Any day soon, the Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee will publish its report on the Land Reform Bill, which will recommend beefing up the proposed legislation. The SNP’s annual conference left ministers in no doubt that’s what members expect.
One section crying out to be strengthened is on the identity of owners of Scottish land being hidden behind companies registered in the secrecy of an overseas tax haven.
The Scottish Government originally proposed 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 that was dropped. New regulations are proposed instead to allow only those affected by land held secretly in tax havens to request information on ownership from the Keeper of the Registers of Scotland. The keeper would have the power again to request information from the likes of the British Virgin Islands on companies registered there.
The reason given for the retreat was that ministers felt it wouldn’t significantly increase the accountability of land owners, and may have encouraged more land to be held by trusts.
But it is clear that some stronger measure is required. Any land reform legislation that allows the true ownership of Scottish land to continue to be hidden from the public, and in particular local communities, would indeed be a sad excuse for a 21st century reform.
It is understood that Scottish Government lawyers are nervous of forcing owners to reveal their identities in case it breaches their human rights to property and privacy.
But would it be so terrible if landowners’ "rights" to anonymity were tested in a court? Would this not be a good battle for ministers to fight? They might even have some unlikely allies.
Whatever one thinks of Scottish Land and Estates (SLE), it has invested a great deal this past decade in promoting a more positive image of the modern landowner. To this end last year it published a charter with four main aims.
The very first one was “To be open, where ownership of land is visible and that those who oversee the land are accessible and contactable”. So SLE is hardly likely to fight to the end to defend the right of a PO Box in the Caribbean to own a Highland glen.
It should be beyond question that there is a public interest in the true identity of who really owns our land being known.
After all, the UK Government’s Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act passed earlier this year requires UK companies to maintain a publicly accessible register of persons of significant control.
This ensures that anyone with significant beneficial interests or other controlling rights in a company is easily identifiable, in keeping with good corporate governance in 21st century Britain.
Is there not an equally strong argument that the same principle be applied to Scotland’s land? It would be surprising if informed campaigners were not already telling MSPs there most certainly is.
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