Land reform campaigners have accused Scottish ministers of “losing their radical edge” by failing to properly confront Scotland’s unequal land ownership system.
A paper from the Jimmy Reid Foundation alleges there is a significant gap between the Scottish government’s rhetoric on land reform and the reality, as only a tiny fraction of rural land is in community ownership.
Calum MacLeod, the paper’s author, said the government-funded Scottish Land Fund, which has £10m a year to spend, had supported the community purchase of just 0.1% of rural land since 2016, roughly 12,000 hectares.
That total was chiefly made up of three large purchases: the Langholm estate in the Scottish borders, the island of Ulva off Mull, and West Helmsdale crofting estate in Sutherland.
By contrast, the latest data showed that in 2022 alone 139,000 hectares (344,000 acres) changed hands, almost entirely to private buyers or state-owned enterprises.
“Devolution has revitalised land reform as a public policy issue, but too much of that policy is developed and implemented in piecemeal fashion, rather than being underpinned by a clear strategic vision about who and what Scotland’s land is for,” MacLeod said.
“Scotland’s land politics urgently needs to rediscover and reassert its radical edge to make land work for the common good, not the private interests of a privileged few.”
Since the Scottish parliament was founded in 1999, the total amount of land in community hands had risen from 0.7% to 2.9% by 2021. But three-quarters of that was made up of a few large community-owned crofting estates in the Outer Hebrides.
The foundation’s report is intended to bolster growing calls from land rights campaigners for the Scottish National party and Scottish Green government in Edinburgh to dramatically expand community buyout powers in a forthcoming land reform bill.
MacLeod said ministers should consider land value taxes; include significant assets such as piers; new public good tests for landowners who get state subsidies; compulsory sale orders for derelict land; and new powers for public bodies to buy land for community ownership.
Ministers are mulling a new threshold likely to be set at 3,000ha at which estate transactions will be subjected to public interest tests. MacLeod argues that should be much lower, at 500ha – a figure included in land reform proposals tabled at Holyrood by the Labour MSP, Mercedes Villalba.
Campaigners believe there is greater urgency for extensive reforms because land prices are soaring, with local groups priced out by private investors competing to snap up Highland estates for carbon sequestration and rewilding.
Many sales happen in private, decreasing the opportunity for local buyers to put in bids. Some activists believe the land fund is too small; ministers have pledged to double it to £20m a year by 2026.
Peter Peacock, formerly a Labour minister and Highland council leader, said in a recent paper for Community Land Scotland that ministers will be worried that radical changes could be challenged under the European Convention of Human Rights, which protects private property rights.
Peacock said ministers had to be ready to defend those reforms in court. “Policy caution to avoid court challenge will not deliver the necessary reform – the legislative reform needed and consequent legal challenge probably go hand in hand,” he said.
Mairi Gougeon, Scotland’s cabinet secretary for rural affairs, land reform and islands, insisted the new bill would increase community ownership powers and rights, but did not comment directly on the foundation’s proposals.
“With this legislation, we have a real opportunity to ensure that one of the greatest assets this country has – our land – is owned, used and managed in a way that benefits the nation as a whole, and local communities, not just the individuals who own it,” she said.
