"No other European country has such a narrow base of proprietorship as Scotland. Half of all privately owned rural land is held by 421 people or entities. The roots of such disparities lie in the past. The 18th- and 19th-century Highland clearances emptied the glens and readied them for private takeover. On the continent, and eventually in England, the great estates were broken up by inheritance and land taxes. By comparison, Scotland is still feudal in scale."
"The passing of a land reform bill, its supporters say, will change that. But doubts remain. Its proponents say the legislation could allow the Scottish government to intervene in private land sales and require large estates to be broken up. At its heart is the so-called transfer test. This would see Scottish ministers notified before any land sale over 1,000 hectares. However, they lack an explicit veto."
Half of privately owned rural land in Scotland is held by 421 people or entities, reflecting a narrow proprietorship rooted in the 18th- and 19th-century Highland clearances. Continental and English estates were reduced by inheritance practices and land taxes, leaving Scotland with a more feudal scale of ownership. A land reform bill would introduce a transfer test notifying ministers of sales over 1,000 hectares, enable lotting of large sales, and give communities a chance to bid, but ministers lack an explicit veto and sparse local purchasing power limits practical redistribution. The ownership pattern is described as a free-market outcome privileging the deepest pockets, and proposals call for regulating land as a shared public resource. Devolution enabled parliamentary avenues for reform that were previously constrained before 1999.
Read at www.theguardian.com
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]