Scotland's Radical Land Reform
Analysis
BBC
4.6 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 12 October 2015
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In June the Scottish Government introduced radical proposals for land reform. Local communities would gain a new right to ask the government to force a landowner to sell their land if they are deemed a barrier to sustainable development. The plan caused uproar amongst landowners. David Cameron's father-in-law, Lord Astor, claimed the SNP was staging a Mugabe-style land grab. Yet campaigners in the growing cross-party movement for reform see this as just the start of a generational mission to break up the most unequal pattern of land ownership in the developed world. Is this an attack on the right of individuals to hold on to their property - or a much-needed step towards sustainable development?
Euan McIlwraith asks why so few people own so much of Scotland, whether it matters, and how you can legitimately diversify ownership in a 21st century liberal democracy.
Producer: Liza Grieg.
(Image: The Scottish Highlands. Credit: Shutterstock)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Thanks for downloading analysis from the BBC. Now here's a question for you, which is more important, the right to private property or the right of everyone for a fair share of the land? |
| 0:11.0 | It's a burning question in Scotland where radical changes to the law of land... the land |
| 0:15.0 | on ownership are on the table. |
| 0:16.0 | BBC Scotland's rural affairs reporter, |
| 0:19.0 | you and McElraif asks why so few people own so much of Scotland, whether it matters, and how you can diversify land ownership |
| 0:26.2 | in the 21st century democracy. |
| 0:29.2 | In 1746, an army marched north from England to this bleak moorland to the east of Inverness and the north of Scotland. |
| 0:37.0 | And it was here on Kowlodm moor that the Duke of Cumberland crushed the rebellious Scots who were following Bonnie Prince Charlie. |
| 0:46.0 | And that victory led to transformation of the social and the economic landscape of a country. |
| 0:53.4 | According to many, it led to the crushing of the Gaelic culture. |
| 0:57.1 | It led to the clearances of the glines to make way for sheep, and it led to the change of ownership |
| 1:02.4 | in Scotland, as vast sways of the country |
| 1:05.0 | were given to those who supported the King. |
| 1:08.0 | And it changed the way Scotland was viewed. |
| 1:10.0 | It became a place for sport and recreation. But 269 years later there's another |
| 1:16.8 | rebellion happening in the corridors of power in Edinburgh. I'm you and Michael Wreath |
| 1:22.1 | and in this analysis we'll look at the proposed legislation |
| 1:25.7 | that could see islands estates and land being bought by communities against |
| 1:31.7 | the will of the legal and at the proposal stage, but members of the Scottish Parliament are in the |
| 1:57.4 | borders, the Western Isles, the Highlands and the Outer Islands, taking evidence that will shape the direction of this |
| 2:04.5 | controversial bill that's causing consternation in the glens. This is the ground |
| 2:09.4 | we walk on it's our birthright it's our, the air, the land, the sea, all of this is ours, so why not |
... |
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