Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Robert Goodwill and Chris Davies

Thursday 28th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr Robert Goodwill)]

The Agriculture Bill will underpin an ambitious new system based on paying public money for public goods. This will support a profitable farming sector that produces world-class food while protecting and enhancing our precious countryside.

[Chris Davies]

Will my right hon. Friend reassure the farmers of Brecon and Radnorshire, and indeed the farmers of the United Kingdom, that whether there is a deal or no deal, their future will be of paramount importance once we leave the EU?

[Mr Goodwill]

I can reassure my hon. Friend that farmers will be of paramount importance no matter which scenario we end up with. With regard to upland farmers, I can reassure him that my Department is in close contact with the sheep sector in preparing for these scenarios. Indeed, at yesterday’s EFRA Select Committee I specifically referenced the effect of EU most-favoured nation tariffs on sheep exports in a no-deal scenario.

Agriculture Bill (Eighth sitting)

Debate between Robert Goodwill and Chris Davies

Thursday 1st November 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Goodwill]

I want to raise one point with the Minister, which I hope he will be able to cover. We have heard already that about a third of the farm land in this country is farmed through tenancies. Indeed, a tenancy is probably the only way that many new applicants can get into the industry, other than marrying into money or winning the lottery. However, there may be situations where taking these payments is attractive to the tenant, but where the landlord is unwilling for that to happen, particularly as the basic payments underwrote the rent in many cases, as we heard in evidence. Indeed, we heard that in many cases the rent was basically dictated by the basic payments.

My question for the Minister is, will the consent of the landlord be required before a tenant can take one of these multi-annual exit schemes? If not, might we then have the landlord looking at the small print of the tenancy agreement and going into the whole dilapidations situation? Many people leaving a tenancy can find clauses requiring the guttering to be painted or the gateposts to be straightened. Often, tenants find that they cannot leave because of the dilapidations. Where the landlord wants a tenant to leave, he will waive the dilapidations, so a lot of these payments might get mopped up by angry landlords demanding dilapidations at the end of tenancies.

[Chris Davies]

I have a query, which I am sure the Minister will be able to answer easily, relating to the decoupling of cross-border farms. There are many on the Welsh-English border, as there are on the English-Scottish border, that will own land in both England and Wales, or both England and Scotland. I can give many examples of farmers in my constituency who own land in Herefordshire or Shropshire—well, not much of Shropshire, because my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow owns most of Shropshire.

Agriculture Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Robert Goodwill and Chris Davies

Tuesday 23rd October 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Chris Davies]

Q 52 If a Minister may interpret this set of rules in one way, how concerned are you that, in the devolved nations, there will be different processes going on right around the country?

Christopher Price: Perhaps this is one thing that the Bill lacks: the important thing is to have a UK-wide framework that allows four national agricultural policies underneath it, so that everyone is operating to a high-level set of common rules, but each country has the power to go and decide what it thinks best for its own circumstances.

George Dunn: Obviously, in a devolved world there is great scope for the four countries of the United Kingdom to take a different view of different aspects of this policy. But, fundamentally, we must remember that we are an economic union of four nations, and we need to preserve that for the benefit of the populations of all four countries of the United Kingdom. That will be the key issue—to ensure that we do not impact the ability to trade with one another in a free and open manner.

[Mr Goodwill]

Q 53 Included in clause 7 of the Bill is a provision to allow de-linking of the payments. The example I was given was where a tenant farmer who wishes to retire could take three years’ worth of payments, which, together with his live and deadstock sale, would allow him perhaps to clear his overdraft and retire. However, if he hands that tenancy back to the landlord, he is left with land that will not attract any payments for two or three years and the difficulty of attracting another tenant. How would that work in practice?

George Dunn: I am not sure there is a problem in what you suggest. It is not just the tenant’s ability to roll up the direct payment with the live and deadstock; the landlord themselves may be willing to give a payment for the early surrender of the tenancy, in order to get vacant possession or to offer the tenancy to a new entrant on a farm business tenancy basis, as opposed to an old-style agricultural holding tenancy. There may be some benefits for the landlord.