It looks like England needs land reform


Apparently information about land ownership in England is shrouded in secrecy and not easy to ferret out. Now we know why. A new book by Guy Shrubsole reveals that half of all the land in England is owned by just 25,000 people or just 1% of the population.

The findings, described as “astonishingly unequal”, suggest that about 25,000 landowners – typically members of the aristocracy and corporations – have control of half of the country.

Major owners include the Duke of Buccleuch, the Queen, several large grouse moor estates, and the entrepreneur James Dyson.

Shrubsole estimates that “the aristocracy and gentry still own around 30% of England”. This may even be an underestimate, as the owners of 17% of England and Wales remain undeclared at the Land Registry. The most likely owners of this undeclared land are aristocrats, as many of their estates have remained in their families for centuries.

The public sector – central and local government, and universities – appears to be the most open about its landholdings, according to Shrubsole, partly in order to advertise land it has wanted to sell off in recent years. He concludes that the public sector owns 8% of England.

He calculates that the land under the ownership of the royal family amounts to 1.4% of England. This includes the Crown Estate, the Queen’s personal estate at Sandringham, Norfolk, and the Duchies of Cornwall and Lancaster, which provide income to members of the family.

I was curious about the Queen’s land. She seems to live in other places as well such as Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle, and so on. Does she now own those? If not, who does? And does she pay rent? And who is this Duke of Buccleuch?

That a hereditary aristocracy exists in this day and age is shocking to me. Even more baffling is that there seems to such a fascination with the minutiae of their lives, if the tabloids are any indication. And they seem to keep growing in numbers.

The aristocracy is a good reason for instituting a steep inheritance tax. These people should go out and get jobs.

Comments

  1. fentex says

    Even more baffling is that there seems to such a fascination with the minutiae of their lives

    That’s the best argument I’ve heard for an aristocracy -- so that trivial and absurd gossipy attention and hijinks can be focused on politically unimportant people.

    Otherwise a country might end up by being led by a vacuous narcissistic corrupt moron on the back of their self promotion.

  2. Jenora Feuer says

    By statute and tradition, the Queen doesn’t have a lot of day-to-day power, and Elizabeth II herself has long seemed to have viewed her position as primarily being a PR job and acting as a symbol of England.

    That said, the Queen (and her representative here in Canada, the Governor-General) do serve at least a structural function for government continuity, as there is always somebody in that position while the rest of the government is doing a handover from one set of politicians to another. This reduces some of the ‘lame duck session’ issues that the U.S. can have.

    As for the rest of the ‘hereditary aristocracy’, what I’ll say on that is that it seems pretty clear that the U.S. does have a hereditary aristocracy, they just refuse to publicly admit that’s what it is, and they leave just enough hope that someone can make millions and join that most people don’t complain. Heck, you could build a good case that the plantation owners in the American South supported the American Revolution not because they cared about democracy at all, but because they wanted to be treated as landed barons, weren’t being granted titles by the Crown, and figured if they created their own government they’d be able to define their own aristocracy.

  3. blf says

    Perhaps tangentially, this reminds me of a criticism of Transparency International’s annual report on worldwide corruption: It rates the UK (which is more than just England) as not too corrupt — not top-tier in lack of corruption, but not at all bad — which has always caused me (and others) giggles. The problem, so the criticism goes, is the metric / methodology is skewed towards the cash-in-envelopes type of corruption, for which it is very plausible the UK doesn’t have much. The UK’s style of corruption is gongs, tax / asset fiddles (including land ownership), “Buggin’s turn”, and so on. The place is heavily soaked in that sort of stuff, suggesting the actual levels of corruption are astonishingly high.

  4. springa73 says

    I wouldn’t be surprised if the aristocracy used to own an even larger percentage, but had to sell lots of their land to corporations and wealthy businesspeople to get fresh infusions of money.

  5. Dave, ex-Kwisatz Haderach says

    If you wanna make things sounds bad, I can do way better than half… 89% of Canada is owned by one person, the Queen.

  6. Pierce R. Butler says

    Your next assignment, Mr. Shrubsole: how much of Wales does Charles, Prince of, own?

  7. consciousness razor says

    That said, the Queen (and her representative here in Canada, the Governor-General) do serve at least a structural function for government continuity, as there is always somebody in that position while the rest of the government is doing a handover from one set of politicians to another. This reduces some of the ‘lame duck session’ issues that the U.S. can have.

    I don’t get it. First, a lame duck president does still have a lot of power…. I’d say presidents are already too powerful in ordinary times, but in any case, they may be able to do even more than usual, not less (without fear of the consequences, precisely because they’re not maintaining their position). I don’t know how seriously we should take these “issues,” but it’s not as if the big problem is that they simply can’t do enough (or as if there isn’t anyone in that position at all).
    Anyway, if a monarch doesn’t have any such power, then they still don’t have it while there is a handover, so there is no substantial function or effect to talk about. If they do have it and this is an important justification, then it’s not true that they’re just a glorified mascot for the country. But you can’t have it both ways.

  8. Jazzlet says

    There is a difference between what is owned by the Crown and what is owned by Elisabeth Windsor. That may seem like it doesn’t mean anything, but the royal properties have mostly been royal properties for generatins and in some cases under different dynasties. Places like Sandringham and Balmoral are owned by Elizabeth Windsor personally having been bought by Albert for Victoria or vice versa. Practically it means since we do now tax her she pays tax on the income from those estates (among other things) whereas she doesn’t pay tax on the ones that belong to the Crown.

  9. jrkrideau says

    @ 9 consciousness razor
    I don’t get it.
    Assuming you are from the USA, it is because we have totally different government structures. You have a formally elected president as CEO. We have a Governor General whose purpose and job is completely different.

    She is the representative of the Crown. Basically her job is the decision of last resort. Her Majesty the Queen is the same in the UK. Well, I suppose if Her Majesty was in Ottawa in the emergency she beats the G.G.

    If you live in Canada our “Constitution” which exist in several documents, unwritten customs and who-knows-what is a bit looser. There is a good change we have one.

    The head of our government , the Prime Minster , like that of the UK, does not exit in documentary terms I have ever seen. He or she exists because we think they should.

    The rules and methods of government are just very different.

    It is quite possible in most “stable” Commonwealth countries to have a new head of government in 24 hours. Note for US readers, this is not a new head of state.

  10. Holms says

    It seems the first three categories can be consolidated, and described as “65%: Absurdly rich people.”

    #2 Jenora Feuer, #10 jkrideau
    I had been under the impression that the power the Queen has did not even amount to “not a lot” as Jenora put it; I thought a more accurate description was “virtually none”. Certainly here in Australia, her power is microscopic.

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