Agricultural Tenancies

Robert Goodwill Excerpts

Wednesday 24th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sir Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)]

I, too, pay tribute to Baroness Rock and her working group. She has engaged with me and with my Committee, the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which launched its report on the tenanted sector this morning.

Does the Minister agree that as we move from direct payments to more environmentally linked payments, there will always be a limitation on which schemes tenants can participate in because of their long-term nature? Does he also share my concern about the possibility of perverse incentives for landlords to take land back from tenants for purposes such as the creation of solar farms, rewilding and forestry?

[Mark Spencer]

I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend and his Committee for their work. We want to avoid any such perverse incentives. We do not want to motivate landlords to take land from tenants for the purpose of, for instance, rewilding, or to remove them from the sector for any reason. We want to encourage a positive working relationship.

There are, of course, some challenges. If, for example, a tenant applies for a grant under our new slurry scheme to introduce physical structures that will last well beyond the length of the tenancy, the landlord will need to have some engagement in the process and to support that tenant. We want to open up these grants to tenants as well as owner-occupiers, so that tenant farmers can invest in their productivity as well as their sustainability and their ability to make a profit.