Mid-Scotland and Fife MSP Murdo Fraser, has reacted against proposed Scottish Government Land Reforms and believes the plans will prove to be both divisive and counterproductive to the rural economy.
Responding to the First Minister’s Programme for Government, Murdo claimed that land reform of this sort could result in job losses to the rural economy.
The government's plans for a Land Reform Bill would allow ministers to intervene "where the scale of land ownership or the conduct of a landlord is acting as a barrier to sustainable development" and would also include the ending of rates exemptions for shooting and deerstalking estates.
Speaking in the Chamber Murdo Fraser MSP said:
“It seems to me that what we have in the First Minister’s statement today is a mish-mash of proposals that will do little to improve land use or to support good practice.
“We await the detail of the bill, which will come out in due course, but on any level that proposal represents a massive expansion of state power. What qualifies Scottish ministers as arbiters of what is good land use or to decide what is an appropriate scale of land ownership?
“The Scottish Government also proposes to have a land reform commission. That is just what rural Scotland needs: another quango. There is also a proposal to impose business rates on sporting estates. The class war is alive and well in the Scottish Parliament. Has any assessment been done of the economic impact of the proposal? Has any assessment been done of the cost? Has any assessment been done of the jobs that might be lost?
“What is wrong with the approach of the Scottish Government to land reform is that it has an ideological opposition to ownership of large areas of land by private individuals or private trusts. However, what is important is not who owns the land but how the land is used. Even community ownership, as we have heard this week, has its problems.
“There are many excellent estates. Atholl Estates in Perthshire, with its combination of forestry, farming, sporting interests, tourism, energy and housing, is an exemplar. It speaks volumes that the factor of Atholl Estates, Andrew Bruce Wootton, was so dismayed by the ideological direction of the land reform review group that he resigned from it in protest because in his view it lacked understanding of the real issues.
“What concerns me is that we are seeing a bidding war on the left between the Labour Party and the SNP, with each trying to be more radical on land reform, but lacking any clear understanding of the real issues in rural Scotland. What we need is an evidence-based approach, not an ideological one, and that is what the Scottish Conservatives will provide.”