 Fforddw, could members leave in the chamber please do so quietly. Parliament is still in session. The final item of business today is the members' business debate on motion number 10591, in the name of Rhoda Grant, on the Bankreirland declaration. This debate will be concluded without any questions being put. I would be grateful if those members who wish to speak in the debate could press the request to speak buttons now please. I call on Rhoda I will say thank you again for the opportunity to debate this motion tonight. Land reform is an issue that has moved up the political agenda in Scotland, over the last couple of years following a lot of action on the issue just before and directly after this Parliament was formed. There is a danger that tonight's debate becomes a debate about the outcomes of the Land reform review group oedd y community empowerment bill. I hope that we will have a lot of time to debate these specific matters over the coming weeks and months, but that is not what the purpose of tonight's debate is. Tonight's debate is relevant to all those issues, however it places them within an international context in which we should also have interest. People assume that land ownership in Scotland is the same as it is elsewhere, but it is not in a lot of Scots. I find that this is news to them. Our land ownership patterns are massively out of kilter with the rest of Europe and most of the rest of the world. Most European countries took radical action to reform land ownership centuries ago. The Bancrew land declaration emanates from the Bancrew seminar, where a number of interested parties, local and international, joined together to explore land ownership issues. They heard a paper from Professor Jim Hunter, the writer and emeritus professor of history at UHI, known and respected by many of us in the chamber and beyond. What was striking about the paper was the close parallels that drew us between our own land history and what is happening to land ownership internationally today. At one part of his paper, Jim Hunter recounted the story of villagers in Gambela in Ethiopia being dispossessed of their land today and the event-mirage and canal events in Sutherland in the early 18th century. What is happening today to many people across the globe is that powerful interests forced them off their land and deprived them of their principal means of existence, often with the connivants of their Government as strikingly similar to aspects of our own history. We see the influence of that in today in Scotland, the concentration of ownership of land, the concentration of power and influence and increasingly the concentration of wealth that can come from land ownership. From our history, we know that despite the actions of successive Governments back to the end of the 19th century, we are still debating land reform and the need for change today. We have over 150 years of legislation trying to bring about change to land ownership patterns, yet we are still debating on trying to make a decisive change. From our own experience, it is all too easy to see what faces the people in other parts of the world now fighting at the land grid that is going on in their communities. They too face a future where few will dominate the many, where a stake in the precious resource of land is limited or denied, where power and wealth concentrate as a consequence of land ownership patterns. It must be right that we in Scotland show some solidarity with those people. It must be right that we learn from them today what their land reform actions are about and what is working best for them. It is therefore right that we offer to share with them our own experience and insights, our policy and legislative actions and thinking on the subject. As community land Scotland has been discovering, our land debate is highly relevant to others and their experience is also relevant in helping us to confirm what our own thinking is and it is legitimate within an international context. The One Crew Land Declaration highlights those points. I hope that the minister, in his reply, will recognise that we in Scotland have something to offer in all of this and that he will work with community land Scotland and others to build the links and the dialogue that can help us and also help others. We sit firmly within an international context in which land reform is necessary, just and a common cause. In commenting on the One Crew Land Declaration, Michael Taylor of the International Land Coalition based in Rome said, like any country facing high concentrations of land ownership, challenging this structure also means challenging concentrations of economic and political power with which land ownership is so intertwined. Wherever you go, land reform struggles are always motivated by social justice, greater fairness and how to better empower people. I have heard too often from vested interests that the way that land is owned and managed in Scotland currently is the best way to do that and that we should be very grateful to those wealthy private landowners for subsidising us all. The truth is very different. We are now discovering just how much the public purse subsidises many wealthy landowners through beneficial tax breaks and large public grants, while they watch their land values soar. Meanwhile, few others have a stake in the land. The One Crew Land Declaration reminds us that there are other ways forward which empower people to have a stake in their own land. Simply cannot be right in a country that believes in greater fairness and social justice than just 432 people own half of Scotland's private land. That fact concentrates in very few hands influence power and wealth. My motion congratulates community land Scotland through the One Crew Land Declaration for reinforcing for us the just cause of land reform in Scotland. I am encouraged by some of what has been emerging recently, but there is still a long way to go. I hope that the minister in his reply will build on the theme that he has been developing. I believe that we agree that there needs to be a fairer distribution of land ownership in Scotland today and I hope that we can unite around that ambition. Thank you very much. I now turn to the open debate. Speeches of four minutes please and I should be able to call everyone Rob Gibson to be followed by Malcolm Chisholm. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Rhoda Grant is to be congratulated on obtaining this timely debate. Community land Scotland is the vision for a fair and equitable distribution of Scottish land which chimes well with the final report of the land reform review group, the land of Scotland and the common goods. That shows that achieving land reform cannot be by one simple formula, but it is incremental as each tranche adds to the application of the public interest test to all the land issues that we face today. In my large constituency, there are examples that show a need for flexibility of approach. For instance, at Lechmelm, a formerly larger family estate of around 6,000 acres, which saw much of its hillgrounds sold off on the death of the father of the present owner, now sees the current owner seeking to enlist the support of the Aleppo community trust to see if the community would be interested in purchasing the hillground of some 5,000 acre, which is again on the market. The community trust has put out a questionnaire in the Aleppo news a fortnight ago to see what local people think. The motives of the BT family at Lechmelm are understandable as they work on many community projects and have strong local support year in, year out. Meanwhile, a Dutch company, which bought Foych estate nearby at some 23,000 acres in the 1970s, added to that in Verlyle, closer to Lechmelm in 1994, and bought Chirall and the former Lechmelm hotel in 2002. That Dutch company has the ability to buy land in these quantities in Scotland, so the international lesson is why here, but not in Holland. Now they want to add that Lechmelm hillground to their extensive estate, not for cattle and sheep, not for community uses, but merely for the occasional sporting slaughter of deer. Scottish Land and Estates is always saying that it wants collaboration with local people on community land Scotland as an excellent track record where communities have bought land outright. However, this example at Lechmelm is one where the common good needs the land laws to be made more open to community participation. It is all the more significant as Lechmelm witnessed the forcible removal of the crofters on that estate by the then owner in 1880, and it was one of the triggers for the creation of the Highland Land League and the Crofters' War at that time. We need better solutions today. The bun crew declaration encourages us to see land reform questions as a normal part of a nation's development, so that, as Scotland debates its land reform issues, other countries around the world are facing up to the challenging land questions, too, and they need to interact. A parallel guide is the Scottish Government's commitment to make Scotland a hydro nation. It states that water is of fundamental importance for Scotland's economy, health, social wellbeing and environment. All businesses rely on water environment in some way or another, and water plays a prominent role in the success of many sectors of the economy. Some are of strategic importance to Scotland's economy, such as tourism, food and drink manufacture, and renewable energy generation. It is absolutely the same with land or even more so. We can learn from many other countries as to best practice on land reform, just as Scotland, as a hydro nation, will gain direct economic benefit and enjoy an enhanced international profile, so community land reform in Scotland can gain direct economic benefits for our people. Presiding Officer, we should be aware of the urgency of this reform. Farm land values have risen 223 per cent in 10 years, according to Knight Frank, as reported in the press and journal 30 June. Farm agent James Dean said that there are a lot of talk about the referendum, cap reform and land reform, but there is much more confidence in the market for agricultural land than you might imagine, particularly for good agricultural land. In contrast, the Financial Times weekend on Saturday 2 August, in an article headlined the twilight of a private land ownership question mark, suggests that the referendum is making buyers back off. The author, Merron Somerset Web, concluded, Scottish landowners are used to the idea that what is theirs is not all theirs. The direction of travel has long been clear. The new bills and reviews just mark a step up in the speed of the transfer of power from landowners to perceived public interest. So irrespective of the referendum result, the property owners see land reform as coming, however it would be so much easier with the full tax powers over land being exercised by the Scottish Parliament. That is what I suggested in an amendment to this original motion, which was put forward earlier. It has wide MSP support. All in all, the time for land reform in the common good is here and now. Presiding Officer, I congratulate Rhoda Grant on securing this debate and highlighting the Bunkrew land declaration. The pattern of land ownership in Scotland is underpinned by generations of inequality and is shaped by many wealthy vested interests that effectively prevent an equitable system that truly benefits communities. The declaration points out the lack of fairness in land distribution and reaffirms the commitment of community land Scotland to a fair but radical alternative. Community land Scotland at present represents members managing roughly 500,000 acres of land, which contains up to 25,000 residents. Those residents all stand to gain from the positive experience of engaging with and making the most of the land around them, as Andy Wightman points out in his publication. The poor had no lawyers who owned Scotland and how they got it. Half of the country's privately owned land is held by just 432 owners, and as few as 16 owners hold 10 per cent of Scotland's natural land resources. That is quite simply unacceptable. Ownership empowers communities and gives a greater sense of participation and inclusion, and we need only to look abroad to see examples of that. The Bungtree land declaration states that, having explored the parallels with land reform internationally, community land Scotland has found that Scotland lags behind land reform interventions that in Europe delivered greater land justice in past centuries. That is the case in France, for example, where patterns of ownership of national forests differ enormously to the current inequitable Scottish situation. As it stands, more than 44 per cent of private forests in Scotland are over 100 hectares in size and account for over 94 per cent of the forest area. The condition of tenure for workers and communities living on this land is determined by a relatively small group of people. By comparison, like elsewhere in Europe, French farmers are also foresters. That means that there are no big estates with tenants relying on a landlord's good will. At the same time, public forests are owned by local communities, giving a far more equitable outcome for all stakeholders. In Andy Wightman's article, Scottish forestry, still in the hands of an elite, he points out that the reasons why Scottish private forestry is dominated by large-scale absentee landowners is partly down to established ownership patterns, where a tiny elite possessed the land and all farmers were tenants. Until 2004, the law stated clearly that trees belong to the landlord, and so farmers have never been forest owners. As a result, huge sways of prominent and valuable woodland are beyond the reach of community ownership, and that is something that has remained largely unchallenged. The declaration also touches on the human rights element of land reform, citing the Scottish national action plan for human rights for 2013-17. That seeks to increase people's understanding of human rights and their participation in decisions. The Bunkrie declaration is correct to identify that as one key area that has yet to be properly discussed. The use of land directly affects the wellbeing of citizens and therefore current legislation on community empowerment should reflect human rights impacts. That starts with information. Both urban and rural communities have voiced a desire to know who owns the land around them, but, as of yet, Scotland lags behind most comparable European countries in providing such data. Angus Robertson of Community Land Scotland, in his evidence to the Scottish Affairs Select Committee consultation on land reform, highlighted that transparency and accountability over land ownership is seriously damaged by the lack of a full register of rural ownership. Even where the ownership is available, some hide behind of charitable status and of a board of trustees that has no local representation on it. That cannot continue to be the situation. I welcome the reaffirmation of the values of Community Land Scotland in the Bunkrie declaration. It sets out a shared agenda that I hope all in this chamber will get behind, including with regard to the community empowerment and renewable bill. I welcome the motion and give it my support. Many thanks. I now call Alex Ferguson to be followed by Dave Thomson. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I, like others, congratulate Rhoda Grant on bringing this motion to the chamber this evening. It is timely, because there is no doubt that land reform issues are very much in the air. Largely, as a result of the publication of the report of the land reform review group, I also like to think, as a result of this Parliament's positive history in supporting community buyouts and ownership to the extent that, as Malcolm Chisholm has just said, some 500,000 acres are now community-owned and run. Let me start by saying that, both as an individual and as a Scottish Conservative, I very much welcome that fact. It was a Conservative Government, after all, that initiated land reform in the United Kingdom. Indeed, we believe that true devolution doesn't and shouldn't end with a transfer of powers to Edinburgh. It must result in the genuine empowerment of communities or it is surely meaningless. So it follows that community ownership of land has to be integral to the beliefs of those of us who embrace devolution, and I certainly number myself amongst those who do. But where I differ from some of the current thinking is how it seems to be being proposed on how to promote increased community ownership as we take it forward. I believe strongly that successful community ownership results from local enthusiasm leading to local initiatives, to local decision making and local processes. I also believe equally strongly that those processes should be based on entirely voluntary agreement. The idea that any community should have a right to buy land without the agreement of a willing seller is one that I cannot support and yet that is the route that is being proposed by the land reform review group even I accept if it is only as a last resort at this stage. But even more concerning to me and from my perspective is the degree of centralisation of the process that has been proposed. Three new government agencies to be set up to oversee the policy is as fine an example of centralised overkill as I've ever seen and I cannot understand the logic of a centralised government agency having the right, never mind the ability to determine whether or not a proposed community buy out is able to deliver the degree of public benefit that will apparently be required if the large amounts of taxpayers money that will have to be provided to finance these ventures is to be sanctioned. There has to surely must be better ways of doing that than simply setting up three new quangos. Community ownership is I believe a really positive thing presiding officer but let's keep it voluntary and let's keep it local because I think that way results in land reform with harmony rather than land reform with divisiveness and that surely has to be the preferred outcome and let me just I don't have time I don't think Mr Don I'm sorry let me just finish with a brief word on the amount of land that anyone can own because I really do question that the amount of land is actually what is at the heart of people's concerns. I could own two acres in the heart of my local village and have far more influence over that community than the owner of a 10,000 or 100,000 acre estate just up the road. I would and I will as this debate goes forward argue that the real issue is not about how much land people own it is about how that land is used and simply putting a false cap on the amount will do nothing other than have lawyers rubbing their hands with glee as they devise schemes to drive a coach and horses through any legislation that seeks to do so. Many of the land reform review groups recommendations which are largely endorsed by the bunkrew declaration are very well intentioned but I do believe that some of them are ill thought out. As I said earlier land reform and community ownership can and should result in positive and progressive outcomes not just for the communities themselves but for the whole country and that will only be achieved if the proposed elements of compulsion and state interference are removed from the proposed equation. I expect no applause Presiding Officer but I thank the chamber for its time. Thank you. I now call Dave Thomson to be followed by Claudia Beamish. Thank you Presiding Officer. I too would like to thank Rora Grant for securing this important debate. The publication of the bunkrew land declaration is an important contribution towards establishing new land ownership patterns in Scotland for the common good and in the public interest. Community land Scotland also deserves our thanks for the work that they are doing on this vital issue. Fundamentally, land is a God-given finite gift which must be used for the benefit of all. I am confident that any moves towards more people centred land governments will meet with majority support in this chamber and I urge Labour in particular to put aside party politics and join with those of us who are in favour of land reform to promote meaningful change. I must say that I was encouraged by Rora Grant's call for working together on this but there is a challenge. The bunkrew declaration recognises that Scotland's land reform journey is behind most of Europe where more equitable patterns of land ownership have been delivered in recent centuries. As Rora Grant and Malcolm Chisholn said, over half of Scotland's private land is owned by just 432 people, with 10 per cent owned by 16 individuals or groups, which means that Scotland has one of the most unequal patterns of land ownership in Europe. I do not think that we can say this often enough. We, Labour and the SNP, recognise that the declaration is a positive step and we are in agreement that patterns of land ownership in Scotland are not fit for a modern nation and we have to build on that. The declaration is positive and is an embodiment of intention that is notable and is a strong marker on the Scottish land reform road. That is why I am confident that we will unite with community land Scotland in the coming years to bring the ideas contained within the declaration to fruition. However, we as a Parliament also have to be honest about how we are going to do this and it would be remiss of me not to mention that Westminster still makes many decisions for us such as on postal privatisation and renewal of tried nuclear missiles, which are not supported by this chamber. Westminster also decides, as Rob Gibson has said, on most aspects of taxation, and because the tax system plays an integral role in perpetuating our unfair concentrated pattern of large-scale private land ownership, it will need amending if we are to make a real and lasting difference. That is unlikely to happen despite the sterling efforts of the Westminster Scottish Affairs Committee. The problem is that the establishment in London, the millionaires in the cabinet and particularly the House of Lords will make it impossible to enact the type of radical reform that we seek. Members of the House of Lords, especially, will always vote in the interests of their own kind, who have a vested interest in vast swathes of Scotland's land and in keeping things as they are. Members know what the answer is. We can eradicate the House of Lords at the stroke of a pen and take our taxation system into our own hands on 18 September. That will set us upon a true path to realising the aims of the bankrew declaration. I hope that, on some level, this notion chimes with members of the chamber who are ordinarily against independence. I am sure that a majority in this chamber believes that there should be a fair distribution of land so that communities are able to fulfil their aspirations. However, we must be honest about how we achieve that. Finally, we owe it to the people of Scotland to make sure that we make progress by advancing the principles of fairer patterns of land ownership, as was laid out in the bankrew declaration, and by removing any blockages such as the House of Lords that prevent us from doing that. The answer is in Labour's hands, but do they have the courage to grasp it? I want to support all that Rhoda Grant has said in opening the debate. Of course, the land ownership question is fundamental to a fairer Scotland. It does sometimes still feel that, as if the land debate is just a Highlands and Islands thing, but the question of land reform has a resonance and relevance for the region that I represent, South Scotland, which the minister also represents. We have much to learn from Highlands and Islands and seek to involve more and more communities in the real future of their land. The fact that the Highlands and Islands has had high as an economic and social development agency for close on 50 years shows the capacity of their communities but also the support systems in place. I hope that the minister will agree with me that within Scotland there is more that we can do to share best practice. I have to disagree with Alex Ferguson and say that I hope that the minister will also agree with me that the new agency's proposed or similar models will offer local communities support and are not about centralisation. However, tonight I want to focus principally on matters originating from beyond Scotland shores, which have relevance here and, I believe, can give us strength and confidence in our policy actions. I am not referring here to human rights considerations. I want to concentrate on one particular international agreement signed up to by the current UK Government indeed. I confess that I did not know about the existence of this voluntary guidelines on the responsible governance of land tenure until attention was drawn to it in the Bun Crew Land Declaration by Community Land Scotland. This is a UN Food and Agriculture Organization policy document agreed by the Committee on World Food Security of the UN and since endorsed by the G8. The guidelines have a high-level international endorsement, and they apply to all member states, not just developing countries. What the guidance does do, and I quote, is to improve tenure governance by providing guidance and information on internationally accepted practices for systems that deal with the rights to use, manage and control land. So they are about, I quote, internationally accepted practices, now recommended for consideration by nation states in the development of land policies. The guidelines are voluntary, but they carry the weight of official endorsement at the most senior international levels. They set out helpful policy principles, and they cover government-owned land, as well as other ownerships, which Members have raised highlighted today. On government land, they state where states own or control land, fisheries and forests, they should determine the use and control of these resources in the light of broader social, economic and environmental objectives. This resonates with the idea in the Land Reform Act and proposals to update the act in the community empowerment bill around land and sustainable development, about which I feel very passionate, because sustainable development is, of course, defined in economic, social and environmental terms. Referring to redistributive reforms, the guidance makes clear, I quote again, that they can facilitate broad and equitable access to land and inclusive rural development. It makes clear, I quote, that states can consider land ceilings as a policy option in the context of redistributive reforms. So the apparently controversial policy idea of ceilings on land is indeed legitimised in these guidelines, and through the Brun Cru land declaration, which alludes to them through the international guidelines, which are again approved by the UK Government. Having a ceiling is only one of a potential type of redistributive mechanism. There are many others. The guidelines make clear, and I again quote, that redistributive reforms may be considered for social, economic and environmental reasons, where a high degree of ownership concentration is combined with rural poverty, attributable to lack of access to land, fisheries and forests. I have only been able to briefly describe the depth of the policy practices that there are internationally endorsed in this document. The voluntary guidelines are, I believe, worthy of more study, and I hope that the minister will consider that in his closing remarks. We should, I believe, feel strengthened by this as we move forward to take what some may regard as radical steps, but which I and many in this chamber, if not most, believe are the important steps in land reform for the future communities of Scotland. Thank you. Finally, before I call the minister, I call Dean Arkett. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I, as always being the last speaker, of course, a number of issues have already been covered, but I think that just to pick up on some of the points that Rob Gibson made, there are still difficulties for local groups. I cite perhaps the Forestry Commission's sale of land, where it is offered often in a large piece to the local community who may decide not to buy it, where it is available in smaller pieces, but if the local community decides not to declare an interest or to buy the land or attempt to do that, once it is not available to the local community, the land tends to be put together in one very large piece, thereby sometimes denying even a local trust who might buy it together with local businesses and so on to make something of it, but could not possibly contemplate buying the land as a whole. I think that that is something worth looking at. Other than that, I agree too with Claudia Beamish when she talks about that it is not only the Highlands and Islands that there is now when we see the kind of interest and energy that is released in a community when they do have ownership to see that too in urban areas and to know that the land fund perhaps inadequate at the moment, but hopefully to grow to include people taking ownership of land in urban areas as well. The frustration often that comes and there are examples of farmers who desperately would like to buy their land who are currently tenant farmers, knowing that the absentee landowner wants to deny the sale, but in the long term wants to close the farm as well. There are examples like that of small businesses who run businesses on as tenants of large estates who work on a month to month lease. Again, really unacceptable practice in order to grow sustainable communities. I would like to cite some of the examples. I mean, in Mal, the forest crops I think is showing to be a success and liberating people to do the best that they can with a piece of land I think has to be the first consideration and that clearly is in the community empowerment build in terms of the public interest. I think that that kind of says everything about what we would like to see for land reform. Finally, just really to congratulate David Cameron, not that David Cameron, but David Cameron, the chair of Community Land Scotland from Harris, not from London, and Peter Peacock late of this Parliament, of course, in the work that they have done and that they brought about the Bancrew land declaration. I personally agree with just about everything that is in it. I think that it is the way forward. I think that there is an enormous future if we can only look and see the potential of the land, urban and rural, and the opportunities that have been lost over generations and now hundreds of years, as Scotland continued to have a feudal land system literally into the 20th century, which I think is a really shocking. Let's see everything or acknowledge the Bancrew land declaration and its worth and acknowledge and thank Rhoda Grant for bringing this debate to the Parliament. I think that it is timely, it is right and I think that we can start to become very excited about the potential of land ownership in Scotland. I now invite Paul Wheelhouse to respond to the debate minister in around seven minutes, please. I am pleased to be here to discuss the Bancrew land declaration and congratulate Rhoda Grant for bringing the debate to the chamber today, and I'll say more about why I think that it's the right time for this debate. The Bancrew land declaration by Community Land Scotland in March this year tells an interesting story, as we've heard. It also tells a story that brings us full circle almost. The international human rights community has been debating community land rights for some time now. This debate has, to date at least, been driven by a recognition in many developing countries where communities have already exercised collective ownership of land and have managed the land sustainably in the interests of the whole community, that these collective rights have had to give way to modern individual property rights. In those countries, often these property rights have been taken up by large interests wanting to own and extract mineral wealth. However, in the process, they have displaced local communities, dispossessing them of both their land and, importantly, their futures. In an endeavour to start to protect community land rights, the international community have been drawing up guidelines to help to encourage countries to take action where communities are losing those collective rights. This international story has resonance here in Scotland, and I believe that Scotland has a lot to offer to this debate—the point that was made earlier on, I believe, by Rhoda Grant. Many of Scotland's crofting communities were linked to the current stories unfolding in the developing world. They have a long history of struggle and legislative changes from the late 19th century through to the present day, and those have resulted in a succession of legislative reform and security of tenure. Those serve to protect the interests of their inhabitants and more widely their communities. I hope that colleagues across the chamber will agree with me that this reform has made a real difference. There have also been rights established for other rural communities throughout Scotland. Some of them, such as the community right to buy, which has been referred to by a number of members, are innovative and can make a real difference to the futures of communities that use them. The determination of communities in Scotland to own and manage the land in which they live and work has led to roughly half a million acres of land in community ownership today. In the past year alone, more than 38,000 acres have come under community ownership. There are another 100,000 acres in the pipeline at the moment, which is very encouraging. However, Scotland is not the only country that is working to restore community land rights. Where examples exist, there is growing evidence that community landowners place a far greater emphasis on sustainability and the environment. Those are key drivers to community as well as national success and prosperity. New Zealand is another prime example of where that happens. I would like Scotland's community landowners, with their rich and long experience of rural and community development, to be willing to share their experience internationally and to help communities at the start of their struggle in other countries. I am already aware that the 1 million-acre target set by the First Minister in June 2012, which would see us move from around 2 per cent to around 5 per cent of Scotland's land under community ownership, is being held up as an example in the international debate on community land rights. Therefore, I would like again to thank Rhoda Grant for putting forward her motion, record my agreement with the motion and congratulate Community Land Scotland on the publication of the Bunker Land Declaration. I have already been clear that this Government is committed to progressing land reform in Scotland, both when I spoke at the Community Land Scotland conference in June and also when I appeared before the Rural Affairs and Climate Change and Environment Committee thereafter. I want to take this opportunity to reiterate that commitment. My vision is for a fairer, wider and more equitable distribution of land in Scotland, a distribution that provides communities and individuals with the access to land they need to fulfil their aspirations and needs and in turn contribute to the sustainable economic development of Scotland and to social and environmental gains. We have a target of 1 million acres, or 5 per cent, of land in community ownership by 2020. It is certainly an ambitious target, but it is also, I believe, a really inspiring one. This is a target that all of Scotland should be engaged in. We need communities to think about whether community ownership of land or an asset make a real difference to their community and its success. We need the public, private, third and community sectors to work together to make sure that we get the best from our land. The target of 1 million acres in community ownership is sometimes portrayed as pro-community and anti-private ownership, and that is not the case. As the concentration of ownership decreases, there will, I believe, be more room for community owners and more private owners. I agree with Claudia Beamish that it is also clear that land reform in Scotland is not something solely for the Highlands and Islands or for rural Scotland. It is for the whole of Scotland, and we need to take land reform into urban areas. There are already numerous examples where community ownership of land has made a real difference in such areas, and we want to encourage urban communities and those in our larger rural settlements to become involved and fulfil their potential too. We also want urban and rural communities to be able to tackle abandoned and neglected land, a real hindrance to the sustainable development of land on which communities have a connection. The community empowerment Scotland bill will take forward some key steps that can make a real difference, but further action is needed. That is why I have announced that I will seek to bring forward a land reform bill during this term of Parliament. I have said it before, and other members have referred to it, but we would perhaps not just design a system where 432 landowners or indeed 0.008 per cent of Scotland's population would own half of the privately owned land in Scotland. That is not to denigrate the individuals who own that land. That is not about politics of envy, but we are not aware of any other modern democracy where such a pattern of land ownership pertains. In the time that I have left, a number of points have been raised by members. Certainly, in response to Rhoda Grant, we look to work with Community Land Scotland and others to take forward this agenda. To Rob Gibson, who referred to the hydro nation, I think that that is an important principle to an extent that all of us depend on one extent or another on land for our wellbeing, and of course the environment depends on it too. I believe that the point that Malcolm Chisholm made about the concentration ownership of forestry is true. We have a highly concentrated pattern of ownership of forestry, but we are taking forward an issue such as woodlots to explore how communities and individuals can lease forests to manage. Indeed, the Forestry Commission Scotland national forest land scheme is a means by which we can transfer ownership of forests to communities. To pick up Jean Urquhart's point, which is a fair one, about the pattern in which the land has been disposed of, we are trying to explore means by which we can have smaller packets of land in the sale, most recently in the Barracks sale, which is in the Rannach area of Scotland, to try and give opportunities for smaller plots to be bought. Alex Ferguson raised the point about community empowerment, and I welcome his support for that. I hope that there are aspects of the community empowerment Scotland Bill that the Conservatives can support. We look to work with Alex and colleagues in the Conservatives on finding common ground where we can and take that forward. Dave Thompson called for unity with the opposition parties. I genuinely believe that we can achieve this on land reform, and I certainly look forward to working with the Labour Party and others in due course. I agree with Claudia Beamish on the support systems that High Produce has been influential in promoting community land projects in the Highlands and Islands. My aim for land reform is to address the situation that we face in Scotland by ensuring that the patterns of ownership and use of land in this country delivers the maximum benefit to the people of Scotland. I hope—and I have expressed this to our stakeholders—that the land reform review group's report has given us the opportunity to take land reform away from the old polarised arguments, and it may take it into the 21st century. Rhoda Grant is quite correct in saying that we will have many opportunities to debate this in due course. The Scottish Government looks forward to working with Parliament and having the support of parliamentary colleagues for both the community empowerment Scotland Bill and the future land reform bill. Thank you very much. Many thanks, minister. That concludes Rhoda Grant's debate on the Boncruland declaration, and I now close this meeting of Parliament.