Hansard

In tribute to Alex Fergusson, I have always championed his right to say what he believes to be correct, even if we disagree—very often fundamentally—about his proposals. It is in that spirit that I will comment on the way in which the RACCE Committee has worked, and I hope that everybody who took part in the committee recognises that they got a fair hearing. I wish Alex Fergusson well.

The Land Reform (Scotland) Bill has been the subject of widespread consultation. Its intent is radical, its purpose is practical and its basis is competent in law. I want to remind members of the collaborative process by which the bulk of the bill was evolved. Many parts were agreed by all parties in the RACCE Committee but, as we have seen, some were not. However, the formation of the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009 set a precedent, as it was achieved by civil society, MSPs of several parties, and ministers working together. In the main, the committee tried to do exactly the same, and that approach is a good precedent for Parliament.

Already, members have thanked many of those who took part in the process for working through the many parts of the bill to reach a very workable and incisive whole. They include Community Land Scotland, the Scottish Tenant Farmers Association, the Scottish Human Rights Commission, Global Witness, individual human rights lawyers, MSPs, ministerial teams, heroically led by Dr Aileen McLeod, and the cabinet secretary, Richard Lochhead. I would like to pay particular thanks to Chris Nicholson, the chair of the Scottish Tenant Farmers Association, who joins us in the chamber, although he is likely to have to head off in a hurry to Dumfries, where his wife will deliver a new member of the family. All the best to him as we, too, try to deliver a lusty child.

The results are a strengthened and more practical bill. Good intentions have been made into workable, practical law. Make no mistake—a proportionate set of objectives and clear aims, applied with proportionate measures, takes us forward to a fairer and more equal land.

I was surprised that Labour members were prepared to jeopardise the whole bill by backing Patrick Harvie’s speculative amendments on European Union registration. I repeat that we need to hold landholders to account and, after the map-based land register is complete, we will need to be able to consider taxing them as well.

The RACCE Committee has worked well. Many of the sections were agreed across the parties, and very few required a vote. That shows that the committees of this Parliament can work as designed, bearing in mind that all Governments—be they coalitions or majority Governments—make sure that their views prevail in key committees. Labour and the Liberal Democrats did that in their coalition, as did the Scottish National Party Government. However, that does not negate a collaborative approach.

This bill gives voice to the public interest. Around 80 per cent of MSPs support its measures. It signals a shift of power towards more responsible and diverse land ownership. It increases transparency to a great extent and helps communities to have more say in the land that they live on. It toughens deer management rules and extracts shooting rates from estates to boost the land fund. It addresses fairness, equalities and social justice and helps to underpin a thriving, tenanted farming sector.

The cornerstone of the bill is placing land reform on a permanent footing in Scotland with the appointment of the land commission. That makes history, as does the statement of land rights and responsibilities, which the Parliament will have to debate and agree. That puts land reform front and centre as the radical underpinning of a progressive Scottish nation. After so many centuries of ownership and control in the hands of the few, the breakthrough to a fairer Scotland comes with the application of international standards of human rights, which other colleagues will probably deal with in some detail.

I thank all those who helped us to get here: my staff at the Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee, the Scottish Parliament information centre and the bill teams. I hope that people across Scotland will take forward our work with practical schemes to show how, rather than being the monopoly of large proprietors who have dominated the rural and urban Scotland of the past, land developments can be in the hands of many more people.

I will get a chance on Tuesday next week to have a small debate about my constituency, and I will be touching then on many of the issues of this debate. Local control is among the top priorities.

If, in 10 years’ time, Scottish Land & Estates has attracted 15,000 members instead of 1,500, comprising individual small farms, community owners and a host of somewhat smaller, leaner large landholdings, that will be both a measure of the success of the bill’s intent and a radical departure from the iniquitous tag as the nation with the most concentrated pattern of land ownership in Europe.

The Land Reform (Scotland) Bill gets to the roots of how better to own, tenant and use sustainably the resources of Scotland beneath our feet. The Parliament has now taken radical action. People can go forward in confidence, backed by competent measures of Scots law, to utilise our precious land.

I fully support the bill.