Land Reform in a Net Zero Nation

Some criteria has to be set for defining a landholding that is considered large and the criteria seems reasonable although a bit surpsrising only 20% of Scotland's land mass is covered. Per Andy Wightman's book, The Poor Had No Lawyers, the 100th biggest estate has around 8500 hectares so at least those and more would be covered, which are presumably the sort of holdings that need to be dealt with most urgently.

It is possible to see that large estates could graze small numbers of livestock to meet the definition of a family farm.
There is also the issue of the environmental impact of cattle farming in terms of the run-offs from fields going into rivers as well as the methane produced, the lack of biodiversity on farmland, the killing of animals such as foxes, pinemartens, sea eagles etc.

As mentioned, the urban context is to be considered in a different bill.

I think at least in the short term this is a measure that improves the use of some of the more problematic estates, where an owner has no interest in engaging with local communites and might try to block access to land for example, or else have frequent raptor deaths on their land.

Community groups clearly should have a remit to make a complaint to an adjudicator. Some community groups do not have charitable status as they have a business development aim that can preclude this.
Presumably housing associations fall into at least one of these categories.

The responsibility for investigating and dealing with complaints should lie with a body that is accountable to the general public as decisions need to be tranparent and explained.

Having acted for some estates in preparing financial statements, I have seen first hand how having the land within a foreign owned entity can be used to avoid income tax, corporation tax, capital gains tax, inheritance tax and VAT. It can also hide the ownership of the land as the company register can be kept private. Such entities are supposedly run from places like Guernsey where local people are set up as the supposed directors - which is a complete fiction that should be clamped down on by HMRC anyway, but is not. Introducing a stipulation that an owner must be registered within the UK would end this situation and the owner of the land would then be subject to UK taxes. They could also not quietly pass on the shares in a company to an heir, for example, while avoiding CGT.
I feel strongly that rules should be introduced for any estate that has a renewables development on it, such as a windfarm - that income from these developments cannot be sheltered offshore. Particularly where an estate benefits purely from a rent based on a % of income generated - this is very much a windfall for estates, that have benefitted massively from such developments. This makes them very attractive to prospective buyers but also significantly strenghtens estates in terms of allowing them to pay lobbyists as well as making it much more valuable that the estate remains in private hands. There is also a huge incentive to avoid UK tax on such income.

It is also normal in other countries to place restrictions on foreign ownership and, due to the importance of our land to the wellbeing of our people, estates should not be allowed to be used as investments to be bought and sold to the highest bidder on an international scale.

As I have previously stated, it is imperative that estates in Scotland are subject to UK taxes and cannot be sheltered offshore. Particularly where there are renewables developments, which are extremely lucrative (often for no outlay on the part of the estate) these must be subject to UK tax as a minimum.
It does also seem that large scale estates should be subject to a land tax where they are privately owned. Waiting on estates to be put up for sale and trusting owners to play by the intended rules, will take too long for anything to change. Where land is held in a territory with a closed company register (such as Guernsey), the shares can be transferred without anyone knowing. A land tax could not be avoided and would provide an incentive to reduce a land holding - which might produce some quicker action - in bringing estates to sell off bits of land potentially to smaller owners.