§ 43. Mr. Gallacherasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will appoint a Commission to inquire into land ownership in Scotland and, where there is no clear title, to make recommendations on the use to which such land should be put.
§ Mr. BuchananI have made full inquiries and am advised that the number of cases in which there might be doubt as to the legal ownership of land and other heritable properties in Scotland is infinitesimal, and I do not think that in the circumstances the appointment of a commission is necessary.
§ Mr. GallacherIs the Minister not aware that the predecessor of the present Secretary of State wrote a book in which he proved beyond question that the Tory aristocrats of Scotland got their land from hundreds of people? Has the Minister read those allegations and, having been returned in a Government which represents the people, will he not be prepared to do something in that connection?
§ Mr. BuchananIn the first place I have enough to do with regard to my own past without taking on the past of anybody else. I want to say in fairness that I examined this question with a good deal of sympathy, but that the Keeper of the Register in Edinburgh, and everybody that I have consulted, say that the numbers who could not prove a legal title to own the land in question are now so small that to set up a Commission with all the expense and the work attached to it, would be quite unjustified.
§ Mr. StokesMay I hope that my hon. Friend, now that he is in a position of authority, will fulfil some of his past by quickly introducing a Bill on rating of site values, so as to recover the land for the people?
§ Mr. BuchananI have enough responsibility in Scotland regarding housing, without taking on a responsibility which is not mine. If I emerge from my own, I will do quite well.