Overview

The UK today faces an urgent imperative to address a myriad of inequalities amidst a global climate emergency - a shortage of affordable housing, rising property and land prices, food insecurity, and unsustainable industrial practices.

The issue of land and the way land is owned and managed underlies these inequalities. The first of these issues is privatization and speculation on the housing market; consequently, land and property prices have risen. Brett Christophers explains in “The New Enclosure” that almost 2 million hectares of land, or about 10% of Britain, has vanished from public access. Most of this land has passed into corporate, rather than charitable or public ownership.

As a consequence of a series of historical policies that increasingly enclosed and partitioned the land, as well as the neoliberal policies enacted under Thatcher, land and housing have become a profitable asset as opposed to a human right. A substantial amount of land and properties in England are owned by private overseas corporations based in secrecy jurisdictions, suggesting tax evasion. As a consequence of a tax system that favours wealthy landowners, speculation has driven up property prices since the 1980s, hitting a new peak in 2020 during the outbreak of COVID-19.

Inaffordability and lack of availability of land for purchase is one of the greatest barriers for new entrants to farming; of 2,205 farmers under the age of 40 across the EU member states, 61% considered lack of availability of land for purchase to be the greatest barrier for new entrants. The EU's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) currently favours large landowners, paying farmers by the hectare as opposed to paying them based on agricultural production or rewilding initiatives. The land is therefore often less productive and held in large holdings for profit. In 2003, a new farm payments system was implemented across Europe that paid farmers based on area of land owned rather than on production, with no maximum cap on payments. Since the introduction of area-based payments, UK land prices have increased from an average of £2,500/acre to over £7,000/acre today. Moreover, there are no subsidies for farms under 5 hectares.

Additionally, the current system of Inheritance Tax creates a barrier for new farmers to access land. Under the existing Inheritance Tax, there are no stipulations about maintaining the integrity of businesses on the land after inheritance, which means that businesses can be sold for cash immediately after the death of a landowner. This means that land can become abandoned or derelict. Moreover, inheritees are able to profit from large, unearned, tax-free windfall gains.
The climate emergency and Brexit also demand a transformation of the way the UK acquires its food and resources. This entails a shift away from industrialized farming to smaller, more diverse, and more sustainable farms. Presently, the UK produces only about half of its own food.

Moreover, county farms are continuously being sold off by local authorities for a cash payment, which means future generations of young farmers, necessary to boost the UK’s domestic food production, will not be able to access these valuable assets. County farms have the potential to provide an entryway for new entrants into farming.

To support a Green New Deal, the UK must implement policies to reform the current tax system, which presently favours large landowners and corporations. These reforms should discourage land hoarding by large landowners and encourage the development of smaller, more sustainable farms. We examine a set of policy proposals set forth in Land for the Many, a report to the Labour Party. These proposals are supported by numerous community groups working for climate justice and to support farm workers. These policies aim to encourage more agricultural productivity, discourage land hoarding, support small farmers, and stabilize land prices by curbing speculation. We focus specifically on the need to reform the Common Agricultural Policy, which must be supported by other tax reforms.

Land for the Many

Land for the Many is a report commissioned by the Labour Party that proposes radical changes to the way land is used and governed in the UK. We focus on a few select policy proposals in this report that are supported by other community organizations, collectives, and farm workers' networks. These include the replacement of the Inheritance Tax with a Lifetime Gifts Tax, reform of the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy, and the taxation of offshore purchases of land in the UK. We focus specifically on a proposal to reform the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in order to shift away from industrialized farming to smaller, more diverse, and more sustainable farms.



We began by researching and analyzing various articles written on Land for the Many or on the subject of land reform in general, and executing a text network analysis and sentiment analysis on the comments. Based on the text and sentiment analyses of public comments scraped from six articles in The Guardian on land reformation, we found that negative and neutral comments frequently mentioned the working class and middle class. At the same time, the subject of tax was most frequently discussed in general; this suggests a level of concern about how the tax reforms proposed would impact the working and middle classes.

To address this concern, as well as pressing issues of food production, sustainable farming, and supporting small farmers, we look closely at three policy proposals. Together, these three policies aim to encourage more agricultural productivity, discourage land hoarding, support small farmers, and stabilize land prices by curbing speculation. We focus specifically on the need to reform the Common Agricultural Policy, which must be supported by other tax reforms.

Replacing inheritance tax

Land for the Many recommends replacing Inheritance Tax with a Lifetime Gifts Tax. The Lifetime Gifts Tax would be levied on the gifts received above a lifetime allowance of £125,000. When this lifetime limit is reached, any income from gifts would be taxed annually at the same rate as income. Moreover, this policy would provide conditional exemptions for business and agricultural property, under which tax can be deferred until the asset is sold or ceases to become a trading entity and becomes an investment entity. This would help maintain the integrity of agricultural land and businesses, and prevent inheritees of land from gaining large tax-free windfall gains.

By discouraging the immediate sale of land and businesses following the death of a landowner, abolishing Inheritance Tax would encourage more productive uses for land and increase availability of land for new farmers. Taxing gifts through the income tax system would capture large windfall gains, potentially raising £15 billion in public funds - £9.2 billion more than the inheritance tax system.

Taxing overseas ownership

A substantial amount of land and properties in England are owned by private overseas corporations based in secrecy jurisdictions, suggesting tax evasion. The UK's overseas territories, Crown dependencies, and former colonies constitute a global network of tax havens, according to the Corporate Tax Haven Index published by the Tax Justice Network. Three British overseas territories - the British Virgin Islands, Bermuda, and the Cayman Islands - top the ranking.

To stabilize land prices and increase access to housing and agricultural land, Land for the Many recommends a 15% tax on purchases of property by companies and individuals, either directly or indirectly based in secrecy jurisdictions. Moreover, Land for the Many also recommends extending the Offshore Company Property Levy proposed by the Labour Party beyond residential properties. Additionally, Land for the Many recommends increasing the Annual Tax on Enveloped Dwellings and removing the exemption for properties under £500,000; however, housing cooperatives should be exempted from the ATED.

Changes to the Common Agricultural Policy

Finally, we focus specifically on a proposal to reform the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in order to shift away from industrialized farming to smaller, more diverse, and more sustainable farms. The CAP currently favours large landowners, paying farmers by the hectare as opposed to paying them based on agricultural production or rewilding initiatives. The land is therefore often less productive and held in large holdings for profit.
To address the issue of access and rising land values as a barrier to small farmers/new entrants to farming, LFTM recommends a reform of the CAP and tax exemptions for farmlands and forests to support small-scale, low-impact farming. Changes to the CAP, supported by the other two policies to support small and entrant farmers, has the potential to can transform the way food is produced in the UK by increasing productivity while and exploring more sustainable methods of farming. Granting subsidies to farmers based on productivity and sustainable measures, rather than by farm size, encourages a more productive use of land and supports new entrants to farming. Taxation encourages a dismantling of large consolidations of land held by large landowners for profit or tax purposes.

Additionally, the revival of county farms can prove beneficial to entrant farmers and experimentation with more sustainable methods of food production. Currently, county farms are being sold off by local authorities for a cash payment, which means future generations of young farmers, necessary to boost the UK’s domestic food production, will not be able to access these valuable assets that support new farmers.

Small, sustainable farming



Shifting away from current industrial farming practices is imperative to reducing CO2 emissions; as shown in this image, industrial, large-scale farming is typically monocultural, and relies on chemical fertilizers and pesticides that degrade soil quality and leach into groundwater systems. Moreover, monocultural farming, grazing lands for livestock, and areas left derelict due to land hoarding can result in large spans of exposed soil, reducing the retention of water.
Smaller farms with a greater diversity of crops can forgo the use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers, use less water, and better protect soil quality. More biodiverse, seasonal, vegetable crops can better retain water and absorb CO2.
A radical transformation of the system of land ownership and management is necessary for achieving an equitable Green New Deal; changes to the CAP and tax reforms to accompany this policy can increase affordability and access to land, providing an entryway for the next generation of farmers. Smaller farms have a greater potential for improving biodiversity and lowering carbon emissions than large industrial farms, and allow for experimentation with new methods of sustainable food production. We identified a number of community groups that advocate for farm workers and smaller, sustainable farms as a starting point for future research.
Our later research will continue to explore ways to support small farms, the next generation of young farmers, and a more equitable model of land stewardship.