Meeting of the Parliament 21 March 2019
It is timely that the Scottish Government has lodged the motion for debate today, because it gives us an opportunity to reflect on what has been achieved in land reform. It also allows us to set out just how much more remains to be done to bring about fundamental change to the inequitable and unjust land ownership patterns that still exist in Scotland.
I am proud that it was Scottish Labour that introduced bills, shortly after the creation of this Parliament, that opened the door to radical changes in how we consider land ownership. One bill brought changes to end the still-lingering feudal powers that were associated with land, and the other firmly established in law the community right to buy and the right to roam freely and responsibly.
I, too, welcome the growth in community ownership that found new momentum following the passing of Labour’s Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003, which was supported by the Scottish National Party and other parties in Parliament. As a result of the movement towards greater community land ownership, we have heard those communities speak more confidently to reflect their experience of the law and how it has needed to develop, and to argue for further change in our land laws.
The work of Community Land Scotland in arguing on behalf of communities should be recognised today. As the minister said, there is much to celebrate in what community ownership delivers. There are signs of optimism for a sustainable future in places where it has, at times, seemed that there was no future. The growth in interest in land and other asset ownership in rural and urban Scotland is moving rapidly.
Every acre of land that has come into community ownership is a welcome acre, but at the current rate of progress, in 100 years the vast majority of land in Scotland will still be in the same ownership patterns that have endured for centuries. If we believe in greater social justice and a fairer Scotland, which many Scots claim they do, we can succeed in achieving that aim only with significant land reform.
Is it socially just that so few own so much land, that so many young people cannot find land or afford housing in their own communities, or that the whims of a few landowners can limit economic opportunity for the many? Is it socially just that so many people in our urban realm are consigned to living their lives next to vacant or derelict land with no environmental quality, or that our land markets operate such that only the privileged few and the wealthy elite can participate? Is it socially just that the land uses and environment of vast areas are decided by only one or two people, or that communities are denied the right to a sustainable future by virtue of the control that others can exercise?
For Labour, land reform is about community and about communities being empowered to take more control over their economic, social and environmental destiny. It is about the public interest. It is also, for Labour, a fundamental matter of justice: it is about the balance of power shifting from the few to the many, and the opportunity and wealth that can flow from ownership of one of our most fundamental assets—our land—being shared more equally among our people.
Land reform is one of the means through which to realise Labour’s vision of wider and more radical redistribution of power and wealth. It is a sad truth that, as matters stand, neither the current nor any previous land reform minister has had the powers to ask formally whether our current land arrangements act in the public interest. Communities that want to own land have to show that their interest in the land will serve the public interest and they have to gain, by democratic means, the consent of the people in the community for the land to be owned by the community.
Given the way in which Scotland’s land markets work, private owners need simply have a big enough cheque book—one man is in the process of becoming Scotland’s largest land owner by buying up estate after estate in the Highlands. As the cabinet secretary highlighted, in this, as in so much else, Scotland’s land laws fall far short of what other nations can do through long-established intervention powers to look after the public interest in land matters.
Land justice is part of delivering social justice. There should be limits to how much land can be owned by one person—a difficult issue, but Scottish Labour supports such a limit—or other ownership arrangement, unless it can be shown to work in the public interest and for the common good. Many landholdings in Scotland are, in effect, local land monopolies, and in many aspects of our national life we regulate monopolies to ensure that they cannot exploit their power against the public interest.