SNP members urge leadership to strengthen land reform plans

Members of the SNP have voted against the leadership’s land reform proposals on the basis they do not go far enough in changing Scotland’s system of land ownership. 
 
Delegates at the party’s annual conference in Aberdeen today effectively rejected a resolution praising the Scottish Government’s Land Reform Bill.
 
The proposed legislation will give communities a legal right to buy land – both rural and urban – to further sustainable development.
 
Measures to end tax exemptions for sporting estates and the creation of a new Scottish Land Commission are also being proposed.
 
The First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has previously promised “radical” proposals, though party delegates in Aberdeen provided a clear signal that the bill fails to live up to their expectations.
 
SNP members opted to remit the resolution – in effect reject and send back for a rethink – by 570 votes to 440, despite government minister Aileen McLeod taking to the stage to call for their backing.
 
The Minister for Environment, Land Reform and Climate Change, insisted she is "listening" to views on the bill. "This is not an end in itself," she said, adding that ministers would give careful consideration to amendments brought at Stage 2.
 
Former Education Secretary Mike Russell said the legislation being proposed was a “good bill but could be a better bill”.
 
It came after a resolution supporting the government’s moratorium on fracking passed, albeit against a backdrop of discontent among a significant number in the conference hall that the practice hasn’t been ruled out altogether.
 
A total of 550 delegates supported the resolution – which also called on the government to extend the current moratorium to underground coal gasification (UGC) – with 427 urging the party to take a tougher stance. Ministers last week announced a separate moratorium on UGC while they consider evidence.
 
Aberdeen South MP Callum McCaig said the party “should not be ashamed of going through this in minute detail" as he underlined the importance of a review launched by the Scottish Government on the impact of fracking.
 
However, Dr Iain Black, a founding member of SNP Members Against Unconventional Oil and Gas, said: "We know this is dangerous, we don't need new test wells in Scotland to tell us this.