Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Debate between Baroness Rock and Baroness Taylor of Stevenage

Monday 3rd November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, for those kind comments about my noble friend Lady Hayman. She was here earlier this evening, but it was not fair to keep her here when she is still recovering from quite a nasty bug.

I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Rock, for her Amendments 253 and 253A, which seek to ensure that farm tenants receive compensation equivalent to their real loss where a farm business tenancy is terminated, in whole or in part, as a result of planning consent being granted to a landlord for a change of use. The stories she gave were indeed truly shocking. Existing legislation in the Agricultural Holdings Act 1986 sets out the compensation provisions for tenant farmers, but we genuinely recognise that it needs to be revised so that tenant farmers receive adequate compensation, reflecting real loss for land removed from their tenancy agreements for development.

The Law Commission announced its 14th programme earlier this year, which will consider whether existing agricultural law appropriately balances giving tenant farmers the security and opportunity to maintain viable businesses, while providing landlords with the confidence to let land and supporting opportunities for new entrants into farming. That is something I am sure the noble Baroness would want to see, as we all do.

The review is also likely to consider the scope and design of appropriate compensation provisions, drawing on the Law Commission’s specialist expertise in legal reform. This would typically include a detailed consultation and thorough examination of the law, resulting in the most comprehensive and balanced outcome. I suggest that the compensation provisions be considered within this wider review of agricultural tenancy law, not in isolation. As such, we recommend that the amendment be rejected pending the Law Commission’s 14th programme review into agricultural tenancies, which will commence when resources allow. Further steps and timings will be announced in due course.

[Baroness Rock (Con)]

These reviews take years and years, but this is a clear and present danger now. Therefore, before the Minister sits down, will she agree to meet with me and the Tenant Farmers Association to discuss what can be done in this Bill to protect tenant farmers immediately, rather than waiting for a review that could take years and years? Otherwise, I reserve the right to bring this back at Third Reading.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I genuinely do not believe that this Bill is the place to deal with this, but I am very happy to meet with the noble Baroness, and I am sure that my noble friend Lady Hayman would be prepared to meet as well. Within Defra, there may be more scope for dealing with some of the issues the noble Baroness raised, so I am very happy to have that meeting. It may also be worth the noble Baroness speaking to the Law Commission about the urgency of this, because the commission will be dealing with it. Stressing the importance and urgency of this with the commission will be helpful. Meanwhile, I ask the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.

Amendment 253B seeks to allow tenants whose homes are subject to compulsory purchase to claim compensation for disturbance to their business where it is carried out from home. While I appreciate the sentiment behind this amendment, we do not believe it is necessary. As part of their entitlement to compensation, occupiers, including tenants, can already claim disturbance payments where they lose possession as a consequence of compulsory acquisition. These payments cover losses caused by losing possession of the land as a consequence of the compulsory purchase order, as well as other losses not directly based on the value of the land, which could include any associated with running a business from home. In the light of this explanation, I hope that the noble Baroness will not press her amendment.

[Baroness Rock (Con)]

I am very grateful to the Minister for her response. As I said, I am disappointed. This is absolutely the right place to address these issues around tenant farmers. I have given very clear examples of why these amendments sit firmly in government policy and are desperately required. I look forward to the meeting with the Minister and, as I said, I reserve the right to bring this back at Third Reading. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Environment and Climate Change Committee Report: An Extraordinary Challenge: Restoring 30 per cent of our Land and Sea by 2030

Debate between Baroness Rock and Baroness Taylor of Stevenage

Wednesday 11th September 2024 Grand Committee

[Baroness Rock (Con)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Jones. I declare my interests, as set out in the register, as a trustee of the Royal Countryside Fund and a director of a tenanted farming business. I was chair of the Rock review, commissioned by the Government, which made recommendations to deliver a more resilient agricultural tenanted sector in three main areas: first, to deliver sustainable food production; secondly, to meet the challenges of climate change; and thirdly, to deliver the improvement and enhancement of biodiversity.

I am also a non-executive director at Defra. However, I am deeply disappointed and, frankly, bewildered that the Secretary of State has decided to terminate my role at the end of this month, despite my only having been appointed four months ago and despite my willingness to continue to serve. In opposition, Labour was a vocal advocate of the tenant farmers and of the Rock review. It sends a worrying message to our vital tenant-farming community that my sector expertise is not recognised by Steve Reed and his ministerial team as being a useful asset. However, I remain resolute in my absolute commitment to our tenant farmers, and I promise to continue to champion them and ensure that they have a fair deal from this Government.

I commend the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, and her esteemed committee members on this excellent inquiry into the very ambitious target to protect 30% of land and sea, halt nature decline and protect and improve biodiversity by 2030. I am pleased that the new Government support the commitment that they inherited from their predecessor.

Today, as my noble friend Lord Caithness has mentioned, is Back British Farming Day. In recognition of this important day, I shall focus my remarks on what the report means for our agricultural sector and how our farmers can contribute to the 30 by 30 ambition while ensuring that our nation’s food security, as recognised by this Government, remains a priority.

So what role is there for farming? The government response to the report has rightly recognised the need to work in partnership with farmers as custodians of the countryside, in order to ensure that we balance farming and food production with nature recovery. The response also welcomed the committee’s recognition of the role of the environmental land management schemes to contribute towards 30 by 30, where that works effectively for farmers and farm businesses. However, only parts of some of those schemes will count towards the target, and exactly which schemes has yet to be determined. Furthermore, the committee reported that it had received considerable evidence regarding the challenges of accessing environmental land management schemes in protected areas.

The committee mentions the Farming in Protected Landscapes programme, which delivers improvements for nature in line with local priorities. However, that funding comes to an end in March 2025. Are this Government planning on extending the programme?

We must make sure that tenanted farms are included in achieving long-term nature conservation. That means we need longer tenancy agreements, as recommended in the Rock review. That is important, because length of tenure will allow a tenant farmer to make a more meaningful and effective environmental contribution. It was therefore extremely disappointing to note that tenant farmers are not mentioned at all in the report. That is a glaring omission, given their importance in managing, wholly or partly, 64% of total farmable land in England, including protected sites. Many of their landlords are institutions such as the National Trust, the Crown Estate, the Duchy of Cornwall and, as the right reverend Prelate mentioned, the Church Commissioners. I am extremely grateful to him for bringing up the importance of the Church Commissioners’ tenant farmers, many of whom I have met.

Most landowners have clear environmental goals, but those will not be delivered without those vital tenant farmers who actually manage the land. I therefore ask the Minister to confirm the Prime Minister’s commitment to quickly implement a fair deal for tenant farmers, building on the work of the Rock review.

This Government have announced a new deal for farmers that will include optimising environmental land management schemes to produce the right outcome for all farmers, particularly small, grassland, upland and tenanted farms, while delivering food security and nature recovery in a just and equitable way. They have also announced a rapid review of the environmental improvement plan to be completed by the end of this year. That is to be commended, but I want to inject a note of caution. The National Audit Office expresses concern that the removal of the basic payment and the introduction of the sustainable farming incentive, which is part of ELMS, could see 40% of farms close unless they are able to implement productivity improvements—40% of farmers who could lose their livelihoods. There is concern that 30 by 30 could become yet another danger to farming, alongside all the other targets for housebuilding, tree planting, energy production, accessible nature areas and other infrastructure.

I confine my final remarks to solar energy. The Tenant Farmers Association has told me that it is seeing an increasing number of proposals coming forward for solar farms, many of which are impacting tenanted farmland. Some of these are small-scale and others will be considered as nationally significant infrastructure projects and will end up on the desk of the Secretary of State for final decision. As part of the planning process on land which is subject to an agricultural tenancy, consideration must be given to the impact of the development on the personal circumstances of the tenant farmer where they are not party to the development. Where it is considered that the negative impact will be significant and the tenant farmer’s livelihood is at risk, there would be sufficient evidence to turn down an application for development.

However, a recent decision of the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero has been a cause of concern. His decision to give consent to a 2,500-acre solar farm being developed on the Cambridgeshire-Suffolk border has sent shock waves through the local community and further afield. The fact that he made his decision against the advice of the Planning Inspectorate is doubly concerning. Contrast that with a more recent decision, albeit on a smaller scale, by Broadland District Council in South Norfolk, which rejected an application for a solar farm on 90 acres of land in part because of the impact on the tenant farmer, who would have lost a significant area of their farming land.

In defence of his decision, the Secretary of State said that he had to make

“tough decisions with ambition and urgency”

as part of a plan to make

“the UK a clean energy superpower”.

However, surely the concerns of local communities and the impact on the viability of a tenant farmer’s business are also relevant when looking at what projects should be considered for approval. What safeguards do tenant farmers have if the Secretary of State simply decides to override those considerations? Yes, a tenant farmer could bring a judicial review against the Secretary of State, but I confess that I have not met a single tenant farmer with deep enough pockets to do that.

Here, it is critical that we go back to the commitment made by the Prime Minister, when he was leader of the Opposition, when he addressed the NFU conference in February 2023:

“Tenant farmers need a fair deal. They need to know their futures are secure ... I want to see more solar farms across the countryside … But we can’t do it by taking advantage of tenant farmers, farmers producing good British food on carefully maintained, fertile land. They can’t plan properly if the soil beneath their feet isn’t secure. It’s a huge barrier to planning sustainable food production, so we’ve got to give them a fair deal, and we’ve got to use our land well”.


The drive towards net zero cannot be the only consideration when deliberating over solar farms. Food security, local community impact, landscape impact, heritage impact and the impact on tenant farmers, who of course do not own the land they farm, all have to be taken into consideration.

Let me put it as simply as I possibly can. Tenant farmers are being evicted right now from their best and most versatile farming land by landlords in favour of solar panels. While I am certainly in favour of solar energy as we seek to rapidly decarbonise energy generation, it cannot and must not come at the cost of the livelihoods of tenant farmers.

I conclude by offering a simple solution to the Minister. We could start with ensuring that the case law, which provides the vital protections to tenant farmers, is fully referenced in the redrafted National Planning Policy Framework, which is currently under consultation. I ask that the Minister brings this to the urgent attention of the Secretaries of State for both Defra and DESNZ.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Baroness Taylor of Stevenage) (Lab)]

I just remind noble Lords of the advisory time limit in the debate today.