§ Mr. John Leeasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the total acreage of land owned by the Crown and by public Departments and by statutory corporations combined; and what were the corresponding figures for the years 1939, 1945, 1951, and 1964.
§ Mr. DiamondI regret that statistics of the total land holdings of Government Departments and statutory corporations are not available, and collection of this information would entail a disproportionate amount of time and expense. A special inquiry was made in 1965 which showed that the total land holdings of 57W Government Departments was then nearly 4 million acres; at that time the Crown Estate holding of land amounted to about 260,000 acres.