Scottish Churches Parliamentary Office, Edinburgh - Briefing Document Eighteen

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Parliamentary Officer:Rev Graham Blount
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Briefing Document No 18 - Page 4 of 4

For All of Scotland - Continued.

Political Context
Some of the momentum does seem to have gone out of the political commitment to radical land reform. In part this may be an application of realism to the emotive appeal of some of the buy-outs of the 1990s - or at least a civil service understanding of realism; in part it is clearly bound up with nervousness about the impact of the ECHR, with landowners ready to seek large amounts of compensation for loss of rights; in part it may reflect different personalities in power with different priorities, or even a dominance of urban Scotland in the Parliament.

It may also be significant that, although the draft Bill was launched by the Justice and - then - Environment Ministers, responses to the consultation are being dealt with in the Rural Affairs Department. Theological Context
In 1998, a Pontifical Council document, Towards A Better Distribution of Land, spoke of the "dramatic human, social and ethical problems caused by the phenomenon of the concentration and misappropriation of land (which) affect the dignity of millions of persons and deprive the world of the possibility of peace … such situations are characterised by countless unacceptable injustices". This contemporary international perspective picks up on a strong Biblical theme of hostility to "latifundianism" or the gathering of land into large estates which give inappropriate power to those who control the land. That understanding of the relationship of land and power, which prompted the corrective justice of the jubilee, has been one of the bases of the churches' approach to land reform in Scotland - not only in recent years but also in the writings of theologians, mainly of the Free Church, for over a century. Land is undeniably a dominant Old Testament theme, reflecting a community for whom land was crucial not only in terms of material dependence but also in faithful vision. Whose Land Is It Anyway? (SCPO Briefing Paper 2.1) sketched some elements of a Biblical theology as a context for our thinking on land reform - rooted in our understanding of covenant (bringing land and people together under God), stewardship and justice. Such a theological understanding, developed in a Scottish context, would surely be sympathetic to the stated aims of the draft Bill, both in terms of sustainable development (of land and of communities) and of empowerment of communities; indeed it might be seen as demanding more radical reform. Churches also encounter these issues at a pastoral level, such as the evictions on an Aberdeenshire estate which prompted the Kirk' Church and Nation Committee to take up the theme for a major report in 1998. That report persuaded the General Assembly of the "injustices and anomalies of the present system of land tenure in Scotland", and led to a call for a Scottish Land Convention to draw up proposals for reform. Where we find ourselves in the current debate will be explored in a meeting at the Scottish Churches Parliamentary Office on 9 April at 2pm. A representative of the Executive Bill team will speak to the proposals and answer questions, and there will be opportunity for discussion which may inform responses to the consultation. Further details are available from SCPO; information (including the draft Bill) is also available on the Scottish Executive web-site at www.scotland.gov.uk/landreform. Responses should be sent to Andrew Taylor of the Scottish Executive Rural Affairs Department, Land Reform Branch, Pentland House, 47 Robb's Loan, Edinburgh EH14 1TY.