Growing a Greener, Fairer Scotland: Social Enterprise and the New Land Reform Plans
Posted: 01 September 2024, in Blog-News
The Scottish Parliament has presented a new Land Reform Bill to be voted on.
The bill would be the next step in a year’s long process of land reform by the Scottish Parliament since 2003 and 2016 respectively.
We are currently working with Community Land Scotland and others on options to improve the Bill. As the Bill currently stands, it has more of a focus on managing land rather than reforming the current unequal distribution of land across Scotland.
Unfortunately, this Bill does not cover urban land, missing out on several opportunities for community groups, people and social enterprises. When it comes to land in Scotland there must be access for urban communities to do more with the land that surrounds them. However, we should focus on the rural areas that this Bill does have effect on and could improve (if amended).
The aim of any such Bill should be to reform how land is owned across Scotland but, what this current Bill seems to do is to simply change how land will be managed. This isn’t quite the reform we were promised. But how we manage land is crucial for Scotland meeting any future climate targets.
More could be done if this land was not held in the hands of so few people. It could be held by development trusts, community groups or other social enterprises on behalf of and for the benefit of the people in their community.
As Dr. Josh Doble, the Policy Manager for Community Land Scotland told us:
“Community Land Scotland (CLS) welcomes the introduction of the Land Reform Bill and the opportunity to review the Government’s proposals. There are some potentially innovative proposals within the legislation which could help diversify landownership and strengthen communities’ abilities to own land. However, many aspects of the Bill need strengthening.
The exclusion of urban Scotland, any concept of the public interest, any measures to tackle concentration of ownership, and community rights to buy from the Bill are disappointing. CLS looks forward to working with the Net Zero Committee and the Scottish Government to ensure this legislation is as robust and coherent as it can be to tackle the scale and concentration of landownership in Scotland.
The Scottish Government has rightly ambitious policy objectives to institute community wealth building on a national scale, to ensure a just transition to Net Zero and deliver land reform which addresses the scale and concentration of land ownership around Scotland. CLS have concerns that the draft Bill will not further these policy goals, and actually risks working against a just transition, diversifying landownership and helping to build community wealth.”
If we focus on the management of land, then the powers to enforce how it is managed might be given to either; local authorities or to Community Right To Buy (CRTB) groups, previously established in the 2003 Act, with time to establish new groups for these local areas. To centralise power in Edinburgh is not an acceptable nor democratic way to engage meaningfully in how Scotland’s land is kept, especially in rural Scotland.
The Scottish Land Commission has investigated the concentration and scale of land ownership across Scotland and the impact that has on local economies and communities. The Commission has made recommendations that could solve some of the issues highlighted. Their recommendations are worth reading and agree with the implementation of a public interest test.
What happens to our land affects all of us and the intentions of landowners must be completely transparent. This should fall across all current landowners and any new ones, whether that is through purchase or inheritance. People may not live on the land, but the mismanagement of land could have grave consequences to the community surrounding any land sold. Regardless of whether an individual, a development trust, local authority or the Scottish Government, we must know what the land will be used for and how it will be looked after.
Yet, this Bill still has an opportunity to improve Scotland’s relationship with land and its people. Stage 1 of a Bill allows for amendments and improvements must be made. One of which could and should be creating a public interest test. This was previously considered – however it is vitally important that we know what a landowner, plans to do with any land bought. Will they help it grow and prosper? Or will it simply be there as a way to offset carbon they have already released or invested in? Scotland’s land should not be used and abused as a cheap way to greenwash by any industry.
If land is to be bought and sold in Scotland there must be a test it can pass for the sale to go through. The new landowner must meet a threshold of sustainability and community improvement, something that we see with social enterprises consistently.
The health of the environment and the people in proximity to the land must be the concern first and foremost. Scottish land is not something we inherit from previous Scots, but something we borrow from future ones.
Andy Paterson, Policy Officer, Social Enterprise Scotland