Land Monopolies in Scotland
Mercedes Villalba is Labour MSP for North East Scotland.
Mercedes Villalba MSP highlights a major cause of economic, social and environmental injustice and argues that radical land reform could boost biodiversity and build community wealth.
Questions of land ownership have plagued Scotland for centuries, from the feudal lords of the 1800s to their contemporary inheritors, the ‘green’ lairds. Indeed, today, Scotland’s largest land owner is Danish billionaire Anders Holch Povlsen – who continues to receive healthy subsidies from the Scottish Government despite his extraordinary wealth.
Empowered to challenge Scotland’s archaic patterns of land ownership in 1999, the Scottish Parliament has consistently failed to deal with the issue. Housing, agriculture, biodiversity, community wealth, and most crucially the climate crisis are all tied to the question of who owns our land and in whose benefit it is managed. How can Scotland democratise when over half of our land is concentrated in the hands of 432 wealthy owners?
The Scottish Land Commission’s 2019 investigation into the concentration of land ownership in Scotland found that the current pattern of ownership hoards land – and therefore wealth, resources and ultimately power – into the hands of individuals or organisations which can then exert a monopoly.
Land monopolies clearly cause economic injustices and damage a community’s social and environmental fabric, as well as holding us back economically and failing to support a modern, just economy. This unregulated monopolisation of land is backed to the hilt by private investment, driving power and wealth away from those who live and work on Scotland’s land into the hands of asset managers and hedge funds.
Communities are “deeply uncomfortable” that over half of Scotland’s land is owned and controlled by fewer than 500 wealthy individuals, and recognise that land monopolies’ exclusion of communities – particularly rural communities – excludes ordinary Scots from managing our own land, and the economic benefits and development which follows.
These monopolies allow wealthy landowners to restrict the availability of land for commercial and community benefit on a whim. They damage community and social cohesion and prevent us from freely challenging decisions about local land by wealthy owners.
Communities feel large-scale land ownership has a negative impact on any capability to meet local housing needs for local people, and hence drives depopulation and economic stagnation. It also does very little to protect and restore Scotland’s natural environment or biodiversity.
We know that those best placed to manage Scotland’s land in a green and sustainable manner are the communities who have lived on the land for generations, rather than faceless organisations and distant, unaccountable landlords.
By shutting locals out of the decision-making, even helpful changes like reforestation or infrastructure development can cause disagreement and division in communities. The situation in Scotland is much worse than in other comparable countries and land monopolies hinder attempts to protect and restore biodiversity. By mainstreaming land reform and community ownership, we could boost biodiversity and build community wealth.
This is why land reform needs to be bolder than the timid propositions of the Scottish Government. The SNP’s plans, namely the forthcoming Land Reform (Scotland) Bill, fail to meet the scale of the challenge.
The bill as it stands lets super-rich landowners – like the billionaire owner of Balmedie and Turnberry golf courses – off the hook. It misses a historic opportunity to enact land justice across Scotland – particularly in the North East, Highlands, and Islands.
To build a more equitable Scotland, land reform must be radical. One of the Scottish Land Commission’s primary conclusions is that Scotland needed policies which encourage a greater diversity of land ownership and actively prevent land monopolies from being formed. Current legislation does not do this.
Public interest tests to ensure land transferral is taking place for the benefit of the local community are crucial. Land reform campaigners and charities support a lower limit for the allocation of land sales than the government’s proposed 3,000 hectares. Only then will we be able to support communities to support themselves, returning control from the grasp of the ruling class to the people of Scotland.
Railing against the concentrated power and wealth of the Scottish aristocracy in 1909, the future Labour MP Tom Johnstone urged Scots to “show the people that our Old Nobility is not noble.”
A century later, Scotland’s new nobility – be they asset managers, foreign billionaires or the inheritors of feudal estates – is not “noble” either. It is high time that politicians act to break the patterns of ownership that sustain their clasp on Scotland’s resources. This process must begin urgently – and it must begin with bold action on land reform.
