…the blog and website of Andy Wightman
On Thursday evening last week, Channel 4 news broadcast the above 11 minute film on land reform in Scotland. It’s worth a watch. It highlights, among other things, how grassroots members of the SNP are campaigning for a more vigorous
Continue readingImage: Land Reform Minister, Aileen McLeod at launch of Land Reform Bill with Carluke Development Trust. Photo by Scottish Government. UPDATE 13 August 2015 My Written Evidence to the Rural Affairs Committee The Land Reform (Scotland) Bill was published by
Continue readingThe provisions in the Scotland Bill for the devolution of the management of the Crown Estate in Scotland are complex and unclear (see previous blog for background). Last week, the Scottish Parliament’s Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee (RACCE)
Continue readingIntroduction One of the Smith Commission agreements was that responsibility for the management and revenues of the Crown Estate in Scotland should be devolved to the Scottish Parliament. (1) This Agreement reflected the widespread consensus in Scotland that the management
Continue readingThis blog is long overdue (as indeed are many) but I understand that the City of Edinburgh Council’s Audit Committee will shortly be considering a report into the Parliament House fiasco. It is therefore appropriate to publish this second update on
Continue readingImage: Commission on Local Tax Reform. Oral Evidence Session 2 Today, the Commission on Local Tax Reform held its second oral evidence session. I am member of the Commission representing the Scottish Green Party. The event was streamed live and
Continue readingScottish Land and Estates, the organisation that represents some landowners in Scotland, attracted a fair bit of press coverage last month for their claim that potential reforms to Scotland’s agricultural tenancy laws could leave the Scottish Government open to compensation
Continue readingThe Scottish Government has announced the remit and membership of the Commission on Local Tax reform. I am very pleased to have been nominated as a member of the Commission on Local Tax Reform and look forward to meeting the other
Continue reading“The latest developments in the story of Parliament House (see previous blog) are as follows. ONE Scottish Green Party Councillor Gavin Corbett has had meetings with senior officials in the Council and shares his thoughts here. TWO The Leader and
Continue readingImage: De Wit version of Gordon of Rothiemay’s original 1647 plan showing Parliament House seven years after construction. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland. Regular readers of this blog will be familiar with the subject of
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