I was very pleased to read the unanimous dismissal of the case levied against the Land Reform Act, and find myself concurring entirely with the reasoning used by the court.

I want to take a moment to thank every justice of the court for reading the Act and its accompanying Land Rights and Principles Statement. The part of the opposition to my Act that has bothered me most has always been the insistence that I wish to violate human rights or ignore legal processes.

If I had wished to do so, the Act would have been much shorter, and also would not have passed into law in the first place.

The court rightly makes the question of "Fair Balance" primary in their assessment, something I likewise made primary in drafting the statement the Land Commission operates by. The case challenging the Act challenges specifically Section 68, which includes measures for punitive rates of compensation for those who own certain amounts of land. The challenge does not recognise the basic fact that every land acquisition case is filed individually, and there is no requirement that the punitive rates be used with those owning certain amounts of land. The intention is punitive intentionally, as there are landowners who have violated the law and common trust. The crime is economic, so there is an economic response, with an aim towards greatest reparatory good to the people of Britain as a whole.

I should also like to clarify something about the thresholds of land ownership we are concerned with here. To those looking at numbers on a screen, 500 hectares may not seem like a lot. The average size of a farm in England is 81 hectares. On top of that, more than half of all farms in England are 20 hectares or less!

The median and mean are completely divorced in this situation due to the overwhelming concentration of land in the hands of barons and industrial conglomerates.

It has been clear to me from the start that opposition to the Land Reform Act has never been based in a fair reading of the bill, nor in any reading of it. With the notable exception of one Tory in its first reading in the Commons who openly defended the homesteads of the nobility, that was a consistent stance to take. However, the opposition from supposedly liberal aspects of Parliament has always been naught but opposition for the sake of opposition, without bringing any constructive enhancements to the table. Land Reform was once their great centre thrust, including the introduction of LVT. Their party anthem still calls to The Land. Regardless, justices with level heads have prevailed and issued a clear judgment that I intend to build upon with future policy.

Capitalists who have abused the Land and People of Britain: Beware! No longer will we tolerate paying full market compensation for blood money and the spoils of fraud and theft. We will ensure any workers are treated fairly, re-employed or retrained. We have no parachutes to offer the executives, only a firm boot on their back.

I hope the incoming Government takes the ruling to heart and does not pursue the desired repeal of Land Reform by the Conservative Party. For Labour to do so, so soon after finally helping Britain step over a threshold into a new age, would be a great tragedy.