Land reform legislation ‘offers hope’, Scotland’s Rural Affairs Secretary says

Scotland’s Rural Affairs Secretary told MSPs who have complained new land reform legislation does not go far enough she is willing to work with them.

Mairi Gougeon told Holyrood she understood the “frustrations of those who would like is to go further and to go faster”.

And she told them: “I am listening and stand ready to work across this chamber to build on and improve the provisions in the Bill.”

But she insisted that “land reform is a journey”, adding the Scottish Government’s new Land Reform (Scotland) Bill “offers hope”.

The Bill as currently drafted will not change land ownership patterns.

Speaking about the legislation, Ms Gougeon said: “It will deliver positive progress and in so doing build trust with the people of Scotland.”

Ministers introduced the legislation in part to help reduce the concentration of rural land ownership, where small numbers of people own large areas of Scotland’s countryside.

And Ms Gougeon noted: “In Scotland we have one of the most concentrated patterns of land ownership in the world – 421 land owners own 50% of privately owned rural land.”

The Bill seeks to increase opportunities for community buyouts of land, and also proposes that when large estates are put on the market ministers could break up this land – in a process known as lotting – into smaller areas, if certain conditions are met.

However a Holyrood committee has already said the changes to allow more community buyouts “are unlikely to accomplish much on their own”.

MSPs on the Net Zero, Energy and Transport committee said earlier this month that “significant change” was needed to the Bill.

Meanwhile, Conservative MSP Tim Eagle said his party would not support the “frankly unworkable” Bill, while Labour’s Rhoda Grant said her party wanted the proposals to go further.

She told MSP as it stands “too much control is in too few hands” when it comes to land ownership, adding: “After 17 years of SNP administration land ownership concentration is getting worse – 0.25% of Scotland’s population still own 67% of Scotland’s rural land.

“The Bill as currently drafted will not change land ownership patterns.”

Green MSP Ariane Burgess agreed ownership of land was “highly concentrated” in Scotland, saying the country was “still only at the start of the land reform journey”.

She complained the government legislation “is disappointingly lacking in ambition” adding that “there are still many barriers to be addressed for this Parliament to achieve its goal of diversifying who owns land in Scotland”.

Liberal Democrat MSP Liam McArthur meanwhile raised concerns the proposals could require “fairly fundamental revision” later on – warning this could place the Parliament in an “invidious position” where it has to “radically overhaul legislation during the scrutiny process”.