25 June 2015
Trouble in the Glens
by J R Thomas
Scotland may still not be independent, but the Scottish National Party (“SNP”) controlled Scottish Parliament is already flexing its muscles and starting to use the additional powers promised to it in the run-up to the referendum last year. The call for independence was lost, but the powers devolved are giving the SNP a chance to deal with some of its favourite targets.
Top of the reform list is land ownership and the future of the great landed estates. This week Aileen McLeod, the Scottish minister responsible for land reform, introduced a new land reform bill following a period of consultation with various interested parties. The bill is in some ways less fearsome than some landowners had expected – there are, for example, no proposals to break up large estates, introduce compulsory purchase in targeted areas or to restrict field sports.
But Scottish landowners and most of those who in some way make a living from the land are still concerned at what is proposed. The core proposal is to set up a Scottish Land Commission, which will be given powers to “intervene” against landowners who are unwilling or even unable to meet objectives set by the government. Business rates on sporting and shooting estates will also be brought back (this was a feature of Scottish rural life for many years until abolished in 1994 by John Major’s administration). The third leg of the new proposals is to extend the rights of rural communities to buy the land around them if it is sold by the current landowner. The business rates raised will be used to increase the funding of the Scottish Land Fund which assists communities to buy rural land. If the bill goes through, the Land Fund should have around £10m a year for this and the government hopes to see the amount of land in community ownership double to around one million acres by 2021.
The wisdom of this might be questioned. A beautiful idea perhaps, with rural cooperatives taking control of the land on which they live and reaping the benefits of their efforts and investment but most cooperatives, so far, have been economic disasters. The money that goes in is nearly all public money and the proud new owners quickly discover that the life of a Scottish laird is neither profitable nor easy. Gigha, the beautiful island off south-west Scotland formerly owned by the Horlick family, has had well-ventilated financial troubles. Other collective estates have had to lease off activities or sporting rights to keep cash flows positive and collective ownership often seems to bitterly divide communities rather than to unite them.
The proposal to reintroduce sporting rates has been well-trailed and comes as no great surprise. There will be grumbling about it and some fear of job losses among gamekeepers and others on marginal sporting estates but the truth is that deer stalking and grouse and pheasant shooting are enjoying boom times and that revenues are high; so an extra tax will be bearable, if irritating.
Of more concern is the proposed powers of a land commission to intervene against recalcitrant landowners who fail to follow government directives for sustainable development, even to the point of forcing them to sell their holdings. It is not clear what sustainable developments the Scottish government fear will be obstructed – the problem that most landowners have is getting permission under the current planning system for development, whether for housing, for commercial use or for power generation and however green or sustainable. What they and their advisors are concerned about is that this represents the first push of a collectivisation bulldozer and that the government will gradually aggregate more and more powers to intervene in rural land ownership.
The pattern of land ownership in Scotland is different to that in England and Wales. In these countries, although there are of course great estates, some still centred around magnificent and privately owned houses, the backbone of rural landownership is in the smaller estates and large farms, often between 1,000 acres and 4,000 acres, and increasingly low-key with the land farmed directly by the owners. In Scotland there are a number of truly enormous concentrations of land ownersip. For instance, the Duke of Buccleuch, admittedly the largest private landowner in the UK, owns 250,000 acres in great swathes across the Scottish borders; Cameron of Locheil, holds his ancient clan lands in a 100,000 estate north of Fort William in the Highlands; and the Sutherland family, who formerly held a million acres – the entire county from which they take their surname, clan, and title – still own over 100,000 acres there. The statistic usually bandied around is that 432 owners own half of Scotland. Although this is almost certainly an exaggeration, the number and generally aristocratic birth of most Scottish landowners has rankled for many years with the predominantly urban lowland population.
The estates are better run than they used to be, often highly professionally and welcoming the public not just to the great house for Sunday afternoons out but also to activity camps, driving and running venues, to country fairs and to farm buildings converted to rural boutiques and enterprises, and to former farmhouses and cottages modernised and available to rent for living and for holidays. The old idea of the laird behind his park wall ordering townies off his land has long gone and rural Scotland is as business-like as any other sector. The right to roam allows Scottish walkers to go almost anywhere; the park gates have mostly swung open; landowners have often sold at least part of the housing on their estates to welcome more social diversity. The hills are festooned with wind turbines bringing theoretically cheaper power to the urban masses. Only the fishing, stalking and shooting is guarded against mass incursion – but takes place in such remote areas and often in such bad weather that the public is not likely to be inconvenienced by such sporting activities. Indeed, successive Scottish governments have struck a subtle blow against the owners of salmon fishing rights by allowing sea netting and fish farms which together have destroyed most wild salmon fishing and the economic infrastructure associated with it.
The lairds and their rural spreads remain easy targets for politicians, good for attracting the voter with a grudge against the rich or grand. Certainly the landowners are expressing great nervousness about the future with the Duke of Buccleuch suggesting that he will be selling some of his land to reduce his risk exposure, though in fact he has been turning himself into a diverse investment group for some time. Land values are certainly static at the moment and Highland estates especially are proving difficult to sell as they are seen as especially prone to community ownership. But the SNP proposals seem perhaps milder than expected and Mrs Sturgeon is not so foolish as to destroy one of Scotland’s great cash spinners, an attractor of much overseas earnings. The next few months, as the detail of the bill is revealed as it passes through the Scottish Parliament, will no doubt determine whether the highland lairds will be booking the removal van and fleeing south. But on present form, it looks as though they may survive for a while yet.
