Almost all of us, in England and many other nations, are born on the wrong side of the law. The disproportionate weight that the law gives to property rights makes nearly everyone a second-class citizen before they draw their first breath, fenced out of the good life we could lead. It is common for UK pension funds and insurance companies to buy up land as a long-term strategic investment. Legal & General, for example, owns 1,500 hectares of land that it openly calls a “strategic land portfolio … stretching from Luton to Cardiff”. Its rationale for buying land is simple: “Strategic land holdings are underpinned by their existing use value [such as farming] and give us the opportunity to create further value through planning promotion and infrastructure works over the medium to long term.” Hundreds attend mass trespass for the right to roam". The Argus (Brighton) . Retrieved 26 July 2021. An irrefutable and long overdue call for the enfranchisement of the landless' Marion Shoard, author of This Land is Our Land Strictly speaking the Crown still owns all English land, though in practice it directly controls 'only' around 1.4 percent of it. The Church of England owns 0.5 percent, but is oddly vague about the much larger areas it sold off.

Painstakingly researched ... having come to the end of this illuminating and well-argued book it's hard not to feel that it's time for a revolution in the way we manage this green and pleasant land' Melissa Harrison, New Statesman The book doesn’t challenge the notion of land ownership per se. Instead, as is increasingly common post-Piketty, it’s really an argument for fairer distribution. Sometimes this touches on jingoism, and sometimes it leads to absurd demands (restoring gravelkind succession rights to female aristocrats). But ultimately it gives a sense that what the author really wants is a return to some sort of system of smallholding, which isn’t really appropriate to post-industrial societies.Meghji, Shafik (5 December 2022). "Review: The Lost Rainforests of Britain by Guy Shrubsole". Geographical . Retrieved 3 August 2023. Major owners include the Duke of Buccleuch, the Queen, several large grouse moor estates, and the entrepreneur James Dyson. Shrubsole estimates that 18% of England is owned by corporations, some of them based overseas or in offshore jurisdictions. He has based this calculation on a spreadsheet of land owned by all UK-registered companies that has been released by the Land Registry. From this spreadsheet, he has listed the top 100 landowning companies. There is an impressive amount of research and information in Who Owns England, presented in an accessible way. Shrubsole gives an insight into the work that he and others have done to unearth this knowledge, and explains what they have been unable to find out.

If we look at the Wikipedia article for Sir Thomas Grosvenor, 3rd Baronet, the first aristocratic owner of the Grosvenor Estate which passed down to the Duke of Westminster, we find that it was not his ancestral friendships with William the Conqueror which made him rich, but rather inheritance of the Estate from a certain Ms Mary Davies.* Some may be disappointed to find no revolutionary proposals for the compulsory redistribution of land. Although the book does end with a rousing call to 'action', in practice most of the actions called for come down to agitation in favour of reform. Who Owns England? is a brave, important, timely and hopeful book. It contains information all citizens should understand and also practical suggestions to achieve a more equitable and sustainable future. She said one effect of the sale of public land was that the public lost democratic control of that land and it could not then be used, for example, for housing or environmental improvements. “You can’t make the best social use of it,” she added.

Summary

Many receive agricultural subsidies which are paid simply for owning land (including environmentally damaging grouse moors), with no obligation to benefit taxpayers or the environment. They can use trusts and offshore ownership arrangements to avoid taxation or scrutiny (sometimes while also receiving subsidies). Properties in high-demand areas such as central London are left empty, treated as ‘investments’, and complicated ownership arrangements mean they may be bought with laundered money.