Land for the People (Scotland) Bill
Introduction
This blog introduces my proposals for a comprehensive Land Reform Bill – one that goes far further than existing proposals in reforming Scotland’s land governance.
I plan to publish further blogs outlining in more detail the background rationale and details of each section of the proposed Bill. In Spring 2024, I will publish a draft bill (or as close to it as I can reasonably achieve) together with explanatory notes. Meanwhile, this blog sets out the key sections of the Bill together with a brief explanation and context for each.
The overall purpose of the Bill is to democratise land governance. In particular, it is designed to strengthen the role of local communities and local government, to secure more widespread ownership of land, to increase accountability in landownership, to protect and restore commons regimes and to fairly allocate the wealth accrued from land rights.
The Bill includes measures relating to land tenure, administrative law, fiscal policy and land markets.
The underlying philosophy of the Bill is that land is a common resource and Parliament has the responsibility to create the framework for a socially responsible, accountable, democratic and transparent system of land tenure, and associated rights of occupation and use.
Within such a system, owners and others should have the freedom to use their land in whatever way they wish. In other words we seek to correct deficiencies in the balance between private and public interests not by cracking down on individuals owners but by reforming the system within which they exercise their rights. By default this will involve greater local democratic governance.
Land for the People (Scotland) Bill
LONG TITLE
An Act of the Scottish Parliament to democratise the governance of land, to reform land tenure, to regulate land markets, to provide enhanced information and transparency to land governance and for related matters.
PART 1 THE LAND OF SCOTLAND
This part of the Bill defines the land it relates to and disclaims sovereignty over Rockall.
For the purposes of this Bill, the land of Scotland is the territory of Scotland bounded by the land border with England, the territorial seas out to the 12 nautical mile limit and the an indeterminate border both below and above ground. The Island of Rockall does not form part of the land of Scotland.
PART 2 LAND TENURE
This part of the Bill reforms and modernises various aspects of land tenure.
Ownership
Scotland has a long history of different forms of land tenure. Generally speaking this falls into two parts – the tenure governing rights of ownership and the (various) tenures governing possession or use (such as housing and agricultural tenancies). Scotland’s system of ownership was substantially simplified with the with the introduction and spread of feudalism across Scotland in the medieval period although Udal tenure survives in Orkney and Shetland.
Feudal tenure was abolished by the Abolition of Feudal Tenure (Scotland) Act 2000 and took effect on 28 November 2004 (Martinmas). No explicit term was used to describe the tenure that replaced it, but by abolishing all superiorities, it is now alloidal in character.
A key characteristic of landownership in Scotland is that it confers rights on owners but no responsibilities. What responsibilities that exist are applied post-hoc using administrative law (planning, environment etc). In 1999, I argued for a system based on rights and responsibilities with four tiers – the planet, the sovereignty territory, the community and the owner. Rights would flow down and responsibilities up as illustrated below. [1]
This section of the Bill will amend the 2000 Act and redefine Scotland’s system of land tenure as conditional tenure with (broadly defined) statutory responsibilities as well as rights. The particulars of how these will be interpreted can be set out in secondary legislation. They will include legal duties to conserve natural processes and restore ecosystems.
Thus, the basic framework of land tenure incorporates at its heart the principle of accountability and responsibility to others.
Residency
It shall be a condition of owning land that the owner (if a natural person) or the beneficial owner (if a legal person), is ordinarily resident on or close to the land they own. Applications can be made to the Scottish Land Court for exemptions based on a number of statutory criteria.
Charitable Bodies
Organisations with charitable status and which own more than a defined extent of land shall be obliged to have a membership which is open to all adults resident within the external boundaries of the landholding
Succession
The Bill will abolish distinction between heritable and moveable property in relation to the law of succession and thus allow children and spouses to exercise legal rights to inherit land. The fact that this right does not exist (or exists only in relation to moveable property) is one of the defining features of Scottish land tenure and distinguishes it from virtually the whole of continental Europe.
Crown Land
The Crown continues to own around half of the foreshore and all of the seabed out to the territorial limits. These rights are currently administered and managed by Crown Estate Scotland. The Bill will extinguish the Crown’s property rights to the foreshore and transfer it to local authorities. Rights to the seabed will be transferred to local authorities out to 3 miles and Scottish Ministers out to 12 nautical miles.
The bill will also abolish the Crown’s right to naturally occurring mussels and oysters and will repeal the Royal Mines Act 1492 and vest all rights to gold and silver with Scottish Ministers. The Crown’s rights to salmon will be abolished and transferred to local authorities.
Foreshore and the Seabed
The Bill will implement the recommendations of the Scottish Law Commission’s recommendations on the Law of the Foreshore and Sea Bed. This report, published in 2003, set out a new legal framework to modernise the law in this area but has never been implemented.
Agricultural Tenancies
The Bill will provide tenant farmers who hold a secure 1991 tenancy and have held it (either themselves or together with those from whom they have inherited it) for at least 25 years, with full rights of ownership.
Crofting
The Bill will take forward a range of existing proposals to modernise and simplify crofting tenure.
PART 3 COMMONS
This part of the Bill will provide for the protection of common land and modernise the governance arrangements to ensure accountable local management.
Common Land
Scotland’s common lands have been extensively eroded through the process of enclosure, unlawful appropriation and poor governance.
Unlike England, there is no registration process for common land. The Bill will provide a legal means of registering areas of common land and protect them from appropriation and will give local authorities powers to establish governance arrangements for them
Common Good land in Scotland’s burghs continue to be governed by out of date laws dating back to 1491. The Bill will modernise governance arrangements and return ownership and control to those who live in the burgh.
The Bill will repeal the Division of Commonties Act 1695 which remains on the statute book and facilitates the legal enclosure of extant communities.
The Bill will also introduce new land restitution provisions to restore common land that has been appropriated unlawfully.
Community bodies will be given new statutory powers to take over ownership of land formerly owned by Scotland’s Parish Councils.
Atmosphere
The Bill will abolish private rights in the atmosphere above the height of existing or approved vegetation or infrastructure and convert these rights into common rights. A commons regime will then be put in place to regulate the management of the atmosphere and provide a democratic and public means of governing carbon and other greenhouse gases.
PART 4 LAND INFORMATION
This part of the bill will put in place a new legal framework to capture, store and make public a wide range of information on land.
Currently land information is held in many places by many organisations, with different formats and a range of access protocols. In 2015 the Scottish Government announced the development of Scotland’s Land Information Service (SCOTLIS). The project has never been completed.
The Bill will also set out an agreed transparency framework to make clear what information can be obtained, on what basis and in standardised formats.
PART 5 LAND MARKETS
This part of the bill will reform the way in which land markets function in order to democratise and open up the land market to many more people.
New Intervention powers
The Bill will create powers for local authorities to designate parcels of land necessary for social development. When they are proposed to be sold, local authorities will have the right to acquire them for their existing use value. For larger holdings, Councils will be able to acquire designated land for the average of the price paid per ha of the larger holding.
These powers can be devolved to community bodies.
Monopoly regulation
New powers will be given to the local government to regulate the market to break up monopoly ownership of land and property. Approval will have to be obtained before any legal or natural person can acquire more than a defined extent of land by value. This will be a Scotland-wide power so as to regulate the growth of monopoly ownership by the aggregation of multiple holdings.
PART 6 RIGHTS TO BUY
This part of the bill will streamline existing community rights to buy to make them easier to use, to expand the range of entities who can use them and to amend the decision making process involved.
There are number of rights to buy now on the statute book. They are complex and some of them have never been used. The Bill will simplify them, provide more options and open them up to use by, for example, registered sports associations and certain charities.
The decision-making process involved in approving rights to buy under the Bill will be democratised by removing them from the control of Scottish Ministers and vesting them instead in local authorities.
PART 7 HOUSING & LAND ASSEMBLY
This part of the Bill will increase the role of local authorities in assembling and master-planning land for the provision of new housing.
The Bill will introduce compulsory sale orders whereby the owner of land is obliged to put it on the market and sell it.
The Bill will also amend compulsory purchase powers in a manner similar to the provisions recently enacted in England to enable local authorities to acquire land at its existing use value and not the inflated value arising as a result of the anticipation of or granting of planning consent.
Modifications will be made to the The Town and Country Planning (Use Classes) (Scotland) Order 1997 to make holiday homes a distinct use class requiring planning consent in a similar manner as recently implemented by the Welsh Government.
PART 8 FISCAL MEASURES
This part of the bill will amend existing fiscal policy to ensure that all land is fairly taxed.
Non-domestic rates
The power to set the level of non-domestic rates will be returned to local government from whom it was removed by the UK Government under s.110 of the Local Government Finance Act 1992. It will also repatriate the powers to introduce relief schemes and to vary the rate for different types of non-domestic property.
The bill will require all land to be valued and entered on the valuation roll. Currently rural land such as used for agriculture and forestry is exempt. NDR valuation will be amended to require a split valuation of the land separate from any development upon it and local authorities will be required to set a rate for each element (which may or may not be the same).
The Bill will also re-introduce owners rates and make owners (rather than as at present occupiers) liable for paying the tax.
Council Tax
The Bill will reform Council tax by creating Bands of £10,000 valuation, mandating regular revaluations, introducing a tax free housing allowance, and setting the rate based on property valuations rather than (as at present), fixed multipliers.
Land and Buildings Transaction Tax
The Bill will scrap Land and Buildings Transaction Tax and incorporate the revenue foregone into non-domestic rates and council tax revenues.
Carbon Tax
The bill will make provision for a new tax on emissions from land.
PART 9 PUBLIC LAND
This part of the Bill will democratise the governance of land held by Scottish Ministers and by other pubic bodies.
The public have very little influence and control over land held on behalf of the public by Scottish Ministers and other public bodies. Then bill will improve democratic governance by, for example, establishing regional land boards with democratically elected members to oversee the management of public land. Boards will have the power to delegate decision making over land to different entities for different purposes. For example local authorities could be delegated powers to develop housing on land owned by Scottish Ministers.
PART 10 LAND SETTLEMENT
This part of the bill will update and modernise the Land Settlement (Scotland) Act 1919.
PART 11 NATURAL RESOURCES
This part of the bill will contain a range of measures to democratise the management of natural resources including game and freshwater and sea fish.
PART 11 MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS
This part of the bill will implement those recommendations from the Land Reform Review Group that are not included above and not yet implemented.
NOTES
[1] See Wightman, A, 1999. Scotland: Land and power. An agenda for land reform in Scotland. (Luath Press)
Much food for thought. Initially my instinct is to disagree with much of this but as they say the devil is in the detail. I await this with interest and, hopefully, an open mind d.
What this does tell me is that the Scottish Parliament lost out hugely when Wightman was not re-elected. I hope he stands again. We need intellects like his.
I very much welcome your proposals and look forward to healthy and constructive debate by those more knowledgeable and experienced in these matters than I am. The need for more action on Scotland’s land matters is long overdue.
I have a concern that many of the changes you propose may take some considerable time to be put in place and will therefore be overtaken by Scotland becoming independent. May I suggest that before finally publishing your draft bill you take time to consider in discussion with others which aspects of your proposals should be (or may be better) enshrined in a written constitution for an independent Scotland.
The Scottish Land Revenue Group approves your draft proposals and will offer more detailed comment in due course.
Lots of much needed reforms Andy. I look forwards to seeing future drafts.
Seems arbitrary to exclude/exempt Rockall.
Doesn’t this create a precedent?
Could other bits of Scotland be excluded or exempt?
Asking for a neighbour ( who has a land holding to the South)
Rockal was acquired using colonial powers of annexation. it should be managed as a global commons
Does excluding Rockall not have consequences for an independent Scotland’s exclusive economic zone and therefore potentially a loss of marine resources eg fish and offshore energy?
Some very good ideas here Andy. Some might prove tricky to implement…devil in the detail etc but will certainly help our
direction of travel. Generally, and specifically with respect to some of your proposals, is a reservation I have with ‘democratisation’ . While a laudable aspiration I have serious concerns about ‘institutional capture’ and corruption due to the budget crisis in the public sector and the ever increasing flow of global capital. Currently I think many of our public agencies and local councils have had their heads turned by capitalist investors especially so called ‘Green’ ones. I would therefore like to see some sharing of decision making across government- community institutions as a safe guard. This would increase accountability. It would risk over bureaucratisation of course..but new smart systems should help. Generally I would also like to see more power and influence given to communities… people are losing touch with the land .
I also think that your proposals and land reform debate in general does not pay enough attention to promoting small scale ownership such as forest crofts . We need many more owners to create a diverse and thriving rural sector. Remoter areas need new families who are their to create a living for themselves. Not all existing communities who want to control land want new arrivals.
But we dont need law changes for forest crofts. Scottish Ministers own 1.6 million acres. Could be thousands of such holdings if there were the committment.Will think further on the small-scale question though.
Good points – the governance framework is the key and lots to be done to improve it.
Andy, as I know most of your life’s work has been dedicated to research, clear thinking and comment on the land issues you raise in this proposed bill I can think of no one more appropriate to take it forward and wish you well with it and look forward to a positive outcome.
Thank you, Andy, for all your work on this (both undertaken so far and to do going forwards).
I am no expert but an ordinary citizen with a keen interest in the environment, access to land, and fairness.
I welcome the above topics as matters for study and overall am delighted at these proposals for the draft bill.
Thanks again! I look forward eagerly to learning more, and hopefully to seeing your bill progress in due time.
Much needed clear thinking on the question of land reform. As others have suggested much will depend on proper governance and hopefully local communities will eventually have considerably more control than at the moment. I wish you well with this – we have been let down by lack of action from the current Scottish Government. I look forward to reading some of the small print.
Oh I prey you get this made law but I suspect it will be ignored and watered down to extinction. I don’t know if the SNP had a secret deal with Crown and Tories or they just too frightened to make any headway. There always seems to be another consultation or survey. Sick of it. Good luck.
Considering the SNP in part got in on Land Reform, then proceeded to ignore their promises, no shock there- We should put pressure on them to fulfil their original promise. It has been years since I was made aware of Land Matters, and Mr Wightnman has forgotten that one of the most important aspects of Land Matters is our National Parks. They make millions every year, but we don’t know where it goes. Certainly not spent on the parks or expanding the centres that people can use. Instead, we get so many rules and regs that tell us when and where we can use them. Many types of walkers and campers are not catered for or are not wanted and yet isn’t that not up to them? They forget who they work for, i.e us! There are vast swathes of National Parks that cannot be accessed. Loch Katrine in the Trossachs for example. You can visit it at two narrow points at either end, but can’t drive up either side as one is for residents only and the South side for the Royals only, and how often do they use that? Car parking along the Lomind is insufficient for tourists even when they are allowed to use it. Something must be done, and that revenue belongs to the people.
Glad to see your commitment to democratic management of Scotland’s land articulated. Would wish to see these outline proposals debated and discussed up and down the country, which would help to flesh out detail as useful in different areas and different contexts.
Great to see such a comprehensive draft set out as a basis for further discussion and development of much needed reform. The only eyebrow it raised with me was in relation to the potentially huge additional administrative burden proposed for local Councils. Some (many?) of them struggle to cope with the powers they already have, so some serious increase in the quality and capacity of local governance needs to go hand in hand with the proposed reforms. Is there a way of weaving such requirements into the reform bill itself, perhaps to provide a framework for Councils and reduce the risk of new powers falling into an administrative vacuum?
Andy what you are trying to do has been long overdue and my whole family wish you well in your endeavours thank goodness you had the tenacity to keep going more power to you.
Andy et al
I have been following Jeremy Leggett’s initiative restoring landscapes in key Highland Estates which now progresses to sale of parts of the Estate to Community Initiatives (see link). He is attracting a mix of initial investment and employs a commendable ecological science team, but most of the investment comes, and is intended to come, from large private investors. I agree with your concerns about the private market for selling carbon credits, particularly to defray avoidable emissions. I think Leggett avoids these concerns, but it needs a more expert eye to figure out the business plan and the value for stakeholders. Any thoughts?
https://mailchi.mp/highlandsrewilding/1-million-10405878?e=873597e1f9
It’s not good enough for people/the country to be dependent on the “niceness” of the Laird though, is it?
Well what a legacy this will be, some frightening proposals at first glance, if only we had our own country then it might just be possible, I’ve called for change all my life, so I must continue to support the aims of meaningful land reform, like many small resident landowners I only wish the focus was more on the individual, it’s to easily contrived to take over community councils when the community they purportedly represent was cleared decades ago..
I believe that no foreigner should own any land in Scotland.
I also believe that the land was stolen from the indigenous population, in the first place, by fraudulent means.
A few centuries ago Illiterate land owners were conned out of their land by making a mark on papers written in Latin or French. The land then transfered to the upper classes of the day. The rest is history as they say.
Ooooft! Sounds a tad racist.
Thank you Andy for sharing this good work in language a general audience can engage with. I expect many points in the proposed Bill will be controversial and look forward to further discussion. To start off that discussion and think through possible responses, I’d be interested to know what you (Andy) and other readers think will be the main objections. I am also curious about @Alasdair Sampson’s initial instinct to disagree and wish he had said more about this..
Dear Andy and Land Community,
It was uplifting to see your Bill.
Along with many other broken systems, we need to change the Culture of Land Ownership along with the professional practices which advise owners only for maximum profit for a few.
New Technologies are taking us back to healthy rural possibilities.
The ancient type of land holdings were never intended to be Individual private power positions, but to insure Stewardship / Guardians for the integrity and safety of that Niche and not for owners exclusive private profit.
Now, because of several centuries of: “Do as you Wilt,” rather than: “Do as you would be done by,” we have degraded the entire landscape, such that individual progress for profit has adversely damaged the DNA of most of all living things. This has come about from de-regulation.
Your Bill is invigorating.
Will The Bill define the responsibilities of land owners for the environmental health of complex niche diversity, people, flora, fauna, microbes, air and water quality?
Personalised Energy possibilities has meant we can re-populate the highlands in off grid small cluster villages, using solar, (such as Daniel Nocera of MIT type model and Iron Air Batteries).
Additionally, Land Stewards / land owners should ensure that the community can reasonably develop their own businesses with space for workshops etc.
David Attenborough said that the best thing for the world would be if we could return to Hunter Gatherer societies, adding this was no longer possible.
But brilliantly, using modern technology we can become the new hunter gatherers and re-create an integrated landscape accordingly, coupled to ability for new cluster villages and ability to make a reasonable living.
We need to think in terms of decentralised, concentrically inter-connected local communities utilising the new technology of Robots, 3D Printers, AI etc., accessing a new information systems, and new access to patents and new IP law. – i.e. Mr. Dodar needs a part for his old engine – young people will know just how to create that part, or even a whole new engine, locally, with 3D printers AI and access to patents.
The Resins used do not have to be petroleum based.
In terms of Energy, each member of every local community could be a part of communities who partner with their local authority and with the Gov to create local energy systems where the community and Gov are the owners, the producers, the users and the sellers. We can use the sides of motorways, we are not short of land or wind to create our own energy. Additionally this would better protect the grid from the odd possibility of solar flare and galactic storms grid melt down.
New, small cluster villages could be built from Cobb with local timber, via 3D printers.
There are so many new jobs waiting for these innovative times ahead.
In terms of food security, we can also grow forest gardens, planted to be managed by robots and AI, overseen by a new type of farmer for the express need of the local community. The forests diversity would span a reasonable breadth of climate extremes. This makes sense since the rich French 15 -18th Century grain producers sold their crops prior to harvest, and in very bad years they starved, whereas in the poor mountainous regions they never starved for the forests always had a wide range of foods. Food managed by Robots and AI, would minimise herbicides, pesticides, and petroleum derivative fertilizers. Electrified water / plasma water is good fertilizer.
Many different crops could be researched to grow such as Fungi and Algae, coppiced woods for bio-char.
Rural Schools can be run with the worlds best educational programs run straight into rural communities.
The dead lock is caused by the innovation cash needed stored at the top of our polarity monetary system. While it is easy to see where we need to be, so as to transition to follow natures own sustainable patterns for a circular economy, I do not know how our governments can make the top share holders release their cash except by tighter regulation and better incentives. But our governments appear to want to hand rich corporations big subsidies and de-regulate to attract more rich people. But I do not understand, for the good reason that there is no Trickle Down.
Our educational system is unhealthy, children’s curiosity turned off, their minds closed down. For the purpose of their education has been to turn them into good tools for corporate big business progress, to better compete in a race to the bottom for the higher interest of corporate shareholders.
There are only 58,000 companies listed on the world stock exchange. Yet near the whole world operates to economically enrich the exploitative Free Market for greater profit, with the collected benefits stored above a glass floor only for use only at the top.
Scotland’s top professionals’ main clients are these high end corporations, and the same professionals also advise our Government.
The Professionals have huge influence on their clients, advise clients for their maximum monetary profits and not for general wellbeing. But I feel there is a natural conflict of interest in such Experts advising both groups.
How do we get funds to the bottom of our ‘Niches’, to build up our degraded world?
The most wonderful possibilities are there for Scotland, but the relationships which should hold together to create the new possibilities are missing. There are huge ideological cultural gaps.
Our degraded landscapes, our inner city satellite housing estates of forgotten people are environments created by several centuries of ‘Freedom of Contract’ undertaken by professionals for the rich; – Human Rights legislation and Common Law for ordinary people stays on the paper, by reason of the specific Scottish ‘procedural law set up’ of Civil law, which effectively denies ability of ordinary people to enforce any bargaining power or their equal rights under the current civil law system.
But it all starts with care for the land and communities, and we have seriously lost our way.
In the olden days our forbearers were more like our sheep, ‘hefted’ to their homes and land – land was like their own external body. Nowadays that respect is lost. In losing that sense of truly belonging we have all lost a sense community and of co – stewardship, particularly in absentee landlords who own land for tax, for status and as a hedge.
Where and how do real green investor banks come in here?
And how should our civil law / criminal courts change in order to catch white collar fraud with an estimated yearly cost of £193 bn fraud on our nation, business fraud accounting for £144 bn. (FT 24th May 2016, and bbc.co.uk)
If we do not decentralise, empower rural communities, then, while the broken monetary world is in the business of conflicts and wars, the indebted corporations will set up new factories using robots. AI and 3D Printers for labour, and our central governments will grant private corporations ever more Rights to manage our affairs and needs as if we were the corporate’s farmed commodities.
So now is the time to re-define responsibilities of Land ownership, start planning for small rural but interconnected communities, operating for the common good and well being of the land, of people and of land lord-stewards, land ownership in different capacities, concentrically connected to our central government, managed in manner fit for the quantum technology enabling us to be modern day local hunter-gatherers.
I am very grateful to Andy.
Thank you,
I support and appreciate this initiative – than you, Andy.
Two comments/suggestions:
1. I would prefer to see a stronger open section or statement, regarding the meaning of Land and Country. I think that characterising land as ‘a resource’ has the effect of supporting and legitimating an extractive attitude to the more-than-human world. It would be better, particularly in the light of what is already unavoidable ecological collapse, to emphasise the importance of humans tending for the land, and having a sense of being interconnected with it. Even if your Bill does not reach the legislation stage, it could be used to promote awareness of the need to re-imagine our relationship with the land.
2. As a city-dweller, I am not seeing how the Bill will relate to issues around land use in urban areas. I am sure that it will, but it might be helpful to make this dimension of the Bill more explicit. Among the many land use issues that are relevant to city dwellers, an important one is something that Lesley Riddoch has written about extensively – the ability for a family to have a Norwegian-style hut in the country, and be able to participate in both urban and rural life without denying housing opportunities to those who live in rural areas. I think it could be useful to spell out how the Bill might make this happen.
That’s the best description of hutting that I’ve seen. I have a new understanding now. Thank you.
Thank you Andy – I hope those tasked with delivering the Land Reform Act have the wisdom to engage fully with you. I sense there needs to be a way to make land reform something that is discussed widely or perhaps a citizens assembly. I am in awe of the depth, clarity, and and participative nature of what you propose. This would be the start of geninely reconnecting people and place, and fostering a practical and philosophical centrality of the commons. I fear the reforms will be developed and delivered by a seriously well-intentioned in face of well-funded, small, unrepresentative lobbiests.
I think the proposed Bill is too much detailed and needs some general thrust, some overarching goal (or goals, but few of them). One might be that land ownership comes with rights but MUST also come with responsibilities. The Bill could be presented in those terms, each paragraph laying out a kind of property, the possible ownerships of that property, the rights that go with it and the responsibilities on the owner. That would make arguable sense, i.e. something that can be attacked and defended.
As Paul Getty said “The meek shall inherit the earth, but not the mineral rights.”
Allowing myself the luxury of second thoughts … I have never before heard the statement that property ownership gives rights but also responsibilities. That is beautifully simple. Now all one has to do is detail that.
Intersting to see rates reforms Can you add in Community Councils being able to raise a rates precept like parish councils in England. A small local income stream would be really empowering for many communities and enable a lot of the desired changes.
I don’t think I agree that there should be a different taxation regime for residential and commercial. Absolutely we need something better than current council tax for residential, but I don’t see why a land or property tax regime cannot treat residential vs commercial uses equally? The government should be fiscally indifferent as to the use that the land is pit. No?
Hi Andy
I agree.
We need to radically change the focus and terms of the Scottish Land Reform debate from tinkering about on the edges of the land market to one that address social and environmental rights and issues of fairness, democracy and the redistribution of power within society.
What a grand and gale-force land reform squib you are constructing to ding the lugs of the Scots Parliament, Land Reform Commission, Land Reform Branch, Land Court and assorted quangos.
A couple of thoughts:
Part 2 Land Tenure (Crofting section)
The Crofters Common Grazings Regulations Act of 1891 which encompasses rights over half a million hectares in the Crofting Counties needs to be looked at with a view to updating and expanding the rights.
Part 7 Housing and Land Assembly
It would be good to introduce not just an updating of Compulsory Purchase powers for local authorities but the introduction of a new set of powers on Compulsory Leasing of Land linked to the to the implementation of Local Authority Local Plans. Rural and small town housing plots could be Compulsory Leased to new homeowners at £10k.
A very good step forward after years of no action by Scottish Government. The proposed Bill is extensive and will, I am sure, take a number of years to progress through Parliament. Implementation will then take a further number of years. The quicker your Bill is accepted and starts its progression the better.
Our Common Good Lands/Funds need protecting from predatory Local Councils who see them as cash cows to be used to offset their budget deficits or at least vindicating them in reducing L&R budgets to those communities who have common good.
Local people have no say whatsoever in what happens to their Common good, and loaded tick box consultation exercises which are discussed in closed ward meetings and then rubberstamped at Local Area Committees then presented as a fait accompli to local residents is par for the course. The consultations, which are open to anyone from anywhere in the world must stop and meaningful engagement with the inhabitants of royal burghs must be undertaken from the bottom up and not top down as happens constantly. As Common Good lands belong to the inhabitants of the Royal burgh and no one else, the outcome of any such consultation should be carried out. Not so – consultation outcomes are simply swept aside and Council Officers simply do what they want. Residents are not even allowed to see wh0 responded or where they come from which is particularly relevant for Common Good, so for all residents’ know, the outcome of consultations can be completely skewed by individuals and groups who do not live in the consultation royal burgh.
I have no doubt that the unconscionable and what I would describe as illegal actions of local Councils wrt Common Good is mirrored by other quangos and landowners and I applaud everything you are doing to progress this draft Bill.
Thank you for the excellent research and proposals.
I want to see total transparency in finding out who owns what. Today I still find it near impossible to discover who owns which hill or mountain, no doubt that is all part of the current plan.
I also worry about giving councils too much power over even more resources, I have no say on council LEZ schemes etc so I would not trust them with our land.
Excellent proposals. All these reforms are long overdue.
I found this today (14th March 2024). The Scottish Government’s Land Reform Bill was published yesterday. We were promised by the leader of the SNP, on his election, that his government would be “bold and radical”. I’m not feeling it.
Andy, as we going to see more from you on this topic, following on from the December 4th 2023 post.
I seem to recall the issue of succession re heritable and moveable property was one of the recommendations of the LRRG back in 2014 – it seems to me that it would be an impactful change yet it has never been enacted. I assume since you have included it, that it is within the scope of the Scottish Parliament?
yes its in scope. plan to real bill properly next week