 Felly, gyd, nid i'n rhan o'i ddweud y chmeldau a gynnwys i'w gaelio'r gallu'n gwrth gynnwys i ddweud sut gwedduniaid a gwrth gynnwys o'u ddweud sefydig. Yr hyn mae'n dweud y cymdeithasol, mae'n ddweud yn ôl yn 91174 i'r ddaf i Ynys i'r Ysbyg Alba, roi, quiwch drwsomew o'i rhowbod araisoddiad edyn almightyll gwneud, clwsp��u gydag dda i'nwe defeatio journals! Mae'n amser nid o wneud esbytych arbennig ar draws argyffodusol. F pissed seffoedd eich hynny, ag eu ddefnyddio nhw. C гκα mwy rhagor nhw, rwyfich yn gyfisha 2009 yng Nghymru, gyda ni maen nhw'r ddeunydd, Bydd e wedi bod wedi cyfleu iawn, i gweithio cael ei ddylunio'r enghraifft gan y olodi sy'n myfyrdd of so few is central to the inequality that has blighted Scotland for centuries. Land and who owns it is at the heart of the crises we face, from food security and climate resilience to housing and energy. Land ownership shapes modern Scotland as it has done for centuries. Byddwn i'r cychwyn, byddwn i'n gwybod i'r oeddennig o'r cyrraedd oeddwn i'r oeddennig oeddennig. Felly, mae'r cyrraedd o'r cyrraedd o'r cyrraedd o'r cyrraedd o'r oeddennig, ond mae'n gwybod i'r oeddennig oeddennig. Ond oedd Scotland oedd yn cael ei ffordd i'r 10a yn 2000, y system o'r 10a oeddennig yw'r ffordd oeddennig yn ymgyrchu. Ono, oedd gwrthod o'r cyrraedd o'r cyrraedd o'r 10a yn ymgyrchu. Ond oedd yn gwybod i'r 10a, mae'r cyrraedd o'r 432 oeddennig oeddennig oeddennig o'r athlwn o'r ffordd o'r cyrraedd o'r oeddennig, mae'n gwneud o'r cyrraedd o'r cyrraedd o'r cyrraedd oeddennig oeddennig, Scotland's land market is almost completely unregulated. Provided their bank balance is big enough, anyone can buy whatever land they want with no questions asked. We've seen a multi-billionaire become Scotland's largest land owner in around a decade, buying estate after estate with no barriers. Rydyn hi'n gwneud y Llyfrgellol Sferol ac Llyfrgell yn gwneud i'r lleidol yn gwneud o gwneud i wirteidio'r ystyried neu o Yasirion yn gwneud i wych yn brifau. Cymru o'r quali feddwl y Llyfrgell yn gwneud i fitministri invitellau i perthyniaeth yn stoethwyr yn gwneud i wneud i leidio'r lleidol yn gwneud i leidio. Felly, mae'n gweithio i nhw'n gwblio y bwysig, fel oedden nhw, lleithwyr, a chyflen. Mae'r llyfr gennym o unrhyw o'r pwysig i'ch trefio ysgol yw mhwanân sydd ddim yn gofidd sicrhau'r llehstised ygloedd yng nghyrch, fel y gyd, y clywed i nhw. Inequality is not inevitable. Land is a public good, a precious natural resource and it can, and it should serve our common interest. That is why I am currently consulting on a proposed member's bill to address the centuries old concentrated pattern of land ownership in Scotland to strengthen the regulation of of Scotland's land market to subject large land holdings to a public interest test and, yes, to introduce a presumed limit of 500 hectares on the amount of land that any person can own. The 3,000 hectare limit that the Scottish Government proposes, equivalent to 30 square kilometres, is so vast and would affect so few landowners that it would do little to address the issue. I'm not alone in this view. The Scottish Government's recent consultation analysis found that most respondents who suggested an alternative threshold called for a lower figure. I hope that in responding to today's debate, the Minister will update us on the Scottish Government's thinking around this threshold. More than 20 years after devolution, our land laws still lag far behind those of other European countries when it comes to protecting that public interest. That's why we need a community-informed public interest test, a test that would consider whether it's in the public interest for a landholding to remain at such a large scale, and a test that accounts for the public interest in sustainable food, affordable housing, climate resilience and energy security. For too long, the public interest has been ignored, communities have been sidelined and the environment has been trashed. The issue of land reform has dogged Scottish politics for decades. We've had years of discussing and debating of consulting and reviewing, but now is the time to act. Now is the time to redress the balance. Now is the time to put the public interest first. Now is the time for land justice. I urge everyone who hears this to complete the consultation, to share it as widely as possible and to join the movement for land justice, and I'm proud to move this motion in my name. How can we now move to the open debate? I call for John Mason to be followed by Richard Leonard around four minutes. Thank you very much and I thank Mercedes Villalba for bringing forward this debate. I was certainly happy to support the motion and I very much agree with the direction of travel. How can it be that so few owners own so much of our land? Now I do accept that large areas of Scotland are not that fertile and have never been great for farming or even forestry, but there are still many fertile parts which used to support people and no longer do so, and I believe that some of them could do so again. Members may know that I enjoy visiting islands and a few years ago I visited both egg and muck. There was quite a different feel to those two neighbouring islands and that is linked to their ownership. There was a clear feeling on muck that you had to keep in with the landowner and that person could decide whether you lived in the island or whether you did not. By contrast, egg is community owned and had a much more welcoming and relaxed feel about it. Then again I visited Alva about the time community ownership was being considered. It seemed clear that the previous owner was deliberately clearing the island of people. There was accommodation in Alva but it was sitting empty as no one was allowed to move and live there. Thankfully that has now changed not least because of the Scottish land fund and ownership by the North West Mall community woodland company. I strongly believe that there is a moral angle to land ownership and I would like to refer to some of the Bible's teaching on that, perhaps a slightly different angle from others in the debate. Firstly, when the people of Israel entered the promised land after God had delivered them out of Egypt, the land was divided up into tribes and then families by Joshua and other leaders at the time. One of the main rules that God gave them in relation to the land was that the land could never be permanently transferred out with that family. Inevitably, as in all societies, some people would become richer and some people become poorer over time and, as a result, some people might be forced to sell their land out of hardship and necessity. But every 50 years, the year of Jubilee, the land would revert back to the original family. If you were forced or chose to sell your land, that was only effective up until the next year of Jubilee and the price reflected that, depending on how long there was to go. Secondly, we have an example of one of the worst kings of Israel whose name was Ahab. He wanted to get hold of land owned by a guy called Naboth and Naboth rightly refused to sell citing God's law. So, Ahab got Naboth murdered and then he took over the land, but he was challenged by Elijah the Prophet and in due course he was punished for that with his dynasty coming to an end. I accept that we live in a different kind of society nowadays, with many at most of us in cities, and most of us are less directly dependent on the land for our food and livelihood. You can be wealthy nowadays without owning a lot of land, but there is still a strong link between wealth and land. I do not think that we can disregard lessons on this from history. So, yes, a few people owning most of the land is an economic issue with wealth being concentrated in a few hands, but it is also a housing issue if ordinary local people cannot afford a home. It is an agricultural issue if good land is lying empty instead of being used as a farm or a croft. It is an environmental issue if deforested areas are not being replanted with trees, but ultimately for me it is mainly a moral issue. If some people in our society have more and more while other people have less and less then that is wrong, and we as a Parliament have a duty to do something about it. There is a lineage which runs through the aristocracy who owns much of the land in Scotland. It is a hereditary principle, but there is a lineage, too, of land reformers. We have our own inheritance. We are the heirs of our tradition, which dates back to the Highland Land League and to the Crofters Party of the 19th century, to the Scottish Labour Party, James Kearhearty, the ILP and to Tom Johnston in the 20th century, and over the last half a century to the committed socialist John McEwen, to the first generation of MSPs, notably the late Donald Dewar, and in more recent times to Andy Wightman, all attacking the land question from a socialistic viewpoint even when their party badge was not always red. So it is in light of all of that history of where we have come from that I believe Mercedes Villalba by leading this debate in Parliament today is reigniting the flame of this radical tradition. It is why I believe that her member's bill to cap land ownership would extend democratic principles and methods into a realm that they have been excluded from for far too long, because the earth… I will take a short intervention. Minister. I always enjoy the enthusiasm with which Mr Leonard gets to these issues, and I think that transparency is really important about who owns the land. I'm very interested to know what Labour's position is in an amendment for the charity's bill that's coming forward next week, which Jeremy Balfour has put forward, which would restrict the obligation on the churches and religious groups to declare the land that they own. Would Labour support the Scottish Government in voting against that amendment, which would be a retrograde step? Richard Leonard, I can give you the time back. Thank you. I am in favour of full transparency, and I'm a long-standing supporter of a comprehensive land registry, so I think that that is really important. We need to have the facts before us, because earth was made to be a common treasury, is what the level has said. Land is our most valuable asset, but its value rests on how it is used, and in turn who owns it and so who controls it and in whose interests it is controlled. I have listened to Conservative voices asking of Mercedesville Albers and her bill which problem is it trying to solve. Well, self-evidently, it is tackling the over-concentration of land ownership in the hands of the old privileged aristocracy of Scotland. That is the problem it is trying to solve, Scotland's hereditary curse. Other Conservative voices echoing Oscar Wilde's definition of a cynic ask how much will this cost, and in so doing betray a retreat not only from particular political principles but from the very idea that political principles exist at all. Of course, this Parliament should be debating the land question. The pattern of land ownership tells us a lot about Scotland. It is a very painful reminder of a very different history compared even to our near neighbours. It points to a very different distribution of wealth which is still with us. It is emblematic of the great inequality of power which persists in Scotland today, riches in abundance, idleness in luxury on the one hand and ever rising, wretched working poverty for the toiling millions on the other. In so doing, it points to a class-based society, to a class system which leads to the excesses of the grousemoes and the degeneracy of the shooting estates and all, all with the quite intentional consequence of the denial of fundamental democratic and community rights, which is why this is no time for timidity, why this is a time for socialist courage, a time to defend and put into practice our enduring ideas and our unflinching principles that speak to us across the centuries. This is about democracy and down the years, the fight for democracy has always been about converting privileges into rights. This is about justice, about taking on absentee landlordism, challenging local land monopolies, whether owned by ancient lads or the new offshore corporations, because we cannot have a serious meaningful agenda for social and economic and environmental reform, which does not include land reform. Finally, I tell you that the questions of power and of power relations are not theoretical, they are not abstract but are part of the everyday experience of a people and the class. The current rigged system of land ownership in Scotland smells strongly of decay, the time has come for it to be swept away, it's time for radical for-de-fight decisive change. Thank you Mr Leonard. I now call Brian Whittle to be followed by Paul Sweeney up to four minutes. Mr Whittle. Thank you Deputy Presiding Officer, can I thank Midsferies Vialble for bringing this motion to the chamber? I would like to bring a little bit of reality to this debate today, because, Deputy Presiding Officer, land reform is one of Scottish Parliament's favourite subjects. You all have to look at how much legislation we've passed on it in a mere 24 years since devolution compared to the 200 or so years before to know that. Most, if not all, of what we have done has generally been for the better, strengthening land management regulations, protecting the environment and giving crofters, tenant farmers and communities greater rights to name but a few. More recently, as Midsferies Vialble's motion today highlights, the focus within land reform is shifting, and I'm concerned that that, as that focus shifts, is also blurring the lines between evidence-based policy and policy whose first intention is to apply a particular political ideology, as we have just heard. Looking at this or in any other issue, I'm first minded to ask what is the problem that we are trying to solve. Midsferies Vialble and perhaps others in the chamber would perhaps answer this by citing examples of poor environmental management by large landowners or a conflict between a large landowner and a community and using this as justification to argue that big landowners equals bad landowners. I disagree. The motion that we are debating today opens with one of the selection of statistics that is often trotted out to somehow symbolise inequality, and I quote, in 2013, just 432 landowners owned 50 per cent of all Scotland's privately owned rural land. The motion goes on. It notes that feudal tenure in Scotland was only formally abolished through the abolition of feudal tenure at Scotland Act 2000. I have to say, Deputy Presiding Officer, that my immediate response to both of those points is, so what? On the first point, I'm far far convinced that most people are at all bothered by this fact. Never mind perceived it as a burning injustice. More than that, it's a statistic of little value, since I doubt even Mercedes Vialble could tell me what number of landowners would be acceptable to her in that context. Similarly, on our point about feudal tenure, this wasn't knights and serfs. It was a legal means by which conditions could be attached to the sale of land and about and enforced, as it was intended, as she points out, about 20 years ago. Indeed, given— Of course, I'll give way. John Mason. Does the member think that land is just a commodity, like anything else, like milk or butter or cheese, that anyone can just buy any amount? Brian Whittle. Do you own a house? What level of land did we talk about? We've talked about 500 hectares here. I don't think that's the end game here. We all own a bit of land and it's about— As I'm going to come on to it, it's about how we use that land that's important. I would say indeed, given some of the proposals in Ms Vialble's member's bill, I'm surprised she isn't more familiar with this legislation, since she's proposing to empower the Scottish Land Commission with similar powers. Why did Mercedes Vialble propose 500 hectare limit on ownership or transfer of land in her consultation? The next day, I ask a parliamentary question about the number of transfers of this scale. Does she always do her research after her proposals? I should be clear here, and I'm not saying that I nor the Conservatives have any fundamental opposition to giving more people and communities the opportunity to take ownership of land. Large-scale landowners can, like any landowner, fail to live up to what is expected of them. However, what the motion and Mercedes Vialble's bill both fail to do is recognise the considerable efforts that are being made by what she would define as large-scale landowners. Whether it's in agriculture, nature restoration, tree planting or improving biodiversity, those landowners are making a substantial contribution to both their local economies and our environment, with the added benefit that they are able to carry out those activities at scale from day one. If the member and the Scottish Government intend on de-concentration of land, then they need to be a lot clearer on why they are doing it. If they believe that the simple act of de-concentration is the solution, then they have willfully or otherwise misunderstood the problem. De-concentration is no guarantee of success. Community bodies regularly fail to meet their objectives, nor are they necessarily the best entity to manage land interests. What happens if they secure land and they can't deliver on their aims? How fragmented can you make land ownership in a given area before you hold back the economy and limit the ability to implement environmental actions at scale? Ultimately, her motion today suffers from the same issue as her proposed bill. It fails to explain what the specific problems actually are and how simply breaking landholding will actually help. If the member is too blinding on me. If he wanted an intervention, he should have allowed one from me. If this Parliament is serious about further land reform, that actually makes a difference. Then we should be spending far more time talking about how we improve its management regardless of the size of ownership. In closing, I will come back to where I started. What is the problem that we are trying to solve? If the central problem is that large land-owning offends certain people's politics, then it is the wrong one, Deputy Presiding Officer. Paul Sweeney, to be followed by Ari-Anne Burgess in four minutes, Mr Sweeney. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. It is a pleasure to arrive— Mr Sweeney, can you resume your seat for a second? Mr Whittle. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. It is a pleasure to rise in support of my friend Ms Valby, the member for North East Scotland. Her motion for members' business was a pleasure to sign and indeed to support her proposed members' bill, which challenges this persistent and invidious and pernicious problem at the heart of Scotland's economy. The Conservative spokesman mentioned why we are debating it and for what purpose. Well, it actually runs as a thread through every aspect of public policy in this country. We often come here and debate the inadequacy of the public finances, the incapacity of us to generate sufficient public resources to address the population's needs and to ensure that everyone can live a good, dignified quality of life. This is a wealthy country. The question is not the extent of the wealth but its distribution. At the heart of that is this debate because the elephant in the room of this country's economy is the concentration of ownership and wealth vested in the land of this nation. That is at the fundamental root of it. So much of our public treasury is derived from taxes levied on income generator from waged employment and also from profits generated from economically advantageous and productive activity. What is not levied is the unproductive rent extraction that is rampant across the Scottish economy, and that is something that must be addressed. It has never been addressed in a century despite repeated attempts. Indeed, we could go back to 1909 when William Bellinger drew a polemic map of London with an octopus on it with the tentacles wrapped around all the different aspects of the land of London owned by the various aristocrats. At that time over a century ago mentioned it or characterised it as an absorbent parasite leaching 20 million pounds of rents out of the common wealth of the people at that time. That has extended its grip, it has extended the rents extracted exponentially since that time. It has only ever got worse. The decoupling of the value of wealth vested in land to that in wages has been extraordinary over the last certainly 30 years and something that is at the heart of the problem that we face in this country today. My friend's motion focuses on rural land concentration, but it is also prevalent across our urban environments, where indeed 91 per cent of Scotland's people live. It might only account for 2.3 per cent of the land, but if I just take Glasgow city centre as one example that I have been looking at recently, there is 2.3 million square feet of vacant commercial floor space in the city, equivalent to the Empire State building, largely owned by completely remote ownership in tax havens, completely opaque. They pay not a penny towards the city's improvement or its maintenance, but they extract rents and they also freeride on no business rates on buildings that are listed in our value to the city's heritage. Similarly, there are around 5,000 empty homes in Glasgow, as we speak, and that has been the case pretty consistently since 2005—vast amounts of potential locked away from the people by remote ownership and disinterested owners. There has only been 52 compulsory purchase orders in Glasgow since 2019. The rate of ability to recycle those properties is not sufficient, and I would hope that the minister would reflect on the capacity of the state to bring those properties back into fundamental public ownership. We already see an attack on community ownership on every front in Scotland. We are seeing local community-run housing associations forced and railroaded into asset-stripping mergers with large national groupings. Those are the sorts of things that we need to take cognisance of when we want to improve justice in Scotland. Fundamental at the heart of that is the opportunity to unlock our real economic potential, remove the parasitic extraction of wealth through rentments and unleash it into productive economic activity in every possible facet of human endeavour. That is the reality that has been observed for over a century. The heart of our politics is the reason and the mission behind why we need to unlock the hoarding of land by a remote view for the benefit of the many. I would like to congratulate Mercedes Villalba on her member's bill and for securing this important debate. It is a subject that we both share and are interested in. Land ownership matters because it is unjust for a tiny percentage of people to own the majority of Scotland's land, and it is unjust for that tiny percentage to derive all the benefit and power that land ownership brings. It also matters because ownership equals control. Currently, those who own the land get to decide what it is used for and how it is managed. Decisions over how our land is managed are too important to leave to a tiny minority. When the decisions will affect every single one of us, in this time of climate and nature breakdown, our land, especially our rural land, is a powerful tool that can turn things around if only we make better use of it, if we manage it for public good, not for private interest and profit. I welcome the principle of my colleague's proposal for strengthening regulation on the land market. That is urgently needed, given the rush to invest in Scotland's natural capital and the consequential skyrocketing of land prices, which is making it harder and harder for our communities to buy local land despite increases to the Scottish land fund. Just days ago, I discussed with the Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs ways to strengthen the regulation of markets in land, carbon and nature and to widen opportunities for community benefit. It is not clear to me why the member feels the need to introduce her own land reform bill when the process is well under way for a Government bill, as set out in the Bute House agreement, which already covers the substantive points she has raised. The member's bill uses radical language on limiting the amount of land that one person can own, but it does not propose an actual cap. It simply changes the language around the trigger for the public interest test, which is already in the Government's bill by refasing it as a presumed limit. However, if large land transfers can pass the public interest test, as some will do, then her proposal is not actually for a limit presumed or otherwise. In truth, the member's bill proposes lowering the threshold for the public interest test to 500 hectares, which is an absolutely admirable aim to apply the test to more of Scotland's land but, unfortunately, it does not appear to be backed up by data and consideration of the impacts. In early June, my colleague lodged a series of written parliamentary questions, which indicated that two days after she lodged the bill, she did not have the figures on the number of land holdings over 500 hectares or the number of individuals or corporations that own them. My concern is that more groundwork is needed to determine how many additional estates would be subject to the public interest test under the lower threshold and to weigh the benefit against the disadvantages that would pose to smaller landholders compared to the larger ones with more resources, as well as the additional public resource that is required to administer the test at the lower threshold. The Greens are in discussion with the cabinet secretary on lowering the proposed threshold in the Government's bill, and I encourage the member to do likewise. The Scottish Greens are helping to develop a land reform bill that will be workable, effective and robust against any legal challenge, whether that be from large private landowners who feel a threat to their control or by an increasingly controlling Westminster Government. We will also continue making the case for the bill to include truly transformative mechanisms like those that would restore common goodlands and improve powers such as compulsory sales orders for public bodies. I fully agree with the motion's sentiment that Scotland's land should be owned by and managed for the benefit of Scotland's communities, and that is why we will achieve that through the upcoming Scottish Government land reform bill. I thank my convener, Mercedes Villalba, for bringing this debate to the chamber. I know that this is an area of keen interest for the member, and I think that she made an excellent place, as did others, for change in her opening remarks. I hope that the Scottish Government will support her in her efforts moving forward. For me, the final part of the motion that is debated today is the simplest to understand, and perhaps the member will agree. It is also one of the most important parts that Scotland's land should be owned by, managed for the benefit of and belonged to Scotland's communities. The de-concentrating and redistribution of land ownership to our communities is a step that will put people at the centre of land ownership and not profit. As has been mentioned, we know only too well that 98 per cent of Scottish land mass is rural, but community land ownership accounts for only around 3 per cent of the total land area of Scotland. By region of the south of Scotland, there are vast rural areas, but it is important that, in our effort to de-concentrate ownership, we deliver for people and for our communities for a country where young people are not inclined to move to urban areas by default so that they can start a career locally, albeit maybe in traditional sectors or different sectors, but they can make their mark from their own hometown and not feel that they have to move away. That concept is about more than just land ownership, it is about equality of opportunity, equality of outcomes, equality and fairness, and that is something that we in this Parliament ought to recognise. It would be remiss of me not to highlight the figures outlined in today's motion that have been quoted by others that, in 2013, 50 per cent of all Scotland's privately owned rural land was owned by just 432 landowners. We cannot accept that that is going to have an outcome to the benefit of our communities. It is not acceptable and it is not sustainable. I hope that the minister will be supportive, and some of the comments from the Government so far have been, and they have indicated that they would support moves in this direction. I note with interest that, in the Government's own community wealth building consultation paper, the Scottish Government places improved community access to and ownership of land and property as one of the five pillars in its efforts to make the community wealth building in Scotland a success. Of course, I agree with that. I look to strong Labour councils in Preston and North Ayrshire where community wealth building has been a success, and at every turn I see investment and trust placed in our communities, placed in the skills that we know that we have on our doorstep, taking the action that matches the ambition of their own population. That is why it is important that land is owned by its people and its communities. I welcome the Scottish Government's co-operation thus far, but we are far from near the finish line. Communities need more investment, and the requirement for legislation that de-concentrates land ownership to the benefit of our population has never been greater. I once again wish to thank my colleague, Mercedes Villalba, for bringing this debate to the chamber. I want to talk to others who have talked in support. It is a consultation, and my friend has been so open to ask for all contributions, so please contribute to the consultation process so that we can get that right for our populations and our communities. We know that the challenge is facing our rural communities, around fuel poverty, transport links and understanding of where young people see themselves. There are opportunities here, particularly for rural areas, and I would ask people to support the member's bill and at least participate in the consultation. I thank everybody for coming to the chamber. I now invite Gillian Martin to respond to the debate, Minister. I welcome the opportunity to close for the Government in my capacity as an environment minister. Obviously, I am deputising for the Cabinet Secretary who has land reform in her responsibility, Mary Gougeon, as you will imagine that this is the first day of the Highland show, so I cannot be here. I am sure that she will be very interested to hear how the debate has gone. There is an awful lot in Ms Farrellaba's motion that the Scottish Government supports, as we see community ownership at the forefront of land reform. As somebody who took forward a member's bill in the first 18 months of my tenure as an MSP here, I have plenty to give to anyone embarking on it, and that is to fully engage with as many members across the chamber as you can and do not underestimate the amount of work that is involved in that. However, I think that you had a little bit of a heads up today in some of the contributions that were in the debate that posed some questions, not least for Marianne Burgess, who was able to point out maybe what the proposed bill that the Government of Britain is bringing through might do and where that might fit in with what Ms Farrellaba wants to do, but also some of the challenges to maybe the threshold that has been suggested that might have unintended consequences. However, that is the whole beauty of a member's bill. You learn, you find out, you adapt, you respond to the comments that your parliamentary colleagues made and hopefully you get through that process. I want to talk about the 2003 Land Reform Act, which was brought about by the first community right to buy. We think that it was truly groundbreaking. It has allowed so many communities to own land and take control of how it is used. Brian Whittle said that we have passed an awful lot of land reform legislation in the Parliament's history, but that is really because it is sorely needed. There really had to be an awful lot of work done. One of the things that I get said to me as a constituency MSP involved in various campaigns in a rural constituency and speaking to people is that we need to do more on land reform, particularly in allowing more young people to own their own land if they want to work on land. That is something that gets said to me by a lot of young farmers. The community right to buy abandoned, neglected and detrimental land is undoubtedly a positive thing, but the question is that there are so many constraints around capacity, organisational capacity in communities, particularly deprived communities, where there is not that necessary ability to get together because people are so busy working and trying to make ends meet. Also, just having to erase the capital, is there a way for us to bolster that capacity by resourcing councils, for example, to do it with the understanding that they can build that up with communities as well, rather than just simply leaving it to the Lacey Fair self-organisation? I think that there are a number of things in place. We had the Community Empowerment Act, but for the Government, the act reduced that right to buy neglected and detrimental land and extended the right to buy in urban communities. I have seen in my constituency as well that sometimes the wording in that act maybe does not filter down into local authorities and how they approach people who actually want to apply to buy land and take it off of perhaps the books of local authority when it has not been used. I think that there is a lot more to be done at local level. I want to mention the land fund. It has approved over 300 funding requests and has brought 10,000 hectares into community ownership. John Mason gave some significant examples of community ownership in egg and alva, as well as a short divinity lesson that I very much enjoyed. We are going to put more money into that fund. The demand and the applications do outstrip greatly what is available. Ms Goucheon recently announced an increase in the fund by a further million. I was about to give the wrong figure there and get myself into trouble. One million for this year, and we are committed to doubling the fund by 20 million by 2026. The Government readily acknowledges enough a lot more to do to address the concentration and transparency of land ownership. That is why we are bringing forward the new land reform bill. I encourage Ms Vialba and everyone who has spoken in this debate to engage in that process, notwithstanding any member's bill's plans. It is going to build on existing land reform measures, complement existing community right to biomechanisms, and further empower communities by providing more opportunities to own land and have a more sea in how land in that area is used. I do not think that it is a thing to be feared. I think that it is a thing to be welcomed to have this conversation again. I think that everybody needs to be involved in that conversation to see what is fair, what is right and what is just. We seek to further improve transparency of land ownership, which is why I intervened on Richard Leonard, as I did, because I think that there are some issues around transparency that other bills are being used to make that more opaque. I would mention that Mr Balfour's amendment does them from good intentions, but are we going to have a situation where certain organisations are exempt from declaring whether it is that they own in Scotland? Surely that is not the way we want to go at all, so I would really welcome if the Labour benches were to look at that and maybe to support the Government in regard to that amendment. Instead of moving back, we should be trying to move forward to the next phase of land reform. Ms Vialba's motion largely seeks to do. I enjoyed Paul Sweeney's contribution. He talked of the octopus, and I am sure that he is well aware that we are talking about London of the work done by led by donkeys, where they go around and show you who owns what in central London. However, I see our register of control and interest in the land of being our octopus in that regard, and I want it to be meaningful and to be comprehensive so that there are no secrets in there at all. We are not content with the status quo as our development of the bill progresses. No-mys Goucham will continue to work with stakeholders. We want to make sure that we introduce a bill that is ambitious, balanced and maybe filling in some of the gaps that the land reform bill in the past perhaps did not get to. Our land-standing land reformer objectives for a great diversity ownership are not incompatible with our net-seed-owned environment ambitions. Those points about diversity and inclusion and equality were well made by Carole Mocken. I largely agree with what she said in that regard. All landowners, public, private, community and charitable, are capable of working together in this. I do not think that anyone has anything to fear. We need to work to make access to the land and to local people previously at a disadvantage to the securing land and that, for their livelihoods and their communities, it is easier. I encourage everyone across the chamber to get behind our proposals in our bill and to help to take our nation forward. I thank Mercedes Villalba for her soft launch over our member's bill today. Thank you very much minister. That concludes the debate and I suspend this meeting of Parliament until 2 o'clock.