Hansard

Thank you, convener. As members know, the regulations, if they are approved by Parliament, will bring into force part 3 of the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2016, which provides that “The Scottish Ministers must by regulations make provision— (a) requiring information to be provided about persons who have controlling interests in owners and tenants of land, and (b) about the publication of that information in a public register kept by the Keeper of the Registers of Scotland.” As I said, the duties in the regulations will commence on 1 April 2022, which will be the date on which the new register becomes operational. The purpose of the new register is to improve public transparency about land ownership, and it will achieve that by making information about those who have a controlling interest in land publicly available—in other words, those who ultimately make decisions about land management or the use of land, even if they are not registered or recorded as the owner of the land. There can no longer be categories of landowner or tenant where, intentionally or otherwise, control of decision making is obscured. In conjunction with other transparency regimes, that means that it will be possible to look behind every category of entity in Scotland, including overseas entities and trusts, to see who controls land. We do not require double reporting for entities that are subject to other regimes, as we do not want to duplicate existing publicly available information. A further key purpose of the register is to make it easier to identify the decision makers in order to enable communities and individuals to engage with people who make decisions about land that will affect them. Mark Ruskell mentioned that. The regulations will also aid policy making by enabling us to gain a fuller picture of those individuals who have control over decisions about land in Scotland. The Scottish Government consultation on the policy proposals for a new register ran from September to December 2016, and a further consultation was carried out from June to November 2018 after the publication of the proposed draft regulations for a new register. We have analysed the consultation responses and engaged widely with relevant stakeholders, as the committee has, and we have listened to the committee’s views throughout the process. The final laying of the regulations at this time marks a significant step towards delivering greater transparency about land ownership in Scotland. This will put Scotland at the forefront in Europe and deliver greater transparency than exists in any other part of the United Kingdom. I am particularly pleased that access to the new register will be free to the public, as I emphasised earlier. Although some have wanted the register to include beneficial interests, its purpose is to provide transparency about who controls and makes decisions about land in Scotland in order to increase and promote constructive engagement. That purpose is different from those of wider UK regimes, which aim to combat illegal activities such as money laundering. The UK Government has signalled a desire to introduce a draft registration of overseas entities bill, which we support. That would establish a new beneficial ownership register of overseas entities that own UK property. We are engaging closely with our UK Government counterparts as that proposal develops, particularly as it would require a legislative consent motion in the Scottish Parliament. We have no firm timescale from the UK Government and we expect that the bill will be introduced when UK parliamentary time allows. The regulations that we have laid therefore take account of overseas legal entities. That approach maintains flexibility should the UK Government’s proposals be delayed or not suitable for our purposes. As I said, we support the proposal in general terms but, obviously, we will have to look at what the UK Government brings forward. On substantive changes to the regulations since the second laying, I note that we have added a provision that the keeper must provide the Scottish ministers with such information as they require in order to monitor the efficacy of the register. That will allow the Scottish ministers to scrutinise and analyse the data from the register in a robust fashion to ensure that the policy aims are being met and the right outcomes are being delivered. The regulations that are before the committee have been subject to an enhanced affirmative procedure, as set out in the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2016. This is, in fact, the third time that the committee has scrutinised the regulations. The regulations have been complex and technically challenging. I thank committee members and the committee’s clerks for their robust scrutiny and attention to detail, and I thank all stakeholders for actively engaging in the development of the regulations. I am happy to answer any further questions from the committee. 14:00