Farming and Food Production: Land Use Framework

Baroness Rock Excerpts

Tuesday 21st July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

The right reverend Prelate makes a really important point. In our trade agreements, we have been very clear that we will not have food that is produced to lower standards than those in this country. That has always been a red line for Defra during trade agreements. That will continue. The environmental aspects are also really important, because there is no point in us increasing our standards if that gap is then filled with lower standards. I am certainly very keen to continue to promote this within Defra.

[Baroness Rock (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a tenant farmer. I am pleased that the Minister recognises that any strategy for multifunctional land must include strong protections for tenant farmers. That is because tenure will impact on how a farm business can engage in land use change. Currently, the design of agri-environment schemes can result in perverse incentives for landlords, including the end of tenancies. We must also ensure that government policy does not incentivise landlords to remove farming tenants in favour of solar developments, as the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, alluded to, which would undermine farming businesses and domestic food security. Has the department done any assessment on how the land use framework will impact the tenant farmers who are responsible for managing and farming 32% of England’s agricultural land, often in areas that the land use framework views as having high potential for change?

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

The land use framework will work in tandem with the farming road map, which very much recognises the important role that tenants play and the support that they need. One of the things we also need to really work with is looking at lengths of tenancy. Years ago they were 20 or 25 years long, and now they are down to five years. It is much more difficult for tenants to invest and look forward to a profitable future when they have such short tenancies. That is absolutely key to recognising many of the challenges faced by tenant farmers.

Farming Road Map and Profitability Review

Baroness Rock Excerpts

Wednesday 1st July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

As my noble friend is very aware, agriculture is a devolved policy area in the United Kingdom, so the Northern Ireland Executive are responsible for their own farming policy and can tailor that to best support their farming sector, which is different from England’s in a number of ways. I work very closely with DAERA and with the office of the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland as well as with the other devolved Governments. Regarding her question about raising this with my counterpart in Northern Ireland, I am meeting him online next week, so I am more than happy to do that. We work regularly on this. I go to Northern Ireland quarterly and discuss exactly these issues.

[Baroness Rock (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome the objectives for a vibrant tenanted sector set out in the road map. I draw the House’s attention to my interest as a tenant farmer. However, the Government appear to be a bit reticent still about taking the radical and necessary steps to improve the security of the tenanted sector. As the Minister has pointed out, 80% of all new farm business tenancies are now for five years or less. Short-term tenancies are the greatest barrier to sustainability, resilience and profitability. Both my review and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Batters, to which this Statement is also the response, identify taxation as the most appropriate lever to achieve greater security. Will the Government look again at the way in which stamp duty land tax penalises the very tenancy agreements that the road map says it wants to encourage? We must also ensure that tenant farmers are not unfairly treated when land is taken away for development, including solar development, so will the Minister confirm that they are willing to look again at the legislative changes needed to improve compensation for tenant farmers who lose land so that they are compensated for the real loss their businesses suffer?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

To be honest, I was not aware that 95% of farmers did not get their application in on time. The important thing is that we have a long-term, clear road map so that farmers do not end up not knowing what they are eligible for, what they can apply for and the Government’s direction of travel. The road map is designed to bring an end to exactly those sorts of problems.

[Baroness Rock (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome the Minister’s comments on the Law Commission review, and the indication in the road map that the Government will support that review and act on its recommendations. It would be very helpful if the Minister could reiterate that commitment today.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

The Law Commission has an important role to play here, because, if we are to start to unpick some of the issues, we need proper, clear evidence and facts. A review by the Law Commission—a responsible, highly regarded body—will enable us to do that.

Farming Road Map

Baroness Rock Excerpts

Thursday 16th April 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

I could not agree more with the noble Earl on the need for consistency. There has been an enormous churn in government over the last eight years, which has not helped at all. That is why we want to provide a 25-year farming road map.

[Baroness Rock (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a tenant farmer. Far from there being billionaire farmers, there are a huge number of tenant farmers in the UK who pay commercial rent to farm. They are worried about fertiliser prices and input prices just as much as any other farmer. Will the Minister confirm that the vital role of the agricultural tenanted sector will be highlighted and supported in the farming road map when it is published?

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

The tenant farming sector is critical to our rural economy. I can confirm that.

Food Security

Baroness Rock Excerpts

Monday 2nd December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

Absolutely; my noble friend makes an important point. We look at overall household food security. In the financial year ending 2022, some 7% of households in the UK were considered to be food insecure. The Family Resources Survey 2022-23 found that the proportion of food-secure households decreased from 92% in 2019-20 to 90% in 2022-23. So this is something we do look at in the round.

[Baroness Rock (Con)]

My Lords, tenant farmers do not own their land but they do produce food. Can the Minister tell me what conversations she has had with her colleague the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government on solar planning applications that have been called in that relate specifically to solar applications on tenanted land where the landlord is looking to evict the tenant farmer?

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

Regarding the solar panels, we have discussed this with Defra, DESNZ and the Ministry for Housing, which the noble Baroness asked about, because it is important, again, that we get this policy right as we develop our policy on housing and on energy. Clearly, this will be part of the land use framework. Regarding tenants, I am sure that the noble Baroness is aware that we have committed to appoint England’s first commissioner for the tenant farming sector to promote the standards outlined in the agricultural landlord and tenant code of practice. We hope that the commissioner will play an important role in this area.

Budget: Implications for Farming Communities

Baroness Rock Excerpts

Tuesday 5th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Morrow (DUP)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Rock (Con)]

My Lords—

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

We will hear from the DUP Benches now.

Environment and Climate Change Committee Report: An Extraordinary Challenge: Restoring 30 per cent of our Land and Sea by 2030

Baroness Rock Excerpts

Wednesday 11th September 2024 Grand Committee

[Baroness Rock (Con)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Jones. I declare my interests, as set out in the register, as a trustee of the Royal Countryside Fund and a director of a tenanted farming business. I was chair of the Rock review, commissioned by the Government, which made recommendations to deliver a more resilient agricultural tenanted sector in three main areas: first, to deliver sustainable food production; secondly, to meet the challenges of climate change; and thirdly, to deliver the improvement and enhancement of biodiversity.

I am also a non-executive director at Defra. However, I am deeply disappointed and, frankly, bewildered that the Secretary of State has decided to terminate my role at the end of this month, despite my only having been appointed four months ago and despite my willingness to continue to serve. In opposition, Labour was a vocal advocate of the tenant farmers and of the Rock review. It sends a worrying message to our vital tenant-farming community that my sector expertise is not recognised by Steve Reed and his ministerial team as being a useful asset. However, I remain resolute in my absolute commitment to our tenant farmers, and I promise to continue to champion them and ensure that they have a fair deal from this Government.

I commend the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, and her esteemed committee members on this excellent inquiry into the very ambitious target to protect 30% of land and sea, halt nature decline and protect and improve biodiversity by 2030. I am pleased that the new Government support the commitment that they inherited from their predecessor.

Today, as my noble friend Lord Caithness has mentioned, is Back British Farming Day. In recognition of this important day, I shall focus my remarks on what the report means for our agricultural sector and how our farmers can contribute to the 30 by 30 ambition while ensuring that our nation’s food security, as recognised by this Government, remains a priority.

So what role is there for farming? The government response to the report has rightly recognised the need to work in partnership with farmers as custodians of the countryside, in order to ensure that we balance farming and food production with nature recovery. The response also welcomed the committee’s recognition of the role of the environmental land management schemes to contribute towards 30 by 30, where that works effectively for farmers and farm businesses. However, only parts of some of those schemes will count towards the target, and exactly which schemes has yet to be determined. Furthermore, the committee reported that it had received considerable evidence regarding the challenges of accessing environmental land management schemes in protected areas.

The committee mentions the Farming in Protected Landscapes programme, which delivers improvements for nature in line with local priorities. However, that funding comes to an end in March 2025. Are this Government planning on extending the programme?

We must make sure that tenanted farms are included in achieving long-term nature conservation. That means we need longer tenancy agreements, as recommended in the Rock review. That is important, because length of tenure will allow a tenant farmer to make a more meaningful and effective environmental contribution. It was therefore extremely disappointing to note that tenant farmers are not mentioned at all in the report. That is a glaring omission, given their importance in managing, wholly or partly, 64% of total farmable land in England, including protected sites. Many of their landlords are institutions such as the National Trust, the Crown Estate, the Duchy of Cornwall and, as the right reverend Prelate mentioned, the Church Commissioners. I am extremely grateful to him for bringing up the importance of the Church Commissioners’ tenant farmers, many of whom I have met.

Most landowners have clear environmental goals, but those will not be delivered without those vital tenant farmers who actually manage the land. I therefore ask the Minister to confirm the Prime Minister’s commitment to quickly implement a fair deal for tenant farmers, building on the work of the Rock review.

This Government have announced a new deal for farmers that will include optimising environmental land management schemes to produce the right outcome for all farmers, particularly small, grassland, upland and tenanted farms, while delivering food security and nature recovery in a just and equitable way. They have also announced a rapid review of the environmental improvement plan to be completed by the end of this year. That is to be commended, but I want to inject a note of caution. The National Audit Office expresses concern that the removal of the basic payment and the introduction of the sustainable farming incentive, which is part of ELMS, could see 40% of farms close unless they are able to implement productivity improvements—40% of farmers who could lose their livelihoods. There is concern that 30 by 30 could become yet another danger to farming, alongside all the other targets for housebuilding, tree planting, energy production, accessible nature areas and other infrastructure.

I confine my final remarks to solar energy. The Tenant Farmers Association has told me that it is seeing an increasing number of proposals coming forward for solar farms, many of which are impacting tenanted farmland. Some of these are small-scale and others will be considered as nationally significant infrastructure projects and will end up on the desk of the Secretary of State for final decision. As part of the planning process on land which is subject to an agricultural tenancy, consideration must be given to the impact of the development on the personal circumstances of the tenant farmer where they are not party to the development. Where it is considered that the negative impact will be significant and the tenant farmer’s livelihood is at risk, there would be sufficient evidence to turn down an application for development.

However, a recent decision of the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero has been a cause of concern. His decision to give consent to a 2,500-acre solar farm being developed on the Cambridgeshire-Suffolk border has sent shock waves through the local community and further afield. The fact that he made his decision against the advice of the Planning Inspectorate is doubly concerning. Contrast that with a more recent decision, albeit on a smaller scale, by Broadland District Council in South Norfolk, which rejected an application for a solar farm on 90 acres of land in part because of the impact on the tenant farmer, who would have lost a significant area of their farming land.

In defence of his decision, the Secretary of State said that he had to make

“tough decisions with ambition and urgency”

as part of a plan to make

“the UK a clean energy superpower”.

However, surely the concerns of local communities and the impact on the viability of a tenant farmer’s business are also relevant when looking at what projects should be considered for approval. What safeguards do tenant farmers have if the Secretary of State simply decides to override those considerations? Yes, a tenant farmer could bring a judicial review against the Secretary of State, but I confess that I have not met a single tenant farmer with deep enough pockets to do that.

Here, it is critical that we go back to the commitment made by the Prime Minister, when he was leader of the Opposition, when he addressed the NFU conference in February 2023:

“Tenant farmers need a fair deal. They need to know their futures are secure ... I want to see more solar farms across the countryside … But we can’t do it by taking advantage of tenant farmers, farmers producing good British food on carefully maintained, fertile land. They can’t plan properly if the soil beneath their feet isn’t secure. It’s a huge barrier to planning sustainable food production, so we’ve got to give them a fair deal, and we’ve got to use our land well”.


The drive towards net zero cannot be the only consideration when deliberating over solar farms. Food security, local community impact, landscape impact, heritage impact and the impact on tenant farmers, who of course do not own the land they farm, all have to be taken into consideration.

Let me put it as simply as I possibly can. Tenant farmers are being evicted right now from their best and most versatile farming land by landlords in favour of solar panels. While I am certainly in favour of solar energy as we seek to rapidly decarbonise energy generation, it cannot and must not come at the cost of the livelihoods of tenant farmers.

I conclude by offering a simple solution to the Minister. We could start with ensuring that the case law, which provides the vital protections to tenant farmers, is fully referenced in the redrafted National Planning Policy Framework, which is currently under consultation. I ask that the Minister brings this to the urgent attention of the Secretaries of State for both Defra and DESNZ.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Baroness Taylor of Stevenage) (Lab)]

I just remind noble Lords of the advisory time limit in the debate today.

Land Use in England Committee Report

Baroness Rock Excerpts

Tuesday 25th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Rock (Con)]

My Lords, I too pay tribute to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Carlisle for his valuable contributions to this House. I declare my interests as a tenant farmer and as chair of the Tenancy Working Group and the Rock Review. I pay particular tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington, and the members of the Select Committee for producing such a thorough and extremely important report.

The committee heard that a significant barrier to achieving high take-up of ELMS is uncertainty around the schemes and how they will work in practice. This includes provision of access to those schemes for tenant farmers. Your Lordships have heard me say many times in this House that 64% of England has a tenant farmer as a custodian of the land. It was encouraging to hear the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, talk about land managers as opposed to landowners.

Defra could have a quick win in this area. It could ensure that the design of its Countryside Stewardship Plus scheme, which is due to be rolled out over the coming months, takes on board the measures already employed within the Sustainable Farming Incentive to ensure that tenant farmers are not excluded from participation. This would include not routinely requiring landlords’ consent, providing flexibility on scheme length and avoiding the imposition of penalties where land is lost to tenant farmers. Will the Minister confirm that Countryside Stewardship Plus will be as tenant friendly as SFI?

The Government’s stated policy is that they want to ensure that we maintain the area of land within the let sector of agriculture to help new entrants, promote resilience within the tenanted sector and enhance productivity. It will therefore be key to ensure that there are important safeguards to stop land leaving the sector inappropriately for things such as field-scale solar schemes, rewilding or nutrient neutrality. The committee’s report showed that insufficient provisions are in place to protect tenant farmers from having land taken out of tenancy by landowners looking to turn their land over to solar farms, and the committee heard opposing views about the extent to which solar farms offer the potential for genuinely multifunctional uses. The Rock Review raised that there are ever-increasing examples of land being taken away from a tenant farmer by a landowner for large-scale solar schemes. Can the Minister say what the Government’s position is when the best, most versatile and productive farmland is taken away from a tenant farmer through no fault of their own and often with no recourse?

On livestock farming, we need a better evidence base for assessing the contribution to carbon emissions. Our grasslands maintain a really important store of carbon that is maintained on behalf of the nation by our livestock farmers, who are often vilified in the climate change debate. Rather than replacing meat and dairy in our diets, we should encourage the food chain to access more of its meat and dairy products from sustainable sources domestically rather than from other parts of the globe with a poorer carbon story.

We also need to review the way in which we use designations. The recent designation of the West Penwith Moors and Downs SSSI is a case in point. Drawing a regulatory line on the map will not improve the capacity of landowners, tenants and public bodies to deal with any of the environmental issues identified as being of concern. Better ways of producing collegiate solutions need to be found. Natural England needs to be more of a facilitator than a regulator in that context. The situation in Dartmoor is another case in point. Everybody agrees that many of the SSSIs there are in poor condition, but that is after having followed the mantra of stock reduction followed by Natural England and its predecessor bodies for 25 years. If it has not worked over the past quarter of a century, why is more of the same going to work now? I therefore welcome the review to be carried out by David Fursdon and hope that a more practical, collegiate outcome can be achieved.

To deliver productivity and environmental outcomes from our land, tenant farmers need greater security of tenure over tenanted land. The recent CAAV land occupation survey, which came out last month, records that the average length of term on new farmed tenancies is only 3.66 years. Eighty-five per cent of all new farm business tenancies are let for five years or less. How can a tenant farmer contribute effectively to our nation’s food security and environmental ambitions when they have so little security themselves for the future use of their tenanted land?

I welcomed the Treasury’s consultation as part of the Spring Budget to look at restricting agricultural property relief to those landlords letting for the longest terms: eight years or more, as recommended by the Rock review. I now encourage the Treasury to set out a road map for implementing this change to press forward with more secure tenancies.

As the committee has already said, we have challenging and often conflicting demands on our land. Any approach to a land use framework must be flexible to meet the needs of housing, agriculture, food security and the environment.

UK Food Shortages

Baroness Rock Excerpts

Thursday 23rd February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Rock (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my farming interests as set out in the register and that I was chair of the Tenancy Working Group. Recommendation 11 of the Rock Review is that

“Defra should define food security as a public good alongside other environmental objectives such as clean air, clean water, lower carbon emissions, and improving biodiversity.”


With this in mind, British farmers, including tenant farmers, play a vital role in delivering the Government’s food strategy. Can my noble friend confirm that helping farmers to increase productivity will increase the level of food security in the UK?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

It certainly will, and I pay tribute to the work of my noble friend. I entirely agree with what she says in that report in terms of food security. I also agree with what Minette Batters said at the NFU conference:

“Food security is not the same as self-sufficiency – we will always rely on imports to some degree, and it is sensible to ensure diversity of supply. But food security also means ensuring our food is safe to eat, that it can be distributed efficiently, and that it remains affordable.”


Those are the three key pillars of responsibility of any meaningful Government, and to achieve that we absolutely must have a diversity of producers as well—some will be owner-occupiers, some will be tenants, some will be in different forms of tenure and in share and partner farming arrangements, particularly in the horticultural sector—to ensure that we are producing food that is eaten as near to where it is produced as possible.

Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill

Baroness Rock Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 25th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Rock (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as a tenant farmer and as chairman of the Rock review into England’s agricultural tenancies.

The Government’s procedural amendments will increase parliamentary oversight of the design and future development of the animal welfare provisions. The Government recognise that there is a need to safeguard animal welfare, and that is why we need a step-by-step approach by bringing legislation into effect for precision-bred plants first and then for animals. Research in farmed animals is already leading to the development of animals that have increased resistance to some devastating diseases that, as farmers, we all see, and it thereby enhances the health and welfare of animals.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome the government amendments that move the regulations to the affirmative procedure; they are extremely welcome.

I thank my noble friend Lady Jones of Whitchurch for her thorough introduction to her Amendments 19 to 21. I am sure noble Lords will remember that in Committee I tabled a number of amendments relating to the welfare advisory body, so we are very pleased to see my noble friend Lady Jones tabling similar amendments today. I spoke at length on this issue in Committee, my noble friend has introduced her concerns and we have heard from across the House, so I shall be brief.

Amendment 19 makes it clear that, in addition to considering information submitted by the notifier, the welfare advisory body should satisfy itself that the notifier has a record of acting in a manner that is consistent with research and animal welfare requirements across other Acts of Parliament. That really should be part of the body’s role. We do not want any confusion or different decision-making across different bodies.

I may have this recollection wrong, but I thought that in an earlier meeting a flow chart was mentioned showing how different animal welfare bodies, in Defra and the Home Office, would interact. I had been hoping to receive a copy of that to get some clarification about precedence and how this was all going to work together. It may have gone into my spam folder and I may have missed it, but if the Minister could check on that, that would be very helpful.

Currently, the Bill states that the welfare advisory body has to determine whether in the animal welfare declaration the notifier has paid regard to the risks to an animal. One of my concerns has always been that it is the notifier who is driving the process and is in the driving seat, rather than the welfare advisory body, which is why we were all very concerned about more checks and balances. We know the Bill says that the notifier has to take reasonable steps to assess those risks, but we do not believe that is a strong enough protection for animals in the Bill.

My noble friend’s amendment would mean that the welfare advisory body had to assess the impact on animals where a precision-bred trait was developed, with the aim, as she said, of achieving fast growth, high yields or other increases in productivity. As we have heard, we have seen that too often in traditional breeding methods, so we need to bring in these protections. We have heard many examples of traditional selective breeding producing animals that were highly efficient but this was often at the expense of animal welfare, and we need to ensure that that is not an unfortunate consequence of the Bill. The RSPCA and Compassion in World Farming have raised serious concerns about the lack of safeguards in the Bill to prevent that happening. In addition, the Nuffield Council on Bioethics has drawn our attention to the fact that many of the effects of selective breeding have been unintended.

We agree with our noble friend that it is reasonable that welfare impacts should be assessed here. Without the amendment, it is not clear exactly how that would be part of that process with the advisory body, particularly in relation to other bodies that already exist. So we strongly support my noble friend and believe that her amendments should be in the Bill.

Future Farming Programme: Small Farms

Baroness Rock Excerpts

Thursday 9th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

There is a threshold for access to the scheme, but it is designed to ensure that we are reaching as many small farmers as possible. As I said earlier, many do not receive any support, particularly in sectors such as the poultry and pig sectors. This is an opportunity for many of them to get access to government money that would not otherwise be available under area payment schemes.

[Baroness Rock (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as a director of a tenant farm and a trustee of the Prince’s Countryside Fund, whose aim is to enable family farms to thrive. An increasing amount of future farm income will come from the various ELM schemes. However, areas such as biodiversity offsetting and tree planting do not fall within the definition of agriculture. Over a third of farmers in the UK are tenants, and virtually every tenant farmer in the UK will have a tenancy clause that requires them to use land exclusively for agriculture. If these tenants enter these environmental schemes, they may be in breach of their tenancy, and there would be a huge risk of an incontestable notice to quit from their landlord. What steps are the Government taking to ensure that tenant farmers, particularly those on short-term or restrictive tenancies, will not be constrained by landlords from entering new environmental schemes?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I am grateful to my noble friend. We are working really hard to resolve some issues that predate the changes that we are making. Countryside Stewardship, for example, has had this difficulty with tree planting and possible wetland creation. We want to make sure that we are getting the money to the active occupiers of the land. We are working with the Tenant Farmers Association where we believe that there may still be issues relating to some aspects of the agreements. We are very keen to keep my noble friend and other Members of the House informed of those discussions.