Who inherits your house?

The Scottish SNP government has announced that it is moving forward on its proposals that will enable the appropriation of land that is not being used in an economically productive way.  Paul Wheelhouse, the environment and climate change minister, said the legislation that will be put to Holyrood before the current parliament ends in 2016 and could be voted on as early as next year will be a "significant step forward" in ensuring land is used "in the public interest and to the benefit of the people of Scotland".   That is a most interesting turn of phrase that should make you stop and think.  

But perhaps the secret is in what he said next: “My vision, and that of my colleagues, for Scotland is for a fairer, wider and more equitable, distribution of land across our nation, where communities and individuals have access to land and the Land Reform Bill will enable much of this to happen."

Land reform minister Aileen McLeod echoed this: “We want to ensure that future generations have access to land required to promote business and economic growth and to provide access to good quality affordable food, energy and housing.  The introduction of the bill is a significant step forward in ensuring our land is used in the public interest and to the benefit of the people of Scotland."

These are very seductive words.  Fairness.  We all want that.  Equitable distribution.  Now there we are changing the rules.  This is pure and straight socialism.  The state will control.  This misguided idea that the state knows best is nonsense. Similarly on the notion that equality equals equal distribution.  It doesn’t.

I always find announcements by politicians like Ms McLeod who have absolutely no experience in the real world of actually running a business and taking the risks of running a business confusing and frightening.  They just have no concept of having to pay all your staff and suppliers before you pay yourself a penny.   They have lived the a life of simply taxing people and then spending their money.

But if I may can is suggest there is a wider more worrying underlying principle the SNP are trying to introduce here.

What we have is a government assuming it knows what is best for the people to the extent it will take legally acquired assets away from their owner.  Let’s not get into the argument of who took what from whom hundreds of years ago. That's a different conversation and it is a wrong that still has to be righted, the sooner the better.  Much of the land the government is referring to has been legally purchased.

So using this assumption that the government knows best, what area of our lives will they stray into next?

If you have a lot of spare cash lying around in your bank.  Or a holiday home that you visit four times a year with your family.  Or any number of things that you own but really don’t use a lot, will the government now feel emboldened to, by creep, assume it can also start to pick off these assets with the fairness argument because they are not being used “in the public interest and to the benefit of the people of Scotland?”  What piece of literature does this remind you of?

A similar theme is developed by Conservative MSP Murdo Fraser.  A lawyer by trade he suggested the legislation could effectively overrule a person’s will.  In effect it would end the current succession law, which allows people to name in their will who they want to leave their house – immovable property – without any legal challenge.  And it’s not that big a step to move down the ladder to take away any rights of succession with everything reverting to the state when you die.   

You don’t think it could happen here?  Well, just look back at the things the people didn’t think could happen that have since the SNP came to power in Scotland.