Meeting of the Parliament 23 March 2016
I certainly recognise the value of the land reform legislation that we passed last week. Most of the Parliament united to support the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill, and even those of us who wished at times that it could have gone further agreed that it was the right direction of travel.
In moving the motion on the bill at stage 3, the Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs, Food and Environment said:
“The bill is not the end point of Scotland’s land reform journey”.—[Official Report, 16 March 2016; c 219.]
We still have hugely concentrated patterns of land ownership in Scotland, and that needs to change. Does the First Minister agree that a modernised land settlement act would be a natural next step in Scotland’s land reform journey? Does she agree that such legislation could unlock the power of our land and enable many more people to access land for productive use, for food, for homes, and for regeneration at a human scale, ensuring that Scotland’s land is put to the use of Scotland’s people—all our people—to serve the common good instead of the private interests of a tiny, entitled few?