Yesterday’s comprehensive rejection of the SNP’s land reform plans by its own membership in favour of something a lot more radical introduces a new dimension to Scotland’s land reform process. These plans, contained in the Land Reform Bill currently before Parliament include creating a land commission, removing sporting estates’ business rates exemptions, providing guidance for landowners on community engagement, establishing a new community right to buy, and giving Ministers backstop powers of intervention if the scale of landownership or landowners’ decisions act as a barrier to communities’ sustainable development.
The SNP’s leadership is keen to portray this cocktail of institutional, administrative, fiscal and regulatory reform as radical. It really isn’t. Continue reading
Beyond the Horizon 