Hansard

I echo the minister’s comments and thank all those who have given an incredible amount of time, energy and support to enable us to scrutinise the bill and, I think, significantly improve on what was initially presented to us. I thank the parliamentary staff for supporting the committees that have been involved. I thank all the witnesses and the community and interest groups that gave evidence and spoke to us during the process. I also mention the work of the land reform review group, which has been really useful in setting a backdrop to the bill.

I thank the Minister for Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform for her willingness to work with the members of the Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee to improve the bill. I get the sense that the Minister for Local Government and Community Empowerment has made a similar contribution in the Local Government and Regeneration Committee, which is definitely to be welcomed.

Scottish Labour strongly supports the principle that communities should be given more opportunities to work together to improve people’s lives. We agree with the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations that the connection needs to be made between the bill that we will pass today and the Scottish Government’s social justice strategy. The bill is a fundamental opportunity to ensure that we tackle inequalities and that we look at our land and buildings. We strongly support the ambitions behind the bill. We see it as dealing with unfinished business from the land reform legislation that we passed in 2003.

The Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003 has enabled rural residents to be in more control of their destiny and to make better use of the natural resources in their communities. It has been transformative legislation. A key part of that success has been the existence of dedicated finance to enable community transfers to take place.

One challenge that we have come back to—this is why our committee went into such detail on the bill—is for communities to work their way through complex legislation. The need to avoid complexity was raised by the Law Society of Scotland. The wording of the regulations and of the guidance that follows will be absolutely crucial in enabling communities to use the legislation that we pass today so that it becomes an opportunity, not an obstacle to buying land.

Support from the Scottish Government in terms of advice and finance will be critical if communities are to be able to make best use of the legislation. We need to have detailed implementation, and the regulations need to be put in place as swiftly as possible.

I welcome the extension of the option of the right to buy to urban communities, although there will be challenges. I particularly thank the community members and councillors from the Calton in Glasgow for their ideas on how we make the bill as effective as it can be. I am also conscious of the needs and aspirations of communities in Edinburgh and the Lothians. As the Law Society points out, we need to ensure that the potential higher cost of land does not frustrate the ambitions of the bill. There are lots of implementation issues for us to think about.

One of the key issues that we have discussed throughout consideration of the bill has been the need for clarity surrounding the provisions on neglected and abandoned land. The debate that we had on that at stage 2 was important in understanding how the Scottish Government will approach the detail.

Today we have also debated amendments on sustainable development and on adding environmental wellbeing criteria. I very much welcome the clarification from the minister about how she sees the legislation being implemented. What is said on the record today and the overwhelming support that there has been for these new key principles will be looked at in the future. That will be important for future decisions by ministers and courts—hopefully more by ministers and less by courts. I was very keen that we tease out those issues today.

In my area, the Lothians, I know of a cinema that has been empty for a decade. Marco Biagi will know the place that I am talking about: the former Odeon cinema. It is a classic example of a building that has become an eyesore on a shopping parade—although it has huge potential—and which will have deteriorated over the years. It was really good to hear from the minister today about the idea concerning buildings in a shopping parade—the idea that a community’s social wellbeing is part of its environmental wellbeing. I very much welcome the commitment that was given this afternoon. I hope that, up and down the country, communities and owners will be thinking about that in more depth. I hope that it will concentrate minds; we need buildings and land to be used to the best benefit of the community as a whole.

New options are being provided today by the passage of the bill, and we should all celebrate that. That is part of the reason why people have been keen to work together. I welcome the collegiate approach that has been taken, both in the committees and from the ministers today. I hope that a more constructive and positive set of relationships between landowners and communities will flow from the legislation. Its very existence will be good across the country, and it will raise people’s aspirations. That is a good thing.

I welcome the possibility for mediation, initiated by ministers, between communities and landowners when that is appropriate, rather than having ranks of lawyers sitting in a room debating the fine detail. Let us get the people to come up with good solutions that will benefit local communities and those who are the stewards of our land and buildings.

I started my speech by welcoming the fact that we have been addressing unfinished business from the 2003 act. Today, the bill itself leaves new unfinished business. Important issues were raised by the land reform review group, including those around compulsory purchase orders and compulsory sale orders, which will now be considered by the Scottish Law Commission.

More work will need to be done. Crucially, we need to build capacity and support in our communities to ensure that we deliver the social justice and regeneration of communities that are at the heart of the bill. We have been doing important work over the past few months, and today has been good.

The new provisions on allotments have been supported by the expert lobbying of the Scottish Allotments and Gardens Society, an organisation that does not miss the target when it gets going. The opportunities for sustainable development, community growing and community health and wellbeing that come from gardening and allotments are really important and we need to capture them. New opportunities will also come on the right to buy for football, and we will be able to come back to that.

The bill is about empowerment and opening up new opportunities for our communities, particularly those that are disadvantaged. The bill will create new opportunities, and as MSPs we need to ensure that our local communities will benefit from the changes. Let us pass the bill, move forward together and look forward to the next bit of land reform, which I understand will be coming at us at a rate of knots.

The bill is better than it was when it was introduced. It is stronger for the debate and discussion that we have had. Communities and organisations have helped us to get it together, and I hope that it will be passed at stage 3 tonight.