Dave Thompson MSP

Dave Thompson, SNP MSP for Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch and member of the Rural Affairs, Climate Change, and Environment Committee (RACCE) took part in a Scottish Parliament debate on Stage 1 of the Land Reform Bill on Wednesday the 16th of December.

Mr Thompson highlighted the fundamental requirement to use land for the benefit of the community and the need to have a proper debate on the conditional right to buy for those with secure 1991 tenancies; otherwise the Land Reform process will be soured moving forward.

Mr Thompson said, “Proposals on land reform are about promoting effective and positive decision making so we get the most from our land, and as a Member of the Rural Affairs, Climate Change, and Environment Committee (RACCE), I was glad to be able to put that message across in the recent debate on the Land Reform Bill.

“Scottish Land and Estates are flexing their muscles and threatening the Government with multimillion-pound legal challenges if we go ahead with the Bill. However, this is a gross over-reaction, as responsible landowners have absolutely nothing to fear from these proposals.

“However, a secure 1991 tenant’s conditional right to buy is a must. Therefore, there is a need to have a proper debate on a conditional right to buy for those with secure 1991 tenancies; otherwise the Land Reform process will be soured moving forward.

“This would mean a wide ranging debate on a conditional right to buy which could consider options such as, a prescribed timeframe, the choice to sell the holding to the landlord if the tenant wished, the choice to accept a lower value with a lifetime tenancy to, say, the age of 65, and a right of pre-emption in favour of the landowner should the tenancy be sold on.

“We need to have that debate and deal with the issue. If we do not, that will sour the whole thing as we move forward”.

Notes:

Dave’s Speech from Stage 1 of the Land Reform Bill – taken in Parliament on Wednesday the 16th of December – below:

“I, too, thank the clerks and others in SPICe and elsewhere for all the work that they have done over the past period in relation to the bill.

I will deal with some of the fundamental issues in the bill and the committee’s report. Obviously, land is a national asset. It has to be used in the public interest and for the common good. Those are fundamental issues that we must take into account when we consider any land issues. I believe that land reform—in the form of this bill—is the most important issue that the Scottish Parliament has dealt with in this session and perhaps in its existence.

If we consider who owns the land, it is helpful to look at psalm 24, which says:

“The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it,

the world, and all who live in it”.

Further, Leviticus says:

“The land shall not be sold forever: for the land is mine; for you are strangers and sojourners with me.

That means that, fundamentally, nobody owns the land but God. Adam and Eve did not own the land; they were tenants. We are stewards and we must look after the land. Theologically and practically, land and community are inextricably linked, and each must benefit the other. Land and community are paramount, and all of society must benefit from the use of land.

Much land is used for hunting, shooting and fishing. Here is what Neil Gunn had to say about the rights of the people in that regard in his novel, “Butcher’s Broom”:

“The men also went hunting the hill for deer and the river for salmon; and so ancient had been their gaming rights, that no new laws or restrictions in favour of landlord or lessee could ever convict them in their own minds of poaching. And if poaching it must be called, then so much the greater the zest in its pursuit.

I quote these passages to put the issues that we are discussing into a historical context. Elsewhere in Neil Gunn’s novel, the Duke of Sutherland says to his good lady wife:

“It really comes to this … that what benefits the landlord benefits the nation … I admit that what has been said by some of your Gaelic enthusiasts has sometimes irritated me. A landlord must have absolute power over tenancy arrangements on his own land. If you cannot, within the law, do what you like with your own, the whole basis of our state is dissolved. I simply will brook no interference, in the slightest degree, with my absolute ownership of my own lands.

That goes right against the tenancy argument that related to Adam and Eve. Fortunately, most landowners do not think like that any more but, believe me, there are landowners who do. The law that allowed clan chiefs to claim their people’s land for themselves was made by the rich and powerful for the rich and powerful.

I accept that there are good landowners. However, the bill is not about good landowners; it is about dealing with the bad ones. Scottish Land & Estates is still flexing its muscles and threatening the Government with multimillion-pound legal challenges if we go ahead with the bill.

The ECHR is extremely important and the bill must comply with it. We also have to take account of other things, such as the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the United Nations “Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security”.

There is no doubt that the bill deals with a complex issue. The editor of one of my local papers, the West Highland Free Press, seemed to doubt that the Scottish Government was committed to any kind of radical land reform. Well, the bill is radical. Once the land commission is created, it will consider land issues day in, day out, week in, week out and month in, month out for evermore. The registration of land will ensure that we know who owns it.

I thank the minister for her comments about a Gaelic-speaking commissioner. I ask members to consider this: if the six land commissioners, including the tenant farming commissioner, were all Gaelic-speaking crofters from Sutherland, or were all merchant bankers from Edinburgh, which land commission would do the best job for the people of Scotland?

We need to deal with a conditional right to buy for 1991 act secure tenants. We need to give them the opportunity, because that is a boil that needs to be lanced. There could be conditions with a prescribed timeframe, the choice to sell the holding to the landlord if the tenant wished, the choice to accept a lower value with a lifetime tenancy to, say, the age of 65 and a right of pre-emption in favour of the landowner should the tenancy be sold on. We need to have that debate and deal with the issue. If we do not, that will sour the whole thing as we move forward”.

http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/parliamentarybusiness/report.aspx?r=10279&i=94587

Link to watch the debate via Scottish Parliament television below:

http://www.scottishparliament.tv/Archive/Index/d872d6f1-6a9c-4440-926b-fea5362154ac?categoryId=4937a1a1-d7eb-45a0-a0f2-ba952f11b31d&parentCategoryClicked=False&pageNumber=1&orderByField=ScheduledStart&queryOrder=DESC