The Crown Estate Commission plays a strange role in the administration of parts of Scotland. I recently submitted evidence to the House of Commons Treasury Select Committee on the topic and today, had a letter published in the Herald newspaper which I reproduce here.
To the Editor
The development of marine energy is very welcome (“Scotland set to realise potential as ‘Saudi Arabia of marine power’ ”, The Herald, March 17) but it is important to point out that, contrary to your report, the Crown Estate does not own anything and cannot announce anything.
The Crown Estate is a bundle of property rights administered by the Crown Estate Commission (CEC) and it is this body which has consistently confused the public by adopting the identity of the property which it administers as a branding device.
Furthermore, the CEC does not “own” the seabed, it merely administers the property rights of the seabed. The seabed is crown land, a type of public land defined by Scots law. As such, it is within the competence of the Scottish Parliament to transfer title from the Crown to Scottish ministers and there would then be nothing left for the CEC to administer.
Why does this matter? Because, as Jim Hunter points out in Alan Taylor’s report on the Beauly to Denny pylon controversy, “the real issue is how we capture some part of the revenue from renewable energy for the wider community and development purposes in the Highlands”.
We can only do that if the seabed is owned and controlled in Scotland either by Scottish ministers or, preferably, by local authorities. Then, and only then, will we be in a position to call the shots and secure the revenues which can be used for the common good around Scotland’s coasts.
Quite why an SNP government has not done anything to repatriate Scotland’s crown lands is a mystery. If, as Alex Salmond has claimed, Scotland’s seas make us the Saudi Arabia of marine power, why is Scottish crown land being administered by a property company in London to whom all the rents will flow?
I habitually waken up to the BBC World Service in the morning. Since returning from a spell abroad in Ethiopia, I have been struck by the massive dumbing down in the output of both BBC television and radio. There seemed to be little other than talent shows and celebrity games on the TV and the radio news had become focussed increasingly on trivia.
Sadly, not much has changed. Go to the front page of the BBC’s News front page today and there are 2 stories about a footballer who has hurt himself replete with clips from BBC TV news shows. The BBC UK news front page has another two stories on the topic and, bizarrely even the BBC’s World news front page carries another 2 stories. The footballer, a man called David Beckham, plays for England I gather, but go to the England front news page and there’s nothing at all!
I am a scientist by training. I believe that science holds out great promise for a better future. I believe all research dedicated to making the world a safer, healthier and more equitable place for us all to live is important. I therefore also believe that the public should be encouraged to get acquainted with the latest findings by researchers in science and the humanities. This is particularly important just now when the very nature of the scientific method and its relationship to public policy is under sustained attack as never before over the science of climate change.
When I read a newspaper article about the latest scientific findings in a field of interest I often want to get behind the headlines and read the actual research paper to read for myself what it’s all about. So I found myself recently reading about the findings of a major enquiry into the future of land use in the UK - the Foresight project.
I wanted to read the Evidence Reviews and noted the link to the Science Direct website where i found that I had to pay $39.95 for each of the 34 reviews - that’s around £1000 for the lot! I was taken aback and contacted the officials involved. They helpfully pointed out that I could actually download the papers directly from their wesbite. That was good to know but it was not immediately obvious as the paying link came before the free link. Anyway, it reminded me again of the concerns I’ve had for a long time that the public are denied access to publicly funded research. The House of Commons Select Committee on Science and Technology looked at this whole issue in 2003-04 and their report is excellent. But nothing’s been done as far as I can see to implement its conclusions.
A day after my frustrations over the Foresight reports, the media was reporting new research from the Met Office showing that the evidence that humans are responsible for climate change is stronger now than it was two years ago. In the current fevered atmosphere of public debate on this topic, this is quite a claim to make. Again, I wanted to read for myself the actual report. So I went to the Met Office website and read about it I followed the link to the report and found myself at Wiley Interscience and having to register and pay for the report. So I contacted the Met Office press people who apologised and said they were tying to get a link to work directly but meantime I had to register with Wiley to get it. I did this but found I still had to pay. That was on 8th March. Tonight (12 March), I went back to the same site and, lo and behold, I didn’t have to pay and the pdf downloaded fine. Thank you Met Office for your swift action. Here is the report.
Finally, another piece of work caught my attention - a report on upland land use. I followed the link and got a 4 page summary at the end of which I found another link to the project website and another link to the full report Future of the Uplands and we’re back at Science Direct and $39.95 for the paper!
I am currently writing book on land issues and am finding access to hundreds of academic articles that I want to consult blocked by academic publishers who want £20 a copy. This is outrageous. How is the public to be informed about important issues such as climate change if it has to pay for the privilege? Most of this research has been paid for out of public money. It should be available to all under a simple Creative Commons licence. Will this be an issue in the forthcoming General Election? Don’t hold your breath.
On holiday in Spean Bridge. Caught the train to Corrour and skied up Carn Dearg and down again through two feet of fresh powder snow - awesome. Scotland is laid out before us like a vast wedding cake. Forgot my camera but here’s my daughter Isla a few weeks earlier in similar conditions.
Earlier in the week we went to the Fort William Mountain Film Festival where the legend that is Jimmy Marshall was being given an award for his outstanding contribution to Scottish climbing. It’s fifty years since he and the late Robin Smith spent a week on Ben Nevis and pioneered 6 classic new routes at the highest of standards using classic step cutting techniques. Last week the routes were repeated by Andy Turner and Dave MacLeod. An extract from the film that is being made can be seen here and extracts from Dave MacLeod’s lovely interview with Marshall below.
Yesterday evening, students from Scotland’s four Centres of Excellence in Music gathered in the City of Edinburgh Music School in Broughton High School to share some fine performances. This was one of the highlights - the young Craig Paton from City of Aberdeen Music School performing Lizst’s Hungarian Rhapsody. Thanks to Craig for permission to publish.
Interesting news from Downing Street. It has announced that it intends to make most Ordnance Survey maps free for use online from April 2010.
Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the world wide web appears to have convinced Number 10 that this is the best way forward. For anyone who has read of my own problems with the OS, it will be obvious that this is a very welcome development. It remains to be seen, however, if it will actually happen or whether the OS resist the idea.
The scope of the proposal is impressive - in total over 11,000 public datasets are to be made available including, from the OS, electoral and local authority boundaries, postcode areas and mapping.
