Land Use Framework

Lord Carrington Excerpts

Thursday 28th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Carrington (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as a farmer and landowner as set out in the register. I am absolutely delighted to follow the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, and to hear his excellent and informative maiden speech. He is a shining example of the ability of the much-criticised hereditary election system to introduce young, experienced and highly qualified new Members. I welcome the noble Lord.

Like others, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, for bringing about this debate. It follows her interesting amendment to the Environment Bill, which unfortunately I was unable to support as I thought it might be too prescriptive and therefore have undesirable side effects when it came to farm diversification and other issues. However, I think she is absolutely correct to explore the need for an overarching land use framework. The devil will inevitably be in the detail—hence a broad framework is a sensible aim. I agree with so much of what she said during her excellent speech, together with that of just about every other noble Lord and noble Baroness who has contributed to this debate.

The need for some top-down planning has been identified by a number of people, including Henry Dimbleby in the recent National Food Strategy, although I do not agree with his complicated three-compartment model for land use, which takes no account of the requirement for land on which to build houses, infrastructure and industry. However, top-down planning on its own and on the scale envisaged is not practical. Careful thought needs to be given to how a land use framework will overlap with the local nature recovery strategies that the Environment Bill already introduces, as well as planning and housing White Papers and legislation and much more—and, of course, the Agriculture Act. We do not want to see a conflict or duplication of effort in any of these areas.

The need for a framework is absolutely clear, as we have three broad areas of economic activity pressing for their share of the land cake—an asset, as has been pointed out, that will never increase in area but will increase in value, which is a further complication and consideration.

First—and to my mind probably the most important, in view of our experience in two world wars and more recently with Covid—is the production of our own food, rather than relying on imports maybe at lower costs but almost certainly produced to lower standards and coming from considerable distances, with logistical dangers as serious possibilities in an unstable world. According to a recent NFU survey, 60% self-sufficiency in food seems to be a sensible guideline. In addition, as has been pointed out, agriculture occupies 70% of our land.

Secondly, there are the environmental activities, so important with climate change, which may be complementary to farming but may also be in direct competition. By this, I mean tree planting or solar or wind farms on arable or pasture lands.

Finally, there is the most important requirement of housing, industry and infrastructure, often driven by demographics, technological change and the whole levelling-up agenda. Who can drive up the M1 through Buckinghamshire and not be amazed by the work they can see being done on HS2 or the number of new sheds being built around Milton Keynes?

Inevitably, as a farmer my greatest concern is the maintenance of sufficient land for food production. Currently, as the old basic payment system of support for farmers is phased out, farmers are in a sort of hiatus until the environmental land management scheme is rolled out in 2024. They have insufficient detail on ELMS, particularly on profitability. This was confirmed in the recent report from the National Audit Office and has caused the NFU to call for a delay in the reduction of the basic payments.

The result, not surprisingly, is that most farmers are sitting on their hands. This is greatly encouraged by the current high prices for many commodities that farmers sell, such as wheat, barley, rape and livestock. Why risk uncertainty until details of ELMS are known? Why enter the unknown unnecessarily when you are still making a decent profit, although most would accept that the high prices may not last for ever? There is an old adage in farming that sticking to what you know how to do best is the safest course of action in uncertain times. Farmers, on the whole, are there for the long term, not just for a year or two.

Those looking at stable high returns are likely to be exploring such activities as solar or wind farms or housing, which could remove good agricultural land from production. This is the point: whether we are talking about high-return activities such as housing, solar and wind or lower-return activities such as tree planting, rewilding or carbon storage, all these may be difficult to reverse back into commercial agriculture if a food crisis occurs; hence the importance of protecting productive agricultural land.

Any land use framework should be positive and enabling, allowing land managers to deliver more from their land, whether for the environment, food or other economic activity, rather than negative and restricting the progression of farming and the diversification of farming businesses, let alone other rural businesses. However, a fixed land use framework can never succeed in circumstances where there are going to be changes in technology, climate conditions, consumer demand and business viability, to name just a few considerations. All this could happen in very short order. Hence, a land use framework needs to be flexible, with top-down and bottom-up input.

I believe that the basic presumption in the planning system regarding land use should be that productive agricultural land graded 1 and 2 should stay in food production, while grade 3 should be considered for wider uses. Lower grades should be the favoured areas for non-farming activities, although I am thoroughly aware that some species of trees are likely to thrive better on good land rather than chalky banks. Obviously, small parcels of land, field corners, land adjacent to hedges and existing woods—whatever the grade designation —should be exempt and available for environmental planting, including trees, as envisaged by the Agriculture Act and ELMS.

It is particularly worrying that there have been an increasing number of land sales, as the noble Baroness, Lady Young, pointed out, to purchasers with no doubt worthy environmental backgrounds who have converted the land from arable and pasture to rewilding or trees. This certainly may be the correct usage in some cases, but the economic use of land should be dictated not by the whim of the new owner but by the correct classification of the most suitable use of that land. Integrating the planning system with building, agriculture and environment through a framework of land use makes perfect sense.

Very careful thought needs to be given to bring all these competing uses for land together and decide on the criteria of suitability, viability, necessity, strategic considerations and much more. Nothing should be set in stone, as flexibility is essential as circumstances change, but clear guidelines on a land use framework should be set, based on consultations with all stakeholders in these various sectors. I would therefore welcome the setting up of a committee or commission to explore the land use framework issue in greater detail. I would be most interested to hear the Minister’s views on this.