The Scottish government is attempting a difficult balancing act. Criticised by land reform campaigners for not going far enough, and by mainly private landowners as going too far, the Scottish government recently unveiled the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill as a set of measures to achieve ‘a fairer and more equitable distribution of land in Scotland’.

Perhaps the most significant concern for those who believe, as I do, that the private land owner model is delivering significant economic and wider social benefit, is that the Bill can only be regarded as one more step in a continuing programme of changes and reforms with the objective to broaden the spread of ownership of land at its heart.