Agriculture Bill

Baroness Neville-Rolfe Excerpts
Committee stage & Committee: 5th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 5th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 21st July 2020

(3 years, 8 months ago)

Lords Chamber
Read Full debate Agriculture Act 2020 View all Agriculture Act 2020 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 112-VI(Rev) Revised sixth marshalled list for Committee - (21 Jul 2020)
Lord Cameron of Dillington Portrait Lord Cameron of Dillington [V]
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My Lords, when I first saw the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, I was very supportive of the concept of providing a bottom rung for aspiring farmers. After all, who would not want to help young men and women into one of the most noble of professions? Then, I started thinking about it and gradually became more sceptical about its premise and, worried about my scepticism—which is not a normal frame of mind for me—I spoke to various members of the farming community from around the country, including the noble Lord, Lord Curry. I am afraid to say that even after these conversations—or mostly because of them—and in spite of the enthusiasm of the noble Lord, Lord Curry, my scepticism was not entirely removed.

In my experience, and that of others, the smallholder estates have lost their way from their original successful purposes. Their heyday, as the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, just mentioned, was after the First World War when they grew enormously and provided rural sanctuary and livelihoods for soldiers returning from the front. In Somerset, where I used to live, a whole estate near us was given to the nation for this purpose. Since then the farms have continued to provide sanctuary and livelihoods for many aspiring farmers.

More recently, over the past 30 years or so, I have been conscious that the occupants of these farms have been getting older and older. They can almost be described as being trapped on their smallholdings. The old form of tenancy that lasts for ever has resulted in these once-young families turning into grandparents on holdings that are now too small to provide a decent living. Some have survived because the children have been enterprising and converted buildings into workshops, farm shops and even playschools; but most survive by family members going out and getting wages in the wider rural economy, so that the family and the old man who is the tenant can survive on the land. Rarely these days is the tenant a young, aspiring farmer on the first rung of the farming ladder. One of the problems, as other noble Lords have mentioned, is that the next rung on the ladder is almost impossible to find or afford, so the old tenants have simply remained on that bottom rung.

You have to ask yourself, if you were a county council with farming assets of some £40 million, £50 million or more, would you use them just to keep 20 or 30 farmers on the land, often for the rest of their lives, or would you sell that land and invest the money to help a far greater number of your wider constituents? That would be a very unimaginative approach.

I turn to Amendment 159, from the noble Earl, Lord Dundee. Why not use these estates as a model example of what can be done with land and landed assets to make them really work for the people of your county? As his amendment hints, why not create small businesses on them? Create affordable housing or sheltered accommodation. Create allotments. Create environmental havens and biodiversity in a way that the locals can see and appreciate. Create innovative products using food, timber or textiles. Hold competitions for suggestions for new ways to use the land. Yes, also have some farm tenancies—strictly time-limited to, say, 10 to 12 years—that provide that essential bottom rung of the farming ladder for young families.

Having, as noble Lords will see, overcome my scepticism—thank goodness—I am now certain that these county council estates should be kept and survive, but they need a new purpose in life, new blood and new ideas, with more imagination as to how they can truly serve their electorate. I am very supportive of Amendment 159 in the name of the noble Earl.

Baroness Neville-Rolfe Portrait Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con) [V]
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My Lords, I take great pleasure in following the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, and his words of wisdom. I apologise for the discourtesy of pulling out of the last group because of a meeting of the EU Committee, but I agree with my noble friend the Minister about the invaluable contribution of rural communities and the vital importance of the various strands of work to accelerate digital connectivity on farms and in rural areas.

I wish briefly to express my concern with Amendments 223 and 237 to 246 on landlord-tenant issues. Some are more worrying than others. We need to be clear about how the landlords’ and tenants’ interests will be handled under ELMS and other schemes, but we need to be very careful. Those of us old enough to remember the introduction of hereditary tenancies by the Labour Government in the 1970s—without consultation, I may add—remember the devastating effect on the supply of tenanted land. The apparent attempt in Amendments 243 and 244 to widen this principle to less-close relatives is misguided. It is like trying to keep rents low by fixing them, then being surprised when the supply of housing dries up. I find it amazing that these amendments try to extend the hereditary principle in new areas. I thought the trend was to reduce it in modern Britain. In any case, the associated interference in the laws of property would be unjustified.

Moreover, I am highly dubious about trying to cover the detail in this already gargantuan Bill. Tenancy reform beyond the proposals already in the Bill should be the subject of separate legislation and preferably of parliamentary scrutiny in draft.

Lord Mann Portrait Lord Mann (Non-Afl) [V]
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My Lords, I am listening in to a fascinating discussion and points in relation to tenant farms and smallholdings. I certainly found the arguments and proposals by the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, very convincing.

Amendment 222 tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, and supported by the noble Lord, Lord Randall of Uxbridge, falls exactly within the scope of the intent and purpose of this legislation. It fits in with government changes in relation to the planning regime that attempt to kick-start building and the economy across the country.

Ever since the unwise proposals and legislation of the community infrastructure levy pushed through by George Osborne, it has been bedevilled conceptually by being flawed in its very attempts to put money into local authority infrastructure and has repeatedly led to people withdrawing from potential small-scale developments. In essence, the CIL has shifted the market even more towards the large housebuilder and the large developer. It has had a particularly devastating effect on small businesses and the householder who wishes to do something with either a small business or a small piece of land.

When it comes to agriculture, I echo concerns previously raised that conversion of farm buildings is absurdly hit by CIL money-raking by local authorities. When I first exposed it, in challenging George Osborne in the House of Commons—I got some changes over a period of two years—we had local authorities seeking extraordinary amounts from single properties. The maximum I could evidence was £178,000 in taxation to be paid in advance for a single property development. Even with that lowered to more manageable amounts and a requirement for an affordability test, the CIL prevents the microentrepreneur—the person who wishes to move with small amounts of finance—progressing. The demands by local authorities for the CIL to be paid up front is particularly pernicious. The level of the CIL is particularly anti-entrepreneurial.

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Baroness Neville-Rolfe Portrait Baroness Neville-Rolfe [V]
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It is always a great pleasure to follow my noble friend Lord Dobbs, a Wiltshire neighbour; my maiden speech in this House was in a debate led by him.

I support the Government’s proposal, added in response to widespread concern in the countryside and the other place, for a report on food security, underlining the importance of UK food supply and farmers’ role in feeding the nation. Covid-19 has underlined the importance of this, as the noble Earl, Lord Devon, said. However, the supermarkets and the food supply chain did a great job. The empty shelves referred to by my noble friend Lady McIntosh reflected an initial lack of confidence by consumers, but they soon realised that this reflected a surge in demand, not a real shortage of supply.

Today there are a number of amendments trying to make the food security report more frequent—for example, once a year in Amendment 162—and to broaden its scope; for example, to bring in specific reference to household food security, which I disagree with, or waste in the supply chain, to which I am more sympathetic because of the personal interest I take in waste minimisation and recycling but with which I also disagree in this context. We should keep the review’s remit as simple and focused as possible so that it can be adapted to the needs and concerns of the day.

As a farmer’s daughter and a businesswoman involved in most aspects of the food supply chain in my time—I refer again to my interests in the register—I am strongly against a review more often than every five years. I cannot think of anything more likely to generate constant tinkering with the regulations that affect farmers and the countryside and continued uncertainty in a sector that faces huge change, economic difficulty and fragility —as we have heard during the passage of this Bill. By all means collect and publish data every year and have the first review in 2021 or 2022, but the major review proposed in Clause 17 should not take place more often than once every five years. As my noble friend Lord Hodgson said in a fine and wide-ranging speech, frequent reports would also lose their impact.

Earl of Kinnoull Portrait The Deputy Chairman of Committees (The Earl of Kinnoull) (Non-Afl)
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I call the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris of Aberavon. No? We will move on. I call the noble Baroness, Lady Chisholm of Owlpen.