Rural Landlords and Land Letting: Reform

Earl of Caithness Excerpts

Thursday 21st January 2021 Grand Committee

[The Earl of Caithness (Con) [V]]

My Lords, my noble friend Lady Rock gave a powerful speech in introducing this debate. I particularly support her comments on rogue landlords who are abusing the system and I hope that my noble friend the Minister and the Treasury will take note of that.

There are two different types of tenants. The Agricultural Holdings Act tenants, who farm about 1.3 million hectares, face the problem that most do not have any woodland in their tenancy—it was excluded when the tenancy was drawn up. What help will the Government give them with becoming more environmentally friendly, and with planting trees and understanding the possible difficulties?

The other group, the so-called farm business tenancies—they are not really tenancies, as my noble friend pointed out, because they are only about four years long—have a different problem. The dichotomy here is between the high rent demanded by landlords and the environmental obligations that the Government want all users of land to undertake. Landlords inevitably want the highest rent, but you cannot do that on a short tenancy. Furthermore, the farm business tenancies are having to plough up grassland and turn land over to maize for biodigestion in order to meet those high rents. Those landlords are irresponsible; they are not caring for the future of the land and are diminishing their assets. This will also thwart what the Government hope to achieve by the Agriculture Act that we have just passed. My noble friend must attack tenancies in two different ways, but what support—and what hope—can he give to make farm business tenancies more environmentally friendly?