Food Security

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Monday 13th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

There are many grants that people can source, even at a household level, to acquire and install solar panels on roofs, and the noble Lord is entirely right to point that out. He is also right that we need more trees. We have very ambitious targets of planting 30,000 hectares of additional trees every year by the end of this Parliament. That can be achieved without impacting our food security, and there are many areas of renewable energy production that can be done in accordance with food production as well.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

I am sure the Minister is aware of figures from 2019 showing that corporations already own 18% of England, together with oligarchs and City bankers owning 17% and the aristocracy and the gentry owning 30%, all of that adding up to less than 1% of the population owning more than half of the land. Does the Minister agree that for food security to allow new small farmers and food growers to enter and start small businesses, we need to democratise land ownership?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The most beneficial way to encourage people into farming at all levels is through a system of let land and tenure. It is very often those corporations and those individuals that the noble Baroness mentions that provide the only entry for people who do not have access to capital to purchase a farm. We want as broad activity as possible in agricultural production, and that means encouraging new and younger people to enter farming through the tenancy system.