From my Programme for Government speech in Holyrood 3.9.13 - tax and land reform - in a tax, financial and fiscal sense, are the revenue Scotland and tax powers bill and the tax management bill, which create the possibility of a distinctive structure and framework that will apply to all devolved taxes but also, potentially, to more taxes when Scotland demands them—and with independence, it will certainly demand many more. I will give an example of why that is needed. Land reform needs those tax powers and a lot more. Before devolution, the House of Lords in the Westminster Parliament could block the abolition of the feudal system. People recognised that then. Since 1999, Holyrood has abolished the feudal system, codified access laws and reformed crofting and some aspects of tenant farming, but not as much as we would like. This summer, James Hunter and others pointed out in a briefing paper for the House of Commons Scottish Affairs Committee something that highlights the most concentrated pattern of land ownership in Europe: 432 people own half the private land in Scotland. The briefing says: “Adept at maximising flows of public money to their estates, landowners have been equally skilled at minimising the flow of cash in the other direction—helped greatly in this regard by successive”— I would add Westminster— “Governments’ toleration of a series of arrangements intended to reduce greatly, or even eliminate, effective taxation of landed wealth. Those arrangements include: • The various inheritance and capital gains tax reliefs and allowances available to landowners; • The vesting of ownership in companies, foundations and other entities whose beneficiaries are obscured and concealed; • The registration of such entities in offshore tax havens such as Grand Cayman, the British Virgin Islands, Panama and Guernsey;” Those are all reserved matters. We cannot effect radical land reform until we have the powers to do so, and there is no chance in 100 years that Tory, Liberal or Labour Governments—and certainly not if the UK Independence Party is in any future coalitions—will make such a move. The briefing goes on to say—and justify this— “Although there is beginning to be anger in some quarters about such largesse (much of it directed at people of great wealth) at a time of unprecedented stringency in other areas of public spending, those arrangements have attracted surprisingly little scrutiny” in Westminster “and accordingly merit investigation by” the Scottish Affairs Committee. Labour, in April, promised radical land reform, but not one piece of flesh has been put on the bones of that promise, either since then or today. Even the Lib Dems are set to discuss land reform at their autumn conference. No doubt they will summon up the Gladstonian spirit and promise more half-measures. The Scottish Affairs Committee can investigate anything it likes, but only independence can deliver the gains of land reform to the Scottish economy, the environment and society. This year’s work by the Scottish Government in the land reform review group, which is part of the programme for government, will lay the proposals for taking those radical steps next year.
Posted on: Wed, 04 Sep 2013 08:54:52 +0000
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