Can land reform help Scotland become more equal?

Oxfam recently outlined the shameful wealth inequality that exists in the UK - the five richest people in Britain own more wealth than the poorest 20%. In Scotland, there is massive wealth inequality evident in our land ownership patterns - a mere 432 landowners account for 50% of the private land in Scotland. There are many reasons this pattern developed and persisted (see the work of Andy Wightman for the details) but ultimately it comes down to the fact that no government has had the will or the courage to address the issue. So is that situation finally about to change? Support for reform certainly appears to be building. The Land Reform Review Group is due to report in May, Environment Minister Paul Wheelhouse has been making some radical noises, the Scottish Affairs Committee are investigating, and the Scottish Labour Party have also made commitments to address the issue.

The public must become engaged in ways which connects land reform to their real life frustrations.

Community Land Scotland has this week made an important contribution to the debate by hosting a seminar with a group of international land reformers. They used that experience to produce the Bunchrew Declaration, a radical statement which adopts a human rights based approach to land reform and emphasises the importance of people and communities being at the centre of land governance. Will all that be enough to achieve the necessary political support required for meaningful land reform? For me, the land reformers are winning the political arguments but to achieve further progress the debate must be widened. The public must become engaged in ways which connects land reform to their real life frustrations. We need to talk more about land reform in terms of affordable housing, community energy, and social and economic development. It also needs to become an important component in wider discussions about inequality and to be built into new economic models such as The Common Weal. We will also need to break the myth that land reform is exclusively a rural issue. When you consider problems such as landbanking and speculation, derelict land, allotments and access to affordable housing it becomes clear how important reform is to urban communities. Take housing as an example. Insufficient affordable housing is currently a significant problem in Scotland that is forcing people into the insecurity and expense of the private rented sector. High land prices ensure that there is insufficient cost-effective land available to build the new social housing we desperately need. Oxfam’s Humankind Index put affordable housing at the top of people’s priority list so it’s vital that land issues are addressed as part of the solution to the lack of affordable housing. Momentum is building behind land reform – the question is how far it will go? Tackling that level of inequality will be difficult and there are powerful interests in opposition. Small steps have been taken to get us this far - will politicians have the courage to make the leap required for radical change?