AGRICULTURE (SMALLHOLDINGS) (Hansard, 25 January 1968)

§ Mr. Richard Body (Holland with Boston)
The Minister of Agriculture is a landlord on a large scale. He has 1,365 agricultural holdings. Most of them are managed on his behalf by the Land Settlement Association, but apart from them, he has no less than 230 full-time agricultural holdings and all but 11 of these are on the County of Holland. Many of them are very small. Indeed, some have 10 and even fewer acres. The average is 30 acres.
The Minister as their landlord prohibits them from renting any other land which may be owned either privately or by the Holland County Council. My argument is that this prohibition is unfair and unnecessary. I submit that the Minister's tenants, who have only a few acres, and on these few acres are expected to have a full-time occupation, should be allowed to rent other land temporarily pending a merger with another holding, so that they can then make fuller use of their time and equipment and to earn a reasonable livelihood.
So far, I have been unable to persuade the Minister that he should allow the tenants to do this. He is adamant that these tenants, no matter how few the acres they have upon which to earn their living, must either like it or lump it.
They must go on trying to earn a livelihood on these acres or get out. The Minister relies upon the argument that the tenants have entered into an agreement, and it is true that they have in each case signed an agreement whereby they undertook not to take any other land. This is, I suggest, rather a legalistic argument, because some of the agreements were entered into many years ago, when 10 acres of rich Lincolnshire soil could provide a very good livelihood. But conditions have changed since many of those agreements were entered into and therefore it is only fair that the conditions of the agreements also should be changed.
Professor Wise, in his Report on Statutory Smallholdings, published re- 736 cently, said that these holdings in Lincolnshire were well managed and added—in paragraph 708—that 20 acres was the minimum viable size. Mergers are, therefore, necessary and are taking place.
As with private landowners, the mergers take place when one holding becomes vacant and that vacant holding is added to the adjacent holding. What is to happen to the smallholder who has no neighbour who may die or retire in the next few years? The Minister refuses to allow him to have any other land which might be let to him by a private landowner, or by the Holland County Council, in any circumstances whatever. I do not want to seem harsh to the Parliamentary Secretary, but this is a policy which will condemn small farmers to poverty and uncertainty.
I accept that these tenants are farming some of the richest land in the United Kingdom and that one can sometimes make a livelihood on less than 10 acres, but only if one does so with intensive aids such as glass and new buildings, and yet the Ministry refuses to allow some of those necessary buildings and that glass to be erected.
There is no dispute but that many of these holdings should be merged, but, pending a merger, there can be no reason why a tenant should not be allowed to rent other land if he is successful in securing such a tenancy. I give the Parliamentary Secretary one example. I know of a tenant who is trying to manage on exactly 10 acres. He was recently offered another five acres by the Holland County Council. He asked the Ministry for permission and was refused, and it was put to him, in effect, that either he relinquished the five-acre holding of the county council, or gave up being a tenant of the Ministry. Not unnaturally, he preferred to continue in occupation of his 10-acre holding rather than go to the five-acre holding. What is to happen to him? I invite the Parliamentary Secretary to say what advice he would give that tenant.
I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary realises that distrust and ill-feeling can be engendered by this policy. I regret to say that the Minister has been an absentee landlord, although I am now glad to hear that soon the Parliamentary Secretary will be able to visit these tenants. I hope that he will realise that his 737 decisions have been harsh. I trust that he will soon visit the 219 full-time tenants he has in the County of Holland and the 57 part-time tenants who together provide a rent of no less than £62,000 a year and that he will hear their problems at first hand and hear at first hand how they are trying to make a livelihood on his land.
It would not be an exaggeration to say that if this harsh decision is continued, there will be people who will say that it wreaks of feudalism. Certainly, no ordinary private landowner would be as harsh as this.

§ The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. John Mackie)
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Holland with Boston (Mr. Body) for raising this subject, because it gives me an opportunity to put on record our feelings. I know hat the hon. Member feels strongly about this and has exerted pressure upon my right hon. Friend and myself on behalf of his constituents, and I am sure that they are grateful to him.
As a farmer in a fairly big way I appreciate that these people want to expand. He rightly raised the point that a lot of these agreements were made quite a few years ago and times change. He feels that because of that we should look at the agreements again. We have been letting the holdings over the years, some become vacant and are re-let, but all tenants know the conditions under which they take the holdings.
He mentioned the Wise Committee Report and the fact that it had suggested that the holdings in this very beautiful part of the country, for which he is lucky to be the Member, should be increased. We are very indebted to Professor Wise for his two very full reports. This is a very difficult subject. We have had a very big job consulting all interested persons—and there are a tremendous number to consult—about what we should do in the light of the Reports. Many hon. Members are anxious to know what the Minister's decision will be, and I can assure them that we are going ahead with this. It is one of the reasons why we do not want to come to a decision. We do not 738 want to alter our plans about the conditions of these holdings.
Apart from that, these estates were created many years ago in different farming conditions from today. On the estates that he mentioned, Sutton Bridge and Holbeach, many of the holdings are far smaller than would now be regarded as desirable. For some years the Ministry has pursued a policy of amalgamation and reorganisation. We are particularly anxious to avoid the creation of fragmented small and scattered parcels of land leased by the tenants from different owners. Such holdings are essentially unstable and none of the separate owners can be expected to equip them with buildings and equipment on the necessary scale for the whole area to be efficiently farmed. We do not allow farm settlement tenants to take up acres outside their own land. We do offer to tenants opportunities for applying for much larger holdings as they become available.
Basically, and I think the hon. Member agrees with this policy, we believe it to be in the long-term interests of farm management and the tenants to do this, and it would be wrong to do otherwise because it perpetuates these small holdings which Professor Wise and the Ministry want to see made larger. Such holdings are basically wasteful and inefficient. These are our main arguments for being ruthless.
The hon. Member raised the point that some of these tenants were living in poverty since they could not increase the size of their farms——

§ Mr. Body
I said that they will be living in poverty.

§ Mr. Mackie
Well, will be living in poverty, because we would not give them consent as landlords to increase their livelihood by, say, putting up glasshouses. I have said that we have had another look at this, in no small measure due to the hon. Member's pressure. We are now prepared to do just this.
He has given some cases of his constituents who have gone ahead without the Minister's consent, and asked if we are prepared to do anything there. This is the old story, if someone goes ahead without consent we have great difficulty in doing anything about it. There is 739 nothing to hinder something being done at the end of the lease to help these people if the houses or fixed equipment that they have put up are taken over by the incoming tenant. We would be prepared to look at that, there is nothing to hinder voluntary action by anyone who has put up glasshouses. I am sorry to have to tell him that we must be quite firm about the other point which he raised. I have promised him that I will try to make an arrangement with him tonight to visit these people and to try to mollify them a little, if I can. I hope that when that time comes I shall have his help.
The hon. Member has been a little critical of the Minister, suggesting that he is an absentee landlord. But he pointed out how many holdings the Ministry have, and he must realise that the Minister would have a full-time job, if not more than a full-time job, if he tried to visit them all. He has seen some 740 smallholding tenants—not these in particular—and I propose to help him by accepting the hon. Member's invitation and seeing his tenants.

§ Mr. Body
Can the hon. Member not give a reason why they should not be allowed temporarily to rent land away from their own farms if the Holland County Council is willing to let them have that land pending an amalgamation?

§ Mr. Mackie
Simply because that immediately puts them in a position in which they do not want to give up the smallholding. If they have bought land or have some other bargain, they do not want to put in for another smallholding. This perpetuates the system. Once started, it will go on and on. I am sorry to be so firm about it, but that is the position.