LABOUR and Green MSPs have united to urge the SNP Scottish government to go “much further” on land reform.

The calls came as MSPs prepared to debate the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill, which would enable ministers to intervene to break up large estates as they come up for sale.

Warning the Bill could be a missed opportunity, Scottish Labour land reform spokeswoman Rhoda Grant said: “After 17 years of SNP government, land ownership concentration is getting worse: 0.025 per cent of Scotland’s population still owns 67 per cent of [its] rural land.

“The Bill currently drafted will not change land ownership patterns, nor will it deal with power vested in those who own land to hold communities to ransom.”

Green MSP Ariane Burgess said: “It’s vital that this Bill goes much further in delivering robust powers that will allow us to break up big estates and to manage them for the wider public benefit.

“Our country should belong to all of us.”

Scotland’s rural affairs secretary Mairi Gougeon said she had set out changes to “further strengthen and simplify the proposals in the Bill.”