Agricultural Tenancies

Earl of Caithness Excerpts

Monday 12th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome the Statement. I, too, thank my noble friend Lady Rock for her report. I do not agree with all of it—I expect that none of us does—but I agree with its general thrust.

I was interested in what my noble friend the Minister said about the farm tenancy forum. I am slightly worried that it will become a talking shop. How will it work with the proposal for a tenant farming commissioner? There will be a clash, and one will get a bit sidelined.

Woodland is an important but hugely tricky area. Woodland is generally excluded from an agricultural tenancy, but hedgerows are not, and the hedgerows are as good at absorbing carbon as the woodland. I hope the Government will be able to devise a way forward whereby tenancy agreements can be altered to allow tenants to have bushier, wider hedgerows and plant trees in them without breaking their tenancy agreement.

Can my noble friend explain a bit more about what the RICS exercise is all about? I declare an interest as a former agent. There are indeed some bad agents, but there are bad landlords and bad tenants, and some pretty awful politicians. It happens in every trade, and I was slightly disturbed by my noble friend Lady Rock’s generalisation about how bad agents are. Agents only do what the landlord or tenant tells them to do. This will be particularly concerning in future as more and more firms that have absolutely no interest in agriculture buy up land in order to get carbon credentials into their portfolio and instruct their agent to do exactly what they want. Some accountant in Croydon will be crunching the figures and, unless the agent performs, he will be sacked. Can my noble friend tell me a little more about that?

Underlying the whole of this landlord-tenant relationship is the worry about what a future Government would do. The Labour Party, and indeed the Government, with the levelling-up Bill, are committed to buying land from landowners at below market value. If that continues, landlords will be very wary of letting any land to tenants in future.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I am grateful to my noble friend. One of the greatest criticisms of the Tenancy Reform Industry Group—I pay tribute to the many hours many people sat on that organisation—was that it was a talking shop. People did not feel they were being listened to, and it was a way of getting off their chest concerns they knew existed. We want to make sure that the new forum is not that; that it is executive and has a snap to it. As I have said, it will meet every quarter and the Farming Minister will be one of the co-chairs. Its remit and the determination to keep it close to Ministers shows that it will be more than that.

My noble friend makes valid points about trees and hedgerows. We have published guidance on how tenants can approach tree planting and woodland schemes such as the England woodland creation offer, and we have made sure that both the tenant and landlord will need to agree to any EWCO proposal on tenanted land. I do not think that is wrong—it is absolutely right that if a major change in land use is being promoted, the landlord’s interests matter. If they do not, it will be another incentive for landlords not to let land, or indeed to bring to an end a letting arrangement when a farm becomes available and take it in hand. We want to make sure we are still providing the incentives.

My noble friend is entirely right about hedgerows. That is why we have published our new hedgerow standard as part of the new six standards for the sustainable farming initiative. But he is absolutely right that a hedge no higher than this table does not really achieve very much in terms of carbon and biodiversity. If it is much wider, much higher and preferably has an unploughed, unfarmed cultivated headland, it will be immensely more important.

My noble friend is absolutely right, of course, that a lot of agents are excellent people—I think I was when I was one—but we should not create legislation around trying to put everybody in the same boat as the bad ones. Agents are undoubtedly advising their clients as to what is best for them to secure their interests for the future and the future generations of their family. That is why we want to see the kind of changes we are making to inheritance tax, which give the incentive to landowners, on the advice of their agents, to do the right thing and encourage that. I have received inspiration from my colleague, the Minister. I might have misled the House. He is not the co-chair but, importantly, he will attend every meeting of the tenants’ forum.