Land Reform for a Sustainable Scotland A Briefing Paper for MSPs August 2021 Introduction The central policy challenge facing Scotland and consequently the Scottish Parliament is to chart a path through the Covid-19 pandemic’s aftermath and the climate emergency towards Introduction 2 a greener, wealthier, more inclusive and fairer Scotland. That necessitates a renewed focus Land Reform and the on land reform – defined as measures that modify or change the arrangements governing 1 Scottish Parliament 3 the possession and use of land in the public interest – as a crucial foundation stone from which to build towards that better future with its emphasis on the common good. Scotland’s Unusually Concentrated Pattern of Landownership 5 The purpose of this briefing paper from Community Land Scotland is to provide MSPs with an overview of legislative progress on land reform since devolution and to show Land Reform and a Just Transition to ‘Net Zero’ 9 why further legislation is required early in the current session of Parliament to help achieve a sustainable Scotland. Sustaining Scotland’s Places after Covid Recovery 13 The paper highlights the close relationship between land ownership and land use and the scope for Scotland’s unusually concentrated pattern of land ownership to act as a Land Reform in the Public Interest: structural barrier to the sustainable development of local communities. It draws on findings A Programme of Legislative Action 15 and recommendations from a range of recently published research reports to illustrate the importance of land reform in tackling both post-pandemic recovery and the climate emergency in a fair and socially just way. Community Land Scotland welcomes the prospect of a new Land Reform Act being introduced early in the current Parliamentary session. We are clear that the new legislation Cover images: should form part of a wider cross-cutting programme of progressive land reform in support Electric vehicle charge points on of a sustainable Scotland for the reasons discussed in this paper. West Harris (left) © Kristina Nitsolova and Midsteeple Quarter (right) © Becky Duncan / Open Aye 1. Land Reform Review Group (2014). The Land of Scotland and the Common Good. Page 16. 2 Land Reform and the Scottish Parliament Scotland’s ‘land question’ has a long history, much of which is linked to the Highland Clearances of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and their aftermath2. More recently land reform has established itself as a mainstream issue on Scotland’s public policy agenda. The establishment of the Scottish Parliament and cross-party support for reform has been pivotal to that mainstreaming process. In his 1998 McEwen Lecture on ‘Land Reform for the 21st Century’, the then Secretary of State for Scotland, Donald Dewar, stated: There is undoubtedly a powerful symbolism – which attracts me greatly – of land reform being amongst the first actions of our new Scottish Parliament3. The symbolism to which Donald Dewar referred has been matched by a practical programme of land reform legislation brought forward by successive Scottish Government administrations and commanding strong cross-party support in Parliament. It includes the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003 which introduced the Community and Crofting Community Rights to Buy during the first Labour-Liberal Democrat coalition Government. The Scottish Parliament has pursued land reform since its inception, attracting strong cross-party support. 2. The Highland Clearances involved the often forceable removal by unscrupulous landlords of their tenants to make way for more economically profitable sheep and deer farming on their rural estates during the By Apasciuto (www.flickr.com/photos eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Consequently, early land reform measures gave crofters security of /apasciuto) shared under CC BY 2.0 tenure in relation to their crofts via the Crofters Holdings (Scotland) Act 1886. 3. Dewar, D. (1998). ‘Land Reform for the 21st Century’. The 1998 McEwen Lecture, Caledonia Centre for Social Development. www.caledonia.org.uk/land/dewar.htm 3 Further land reform legislation was passed during the Parliament’s fourth session between 2011 and 2016 during the SNP’s second Government. The Community Empowerment [The Community (Scotland) Act 2015 introduced the Community Right to Buy Abandoned, Neglected or Empowerment Detrimental Land and asset transfer provisions to enable community bodies to request to “ take control of land and built assets from Scottish public authorities. (Scotland) Act 2015] broadened the scope Importantly, that legislation also broadened the scope of the Community Rights to Buy of the Community originally introduced in the 2003 Act to include urban as well as rural communities, underscoring the relevance of land reform to all of Scotland. The Land Reform (Scotland) Rights to Buy originally Act 2016 introduced a Land Rights and Responsibilities Statement, a Community Right to introduced in the Buy to further Sustainable Development, and established the Scottish Land Commission to 2003 Act to include ensure that land reform retains its place on Scotland’s public policy agenda. urban as well as rural communities, underscoring the relevance of land reform to all of Scotland. Right: Govanhill Community Trust intends to reopen the historic Govanhill Baths building as a Wellbeing Centre, contributing to the regeneration of the area and meeting the needs and aspirations of the community. © Govanhill Baths Community Trust 4 Scotland’s Unusually Concentrated Pattern of Landownership 67% of Scotland’s “rural land has been Much of the policy impetus for contemporary land reform is linked to Scotland’s unusually calculated as being concentrated pattern of private rural land ownership, of which 67% has been calculated as being owned by 0.025% of the population4. Diversifying that concentrated pattern owned by 0.025% of of land ownership is now a well-established public policy objective in Scotland5. That the population. policy objective seeks to address the underlying structural power relationship between concentrated land ownership and land use that can act as a barrier to the sustainable development of local communities. The close relationship between concentrated land ownership and land use, together with its scope for generating negative effects for communities in circumstances of concentrated ownership, was highlighted by the Scottish Government-appointed Land Reform Review Group in its influential final report, ‘The Land of Scotland and the Common Good’, published in 2014. It stated: Ownership is the key determinant of how land is used, and the concentration of private ownership in rural Scotland can often stifle entrepreneurial ambition, local aspirations and the ability to address identified community need. The concentrated ownership of private land in rural communities places considerable power in the hands of relatively few individuals, which can in turn have a huge impact on the lives of local people and jars with the idea of Scotland being a modern democracy6. 4. Warren, C. (2009). Managing Scotland’s Environment. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. 5. See, for example, the remit of the Land Reform and Review Group established by the Scottish Government in 2012 and Principle 2 of the Scottish Land Rights and Responsibilities Statement. [www.gov.scot/publications/scottish-land-rights-responsibilities-statement/pages/1/]. 6. Land Reform Review Group. (2014). The Land of Scotland and the Common Good. Page 165. 5 That impact was documented in the Scottish Land Commission’s 2019 report of its ‘Investigation into the Issues Associated with Large Scale and Concentrated Landownership in Scotland’7. It noted that approximately a quarter of those who submitted evidence to the Commission’s investigation felt that Scotland’s pattern of concentrated landownership has a negative impact on the ability to meet local housing needs. The report stated: these experiences were all connected by a common narrative in which the power of a dominant landowner to control the supply of housing was a key driver of depopulation and economic decline8. The Commission’s report also highlighted evidence of the negative effects that concentrated ownership can have on community and social cohesion, depending on how the power associated with concentrated ownership is wielded. It noted fear of repercussions for “going against the landowner” expressed by some respondents in their evidence, stating that: this fear was rooted firmly in the concentration of power in some communities and the perceived ability of landowners to inflict consequences such as eviction or blacklisting for employment/contracts on residents should they so wish9. The Scottish Land Commission’s accompanying report to Scottish Ministers made three recommendations for legislative action to address the negative impacts of concentrated landownership highlighted in submitted evidence. 7. The report followed a call for evidence by the Commission in 2018 for people to share their everyday experiences of living or working in parts of rural Scotland where most of the land is owned by a small Constructing new homes number of people. 407 people responded to the call, including landowners and land managers, community on the Isle of Eigg. representatives and individuals. © Isle of Eigg Heritage Trust 8. Glenn, S., MacKessack-Leitch, J., Pollard, K., Glass, J., and McMorran, R., (2019). Investigation into the Issues Associated with Large Scale and Concentrated Land Ownership in Scotland.