Hansard

I will be happy to address that point later in my speech, and I certainly agree with Patrick Harvie that the land reform agenda should not be constrained.

As I said, my party lent its support to the good work of the previous Administration, but there remains much more to do, and unintended consequences of existing laws inevitably emerge in the delivery. We need to consider how to move the agenda forward in the best possible way, and I would warmly welcome the opportunity to work in partnership—if we could—to harness the wisdom of all, inside and outside the chamber, to a noble purpose.

Our desire for a mature discussion with civic Scotland is a key reason why we set up an independent land reform review group and my amendment emphasises that simple fact. However, we intend to respect the broad thrust of Labour’s motion which, with our minor amendment, we intend to support. In that spirit of consensus, I trust that Labour can, in turn, support our amendment.

When the First Minister last year announced the formation of the group, chaired by Alison Elliot, he set out his desire for the review

“to deliver radical change for both rural and urban areas”

of Scotland. The group is independent and has a clear remit set by the Government. I know that all members here today will join me in thanking Alison Elliot for her work and that of her colleagues in reviewing a wealth of submissions and for their commitment to taking forward the next stage of the review. I also thank Sarah Skerratt and Jim Hunter for their much-valued contributions to the group’s work.

The group has travelled the country and met a wide variety of individuals and business representatives, who contributed their views. It has consulted on the key issues and collected 484 responses—I understand that that is the updated figure. That high response level from individuals and organisations shows the interest in land reform, and the responses will form a rich resource for all our work—including that on agricultural tenancies, to pick up on Patrick Harvie’s point.

As the motion acknowledges, the group published its interim report last month, and what stands out is that the issue is far from simple and that there is no one-size-fits-all panacea for all the challenges that we face. The group is planning the review’s next phase, with the final report due next April. It will look at the community right to buy in the Highlands and learn from the application of the absolute right to buy in the crofting areas in order to make recommendations for the whole country. I reiterate that we want community ownership to be expanded across the whole of Scotland, and the group will seek to set out what needs to happen to facilitate that.

A key theme will be land reform in urban Scotland. As that is closely associated with the developing community empowerment and renewal bill, we will ensure that that bill takes on the review group’s ideas in furthering the Scottish Government’s desire to empower urban and rural communities and in resolving problems identified with current legislation.

The proposed land agency is another key consideration and I am intrigued by the possibilities that it might deliver. The group will look at community engagement with landowners and community energy projects and at how we ensure that the right support and advice are in place for community landowners. It will recommend how the community right-to-buy legislation, which currently makes life unnecessarily difficult for communities in a number of respects, can be simplified and amended to be more accessible, and further work will be commissioned on common good land, taxation, public interest issues and issues with regard to the Crown Estate.

That vital work will require further resource, and I can announce today that I have agreed with the chair of the group that it can be expanded from its original three members to five. We have already appointed Ian Cooke, a director with Development Trusts Association Scotland, as vice-chair to ensure that there is expertise on the community sector, and I can also announce that we have appointed John Watt as the second vice-chair. As a recent director of Highlands and Islands Enterprise, Mr Watt has a wealth of experience on state aid and public sector support for communities, and he is already an adviser to the group.

Two additional appointments will be announced in due course to complete the expanded group, but I should inform the Parliament that Richard Heggie and Malcolm Combe have been appointed as additional group advisers and will provide invaluable advice in the next phase. Those moves will ensure that the group is fully resourced to carry out phase 2 of its review, and the additional expertise available will allow it to come up with clear, informed and workable proposals in its final report.