Hansard

In passing the legislative consent motion today, we are able to express our solidarity with the Ukrainian people, 2 million of whom have now fled for safety as their homes and communities have been destroyed in the past few days.

There is much more that we can do, and we urgently need the Conservative UK Government to deliver access to visas so that people who are returning with family members or people who have made the perilous journey to our borders are able to seek refuge here.

We stand in solidarity with Ukraine. We have seen citizens attending rallies and protesting in Scotland about the impact on Ukrainian citizens. We have seen donations to the Disasters Emergency Committee Ukraine appeal and fundraising initiatives across Scotland. Today, outside the Russian consulate in Edinburgh, artists were movingly reciting poems and singing to make human connections, using their right to protest and campaign.

The motion is vital because it is about tackling the issue of those who have extracted money from the Russian people and its economy and kept it for themselves to make them and their families rich. The kleptocrats did not just make money out of businesses; they then bought properties and land, including in this country, which has become more and more valuable over time. We need transparency and we need to end for good the influence of corrupt money.

We believe that the bill that is referenced in the motion does not go far enough. It will not stop the dirty money that has flooded into the UK economy, which Alex Cole-Hamilton mentioned. Action was promised in 2016, but that has not happened. Since then, we have seen £15 billion flood into the purchase of properties where the investors have been accused of corruption or having direct links to the Kremlin. We are impatient for action.

Our UK Labour colleagues attempted to amend the Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill to enable it to expand its scope to properties purchased before 2014 in Scotland and 1999 in the rest of the country, and to keep the current transitional period on properties to bring them into the scope of the regime being established.

As Michael Marra eloquently said, there is no logical reason why this must be the case. The whole point of our land reform legislation in Scotland has been to increase transparency, the beneficial use of our land and community involvement and ownership, so the examples that have been given in the chamber today are not acceptable.

We need transparency, so that people cannot hide their ownership and thereby escape the action and accountability that the legislation is intended to deliver. The issue of persons with significant control needs to be addressed now. We need transparency on all the land that is owned and registered in Scotland.

The people of Ukraine are suffering now. They need the accountability and the action that we can deliver in Scotland to put pressure on Putin’s regime. Anyone who has been at any of the demonstrations will know that it is hard to listen to their demands to act now. We need to listen to them and to do what we can.

I also say to the cabinet secretary that we need an urgent review of the ScotWind project, to ensure that no one benefits from our sea bed where sanctions should be imposed. Ethical concerns have been raised, and they should be acted on urgently. Therefore, I ask the cabinet secretary to say in his winding-up speech what action the Scottish Government will take on that issue to address those concerns and deliver transparency.

I welcome the cross-party support that we have had today for both the motion and the amendment. I particularly welcome the measured speech that Donald Cameron made and his support for our party’s amendment. We are not always going to agree in this place, and part of democracy is expressing that disagreement. I agree with the points that Michelle Thomson made about the need for more action.

In conclusion, both the Scottish and UK Governments must pull out all the stops to ensure that transparency is real and that we in this country do everything that we can to tackle the legacy of historical purchases by oligarchs and by those who have cosied up to those in power. It has to stop now.