SNP 'working with Tories to weaken Land Reform Bill', MSPs say
The Greens' Mark Ruskell and Labour's Mercedes Villalba both told the Sunday National that the SNP Government was using Tory votes to keep effective measures out of the new legislation.
The Land Reform (Scotland) Bill will this week pass 'stage two' at Holyrood, where amendments to the initial wording are proposed by MSPs and voted on for inclusion or rejection by members of the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee.
However, last week, MSPs on the committee – which has three SNP, two Tory, one Labour, and one Green member – voted against measures including putting a public interest test on the proposed buyer of Scottish land.
Rural Affairs Secretary Mairi Gougeon speaking to the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee in a meeting held on June 17 (Image: Holyrood TV) The amendment, proposed by Villalba and rejected by the SNP and Tories, would have forced ministers to take into account things like a potential landowners' tax residence when deciding if a sale would be in the public interest.
MSPs and the Government did support dropping the threshold for estates covered by the legislation from 3000 to 1000 hectares – but the SNP and Tories voted together to reject an amendment to push that down further to 500 hectares. There are around 2.5 acres to a hectare, and 1.6 acres to a standard football pitch.
Villalba had tabled a more radical proposal that would have prevented anyone in Scotland from owning more than 500 hectares of land unless it could be shown to have environmental or community benefits. This was also voted down by the SNP and Tories.
READ MORE: Rachael Revesz: The Land Reform Bill is only tinkering round the edges
Changing the threshold at which estates are covered by the bill from 3000 to 1000 hectares means that the number of estates which will be required to publish Land Management Plans, support wild places, and comply with the Scottish Outdoor Access Code has been doubled to a total of about 700, covering just over 60% of Scotland's land, the John Muir Trust said.
Villalba said that 67% of Scotland's countryside is owned by 'just 0.025% of the population' and that the 1000-hectare threshold would do nothing to change this.
Further questions surround whether land must be contiguous to be considered a single 1000-hectare estate. The SNP put forward a rule saying that plots of land are a single holding if their borders are within 250 metres.
The Greens had been set to table an amendment to make this 10 miles, but it was not moved. Ruskell said this was due to a shared understanding that the 250m limit was too low – and that it would be addressed at a later stage.
However, Ruskell further said that the bill in its current state was 'fundamentally not going to lead to a solution to the growing inequalities in land ownership that we have in Scotland'.
Scottish Green MSP Mark Ruskell in the parliament chamber (Image: Holyrood TV)'This bill does not tackle that, full stop,' he went on. 'It gives communities a bit more power, it provides a bit more scrutiny as to what landowners are currently doing, but it's not clear that this is going to make any major difference in terms of getting a more diverse pattern of land ownership and really changing the answer to 'Who owns Scotland?'.
'Things will continue broadly as they have been for centuries, but with a wee bit more community involvement. It's a bill that's tweaking around the edges of existing systems rather than having a big bold vision.'
He told the Sunday National that the Scottish Government could 'easily put forward a more radical vision into this bill and get support from Labour and the Greens, easily'.
'Every amendment would pass. Every single amendment would be unchallengeable. So it's their call because they have the votes for it and they have the consensus on the left – but they don't want to play to that.
'So they're getting support from the Tories to defeat anything that's taking a bill into a more radical place.'
READ MORE: Lesley Riddoch: Scotland needs real action on land reform
Villalba went a step further, saying the bill was not fit for purpose and would entrench inequality across Scotland.
The Scottish Labour MSP went on: 'The SNP have demonstrated that their true allegiance is not with the Scottish people, but rather with wealthy private landowners who manage their property not in the public interest but to maximise their own profits.
'Scotland's land should belong to the people, and benefit both local communities and the natural environment. It's high time the SNP stopped deferring to lobbyists and empowered Scots to take back control of their land.'
She added: 'By voting against the inclusion of a presumed limit on ownership over 500 hectares in the bill, the SNP risk allowing land to be sold or managed in ways that benefit private interests at the expense of the public good, entrenching the very problems their proposals seek to correct.
'What's more, by aligning with the Conservative Party to reject the inclusion of a robust public interest test, rather than stand up for Scots, they have rolled over for the wealthy – and not for the first time.'
The SNP and Scottish Government were approached for comment.
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