permaculture

[Lawrence London <lfljvenaura@gmail.com>]

Landfall - monbiot.com <https://www.monbiot.com>
------------------------------

Landfall <https://www.monbiot.com/2019/06/12/landfall/>

Posted: 11 Jun 2019 10:49 PM PDT

Our new report puts forward transformative proposals for taking back
control of the land.

By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 4th June 2019

What is the most neglected issue in British politics? I would say land.
Literally and metaphorically, land underlies our lives, but its ownership
and control have been captured by a tiny number of people. The results
include soaring inequality and exclusion; the massive cost of renting or
buying a decent home; the collapse of wildlife and ecosystems; repeated
financial crises and the loss of public space. Yet for 70 years this
crucial issue has scarcely featured in political discussions.

Today, I hope, this changes, with the publication of the report to the
Labour Party – *Land for the Ma <https://landforthemany.uk/>ny* – that I’ve
written with six experts in the field. Our aim is to put this neglected
issue where it belongs: at the heart of political debate and discussion.

Since 1995, land values in this country have risen 412%
<https://www.ons.gov.uk/aboutus/transparencyandgovernance/freedomofinformationfoi/aggregatelandvalues1995to2016>.
Land now accounts for an astonishing 51% of the UK’s net worth
<https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/nationalaccounts/uksectoraccounts/bulletins/nationalbalancesheet/2018>.
Why? In large part because successive governments have used tax exemptions
and other advantages to turn the ground beneath our feet into a speculative
money machine. A report published this week
<http://www.taxjustice.uk/blog/its-time-politicians-read-the-last-rites-for-inheritance-tax-reliefs-for-the-wealthy>
by Tax Justice UK reveals that, through owning agricultural land, 261 rich
families escaped £208m in inheritance tax in 2015-16. Because farmland is
used as a tax shelter, farmers are being priced out. In 2011, farmers
bought 60% of the land on the market; by 2017 this had fallen to 40%.

Worse still, when planning permission is granted on agricultural land, its
value can rise 250-fold
<https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/sep/02/britain-farmland-tax-haven-reform>.
Though this jackpot was created by society, the owner gets to keep most of
it. We pay for this vast inflation in land values through outrageous rents
and mortgages. Capital gains tax is lower than income tax
<https://www.gov.uk/capital-gains-tax/rates>, and council tax is
proportionately more expensive for the poor than for the rich. As a result
of such giveaways, and the amazing opacity of the system, land in the UK
has become a magnet for international criminals seeking to launder their
money
<https://www.transparency.org.uk/publications/london-property-tr-ti-uk/>.

We pay for these distortions every day. Homes have become so expensive not
because the price of bricks and mortar has risen, but because the land that
underlies them now accounts for 70% of their price
<https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/nationalaccounts/uksectoraccounts/bulletins/nationalbalancesheet/2017estimates>.
Twenty years ago, the average working family needed to save for three years
to afford a deposit. Today, it must save for 19 years
<https://www.resolutionfoundation.org/app/uploads/2017/09/Home-Affront.pdf>.
Life is even worse for renters. While housing costs swallow 12% of average
household incomes for people with mortgages, renters pay 36%
<https://www.resolutionfoundation.org/app/uploads/2017/09/Home-Affront.pdf>.


Because we hear so little about the underlying issues, we blame the wrong
causes for the cost and scarcity of housing: immigration, population
growth, the green belt, red tape. In reality, the power of landowners and
building companies, their tax and financial advantages and the vast shift
in bank lending towards the housing sector have inflated prices so much
that even a massive housebuilding programme could not counteract them
<https://medium.com/@ian.mulheirn/what-would-300-000-houses-per-year-do-to-prices-f506e82bbe8d>.


The same forces are responsible for the loss of public space in cities, a
right to roam that covers only 10% of the land, the lack of provision for
allotments and of opportunities for new farmers, and the wholesale
destruction of the living world. Our report aims to confront these
structural forces and take back control of the fabric of the nation.

We recommend that a Labour government should replace the council tax with a
progressive property tax, payable by owners, not tenants. Empty homes
should automatically be taxed at a higher rate. Inheritance tax should be
replaced with a lifetime gift tax. Capital gains tax on second homes and
investment properties should match or exceed the rates of income tax.
Business rates should be replaced with a land value tax, based on rental
value. A 15% offshore tax should be levied on properties owned through tax
havens.

To democratise development and planning, we want to create new public
development corporations. Alongside local authorities, they will assemble
the land needed for affordable homes and new communities. Builders would
have to compete on quality, rather than by amassing land banks. These
public corporations would use compulsory purchase to buy land at
agricultural prices, rather than having to pay through the nose for the
uplift created by planning permission. This could reduce the price of
affordable homes
<http://www.civitas.org.uk/content/files/reformofthelandcompensationrules.pdf>
in the south-east by 50%.

We propose a community participation agency, to help people, rather than
big companies, become the driving force in creating local plans and
influencing major infrastructure. To ensure a wide range of voices is
heard, we suggest a form of jury service for plan-making. To represent
children and the unborn, we would like every local authority to appoint a
future generations champion.

Councils should have new duties to create parks, urban green spaces,
wildlife refuges and public amenities. We propose a new definition of
public space, granting citizens a legal right to use it, overturning the
power of private landowners in cities to stifle leisure, cultural events
and protest.

We propose much tighter rent and eviction controls, and an ambitious social
housebuilding programme. We also want to create new opportunities for
people to design and build their own homes, supported by a community right
to buy of the kind that Scotland enjoys
<https://www.gov.scot/policies/land-reform/community-right-to-buy/>.
Compulsory sale orders should be used to bring vacant and derelict land
onto the market, and community groups should have first rights to buy it.

To help stabilise land prices and make homes more affordable, we propose a
new body, called the Common Ground Trust. When people can’t afford to buy a
home, they can ask the trust to purchase the land that underlies it, while
they pay only for the bricks and mortar (about 30% of the cost). They then
pay the trust a land rent. Their overall housing costs are reduced, while
the trust gradually accumulates a pool of land that acts as a buffer
against speculation, and creates common ownership on a large scale.

We call for a right to roam across all uncultivated land and waterways
(except gardens and similar limitations). We want to change the allotments
act, to ensure that no one needs wait for a plot for more than a year. We
would like to use part of the Land Registry’s vast surplus
<https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/hm-land-registry-annual-report-and-accounts-2017-to-2018/financial-statements>
to help community land trusts buy rural land for farming, forestry,
conservation, rewilding and the protection of catchments. We would like a
new English land commission to decide whether to make major farming and
forestry decisions subject to planning permission, to help arrest the
environmental crisis. And we want to transform the public’s right to know,
by ensuring that all information about land ownership, subsidies and
planning is published freely as open data.

These proposals, we hope, will make the UK a more equal, inclusive and
generous-spirited nation, characterised not by private enclosure and public
squalor, but by private sufficiency and public luxury. Our land should work
for the many, not just the few.

www.monbiot.com






-- 
Lawrence F. London, Jr.
lfljvenaura@gmail.com
Avant Geared
avantgearedshop@gmail.com
https://sites.google.com/site/avantgeared