���˿���

It is important to remember that land reform is a journey. You are absolutely right that it is 20 years since that policy was commenced. However, we are intent on taking that further, which is why we will be introducing another land reform bill, as we previously committed to do. We want to see more diversity of land ownership in Scotland and more community ownership.

Something that came out of one of the previous reports from the Scottish Land Commission was that, at the moment, the right to buy for communities in Scotland is seen as a means to an end when it should be something that is considered normal. It is something that we should be proactively encouraging communities to do and that communities should proactively be looking at.

As ever, there is always more work to do, but I think that the land reform bill that we will be introducing will take us a step further on that journey.

The review of the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 will potentially flesh out some of that as well. I am sure that we all have examples from our constituencies or regions of where the community asset transfer process has not quite worked out for a variety of different reasons. It is important that that review is undertaken, so that we can see how the process is working on the whole and whether there are any lessons to be learned.

Absolutely. That is a really important point, which was recognised in the changes to the Scottish land fund that were implemented back in 2016. Up until that point, there were mainly rural considerations, but it is about recognising that critical issues remain in urban areas, too.

I come back to the point that you made about the increase in land values and the impact that that has on our ability to support communities with increasing land prices. Our main mechanism for support is the Scottish land fund, which we have increased this year to £11 million. Our overall aim is to double the funding to £20 million by 2026, because we want to ensure that we assist as many communities as possible. We want to ensure that we fund as many community ownership projects as we can and that there is a spread of projects. It depends on individual applications, but we have funded projects to a significant extent through the land fund, so we have that important mechanism.

Other fundraising efforts, such as community fundraising, are also important, and private donors have had a hand to play in that regard. We can provide other support. For example, we fund the community ownership support service to provide advice and assistance. It is about ensuring that we maximise advice and guidance and our funding opportunities. We have to continue to monitor the situation closely, so that we enable communities as far as possible to have ownership opportunities.

That is no problem. I understand that I still have to formally reply to the committee. It was to ensure that we had continuity through the appointments process and because we were looking to appoint new commissioners to the role.

There is a lot in that question so, if I forget a point, please come back to me and remind me.

On the NatureScot pilot, it is necessary that we have private investment in carbon sequestration. We cannot reach our climate targets or do what we need to do to address the biodiversity crisis that we are in without private investment. We recognised that point in our national strategy for economic transformation, and the importance of private finance has also been recognised globally through the global biodiversity framework that was agreed at the 15th conference of the parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity—COP15.

Given the sheer scale of what is required, we cannot achieve the investment that is needed through the public purse alone with the public money and resources that we have available. However, if we recognise the need for private investment, it is critical that what we set out and want to achieve is values led and based on specific principles that are important to us in Scotland. There is also community involvement. We need to ensure that that is all in place.

The NatureScot pilot offers a valuable opportunity to consider those points and to ensure that we have a values-led, integrity-based system of private investment. I do not see that work impacting land values, because the pilot involves working with existing landowners to see how they can make it work. The pilot is happening in two parts of Scotland. It is a pilot, so we will monitor it closely—that is really important—and ensure that we learn from it as we go.

As I said in my previous response, we can see how we can make impactful interventions through the additionality that we introduced through the woodland carbon code, and it is interesting to see that work follow through in the market insights report.

Such investment is important on the whole, but we need to ensure that we manage it correctly and in a fair and transparent way that involves communities. That can be an issue, so we need to ensure that our communities feel part of the process and that they see the benefits from private investment.

On the point about whether that work contradicts other areas of policy—I think that that was the point that you raised—I do not see our policies as contradictory; if anything, I see them as complementary. We have the interim principles for responsible investment in land and our land rights and responsibilities statement, and all that sets out that we need diverse ownership and more community ownership. Our values are very much aligned in that regard. I do not see any contradiction in our policies in relation to what we have set out.

Through that period of change, it is important to have continuity rather than wholesale change in the commission. George Burgess, do you want to come in?

Let us look at those applications in particular. Even though the community right to buy was part of the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003, it came into force in 2018, so it has only had a few years to bed in. It is important to look at those different applications and, of course, every application is assessed on its own merits. The three applications were ultimately unsuccessful for a variety of reasons. In two of them, the landowner was doing work to the land periodically, so it could not be classified as neglected and abandoned. In the other case, in the end, a negotiated transfer of the land was facilitated and funded through the Scottish land fund. Even though the transfer did not go through the process that we are talking about, the mechanism was still there. Ultimately, when it comes to land transfer and acquisition, we would like it to be done through negotiation and agreement.

That would warrant a closer look to see what the barriers are and whether there are criteria that would need to be reconsidered. We will see where the application under consideration gets to but, given that one of them was ultimately successful, I think that it is a positive step. However, it is something that we have to continue to monitor.

It would be fair to say that we have not made as much progress against the report’s outcomes as we would have liked to. When the report was first introduced in 2018, the key focus was on implementing the 2016 land reform act. Soon after that, we had the pandemic, which rightly led to a complete shift in focus for the whole Scottish Government.

Progress has been made against some of the recommendations in that report. There is, however, one key area that I would like to take forward, and I will follow it up with the Scottish Land Commission to see how we can progress it. That area is in relation to the vision for community ownership, which was an important outcome from the report and I am keen that we progress it.

With reference to the first recommendation, we have now published national planning framework 4, which references some of the policy outcomes. The second recommendation talks about indicators, different measurements and how we assess and monitor progress, and we have addressed that through the national outcomes. We now monitor not just the scale of what has been transferred but the number of assets that are in community ownership.

There is also scope for us to address some of the other recommendations that came out of the report through the review of the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015, which is being done at the moment. It is key to remember that the various rights to buy and community asset transfer rights do not just fall to land reform legislation but to the 2015 act, which is the responsibility of the community wealth minister. We can try to address the recommendations in the report through the different vehicles that we have got, and there are areas in which I want to make more progress.

Could you ask your second question again?

Yes, absolutely. We also have the “Peatland Code”, but there have been issues with validation of projects through that, which need to be addressed. As I said in a previous response, private investment will be essential in those key areas, going forward. We need to manage that and ensure that we have an integrity-based and values-led market in that respect. Again, we know what the issues are. We are doing what we can to address them and to ensure that we are seeing the restoration rate increase.