This is a very important discussion, and we are all trying to find the right solution. It might be helpful to step back for a moment and ask, “What is the right solution?”
The right solution is to enable communities to possess—to buy—land that they wish to use for purposes of sustainable development. If we get this wrong one way or the other, that will not happen. It will not happen because it will be frustrated by lawyers who want it not to happen and owners who do not want to sell. We need clarity in case the bill is challenged, because judicial review does happen and reference under ECHR could happen. If we do not get it right, this is the proposal that will prevent communities from participating in the right to buy.
The question is this: is it better to include a definition in the bill and have it challenged but at least be absolutely clear about the meaning, or is it better to leave the bill as giving the words what you have euphemistically called “their ordinary meaning”—though they are capable of many ordinary meanings—and another legal meaning?
That is really quite worrying, because there is a specific legal meaning to “abandoned and neglected land” that you are not applying here. In those circumstances, if you leave the bill as it is, will the challenges be successful because of the vagueness in the legislation? In the greater part—it was not unanimous—the committee believed that it was very important that we tied the definition down as clearly as possible so that communities could use the legislation effectively. That is what we are still struggling to do.
While I am pleased to see these fundamental and radical steps to change land ownership, there is an issue about whether they should be defined in secondary legislation or whether they should be defined clearly as a legislative intention of the Parliament in primary legislation. I do not think that we are there yet; although the regulations are helpful, it is important that we get a clearer definition in the bill.
What Sarah Boyack has been trying to do, quite correctly, is point to sustainable development as one possible area in which we could get a clearer definition. I think that amendments will be brought forward on the issue, and I would urge the Government to think about that, because we are all trying to help each other to get absolute clarity so that the intention for a radical step forward will be fulfilled in practice.
We know from the land reform legislation that many of the difficulties that existed, including some that I have been dealing with in recent weeks, are because the legislation is not as clear as it should be and there are difficulties in operating it. We have learned from that, so the question is: can we keep moving in this legal debate?
My contribution to that debate is that I think that we need a clear definition and we need the term “sustainable development”. Work that has been done by Community Land Scotland to suggest a way to frame the definition should be seriously considered by the Government’s lawyers. I think that there will be an amendment at stage 2. If that amendment were to be seriously considered by the Government’s lawyers, we might get ourselves to the stage at which we could all eventually agree.