Good Morning and Thank You for the Invitation to Be with You Today

Scotsman Conference on Land Reform – National Gallery, Edinburgh 1st June 2015

Good morning and thank you for the invitation to be with you today.

You have asked me to speak about increasing community ownership of land.

I want to set my remarks in a slightly wider context and say a bit about:

the current policy agenda on land reform
why it is so important, and
touch on some important policy principles that we believe should underlie future land reform policy

and then share with you:

what motivates community owners
what they are doing with their land
how they are performing

The debate about land reform and community ownership are often discussed as if they are one and the same thing.

However, community ownership is only one aspect of land reform, which also embraces:

Agricultural and wider tenancy law
Succession law
The availability of land for housing
Questions around taxation, ownership subsidies, and land prices
How wider private ownership can be delivered

Community Land Scotland has been very active over the past four years in seeking to raise the debate about land ownership in Scotland.

It is now hard to believe, but Community Land Scotland was created partly because it felt the momentum had gone out of the land reform debate in the second half of the first decade of this century.

Well, you couldn’t say that now.

While we have been very encouraged by the increased debate and the policy developments we are seeing, there is still a long way to go.

One of the most important recent developments in land thinking in Scotland emerged through the report of the Land Reform Review Group last year.

At the heart of that report was a profound and concise summary of how we need to view land from now on:

not as a matter of private interest alone
where the market in land dominates and determines futures
but a matter of what is in the public interest and for the common good.

That report set out, and I quote the Chair of the Land Reform Review Group, our Chair today, Dr Alison Elliot:

“Land is a finite and crucial resource that requires to be used and owned in the public interest for the common good.”

Community Land Scotland is very pleased to see that sort of thinking now informing the policy for the Scottish Government’s coming land reform Bill.

We would argue that as the policy develops and the Bill forms:

wider human rights thinking
the need for a greater diversity in land ownership
needs to sit at the heart of that Bill
and drive future actions

The land reform debate in Scotland must rest on the whole suite of human right obligations in future, and not simply be dominated by current owners claims under ECHR, as it has been in the past.

Thankfully this debate is now coming to the fore.

We now look to Scottish Government policy makers and lawyers to take strength from those wider human rights obligations.

To see the need for, and have the courage to balance, ECHR with those wider obligations

in seeking what is in the public interest and for the common good.

We support the creation of a Land Reform Commission to keep land policy under review and provide a drive for modernisation whenever needed.

We very strongly support the need for a Land Rights and Responsibilities Policy Statement.

And we would like to see making such a statement a statutory requirement falling on future governments

with Parliament being asked to approve that statement.

We hope that the coming Land Reform Bill will make explicit the need for Scottish Ministers, in making such a policy statement, to direct themselves to:

the progressive realisation of human rights
to further sustainable development, and
to achieve greater diversity in Scotland’s land ownership patterns

We believe as part of how change is moved forward, new intervention powers for Scottish Ministers will be a vital.

These powers acting as a backstop to make sure that land is owned and used,

in the public interest, and

for the common good.

We also believe that it is legitimate to have a public interest test on the extent to which a monopoly in ownership in any given instance is in the public interest.

Our strong hope is that we will see provisions in the Bill to be published that will allow for the public interest to be tested in these matters.

We also support the suggestions to require land owned in Scotland to be owned by entities registered in the EU, under EU law, in an effort to bring far greater transparency to who owns land in Scotland.

Those who seek to use overseas ownership devices to conceal ownerships should be seen and openly talked about as offending our nation’s moral code.

Ultimately, organisations like Community Land Scotland will judge our land laws by the change they deliver in the real life prospects of the many, not the few.

Scotland has possibly the most concentrated, monopolistic, land ownership patterns anywhere in the world.

Those archaic land ownership patterns do not serve Scotland well, in our view.

And they work to concentrate in very few hands:

land control
societal power
access to tax breaks
to very significant public subsidy
ever concentrating growth in personal wealth

It is time that power and opportunity was shared more widely.

This will always the controversial policy territory because, at its heart, land reform demands a re-distribution of power.

In our view, a necessary re-distribution of power.

Community Ownership

The recent drive for community land ownership has grown within communities:

in decline
lacking employment opportunities
where there are basic housing problems
facing significant population loss
with uncertain and possibly unsustainable futures

These happen to have been in our more remote rural areas, but many urban communities face similar challenges.

In communities which have taken control, local people had felt let down and held back by traditional private ownership.

The land on which they live and depend has all too frequently:

changed hands
been speculated on, or
while retaining the same ownership

the aspirations of the community have been very different from those of the owner

Through community ownership, for the first time in countless generations, the community has been put in control of decisions

allowed to determine much of their own future.

The Scottish Government wants to see the amount of land in community ownership double by 2020.

That would mean another 500,000 acres of land transferring to community control.

We welcome that, but by any standards this would still represent a tiny proportion of Scotland’s land being in community ownership.

And, for Community Land Scotland, it is the question of land ownership that is vital, not just the question of land use, where some others want to position the debate.

We hold the view that land ownership is a powerful prior position to how land will be used.

And local people are using that power, where they have taken control.

The modern community land owner is a multi-functional business of scale.

In part, some are:

Managing land and traditional estates in traditional ways

Many are:

commercially managing forests
re-structuring forests
planting new trees
creating new woodland and agricultural holdings

They are:

Making land available for new housing
Renovating housing
Partnering others in building new housing

They are:

Generating electricity for local use and for export, through

Hydro/ wind /PV cells

They are:

Managing tourism enterprises
Investing in important local infrastructure
Creating new work-spaces

And so on…..

The sole motivation for community ownership is to deliver public benefits.

It has no other purpose.

We believe community ownership can add particular value in the delivery of wide public benefits.

This comes from the local economic opportunities created being used for the entire community.

These benefits would include:

Growing/ more confident/ resilient/ sustainable - communities

But community owners also seek to deliver wider public benefits which society values.

These may seem less tangible, but ideas around:

community empowerment
democratic participation
the enhanced sense of well-being that can come from taking control
increasing community capacity
reducing dependency

These are all important public benefits in themselves.

As is the very idea of a community shaping its own future.

In our experience communities want more than to be consulted or just engaged in land use questions – but to be in control.

This potentially supports a more decentralised approach to the life of the nation.

Helping balance the national priorities for land use, with the use of land for more locally determined objectives.

We would contend that these benefits can be maximised when a community takes full responsibility for its future, through the ownership of land.

Of course, under community ownership, any profit, or growth in capital value, cannot be distributed for private gain.

It can only be used for more public benefit.

That is something that could not be said for all forms of ownership.

That is why community ownership, when it works well, ticks all the boxes.

Last year we had a study of the economic impact of community ownership.

12 community owners of more than 5 years were studied, and the results are very encouraging.

Over 300 new or refurbished housing units and house plots delivered
Owners direct employment up 368% to over 100 jobs
Business turnover up 254% to over £6 m annually
Number of private enterprises operating up over 100% with over 100 new enterprises
Contracts and local staff value to local economy up 434% to £2.5m annually
7MW renewable energy capacity installed
£34m new investment delivered
£25m further investment already planned
Value of assets rising to £59M
Population stabilising or growing

Many community owners are borrowing commercially, just like any other business, in order to finance investment.

Yet the normality of that situation is yet to gain recognition.

It appears that when a community owner borrows to finance much needed rural investment, they are accused of `running up debt’.

When other rural businesses do the same, they are lauded for bringing much needed investment!

The conclusion from the study is that the communities concerned were out-performing the past private ownership.

That is why we want to see more community ownership, as one part of ever more diverse ownership patterns in Scotland.

No doubt, that is why the Scottish government want to see more of it too.

As community rights to own land are increased through coming changes in the law, we hope the traditional land owning interests in Scotland will:

increasingly engage with local communities
with a view to helping bring about change in local land ownership

To help communities to be able to fulfil their aspirations for a more sustainable future.

We recognise this will be a difficult journey for many, but in our view and our experience, by no means impossible.

In the shadow of strong law and community land rights

through changes we seek and the Scottish Government are considering
we want to see a change of attitude toward the ownership of land by traditional landed interests

That can be a constructive and negotiated process to serve the public interest and the common good.

A tide of change is running.

But it has by no means yet run its course.

We look forward to coming debates and we will continue to take an active interest and play our part in helping fashion a fairer future.

Thank you for listening.

ENDS