Proposals for a comprehensive Land Reform Bill – one that goes far further than existing proposals in reforming Scotland’s land governance.
The overall purpose of the Bill is to democratise land governance. In particular, it is designed to strengthen the role of local communities and local government, to secure more widespread ownership of land, to increase accountability in landownership, to protect and restore commons regimes and to fairly allocate the wealth accrued from land rights.
The Bill includes measures relating to land tenure, administrative law, fiscal policy and land markets.
The underlying philosophy of the Bill is that land is a common resource and Parliament has the responsibility to create the framework for a socially responsible, accountable, democratic and transparent system of land tenure, and associated rights of occupation and use.
Within such a system, owners and others should have the freedom to use their land in whatever way they wish. In other words we seek to correct deficiencies in the balance between private and public interests not by cracking down on individuals owners but by reforming the system within which they exercise their rights. By default this will involve greater local democratic governance.