Today sees the final stage of the land reform bill’s journey through the Scottish Parliament. It is is set to be beefed up on several counts. One is on tenant farmers' rights and, crucially, another is on transparency.
Ministers had previously sounded a fairly embarrassing retreat over moves to establish the identity of owners of Scottish land who hide behind companies registered in an overseas tax haven.
The Scottish Government originally proposed that land should only be owned by an individual or a legal entity formed in accordance with the “law of a Member State of the EU.”
However later ministers proposed instead regulations to allow only those affected by land held secretly to request information on ownership from the Keeper of the Registers of Scotland. The keeper in turn would have the power only to request information from the likes of the British Virgin Islands on companies registered there.
Scottish Government lawyers were nervous of forcing owners to reveal their identities in case it breached their human rights to property and privacy.
That was the position in the first week in January. But the bill was amended at the committee stage by MSPs to toughen it up by insisting on owners' names being held on the land register. However the Scottish Government has made clear it now wants to go further still, building on that amendment by making the new register more comprehensive to “require the public disclosure of information about persons who make decisions about the use of land in Scotland and have a controlling interest in land”.
Megan MacInnes, Land Adviser with non-governmental organisation Global Witness, is one who has worked hard with the likes of Community Land Scotland and MSPs on the Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee to persuade ministers and officials that more needed to be done.
She said of the new government proposal: “This register has the potential to finally shine a light on some of Scotland’s most shadowy corporate entities, for example Scottish Limited Partnerships and the shell company structures used to hide land ownership in Scotland in overseas tax havens and secrecy jurisdictions. Therefore, it’s essential that there are no loopholes or exemptions which these kinds of corporate vehicles can exploit.”
Some believe there is potential to establish a new global benchmark on transparency.
Others fear the whole issue has been effectively kicked into the long grass, leaving it to the next parliament. But there should be many anxious to "hold the Scottish Government’s feet to the fire" on this.
The change in government thinking shows this issue has gone right to the top of the tree. The First Minister clearly does not want her first administration to be identified with a toothless measure that would have left anonymous tax-avoiding land owners alone. And there are powers to direct private landowners to lease or sell their land to local communities if they are preventing sustainable development.
But the new Act will not end the land reform story.
Other provisions such as the establishment of a standing land commission should ensure more chapters follow.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel