Rural Landlords and Land Letting: Reform

Lord Redesdale Excerpts

Thursday 21st January 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Redesdale (LD)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as set out in the register. I own two tenanted farms in north Northumberland, in the Redesdale valley, both of which are governed under the 1986 Act. The farms are family-run businesses that have passed down through the generations and hopefully will do so in the future.

Upland hill farming at present does not make much money; incomes are low and therefore farm rents are not high. When the necessary and growing legal responsibilities of landlords are included, such as the recent electricity safety regulations, there is the real possibility that landlords can make a loss year on year. In my case, I calculated that if I rented out the farmhouses as holiday cottages, I would make far more than I do at present renting out the entire farm, although I should stress that I have no intention of doing this.

I raise this issue because upland farm incomes are moving from being based on traditional intensive stock rearing to environmental improvement schemes. While this is an important transition, understanding how these schemes will affect farm income in the long run will be vital, as many of the schemes, such as tree planting, will be funded in the short term, but there needs to be consideration and clarity on how this will be sustainable in the longer term when the schemes end. The Government’s target for tree planting, for capturing carbon, will require vast areas of woodland to be planted. I have planted thousands of trees, which is great for biodiversity, but it is taking land out of grazing and therefore income from the farms in the longer term.

Predicting future income sources when the entire funding of farming is changing is difficult and will cause many disputes between landlords and tenants. Any certainty that the Government can give in a post- CAP world, especially on the longer-term income from environmental stewardship schemes, will be vital for the take-up and sustainability of those schemes.

A final point is that, before any further reforms are brought forward in legislation, the implications of the operation of the Agriculture Act 2020 need to be given time to be evaluated. I should also say that the TRIG has done excellent work in the past.