Agriculture Bill (Second sitting)

Simon Jupp Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 11th February 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Danny Kruger]

Q Do you mean that there should be an appeals mechanism, or do you think ultimately that you should not have to take the ruling of the arbitration at all?

Judicaelle Hammond: Ideally, we would not want this in the Bill at all. Certainly, if it were to stay in the Bill, we would want to see assurances that would redress that imbalance.

George Dunn: Just to correct something that you might have said in your question, for the basic payment scheme, which is being phased out, in 99.9% of the cases that would be going to the tenant, the occupier, who has the land at their disposal.

Obviously, within some of the newer farm business tenancies under the 1995 Act—which I referred to earlier, following the Minister’s question—a landlord might expect to receive at least the basic payment scheme in rent, plus more, in terms of the tenant’s willingness to pay rent on that basis, so there is a secondary move of the payment to the landlord, but the claimant is the tenant, and that is what the regulations say.

The bigger area that we have concerns about is the agri-environment scheme, where there has been this idea that you could have dual use, where a landlord could claim countryside stewardship and environmental stewardship while the tenant is claiming the BPS. We think that is wholly inappropriate, and we will ask for amendments to the Bill to define the rightful recipient of some of this money. It should be the active farmer who is in occupation of the land.

Responding to what Judicaelle said about the need for tenants to have access, all of Judicaelle’s members will be entirely reasonable and will give consent to our members to go into these things, but we are looking for those beyond the CLA’s membership, who are not always as reasonable. Sadly, we do see landlords withholding reasonable consent very frequently. “Reasonable” is the key word here. We are looking for a set of regulations. The Bill provides that there should be regulations, and those regulations will set out what are the reasonable terms upon which a tenant should be able to apply and insist upon a consent, for either fixed equipment or for access to a scheme.

If we take the issue of trees, for example, trees are normally reserved out of tenancy agreements. It is the landlords who hold the trees, so if there are any carbon credits available under the Bill, they will not be accessible by the tenant because those trees are reserved to the landlord. Perhaps that is something that needs to be thought through, if trees are going to be a really important part of the Government’s policy going forward.

[Simon Jupp (East Devon) (Con)]

Q How much confidence does the Bill and the general direction of travel give your members to renew tenancies?

George Dunn: The majority of my members are looking for longer terms; they want security. The average length of term on a farm business tenancy today is 2.9 years. Think of agriculture in terms of its long-term need to look at soil management, agri-environment schemes and so on. If you take land that has buildings it goes up to about seven, if you have land with housing, it is up to about 10 or 11, but we would expect those later ones to be even longer than that. Our members consistently ask for greater length of security of tenure. For example, if you go to a bank to borrow money to invest in your business and you can only show a three-year or a four-year time horizon, why would the bank lend you money to do any substantial investment if it only has a four-year period to pay that back? Even those tenancies that the CLA often claim get renewed year after year, are only for annual security. How do you go to a bank asking for support for something where you have annual security? We think there is a great deal of appetite for longer-term tenancies.

Judicaelle Hammond: I think my members want good tenants who look after the land and can pay their rents. They want tenants who are willing to innovate and continue to develop their business. It requires flexibility on both sides. I understand the appetite for longer tenancies and that can be agreed. However, what we do not want is a third party determining how two parties who are free to contract, contract.

Rolling tenancies happen and I therefore think that the figure of 2.9 years is a little misleading. We want a system that works for both parties, particularly in times of uncertainty. I would add that an awful lot of my members are somebody else’s tenant. They have land of their own, but they might add to it, for scale, for example.

George Dunn: In a situation where we have 90% of all farm business tenancies in England now being let for periods of five years or less, there is market failure here, which the Government need to address.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

Q I would like to push you a little further on the security question. I recognise there are some differences here, but I think it is partly being presented as a question of equality, of a negotiation between equals. It does not quite seem that way from where I am sitting. Can we explore further whether more measures could go into the Bill to get the balance right for members of both organisations, but particularly Mr Dunn’s members, for whom it is presumably harder to get land if they are moved from a particular piece of land than it is from Ms Hammond’s members to get new tenants if the tenant has moved. Forgive me if I have got that wrong.

George Dunn: From our end of the spectrum, we do not want the Bill to have a minimum term for agricultural tenancies, because that will not help our sector at all. We want to see the ability for landlords, where they let long term or where they are nervous about letting long term, in case they get a tenant who they do not get on with or who does not pay their rent, or who does something to the historic landscape, if the landlord is the National Trust, to feel confident to let for a longer time, because they know they can get the land back early if there is a problem. We are absolutely on the money with that. There is what might be called an oven-ready amendment that could go into the Bill to achieve that.