Scotland’s Land Reform Bill

The Scottish Government’s long awaited Land Reform Bill was published on June 23^rd.  Land Reform Minister, Aileen McLeod, has pledged to end ‘the stop-start nature’ of historic land reform and put communities at the forefront of reforms to promote ‘sustainability, fairness and transparency’.  One of the key themes behind the Bill is to have more ‘diverse’ land ownership and ensure communities have a say in how land in their area is being used.  Unsurprisingly, this has led to concerns form large landowners.   

Within the Bill there are a number of provisions to make changes to agricultural tenancy legislation.  Many of these measures were recommended in the Agricultural Holdings Legislation Review Group’s report which was published on 27^th January (see our January article).  A summary of the main points of the draft Bill are;

• Creation of a Scottish Land Commission.  This body will review polices and law relating to land and recommend changes.  it will also gather evidence, carry out research and publish reports  and guidance.   
• Creating a Tenant Farming Commissioner as part of the Scottish Land Commission.  This post will draw up a Code of Practice relating to Agricultural Holdings and will investigate breaches of that Code.
• Introduction of a land register to encourage transparency on land ownership. 
• Widen the ‘right to buy’ to allow communities to force landowners to sell in order to promote ‘sustainable development’
• Ending business rate reliefs for sporting estates.
• Modernising elements of Scotland’s Agricultural Holdings legislation.  This includes;
• Introducing ‘Modern Limited Duration Tenancies’ – 10 years with more freedom of contact
• Removal of the need for Tenants to register their right to buy
• Sale of the property where the Landlord is in breach
• Changes to the rent review legislation
• Widening the succession provisions and the right to assign tenancies
• Revised rules on Landlords and Tenant’s improvements.

The full Bill can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/S4_Bills/Land%20Reform%20%28Scotland%29%20Bill/b76s4-introd.pdf.  It will receive its first reading in 90 days.  As it contains some radical reforms it has received mixed reactions from different sides of the industry.  It will note doubt be heavily discussed over the Scottish Parliament’s summer recess.