Land reform bill would change who owns UK
Most farmers don't often stop to think about who owns the UK, writes Mike Taylor. Quite reasonably they are probably much more concerned about the small part they own or rent.
Bizarrely none of us technically owns any land outright, it is all owned by the Crown. What most of us think as outright ownership is called freehold, but it is just a form of tenure. In practical terms it usually means the same as outright ownership, although not so when it comes to mines and minerals, and most controversially, fracking.
There are about 17.2 million hectares of farmland in the UK or 42 million acres and about 212,000 farms, so the average size is 190 acres. There are also about 16 million households who own their own home. Their houses occupy about one million acres.
Strangely there is about 20 per cent of the UK that no-one knows who owns because the title has never been registered. Since the 1990s every time a property changes ownership the title must be registered with the Land Registry. However, at least 20 per cent of the land, whether farm land or not, hasn't changed hands in the last 30 years so it is not registered. Someone owns it, but who?
The last time a full survey of UK land ownership was undertaken was in 1871. At this time there were many more landed country estates than today; many have been broken up since. But the Buccleuch Estate in Scotland still owns about 275,000 acres – very similar to its land ownership in 1871.
The biggest land owner today is the Forestry Commission with about 1.7 million acres, then the National Trust with about 630,000 acres. Why does this matter? Well in Scotland they are getting a bit excited about Land Reform. There are consultations out for a new Land Reform Bill which proposes to take control of privately owned land that is not being "sustainably managed".
This is clearly aimed at the large landed estates and absentee foreign landowners, but could equally be applied to small commercial farms. There are also proposals to limit non-EU ownership of land in Scotland.
The proposals have already had a big impact on foreign investment in Scottish land and the wider economy. We've never had a history of controlling who can own land in the UK, which has backed London's reputation as a global financial centre. What is stirring north of the border could have ramifications for the rest of the UK.
* Mike Taylor FRICS FAAV, of Barbers, is presenting a paper on land ownership at an international agricultural law conference in Berlin in early September.
