosperous Scotland. I hope that the bill is the start of the Scottish Parliament taking a renewed and sustained interest in the issue, whether that is through greater devolution, empowering local authorities through tax reform or community empowerment.
The provisions on transparency are important. The question of who owns and benefits from land is a key one, and I believe that the electorate are entitled to full transparency about who really owns Scotland. There is no simple way to deliver complete transparency but, unfortunately, the Government’s proposal is unworkable. Section 35 limits those who can make requests for information and section 36 contains no measures to compel any company in, for example, Grand Cayman to reveal anything at all about who is in control of it. The proposal is unenforceable and will continue to allow Scottish landowners to be involved in complex schemes of tax avoidance and evasion and secrecy. The best option on the table by far is to allow only EU-registered companies to own land. We welcome the committee’s recommendations on that point.
Fiscal reform is also a core part of land reform. I fully support bringing shootings and deer forests back on to the valuation roll. Of course no one likes to pay tax, especially if it is a tax from which they have had an exemption, but there is more than enough evidence that that should happen. As the land reform expert Andy Wightman puts it,
“Why should caravan sites, pubs and local shops subsidise those who occupy shootings and deer forests?”
He says that
“the hair salon, village shop, pub and garage are subject to rating”,
but
“deer forests and shootings pay nothing.”
As the land reform review group made clear:
“there is no clear public interest case in maintaining the current universal exemption of agriculture, forestry and other land based businesses from non-domestic rates.”
The conclusions of a House of Commons Scottish Affairs Committee report this year raised similar concerns that the exemptions are not having the desired impact, that they should be open to the same level of scrutiny as other Government spending and that they could in fact be pushing up land prices and undermining the Scottish Government’s commitment to increase the amount of land in community ownership.
Bold land reform is needed for Scotland, and it could help to deliver more affordable homes. Current rates exemptions for vacant and derelict land and for empty industrial buildings incentivise people to keep land in urban areas vacant. All of that land could be used for homes for people. There is almost 11,000 hectares of vacant or derelict urban land in Scotland and a massive demand for affordable homes.
The point that Alison Johnstone makes about sporting rates in relation to garages is odd. Sporting rates will be levied in Scotland as an extra tax, but there is no extra tax on garages.
I am sure that Jamie McGrigor will agree that when the King of Dubai, who is the Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates, is paying absolutely nothing and a local caravan site is paying some £12,000 a year, there is a massive discrepancy. I do not see why some local businesses should be subject to non-domestic rates while shooting estates and the like are not.
Where was I? I was speaking about vacant land in Scotland. We have so much of it and it is untaxed. We also have massive problems with homelessness. We heard earlier today that 54,000 households in Scotland are homeless.
What about the appalling situation in which Andrew Stoddart and his family found themselves? It brought tenant farming rights up the agenda again, and rightly so. Poor housing issues jumped out during the RACCE Committee’s evidence gathering, and I learned that homes under agricultural tenancies are exempt from the minimum standard. Clearly, there are improvements to be made in that area, and I support the calls for a tenant’s right to buy in specific circumstances.
I will flag up a couple of things that Scottish Greens think should be included in the bill. There are numerous examples of common land that is not on the register passing quietly into public ownership. We should create a new protective order for land without an identifiable owner, which should require the keeper to conduct a public consultation, to help to ascertain the true legal status of the land well before any title is registered. Finally, we have left on the statute book a piece of legislation called the Division of Commonties Act 1695. It was one of the legal tools that were used to privatise vast tracts of common land. The 1695 act should be repealed to protect the few patches of common land that remain and to signal our break from the land grabs of the past.
We will support the bill today, but there is much to be done before stage 2.
17:37
I am pleased to have the opportunity to contribute to the debate and, as a member of the Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee, to help shape a good bill into an even better one. I assure the minister that she has strong support on SNP benches—and outside the chamber—in the task that she has said that she is undertaking to do that. It can be done.
The Land Reform (Scotland) Bill is complex and wide ranging. I do not have time to touch on every issue, but I associate myself with much that the convener said about the key issues. I will mention transparency. I am old enough to remember the groundbreaking work of John McEwen, who died in 1992 at the age of 104 and who devoted his life to asking the question of who owns Scotland. He and many others who have pursued that aim would be incredulous if the Scottish Parliament, which did not even exist when he lived, did not answer that question fully. That question must be answered.
The overriding intent of the bill is to redefine the relationship of the people of Scotland with their land, and that task must rest upon the four founding principles of this Parliament. Our approach to land must be accessible, accountable and based on equality, and it must further the sharing of power. It is vitally important that the Parliament accepts that the rights of property are not the only rights that can be exercised or are legally enforceable in 21st-century Scotland, and it is very important that the Parliament takes steps to make that acceptance real and effective.
The convener quoted Kirsteen Shields, who wrote in “The Spectator” some weeks ago. She pointed out the political and legal obligation on the Scottish Government to pursue land reform as a human rights measure. Human rights issues are not peripheral to the bill—they are the reason for it. They are the reason for moving forward, and they must be embedded in the work of the land commission.
Land is an asset for the whole of Scotland, not just those who are wealthy enough to buy it or lucky enough to inherit it. The people have a right to benefit from it. Communities and individuals must be able to enforce their rights, and those rights must include the right to be consulted.
My constituents in Carrick Castle, down in Loch Goil, know that only too well. Planning law has not in itself been able to protect them from an individual who has bought 12.5 square miles of land and is building what appears to be a hunting lodge, without asking anyone for permission except the Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park Authority. The community has been ignored.
Parts 1 and 4 of the bill have to be strengthened to ensure that such abuse cannot and does not happen in 21st-century Scotland. As the minister knows, the language of the policy memorandum in relation to part 4 needs to be in the bill, to prevent state landlords, including local authorities, from refusing to ask and refusing to listen.
Secondly, communities must be able to obtain land from those who either do not wish to work with their fellow citizens or are not using land to benefit the greater good. I very much welcome the minister’s response to Sarah Boyack on compulsory sale orders; I am glad that the approach is being considered. There are circumstances, albeit that they might be few in number, in which a minister should be able to order the sale of a property to a community.
Thirdly, deer management requires urgent action and part 8 needs to be imbued with a much greater sense of determination, as do the actions of SNH. I was the minister who started off the merger between the Deer Commission for Scotland and SNH—frankly, I expected better of that merger.
In reality, and by SNH’s own admission, no one knows how many deer there are in Scotland, and in many places no proper counts have taken place for a decade or more. If a third of the population is not culled every year, the size of the herd will increase. That leads to environmental degradation; it is also cruel to the animals themselves.
It is unconscionable if that is happening as a deliberate policy; it is intolerable if it is merely the result of incompetence and a system that does not work. There is a need to take legislative action sooner rather than later. Tying the matter to environmental sustainability would be a good start, as the Scottish Wildlife Trust suggested.
Finally, although the tenancy proposals move in the right direction, they still give too much power to the landowner and too little to the tenant. I very much support the cabinet secretary in his desire for stability in the tenanted sector, but, as he knows, I am sceptical about the ability to secure in a single bill the means to increase tenants’ rights while inculcating new confidence in those who let land.
This is not the view of the committee, but I believe that at some stage the state will have to intervene to make land available for tenanting, as indeed was the case with the Agriculture (Scotland) Act 1948. That is presently outwith the scope of the bill, but I am sure that it is something that the Scottish land commission will ultimately have to consider.
It is necessary that we come to a conclusion now about the right to buy for 1991 act tenants. It is not good enough for the Law Society of Scotland to dismiss the issue as one that should never be raised again, as it did in its briefing for this debate. For many of my constituents in places such as Islay and Bute, the issue is a core matter, not one of lofty legal abstraction. It will not go away, and it has to be resolved.
The bill should also tackle the plight of the small landholders whose situation has not yet been rectified, despite attempts to use crofting law, and whose rents, in places such as Arran, are being raised again.
There are many other things that might and will be discussed in this debate, but there is an overriding imperative that we must all remember as the bill moves to its next stage, as I hope that it will do. The issues that the bill addresses are certainly emotive for some people, but they are emotive because they are about not only how people earn their living but how they live and have lived.
Scotland will be the richer if we engage more and more people in the issue of land and its relationship to our future. We will also be the stronger if we ensure that our legislation recognises that rights are about more than money and that equality and equity need to be embedded.
I am afraid that you must close, please.
The bill is a good attempt to take those matters further. With the help of many people outside this chamber and many people inside it, we can take steps to deliver something that is worthy of our country in the 21st century.
If members keep to their six minutes, I might be able to call everyone who wants to speak.
17:43
I refer members to my agricultural interests in the register of members’ interests.
I thank the organisations who provided briefings in advance of the debate and I thank members of the RACCE Committee for their stage 1 report. I draw the Parliament’s attention to the briefing from the National Farmers Union, which says:
“any land reform must focus on what is done with the land, rather than who owns it.”
I also concur with Alex Fergusson on the need to revisit the agricultural holdings provisions outwith the bill, because, as drafted, the bill cannot achieve the twin aims of reinvigorating the tenanted sector and increasing the availability of land if it creates an environment that discourages people from making land available.
There has been a lot of rhetoric from the Scottish Government, so I want to start by putting two basic facts on the record.
Fact 1 is that private landowners contribute significantly to the Scottish economy, as economic studies have shown. There are many examples of good practice and significant investments being made that are helping to sustain jobs, provide affordable rural housing and boost economic growth in often fragile and remote rural communities. We should all welcome that.
Fact 2 is that the costs of maintaining land and estates in good order are significant. Drainage, fencing, upkeep of agricultural and domestic buildings and cross-compliance, to name just a few things, are all practical costs. In many cases, those costs would fall to the public purse if ownership was transferred from individuals. That must be factored in to decisions on land tenure, and it is surely a serious consideration when there is already such pressure on public expenditure.
The member says that, if land is taken over by communities, the cost of support for it might fall to the public purse. Is it not the case that many private landowners rely on the public purse in order to maintain their land?
It is true that landowners receive EU subsidies to do with agriculture.
The Scottish Conservatives are clear that community ownership plays a positive part in land management—again, there are some good examples—but so, too, does private land ownership.
It was a Conservative Government that introduced the Land Tenure Reform (Scotland) Act 1974, and in the 1990s we introduced the Transfer of Crofting Estates (Scotland) Act 1997. At the highly successful future of crofting conference that I helped to convene with Jean Urquhart in Inverness last weekend, I saw the famous Scottish author and land reform expert Professor Jim Hunter, who told me that the record of Conservative Governments on land reform is better than that of any other party. I thought that it was good of a man who may not be a natural Conservative to speak so frankly and truthfully and to give credit where it is due.
We, too, support the proposals in part 4 of the bill to increase community engagement, which provides benefits for everyone concerned, and we look to the Scottish Government to produce appropriate guidance on that. However, I share the concerns that have been expressed about aspects of part 5 and the community right to buy. It is to be regretted that the provisions risk stopping investment from estates and could impact on landowners who already manage their land well whether through agriculture, forestry, sporting or any other land-based activity. Ministers have said that good landowners have nothing to fear, but that is contradicted in relation to the sustainable development intervention powers. The Scottish Government needs to look hard at the problem and address the concerns.
I also support Alex Fergusson’s comments on the potential impact on individuals’ ECHR rights. We are all aware that, with the Salvesen-related claims, we are in the midst of the fallout from a previous breach of ECHR as a result of land reform legislation. How much does the Scottish Government think the compensation bill will be for settling those claims? What assessment have ministers made of the cost of future compensation claims if certain provisions in the bill are passed as they stand or, indeed, are taken further?
On part 6, which reintroduces non-domestic rates for shootings, I have serious concerns that the extra tax is a retrograde step that can only lessen the viability of enterprises by making them non-competitive with those across the border. They employ people in some of our rural communities that are most under pressure. By doing what it proposes, the Government might drive away what is an important land activity to the rural economy, resulting in unemployment and less money going to the Scottish Government. I welcome the RACCE Committee’s call for the Scottish Government to provide a thorough analysis of the proposal.
On the deer management proposals in part 8, I flag up the concerns among deer managers about the suggestion that even greater powers should go to SNH to allow it to set cull targets. Deer management, by its nature, involves a ground-up approach. A top-down approach to it would run contrary to the nature of deer management, with its cross-sectoral collaboration.
I cannot leave the subject of land reform without mentioning the Scottish Gamekeepers Association’s excellent document “A Future for Moorland in Scotland: The need for a locational strategy”. I implore the Scottish Government to study that remarkable document in detail as it contains so much practical and scientific knowledge on Scotland’s open moorland, which makes up such a huge area of our land—more than half of our country, in fact. That will help us to make the most of this unique asset, which Scotland is lucky enough to possess.
You must draw to a close, please.
There is, after all, a Scottish forestry strategy. Surely the Scottish Government should also have a Scottish moorland strategy.
17:50
Good evening, Presiding Officer. It is a pleasure to talk about the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill. The Labour Party paved the way for radical reform of land ownership and delivered the first phase of reform. Scotland is getting ready for the next phase. It has been a shaky start by the Scottish Government, I must say, but I wish it well in getting to grips with the issue. I hope that the minister is hearing my good wishes, although she seems to be deep in conversation.
I am afraid that I do not think that either minister is listening, given that they are chatting together. Please continue, Mr Malik.
For the minister’s benefit, I will repeat that I was wishing her well in getting to grips with land reform. I know that she is keen to do a good job on that.
I thank the member for his comments. I was just clarifying a matter with the rural affairs secretary.
That is fine. Thank you.
To build on what has been done in Scotland and other countries, we must look closely at both policy and practice in recent years. Since the first set of reforms in Scotland, the debate has developed and human rights, environment and transparency of ownership issues have become increasingly important—and why not? They are equally important.
Land reform is not just about the ownership of land but about how it is used. We must strive to get a balance between land rights and responsibilities and between the rights of tenants and their landlords.
The Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee’s report on the bill states that reforms should be
“explicitly set within the context of other international human rights obligations”.
That is important.
I agree with Scottish Environment LINK’s suggestion that there should be full definitions of what is meant by terms such as “community”, “community assets”, “sustainable development” and “land reform”. That is important if the bill is to become a comprehensive and coherent statement of policy and be a meaningful change.
Another important point is that if the reforms are to be meaningful, the thresholds for the proposed new right to buy for communities must allow communities to have the opportunity to buy land to further sustainable development. I support the committee in asking the Government to consider whether the test thresholds are too high and whether communities will be able to make full use of the provisions. There is no point in having enabling legislation if it cannot be used in practice.
I have experienced land issues and land reform in different countries. It is a minefield, with so much confusion. In particular, land that has shareholders must be clearly defined in terms of ownership as well as value, because there is nothing worse than land disputes destroying families as well as businesses.
I know for a fact the Nicola Sturgeon was keen to see the bill introduced and delivered for the people of Scotland. However, the Government has been very slow to share information. In sharing information far too late, it has not only let itself and Nicola Sturgeon down; it has let the people of Scotland down. I understand that it is difficult and I am not criticising the minister, but I must say that the team has let her down. I know that the minister has been active in other committees and it is not like her whatsoever.
I just hope that we can get more information before the recess so that people are better able to study what is proposed. I think that that is very important, because many countries have grappled with land reform. I appreciate that it is not easy, but it is extremely important that information is shared at this early stage, because we need to get the bill right. There is nothing worse than rushing things at the last minute.
I wish the minister well, and I look forward to the information being provided as soon as possible so that we can all have a better look at what is proposed. Delivering the right policies for the people of Scotland is very important, and I am sure that the minister would want that to happen.
17:55
I would like to recommend a book that everybody should read in order to better understand the passion with which we should deal with land reform—“Our Scots Noble Families”, by Tom Johnston, who, famously, was possibly the best Secretary of State for Scotland we ever had. It explains how land was acquired by some of the landowners who are still there today.
There is no doubt that the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003 was welcome and that it has only fed the desire for more and better legislation on land reform. I will not go over all the issues that have been covered by others, such as how the Highland estates that Rhoda Grant referred to came about, but I would like to challenge John Lamont’s point that it is the people who own the land who know best how to work it. In defence of landowners, he said that the state does not know best. I suggest that nothing that we are talking about here is about the state knowing best; it is about the fact that the people who live on the land and the communities that are there know best.
The evidence is there for all of us to see. Less than two weeks ago, the Pairc estate community achieved ownership of its 28,000 acres, and I have no doubt that it will follow Eigg, Assynt and Stòras Uibhist in getting more and more people to live on the land and creating more and more jobs. Such an arrangement benefits the people who live there and their community far more than does ownership by an absentee landowner, which was the situation with the Pairc estate until two weeks ago. I think that we should celebrate the fact that the community has achieved ownership of the Pairc estate after 13 years—that is how long it has taken it to get ownership of the land. If the bill means that no other community has to go through that, bring it on.
I think that Jean Urquhart might agree that we have had two acts on crofting that have not delivered very much for the crofters. Will she try to ensure that the Government makes certain that the bill will deliver for tenant farmers?
I thank Jamie McGrigor for raising that issue. We had the ludicrous situation in which somebody who owned 28,000 acres in Lewis was not required to meet any of the regulations that someone who owns 20 acres in Shetland or anywhere else has to meet. We must think about exactly what we are asking for. Of course we have argued for the crofting legislation to be changed, and of course the whole system needs to be reviewed, but that is not what we are arguing for in the bill.
I want to talk about tax havens and the link between corruption, offshore corporate property and land ownership. It is clearly established in a recent Transparency International report that
“Land owned in offshore jurisdictions such as the British Virgin Islands, Jersey and Guernsey is particularly common in London, and 75% of properties under investigation for corruption are using offshore ownership to hide their identities.”
The problem is not confined to south-east England; another recent investigation found that as much as 750,000 acres in Scotland, most of it on Highland estates, is owned in offshore tax havens. That is a disgrace, and it potentially makes it impossible to find the real owners, which could be a series of shell companies and trusts. If they are registered in offshore secrecy jurisdictions, the legal means to reveal ownership is not available. Consequently, the land reform review group recommended strongly that the problem be tackled, saying that
“the Scottish Government should make it incompetent for any legal entity not registered in a member state of the European Union to register title to land in the Land Register of Scotland, to improve traceability and accountability in the public interest.”
That is what many would like to happen.
Of course, Andy Wightman has long campaigned on and highlighted these issues, and, like the Government, he is clearly having some success in raising land reform as an issue. There is interest out there; indeed, more than 200 people emailed me about this debate, and I know that the same has happened to other members. The mass of people who responded to the consultation shows that individuals are recognising the injustice in this situation.
As late as the mid-1980s, we were paying a feudal tax to our feudal landlord on a very small bit of land in Ullapool—I think that I am right in saying that England stopped being a feudal country something like 400 years before. This legislation is therefore long overdue, because change is desperately needed. People must be able to access the land. The Stoddart family have been mentioned already, and I know of a school in north-west Sutherland that sits in the middle of a loch, which I thought was quite romantic until I discovered that it is there because the then landowner refused to give the people land for the school. When he was pressed by the council and told that a compulsory purchase order could be made, he offered the loch, which the people had to take.
I am afraid that you must close, or I will not be able to call Monsieur Allard.
There are many wrongs to be righted, and this bill is to be welcomed as the first step on that long road.
Many thanks. I call Christian Allard. You may have four minutes.
18:02
Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. That is very much appreciated.
I want to comment on the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill and to repeat the themes of fairness, equality and social justice—the last of which has been mentioned in many contributions and which is what I think the bill is all about. Coming back to what I said to John Lamont, who was kind enough to take an intervention from me, I think that we need such radical reform to update where we are and to bring us to where our European neighbours already are with land use and land reform. It is very important that the eventual legislation is seen as something that brings Scotland up to date and into the 21st century.
I encourage members to look at the SAFER rural land agency system in France, which I have already mentioned, because I think that they will be surprised to find that it is a lot stricter than the land arbitrator that is proposed in the bill. As I believe all parties do, I welcome the establishment of a tenant farming commissioner, which I think should create a level playing field for tenants and landowners. However, we are on a journey with the bill, and my plea to all who are involved in land ownership and tenancy is that we make it work.
As a substitute on the Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee, I participated in some of the committee’s deliberations and evidence gathering; however, I did not participate in writing the report, so I must thank the committee for a fantastic—and very big—piece of work. There are many pages to go through; I must admit that I have not gone through them all.
That said, I have to disagree with the report on one point: I could find no recommendation on updating the role of common good land, although the report would have provided a perfect opportunity in that respect. I know that in closing the debate the cabinet secretary will say that the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Bill deals with identification and disposal of common good land, but my point is that what is missing is how we acquire more such land. I have to say that I do not share the view that was expressed in evidence by one particular source—I will not say who it was—that common good land has no future in Scotland. Everyone else told us that it absolutely has a future.
The Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 did not deal with common good land in that way. It would be great if, at stage 2 or by another means, we try to identify how we could use common good land to be part of Scottish land reform. Why would that be good? Let us not forget that we will try over the next 10 years to identify all the land whose owners are unidentified. All that land should automatically become common good land; thereafter, communities could decide what they want to do with it. I repeat that it is not only about disposing of common good land; it is about acquiring more. Peter Peacock called for modernisation of the term and talked about how we can get more rather than less common good land. I agree with him. Another witness said that local authorities are mishandling and misusing common good land in our communities. We need to pay attention to that.
We are on a journey. Stage 1 of the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill is very important. It is a step forward, and I look forward to the Government’s response and to knowing how we can do things at stage 2. I would love to be able to participate in that process as a committee substitute.
18:06
The bill is a very serious and important one, and the debate has perhaps lacked a little colour. We think wistfully back to the comments of my former colleague Bill Aitken, who used to liven up such debates with rather colourful language. However, I will avoid going down that route.
I reiterate the point that I made in an intervention when the minister was speaking. It is a regret—this has been echoed by a number of members around the chamber—that we did not get the Scottish Government’s response to the committee’s report. In a short time, we will be asked to vote on the general principles of the bill, so it would have been very helpful to get a steer from the Scottish Government and more than we have heard from the minister so far on how it will address concerns and points that are raised in the committee’s report. It is unfortunate that that is not happening.
The Scottish Government likes to present its Land Reform (Scotland) Bill as a radical programme, but it is more realistic to see it as something of a hotchpotch of unconnected provisions of various degrees of seriousness and complexity. Some of them are welcome, but we think that some will undoubtedly be damaging to the economy of rural Scotland.
My colleague Alex Fergusson has set out his concerns about the agricultural holdings part of the bill. I will not go over the detail, but one thing is abundantly clear from his and other speeches: there is no consensus in the chamber, there was no consensus in the committee and—even more important—there was no consensus among external stakeholders on the way forward in what is a very complex area of law.
Against that backdrop, the Scottish Government now has to come up with a final set of proposals in the new year. There will be less than 12 weeks of parliamentary time available before the bill completes its parliamentary process. It seems to me that that is in no way sufficient to allow proper consideration and proper consultation in a very complex area. On page 91 of the committee’s report, there is reference to the need for significant amendment to what is currently proposed. If that is the case, I question whether the appropriate time is available.
If the Scottish Government is, indeed, a listening Government, as it says it is, it needs to take those provisions out of the bill and instead bring back separate legislation on agricultural holdings in the next session of Parliament, if it is in a position to do that. It is not good enough to leave so much to secondary legislation, given the importance of the issues. In that context, I echo many of the concerns that Tavish Scott raised.
On the other provisions in the bill, we have made it clear that we support proposals to increase the transparency of land ownership. However, we are sceptical about the creation of the new Scottish land commission. I suspect that there are not many people in rural Scotland who believe that what the rural economy needs is yet another quango interfering in their activities.
We also have concerns about aspects of the extended right to buy to further sustainable development. As Alex Fergusson said, there is undoubtedly a conflict of rights in that area. It was identified in evidence to the committee that where a landowner is utilising land such that it is well and sustainably managed—for example, for productive agriculture—the land could still be forcibly transferred from the landowner to a community. We question whether that gets the balance right.
However, the biggest muddle in the bill is in relation to the proposed reintroduction of non-domestic rates for sporting rights. The Scottish Conservatives have been clear ever since the bill was proposed that we see that as a damaging proposal that will simply take money out of the rural economy and potentially adversely affect employment. We are also concerned that the bureaucracy that is involved in levying those rates would be disproportionate to any sums that were actually recovered.
It is gratifying to see that the committee shares some of the concerns. In particular, a great deal of evidence was heard by the committee about the difficulty in defining shootings and deer forests, and how they would be assessed for rates. When she gave evidence to the committee, the minister was far from convincing in her arguments in support of what is proposed; a reliable figure could not even be given for the predicted revenue, with the Scottish Government simply stating that the £4 million figure for what could be raised was taken from the £2 million revenue that was raised 20 years ago being projected.
Was that kind of assessment made when the same people were suddenly not taxed any more for the same thing?
I am happy to respond to that. First, the Government took the decision in 1994 to remove the rates because they were not payable in England and Wales, and therefore had a distorting effect on sporting estates in Scotland—in particular, those in the south of Scotland and the Scottish Borders. Secondly, the cost of collection at that stage was becoming disproportionate to the amount that was being brought in, which seems to me to be still a very live issue.
I appreciate that the majority of the committee believed that the principle of non-domestic rates for large, profitable commercial shooting enterprises is justified. However, it is telling that the committee unanimously believed that the case has not yet been made for what the bill proposes, and was concerned about a lot of the detail. We strongly agree with the committee’s conclusion that
“there is a lack of clarity about the purpose, delivery, impacts and likely outcome of these proposals.”
Conservatives feel that in many ways the bill is a missed opportunity. There is no overarching vision for the future of rural land in Scotland, and there is too much focus on who owns the land, rather than on the more pertinent question of how that land is used. The minister talked in her opening remarks about landowners and people who live and work on the land as if they are quite separate communities, when in fact in 99 per cent of cases they are exactly the same people.
At best, the bill will be a distraction from the real issues that face rural Scotland: depopulation, lack of connectivity, poor-quality jobs and the continuing loss of local services. Although there are some measures in the bill that we would support, overall we think that it is more likely to damage than to assist rural communities. For that reason, we will not support the bill in the stage 1 vote today.
18:12
Over 200 written submissions on the bill came in to the Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee. We traversed Scotland in the quest for a real grasp of the complex issues involved and, importantly, took evidence outwith the Parliament in Orkney, Dumfries and Skye. I thank the committee clerks for their work, particular for their organisation of the committee’s visits; and I thank SPICe for its work. I know what a big task there will be for both the committee clerks and SPICe in January and February, so I wish them a good Christmas break.
Tonight, I will speak strongly in favour of the bill and in support of the committee’s stage 1 report. I acknowledge the earlier comments in that regard of our committee convener and deputy convener. I also acknowledge, before I forget to do so, the comments of my committee colleague Graeme Dey in relation to land agents.
As others have outlined during the debate, the bill must be clearer in its detail and there must be as much as possible on the face of the bill. Although time is short, we will all continue to work hard to make the best possible bill. It is not acceptable to say that we can leave this or that to the new land commission to deal with. We must also ensure that the policy memorandum is crystal clear in expressing the bill’s intentions. In the view of Scottish Labour, anything that is left to regulations must be dealt with under the affirmative procedure, which echoes the view of Nigel Don.
With Andrew Stoddart as a constituent, I have seen the stark realities of legal challenge and the confusion and suffering that the consequences can entail. Article 1 of protocol 1 of the European convention on human rights refers to the right to
“peaceful enjoyment of ... possessions.”
As our report states:
“It is significant, however, that the rights protected by A1P1 and Article 8”—
which is the right to respect for privacy and family life—
“are not absolute rights, and states may interfere with them in order to pursue public interest objectives, provided that—
• such interferences pursue a legitimate aim in the public interest; and
• do so in a proportionate manner.”
Let there not be a reason for the Scottish Government to run scared of the fairness that the bill will produce, but let us make it a clarion call to test and test and test the bill and its aims before and during the bill process so that we do not have problems with ECHR compliance afterwards. Let us not forget—as Mike Russell, Sarah Boyack and others have stressed—the other international human rights obligations that the committee examined in oral evidence. In the words of our report:
“It is vital that the Bill gives due prominence to other obligations”.
That is in the public interest.
It is also clear to me that sustainable development must be at the heart of the bill. In Scottish Labour’s view, the Scottish Government did not quite get there with the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015, but we are pleased to see the direction in which the bill is going and that the fusing of economic, social and environmental imperatives are there for rural Scotland.
I commend Johann Lamont for looking at the principles behind the bill and stressing that we are dealing with a justice issue. As a previous convener of the Equal Opportunities Committee, I am also keenly aware of the equalities issues in the bill and how the legislation should be judged against the nine protected characteristics. I ask the Government to take great care in considering the committee’s recommendations in that respect. The evidence from NHS Health Scotland encapsulates the health arguments succinctly, particularly with regard to part 5, which is on the community right to buy land to further sustainable development.
The land rights and responsibilities statement that is provided for in the bill will play a fundamental role in ensuring that we move forward together. Scottish Environment LINK recommends:
“Land use and land ownership are inextricably linked and there is a real opportunity for the LUS”—
the land use strategy—
“to help secure meaningful land reform if the two processes are adequately co-ordinated.”
I hope that the Scottish Government will take cognisance of that comment, which the committee has also highlighted. Will the cabinet secretary give some reassurance on those synergies in his closing remarks?
Rhoda Grant argued for righting the wrongs of the past in the Highlands, and I will be regional for a moment too. As I have emphasised in previous debates and in committee, there has not been enough support in South Scotland and other regions beyond the Highlands for capacity building and advice. I believe that the community land fund will be fundamental in that respect. Definitions of community are complex for a multitude of reasons. The jury is still out on communities of interest in relation to the bill, and I am still open-minded about the possible need for an amendment on that.
Turning to part 10, the tenant farming forum compromise always meant, in my view, the lowest common denominator and did not reflect the need to protect tenants. Confidence to let has always been a concern expressed by Scottish Land & Estates. Clarity must be achieved in part 10, as it is the culmination of much work within this and previous Parliaments. The Scottish Tenant Farmers Association rightly expects the establishment of
“a strong Tenant Farming Commissioner equipped with sufficient powers”
to create and enforce
“statutory codes of practice”.
In order to ensure a vibrant tenanted sector while sharply focusing on the needs of tenants, their rights and responsibilities and how those fit with the concerns of landowners, we must be sure that the new forms of tenancy work for a modern Scotland. The modern limited duration tenancies are still a concern and, in the committee’s view, much work needs to be done on them. The modern repairing leases are an interesting possibility that needs further investigation.
Fundamental to a fair way forward for tenant farmers is the development of the rent review process. In that context, the work of the modelling group is essential and the group should be congratulated on carving out a clearer way forward. However, there are still outstanding issues that the committee will reflect on, not the least of which is productive capacity.
A clear process of waygo must also be in the bill to prevent further complications in the future. In relation to assignation and succession, I welcome section 79 suggestions for alternatives from the Scottish Government. If I understand it rightly, the flowchart seems to provide a more straightforward and fair series of steps for arrangements. The STFA has yet to respond on that, but Scottish Labour sees a way forward and a majority of the committee also supports some form of a limited right to buy. Dave Thompson is right to say that the bill must address that because it is a matter that will not go away and must be resolved.
We support the passage of the bill through stage 1 in the hope that it will be a resonant way forward for the whole of rural Scotland and that we can work together to make the bill clear, effective and unchallengeable.
18:20
Many powerful contributions from members have featured in this important debate. I also add my thanks to the Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee for its work on the bill. In his speech, Rob Gibson referred to the extensive work that members carried out. They essentially had a tour of Scotland, meeting people from all backgrounds and settings to discuss the implications of land ownership and all the issues around it for the future of Scotland.
The energy of the debate within and outwith Parliament underlines the extensive interest in land reform in this country and the ambition that people are expressing for a radical land reform bill.
The Conservative Party has said that it will vote against the bill, which is no surprise. Scotland needs the legislation badly and, unfortunately, the Conservatives do not want to support progress. They have even suggested that the bill is illegal or not competent, so I have to politely remind them that the Presiding Officer has endorsed the bill as being within the competence of the Parliament, so they should not be scaremongering on those points.
I also want to make the point to Murdo Fraser and other Conservatives that this is not an urban versus rural issue. We are not talking about damaging the rural economy but about supporting it. In my experience—I am sure that I speak for many members—the demand for land reform has largely come from rural Scotland. It is something that people who live in our rural communities want to see happen.
Can the cabinet secretary explain how taking £4 million out of rural businesses through rates will help the rural economy?
Those who have looked into the issue will know that we suspect that the Conservative Government of the mid-1990s did not remove sporting rights from rates because of economic hardship but because it wanted to help out their landowning colleagues. That was the reason. There is no evidence whatsoever that estates suffered economic hardship because of rates before 1995.
I assure Parliament that the Government is listening to the views that members have expressed during the stage 1 debate and, more importantly, to the views of the Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee, which has proposed that Parliament should support the bill at stage 1.
Many members have referred to the history of land reform in Scotland. Scotland’s land has formed the backdrop to our tumultuous history, most notably the Highland clearances and other key moments in our nation’s story, such as the industrial revolution and subsequent expansion of our towns and cities. Legislators have tackled land reform down the generations, but of course we could never rely on the House of Commons or the House of Lords—an institution that even Winston Churchill said was an obstacle to progress—to do enough.
The advent of the Scottish Parliament in 1999 provided the opportunity for land reform to be given the attention that it deserves. Since devolution, land reform has been the focus of achieving a number of ambitions around fairness, equality and social justice for the people of Scotland. The Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003 was landmark legislation and we have been on a journey ever since.
Since 2007, the Scottish Government has updated and modernised land registration; converted tenants’ rights under very long leases into ownership; and, through the recent Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015, improved community and crofting rights to buy and introduced new rights to buy abandoned and neglected land. We have also continued to support and promote community land ownership, reintroducing the Scottish land fund in 2012 to provide £9 million over four years. Of course, we also set a target for 1 million acres of land to be in community ownership by 2020.
We are desperately keen to know the areas where the Scottish Government agrees with the committee and where it will be doing more work, so that we can form our amendments. Can the cabinet secretary tell us when he will respond to the committee paper? Will there be one report or a series of reports?
We will respond to the committee shortly. However, many members have made the valid point that this is a complex issue and that we should not rush it. The committee’s report came out only a week and a half ago. We are taking time to seriously consider the views that were expressed by the committee in its report, and we will reply to them.
Other measures that we have taken include the establishment of the independent land reform review group and the agricultural holdings legislation review group. It is the work and the recommendations of those groups that underpin the proposals in the bill.
We know that land reform cannot be obsessed with tackling the historical injustices. We cannot rewrite history or fight the battles of the 18th and 19th centuries. Today, land reform is just as much about council estates as it is about country estates. It is about the community that needs land for a five-a-side pitch or for affordable housing, or the tenant farmer who is looking for security to invest and diversify. The debate must be a contemporary one about how our land can help to realise our nation’s potential and aspirations.
We are now writing the next chapter in land reform. In establishing the land commission, we are ending the stop-start nature of land reform and placing land reform across urban and rural Scotland on a permanent foundation.
In her opening remarks, Aileen McLeod articulated many of the aims of the bill, but the bill is also about supporting a thriving tenanted sector in Scotland—indeed, much of the bill makes changes to agricultural holdings legislation. Therefore, I regret that the Conservatives are saying that, because of that particular part of the bill, they will vote against it.
Michael Russell quite rightly made the point that the proposals are about sharing power in Scotland. The reason why we have to have measures to create a vibrant tenanted sector is that, as many believe, the power lies with the landowner, and we need to ensure that we empower tenant farmers in Scotland.
The cabinet secretary will also realise that Michael Russell shares my view that this bill cannot achieve its twin aims. Why, then, does he insist on persevering with it?
The reason why we are bringing forward agricultural legislation is that there is a decline in the amount of let land in Scotland. The reason for that is not that we are bringing forward agriculture legislation; we need that legislation to try to halt the decline in the amount of let land in Scotland.
We all know that there has been a massive decline in the total area of let land in Scotland. The amount of let land—including crofts but excluding seasonal lets—fell by 44 per cent between 1982 and 2015. That is why the bill contains a number of ambitious measures to, for example, help older tenants move on and reassign their tenancies to new entrants or those who want to progress in the sector.
As many have said, we need to do a lot more to help new entrants, including ensuring that there is more publicly owned land for letting to new entrants. We are working with the Forestry Commission and have nine new units that are being let to new staff, and we will continue to take that forward.
Many members mentioned the tenant farming commissioner. I do not have much time left, but I can say that the interim tenant farming commissioner is doing a good job in building relationships between tenants and landlords. That is why a permanent commissioner is proposed in the bill.
We are in the midst of a momentous groundswell in support for action on land reform. Our proposals are about ensuring that one of our greatest assets benefits the many, not the few. The bill is not a one-off, and it is not a quick fix. It does not have all the answers, but it will implement effective and radical land reform. It will knock down some of the obstacles that communities and our citizens face in fulfilling their potential and controlling more of their own destiny.
Good landowners should have nothing to fear, but bad landowners—there are bad landowners in Scotland—will know that the law has empowered communities and individuals.
Of course, we need to know who the landowners are in the first place. We need to know who owns Scotland and people who own land need to know that they have not only rights but responsibilities. People and communities need to be empowered to act when those responsibilities are not fulfilled.
The bill and the committee’s report are milestones on Scotland’s land reform journey—a journey that started with feudalism but will take us to fairness. Those milestones will help to make Scotland a better country.
I urge Parliament to support the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill at stage 1.
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