Agricultural Land (Hansard, 19 March 1990)

§ 25. Mr. Teddy Taylor
To ask the right hon. Member for Selby, representing the Church Commissioners, what is the total of agricultural land owned by the Church Commissioners.

§ Mr. Alison
The answer is 157,000 acres.

§ Mr. Taylor
Has my right hon. Friend noticed the extraordinary realisation last year of several million pounds worth of agricultural land? This is a continual trend, with the Church of England having reduced the proportion of its assets held in agricultural land from 22 per cent. to 11 per cent. in the short period of five years. There has been a transfer of that cash to commercial premises because the trustees consider that there will he a much better prospect of getting more income therefrom. Do the Church Commissioners, who perhaps are more optimistic than some of our citizens, know something that we do not?

§ Mr. Alison
Our policy has been based on experience rather than on prophetic insight. The primary duty of the Commissioners is to assist with the stipends, housing, and pensions of serving and retired clergy. Until the early 1980s, farm rents had been improving steadily and were one of the few sources of investment income that kept pace with inflation. The problems of overproduction in the European Community, of which my hon. Friend is only too well aware, have reduced farm profit margins and adversely affected rents and capital values. Therefore, for the sake of serving clergy, their families and their housing needs, there has been a tendency to move out of farms into commercial property. But we remain the second largest landowner in the United Kingdom.

§ Mr. Frank Field
What was the economic sense of embarking on a policy of selling land once the market price began to collapse?

§ Mr. Alison
The Church Commissioners have to try to strike a balance between their forecast of what will happen and market movements in any given circumstances. I am afraid that often we follow the market and sell in a descending market, but that is because we cannot lay claim to exceptional prophetic insight into what will happen.