BBC Scotland Investigates - The Men Who Own Scotland

Scotland you know its home you know it's beautiful but do you ever wonder who actually owns it we're not short of space in Scotland but just 432 individuals own half of all the privately held land in the country I want to meet the people behind those numbers I'm going on a journey it'll take me around Scotland I'll visit beautiful places and meet powerful people the multi-millionaire property tycoon dressed in tweed the man whose family owned some of our most spectacular locks and mountains and the Laird whose family marched with Wallis and Bruce who's up to his och stirs in mud this is a story which matters to all of us it's a story about who owned Scotland in the past and who should own it in the future if we don't see a fear of distribution of lands than than with Parliament we will have filled the people of Scotland it may not be fair but I mean is it fair that your wife is prettier than mine if someone doesn't have the bank balance to be able to buy it maybe that is unfair but that's the way life is I have thousands of miles ahead of me my quest to meet the man who owned so much of Scotland the question is do they want to meet me I'll let you into a secret they aren't all keen but hidden wester ross i struck lucky in these parts there's one chap who knows more about this stuff than anyone else and he's agreed to get on his bike and help morning John morning morning today Alan had a nice morning it is - I wasn't expecting our traditional Highland Blair to arrive dressed quite like this I was expecting tweeds bad luck john mckenzie owns fifty-three thousand acres his family was given this land by James the fourth and the 15th century in recognition of loyal service being close to the source of power pays but these days it's renewable energy rather than royal patronage which helps balance the books John's new Hydra scheme here has an added bonus heartbreakingly beautiful views over the sea to sky John there's one thing sitting here which I just can't get my head around and and that is this what does it feel like to know that you own all of that may seem odd the nation that's mine doesn't really occur very often has always been in my family yeah I'm very proud of it and delighted that it's still in one piece that it's passing on I mean I'm pretty much we're done now anyway my son is is in charge and he's taking over so we continue another generation and so it goes on well second at the moment but under today's political pressure will see whether we'll do another five hundred years I'm not entirely certain but I won't be around sirs I don't care go west and you'll discover John's land is a classic Highland sporting estate created to provide deer to shoot and salmon to fish but John also owns thousands of acres further east these fertile fields farming is the name of the game one family tens of thousands of acres he's one of the 432 people who own half of Scotland's privately owned land is it fair that so few people own so much of our country in the 21st century his fan is really a critical element in life it may not be fair but I mean is it fair that your wife is prettier than mine that you win the lottery when I don't it's a concern stirred up as far as I can see by those with axes to grind but frankly the people who live in these kind of air large areas and single ownership doesn't seem to bother them it sounds like you're saying to me life's not for you get over it Everett perfectly fair yes that's that's how it is I don't think fan is of itself necessarily a terribly critical thing John may not think fairness is an issue but many other people do and some of them are determined to do something about it for starting from scratch I doubt anyone would design a system where you ended up with only 432 people owning half the private lands I mean there's some obviously degree off though about the actual figures but but the stick is a given that is the accurate figure and you know I wouldn't design a system where you ended up with such a concentration in wealth and ownership in such a small group fundamentally as the system we have here in Scotland fair or unfair I think they're still unfairness in the system I think that's a fair comment to make and that's why we are on a journey and in this particular parliamentary session to try and deliver a radical reform our current system of land ownership has deep historical roots land has always been intertwined with privilege and power and the thing that makes Scotland distinctive is the dominance of sporting estates even today around a quarter of the country is still devoted primarily to shooting hunting and fishing the league table of big landowners includes the government the National Trust for Scotland and even the RSPB but traditional estates still hold five of the top ten places with the Duke of Buccleuch estates leading the pack I wanted to speak to one of the really big traditional landowners maybe even a juke but despite trying pretty hard none of them wanted to talk to me this is the man who fights their corner and his time is often spent staving off the blows of land reformers our landowners being demonized I think landowners to an extent are being demonized fundamentally is the argument that life isn't fair one big landowner said to me my wife may be more beautiful than his wife we've simply got to get over that well as I said earlier there's an open property market there there were estates small bits of forest bits of land for sale every day they're there for everyone to take the opportunity if someone doesn't have the bank balance to be able to buy it maybe that is unfair but that's the way life is err sure has changed a lot since I grew up here today I've come home to meet another local boy we have a lot in common we're about the same age but while my earliest years were spent in a bungalow his were spent in a walloping great castle Simon Crawford and his family owned 600 acres in here sure it's a relatively small estate but the family has played a big part in Scotland's history beer reward land and that castle it's not bad living in a castle but there's always the concern about what's going to go wrong next and the repair bills and a building this size are not in so consequential so it's that can be quite a I worry sometimes yes this hasn't don't an Abbey is it I know what the gears Downton Abbey it's a little bit more like real life yeah but there's it I'm like doing it that's why I did it but I don't do it because I'm making lots of money doing it this is a semi-detached castle Simon and his family live in one half the other is led as holiday accommodation Simon's ancestors Friends of Kings would never have suspected their home would one day have to accept peeing guests but that's the reality were Wallis his type the family and Wallace's mother were close relations we were at Bannockburn we were floating it sounds as if the family have always been a part of Scottish history like a a line of thread running through the the tartan of Scotland's history it's a good way lovely we're playing it yes we would be no all the major points in time a link where do you want to break history Simon works hard and he thinks his family is well-placed to go on there's a trout fishery to run the servants quarters are now a boarding kennel he'll even sell you a cardboard coffin if you want to be laid to rest and Crawford lands environmentally-friendly burial ground my time here is almost over but the dirty jobs keep on coming for Simon he's putting on his waders but this layer is not going fly-fishing Simon has some heavy duty cleaning to do preparing for a mud race people come from all over Central Scotland to run through your mods don't they you do yes I'm spending money along the way yes it's another revenue stream for us horrible things in there and quite repulsive think of our traditional Scottish landowner and the chances are you won't think of someone like Simon but his family have been here since 1245 and there are those who would argue people like Simon shouldn't be able to inherit in a state like this one I have to say after seeing just how hard he's worked through the course of today I'm asking myself why not this debate isn't just about who owns the land it's also about what big landowners do with it there was lucky enough to all in tens of thousands of acres have huge influence on the land and the people who live on it and how they use that influence can be crucial I've left the southwest behind and travelled to one of the wildest corners of the Northeast this is the camera and Glenfiddich estate it's remote it's beautiful but the local counselor here warns the community is in crisis I represent very large rural area and this is probably the the one that they the furthest edges of decline what could this place look like in the future if you don't achieve the kind of chain you want to see well the few houses of the left will will be gone and and unoccupied they just will be nobody here but cheap and maybe a few gross and that's about it this Glen has lost three-quarters of its population over the last century for the last 35 years the landowner here has been Christopher Moran he's a wealthy self-made man worth 264 million pounds according to The Sunday Times Rich List and he's another of the 432 landowners who own half the privately held land in Scotland he's a noted philanthropist but he was also the first man to be banned from Lloyds of London mr. Moran is usually very keen to protect his privacy but today he's agreed to be interviewed for the first time about his running of the estate first of all I couldn't resist asking if he really was worth more than a quarter of a billion pounds perhaps those figures are true perhaps they're not I really don't pay much attention to it why did you choose to to come here by land and invest in this community I walked pretty well every Hill in Scotland north south east and west and as a young man and loved Scotland I love the highlands you things here at the kabra have been in decline since the start of the 20th century what was a thriving community has seen its population ever way I want to know has Christopher Moran done enough for the people who live on his land there is so much that a landowner can do just by being here and and the sort of efforts that he puts into the surrounding estate and the community the jobs the housing that can be provided here I'm afraid we're just not getting any of that at support and we could rebuild this community there are lots of rural areas that have with the right landowner and their support have been able to bring themselves back to life and I'm afraid this is just not happening here but is it fair or realistic to expect a single landowner to resolve a century's worth of decline one of Christopher Moran's tenant farmers told me the answer is no my experience says I've never had any problems with them at all it's it's inevitable what's happened is going to happen it was going to happen anyway let's say does that layout always get ugly basically yes I would say yes yeah the estate is littered with abandoned houses what it needs our homes and people mr. Moran's answer is a wind farm the neighbors have already built one he spent years battling opposition to his plans now they've got the green light the scheme should make him even richer but it'll also provide enough cash to refurbish local houses and build new affordable homes the reality for the community here is it's mr. Moran's vision or nothing is it right that someone with your financial backing can come to a community like this buy the land and exerts so much influence over the community well you should I would i would put it back to you the other way around that if you don't have landowners such as myself who are thinking about the regeneration the sustainable regeneration of these types of estate remember this is eleven hundred feet over sea level the type of conditions that we except to experience in the winter are extreme so the sort of investment that's necessary to bring about sustainable regeneration is substantial if you end up splitting up estates like this where is that type of investment going to come from where are the running losses of a stage like this going to come from over many many many decades it's time to head south again but something's troubling me the message I'm getting from landowners large and small is that owning land doesn't make you rich in fact operating an estate has sounded like a kind of public service provided by benefactors with deep pockets but is that the whole story we asked the leading rural estate agents night trying to pull together some numbers for us and they show investing in land is a very lucrative proposition indeed money invested in land performed four times better than the stock market over the last ten years that's almost as good as gold and agricultural land unlike most property isn't itself taxed profits from any activity on the land are and taxes are paid when land is sold or transferred but exemptions mean taxes on sale or transfer often don't apply which leads to some very odd quirks Anders hull Paulson a Danish multimillionaire is now Scotland's second largest private landowner he owns a hundred and sixty thousand acres Danish nationals pay tax on all the land they own regardless of where it is that means Anders hull Paulson is paying a tax on his land and property in Scotland - the danish government put another way revenue raised here is paying for schools and hospitals in Denmark what it does is it exposes the fact that we've never really properly thought about how we govern land how land is owned who owns it how wish attacks it would never thought about that in a coherent way in a land and Britain has predominantly been an issue about class politics actually and about the the you know the haves and the have-nots you know Britain as a country has never really had a revolutionary moment so we haven't done what the French did and well it makes me feel we're not living in a modern country no one's expecting a revolution but landowners are under growing pressure from MPs we've launched an investigation into whether landowners pay enough tax and desire of the agricultural subsidies they receive the man leading that investigation isn't known for pulling his punches we want to clarify whether or not the amount of money that big landowners rich landowners get is justified whether or not they make a fair contribution by being the complete amount attacks that issued and see whether or not the balance is right I think there's an extent to which the big landowners see themselves as being in Scotland but not really of Scotland and that they're above it all that they don't really like the the Ickes of the RUF coming along and asking questions they're willing enough to take public money but they're not really keen on having the public question the privileges and rates that they have landowners and farmers are no different to anyone else the pay tax were taxes do in this country but of course the tax planning much like you and I would do and that's normal and that's a good business practice you're under intense scrutiny the moment the parliamentary slave committee are looking at this you're going to lose this argument aren't you no we're not no and you know I'm all in favor of scrutiny because we've got a good and very positive story to tell so bring it on it was perhaps a little surprising to hear dad being to relax to vote the possibility of wide-ranging changes to the tax system because if I was a big landowner I know I have potentially a lot to lose north south east know west there's one place I have to visit if I'm going to understand why this debate really matters to hear how changes and land ownership can change the way people live their lives that place is the Isle of egg it's almost 20 years now since the Islanders made history and the headlines in 1997 the island was owned by a German conceptual artist called Maroma the Islanders launched an appeal and bought him out today is a giant leap for a Guinness people and hopefully another small step towards the future of land ownership in Scotland thank you it was a huge step for a tiny community and as it proved for the whole country that in part led the Scottish government to legislate giving communities across Scotland the right to buy and creating a fund to help them sirrah Borden left the island when she was just a child and now she's bi I came back four years ago and prior to that I was a music journalist on the observer a newspaper in London and I know now I farm this side of the island with my parents we took over the tenancy of my uncle's farm her partner Johnny has come with her bizarre as it may seem he's busy running his own record label from a caravan on AG Johnny and Sarah are just two of the young people who the buyout has brought to egg I came up here and fell in love with the the lady and I'm with the place the island itself it's gonna be a windy house with a roof like that hmm next spring they'll build a house here it's the community bio twitch has made that possible the trust which owns the island is providing the land they'll need that would never have happened under under alert definitely so what does the future hold will you be starting a family here oh well actually I'm already six months gone Oh hopefully yeah and to think hmm that's a there's much more younger people here that um who have started families and it means that your kids not gonna be going to school with one other person which uh so yeah it's definitely priority for us which I'm reminded of most days yeah so big changes ahead for Johnny and Sarah but life has also changed for the rest of the Islanders the biota load them to build a renewable energy grid to power their homes it doesn't generate millions of pounds and profits but it does keep the lights on suddenly you know we've got 24-hour power which huge amount the difference until they actually switched it on they didn't know that it was going to work literally the electrical engineers on but my god it might not anyway it did much everybody's not surprised okay this were the biggest project with tackle since the bio but fantastic brilliant the difference it's made to everybody if you can imagine before with a generator you only used it for a few hours a day really expensive real hassle getting diesel here to the island and suddenly you know we've got 24 hour power which huge amount of difference could you have done this under another model of land ownership I doubt it very much that's all very well but is egg really a template for other parts of Scotland is it a realistic alternative to large landholdings there are those who would argue you're a bunch of old hippies doing this at the taxpayers expense I'll be wrong I mean I might do one but there's a lot of people here would be very offended by that stuff and we certainly don't we don't use a lot of taxpayers money that's for sure I mean we bought egg it cost 1.5 million and only 17,000 of that came from the public purse the rest of it was by donations from the general public there's a problem though community by Oats has largely run into the sand a few highly motivated communities have done it but is it really possible elsewhere there's an estate on sale in Angus 5,000 acres 29 million pounds as an estate in argyll for sale 11 million pounds there's a farm in Berkshire for sale eight and a half million pounds the total fund in the Scottish land fund to buy land on behalf committees is six for the whole of Scotland so we've got to do something about land values to bring the value of land down to affordable prices essentially to its economic value strip out the whole of the speculative game that people expect to make in the land market and return land to his economic value and then you'll have all sorts of people not just communities I mean individuals this is the big revolution is to get many many more individuals owning land I set out to meet the men who owned Scotland that's what I've done and they've told me they're doing a good job their message if it ain't broke don't fix it but no one's been able to explain to me how the system we've inherited is fair in just a few months time ministers will receive a report from a team of experts who are studying land reform we're told to expect radical proposals proposals which could change Scotland forever I'm confident the land form of Europe will come forward with radical proposals that's what we've charged them to do and I'm keen to see what they come forward with in April but certainly my party genuinely believes that that there should be a fairer distribution of land that community should have access to land further to fulfill their aspirations and that's something I think we're sending a vision as to what we want to achieve and if in decades to come we still have a pattern of land ownership across Scotland certainly rural Scotland where our landscape is dominated by big traditional sporting estates will that be a failure of government I think if we don't see a fair distribution of land than with Parliament we will have failed the people of Scotland ministers are being cautious the process towards land reform is at a very sensitive stage but it would be a mistake to forget that within the SNP there is a deep-seated desire to see change change is coming we just don't know what form that change will take and I'm not sure the government does either you you

Channel: FMQUnofficial

Views: 324,110

Rating: 4.5800524 out of 5

Keywords: snp, alex, salmond, scottish, independence, the, parliament, msp, independent, united kingdom, english, conservative, labour, green, peace, renewable, energy, referendum, government, david cameron, tory, tories, barnett formula, treasury, HM revenue, devolution max, rangers, celtic, glasgow, nationalist, party, westminster, london, UK, conference, election, edinburgh, scotland, debate, vote, britain

Id: H2kTGLUh_c4

Length: 28min 54sec (1734 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 09 2014

Reddit Comments

[u/BaronOfBeanDip]

At the end of the day, Scotland has some of the best outdoor access laws in the world... and pretty much ALL of the privately owned land is free to walk, cycle or camp on as long as the outdoor access code is followed (namely leaving no trace). This includes lochs and inland water too.

It doesn't actually MATTER who owns the land when everybody can enjoy it, and I think there'd be a case for arguing that these current land owners may actually do a better job of protecting the land than the alternative.

On principle, I'm not a fan of such a large gap in "power" between different classes of people... and I find it difficult to agree that the only reason these people own obscene amounts of land is due to it being gifted by kings centuries ago, but ultimately I think we're extremely privileged to have such amazing landscapes readily available to the general public.

It's not a perfect situation, but it's never once negatively impacted me or my love for the outdoors.

[u/[deleted]]

...which makes sense because the population of Scotland is about 864

[u/AfterBirthSmell]

Do people browse other subs and then come up with their own TIL? I swear I just seen this documentary on r/documentaries

[u/mektel]

I'm 100% ok with this. Scotland is a beautiful place and these guys are preventing it from being developed. 50, 100, 200 years from now it'll still be one of the most beautiful places to visit...assuming it isn't stripped from the owners.

[u/ThisShiteHappens]

Does not matter http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam#Scotland

[u/WeAreGlidingNow]

This is like Hawaii where something like 8 people own 94% of the land. Something like that.

[u/CaptainPedge]

People or entities? Coz I'm pretty sure both the crown and the church are in the top 10

[u/[deleted]]

Scottland being owned by 400 people is why Scottland is so gorgeous and unmolested by the perverted hand of progress.

The best way to keep nature safe is to leave it the hell alone. This is good.

[u/Bluenosedcoop]

People are going to cry about this but most of that land isn't anywhere i would want to be living.

Unless you want to live in the middle of freezing forests in the Grampians.