January 13th is shaping up to be an important day for the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill. That’s when the Scottish Government is due to submit its amendments to the draft legislation currently making its way through Parliament. These amendments will be produced against the backdrop of the Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee’s (RACCE) detailed and analytically robust Stage 1 Report on the Bill, published in December. That Report concludes that considerable work is required to ensure that the Bill’s provisions match the radical promise of its principles.
I’ve already blogged on the Stage 1 Report here. In summary, the Committee wants more detail on proposed guidance for landowners’ engagement with communities and on potential sanctions for not doing so. It also recommends ways to increase transparency of land ownership in Scotland and calls for thresholds triggering the Bill’s new Community Right to Buy to further sustainable development to be set at a level that makes that right a viable option for communities to use. The Committee has also demanded that the Scottish Government better demonstrates the case for re-introducing non-domestic rates for shootings and deer forests. The majority of the Committee advocates introduction of a right to buy in certain circumstances for agricultural tenants but its entire membership is sceptical about the Bill’s capacity to maintain or increase the amount of land available to let, strengthen tenants’ rights and make it easier for them to invest in their tenancies, protect landlords’ rights and ensure continued confidence in the agricultural sector for land to be let. Continue reading
Beyond the Horizon 