Meeting of the Parliament 10 February 2026 [Draft]
I have only five minutes, so I will stay on the topic. In addition, the standing orders say that we must speak to the motion. [Laughter.]
I will speak to a point that Murdo Fraser alluded to. An interesting alliance formed at some points during stage 2 when Richard Leonard, Murdo Fraser, Lorna Slater and I were all talking about shared objectives. Questions about how ownership is distributed, whether people are empowered and whether there are opportunities to maximise people’s potential are important, regardless of one’s political perspective. Whether one views oneself as a socialist, a social democrat, a capitalist or an environmentalist, the distribution of ownership matters, even if what that is called sometimes gets in the way.
I hope that community wealth building action plans will provide some focus, because if assets are not being used effectively and not being maximised, that comes at a cost to our local communities. Murdo Fraser gave one example and I heard another, of a local resident who simply wanted to put planters in a back green. That person was furiously trying to figure out who they needed to get permission from, but I do not think that that permission should be required at all. More than that, where there is common land or a common asset, we must ensure that we absolutely maximise opportunities for local people. That is what community wealth building is about.
When the bill was introduced, lots of people were scratching their heads about what community wealth building is. My concern is that there are probably places where community wealth building is being delivered without people even knowing, or that there are examples of it that we do not notice because we do not call them that. I would describe municipal ownership of the public bus service in Edinburgh as an example of long-standing community wealth building and one that we should support.
We must not make the mistake of thinking that legislating for community wealth building means that it will be delivered. If we look at the pillars of community wealth building—spending, workforce, land and property, inclusive ownership, and finance—we will see that the bill, at best, influences the first. If we are serious about effecting genuine community wealth building, a lot more must be done.
I am pleased with the improvements and think that the measurement provisions will genuinely improve matters, because having a consistent language of measurement will allow us to ensure that progress is made. Likewise, it is right that we review legislation such as the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015, because it is important that we will the means as well as will the motivation towards these things.
However, there is a risk that what we are enacting today will require a semi-regular conversation and the production of reports without necessarily willing the outcomes. There was a concern at the outset that we did not need legislation to do any of this and that having the Scottish Government set a ministerial direction with the right policies and oversight would be just as, if not more, effective. What is more to the point is that, in order to bring about community wealth building, the legislation will absolutely have to provide a focus. If it is simply passed and forgotten about, all this will have been for nothing.
The bill cannot be simply a legislative name check. There must be some serious thought about providing the means to explore things, enabling new legislative capacities—including compulsory sale orders—and looking further at how asset registers can be made more available to the public. We must think about how we can provide more mutualised models for the delivery of public services and how we can more broadly promote employee ownership and co-operatives. If we do not do those things, we will not make progress.
Labour will support the bill at decision time, but there is a huge amount of work to do once it is passed.