Meeting of the Parliament 16 December 2015
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.