Lords Sitting of 28 November 1983

Preamble
The House met at half-past two of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Carlisle.
The following Lords took and subscribed the Oath or made the solemn Affirmation:
Robert Michael Christian, Lord Biddulph;
John Adrian Tremayne, Lord Rennell.

Argentina/UK Relations
Lord Avebury: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will approach the democratically elected Government of Argentina, with a view to normalisation of relations with them.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Young): My Lords, we have publicly welcomed the restoration of the democratic process in Argentina and have made clear our wish to develop more normal relations. We hope that the new Government in Argentina will, as a first step, respond positively to the proposals we have made for the restoration of normal commercial and economic relations between our two countries.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, I welcome the Minister's forthcoming reply to the Question. May I ask whether she does not recognise that it may be difficult for the incoming Government of Argentina to take the first step in normalising diplomatic relations with the United Kingdom? Will the Government perhaps consider making a joint approach with Argentina to the Secretary General of the United Nations that he should use his good offices in devising a solution that is acceptable to the people of the Falklands and takes account of the legalities on the question of sovereignty?
Baroness Young: My Lords, as I have already indicated, we should like to see better bilateral relations with Argentina. We have publicly welcomed its return to democracy and, as an earnest of our good will, our banks have helped to re-schedule Argentine debts. On the second point, our position is clear, and that is that we are not in a position to negotiate the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands.
The Earl of Lauderdale: My Lords, can my noble friend say whether the new Government have yet declared that hostilities are at an end?
Baroness Young: My Lords, the new Government will not be in post until 10th December but there has been no statement from the Argentine Government that they are prepared to declare a definitive end to hostilities.
Lord Bishopston: My Lords, will the Minister say what are the proposals to which she has made reference? Will the Government take an initiative on the matter in view of the great insecurity for the people of the Falkland Islands and the enormous cost? Will she say where the Government stand in relation to the prospect of United States' arms sales to Argentina? This is an urgent matter on which the Government should take an initiative.
Baroness Young: My Lords, the answer to the noble Lord, Lord Bishopston, is, as I have indicated, that we welcome and should like to see better bilateral relations; that is to say, economic relations, trade and commerce, cultural relations and sporting relations. There are a number of ways in which we could have better bilateral relations and we welcome those. On the question of the possibility of United States' arms sales to Argentina, we have said that we would regret this, but it is not a definitive matter as yet.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, is it not the case that the noble Baroness's colleague Mr. Ridley was in course of negotiating the sovereignty of the Falklands with Argentina and is on record in the House of Commons Hansard as reporting back on the results of his endeavours to do so? Is it not therefore the case that the Government are in the position of having to negotiate this matter? Will they not eventually have to do so at some time or other?
Baroness Young: My Lords, it is true that the Government were in negotiation with the Argentine Government; but one has to recall that it was the Argentines who invaded the Falkland Islands. We have made it absolutely plain that we are not going to negotiate the sovereignty of the Falkland Islanders.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, may I ask this question: arising out of my noble friend's answer to my noble friend Lord Lauderdale, is not an acknowledgement, when the new Government of Argentina come into power, that, from their point of view, hostilities are over, a condition precedent to any improvement in relations?
Baroness Young: My Lords, we very much hope that the new Government in Argentina will make such a declaration of their policy. If I might add one further point: just as the Argentine people have been able to express their wish for their Government through the ballot box, so we hope that they will understand why the Falkland Islanders should be entitled to the same right.
Lord Shinwell: My Lords, the noble Baroness is right in expecting the Argentine Government, if there is such a Government, to make the first approach. I accept that, and I am sure that a large number of Members of your Lordships' House take the same line. However, would it not be a gracious act on the part of the United Kingdom Government, in all the circumstances and, in the end, to our advantage, and perhaps more inclined to promote peace rather than more conflict, if we made the first approach in ascertaining the opinion of the Argentine Government now that they have adopted to some extent the democratic approach?
Baroness Young: My Lords, I hoped that I had made it clear in one of my former answers that the British Government have already made a gesture to the Argentine Government because our banks have helped to re-schedule their debt. We have had a very limited response to this. Therefore, it would be difficult in the circumstances to say more than our public welcome of a return to democracy and our public wish to have better bilateral relations.
Lord Kilmarnock: My Lords, in view of the reference of the noble Baroness to cultural relations, may I ask whether the Government will take advantage of the restoration of democratic Government in the Argentine to remove the ban on the import of books from that country, which operates to the detriment of the British book trade and also to the detriment of universities which are waiting to receive them?
Baroness Young: My Lords, these are all matters which can be looked at and would be looked at very sympathetically if of course we had a return to better bilateral relations.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, we all welcome what the noble Baroness has said about economic and commercial relations and the initiative which the British Government have taken. However, will not the noble Baroness agree that the crucial issue over the next few years is to restore normal and friendly diplomatic relations between Britain and the Argentine? As the question of sovereignty is just as important politically in the Argentine as it is in this country and so it would seem that neither Government would be in a position to start negotiations, would it not be sensible to start talks about talks (as we had to do in Rhodesia) using the good offices of the United Nations and particularly of the Secretary General?
Baroness Young: My Lords, it was my right honourable friend the Prime Minister who made it clear that we are willing to enter into talks about good commercial, economic or diplomatic relations. But the time is not yet right to talk about the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands.
Lord Morris: My Lords, will the time ever be right to bring the issue of sovereignty into discussions?
Baroness Young: My Lords, my noble friend will be aware—because I have said it on several occasions this afternoon and the Government have made it quite plain—that it really must be an issue for the Falkland Islanders themselves to determine.
Baroness Hornsby-Smith: My Lords, will not my noble friend agree that there is no real comparison with Zimbabwe because they were choosing to have their own constitutional Government? The people of the Falklands wanted to choose their own destiny; they did not want to have their children taken over by an Argentine regime with all that that meant, and nor did they want to have the children educated in Spanish. It is right that we should uphold their right to have their own democratic choice as regards the Government that they wish to have.
Baroness Young: My Lords, I should like to confirm that what my noble friend says is very important: the wishes of the Falkland Islanders in this matter should be paramount.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, I fully recognise that the opinions of the people of the Falkland Islands should be of enormous importance in determining the political future of those territories. May I ask whether the Government agree that tests conducted by the British Government will not be seen as impartial among world opinion, and that this is an additional argument for doing as we suggested—that is, inviting the Secretary General to use his good offices to arrive at a solution, including consultations with the inhabitants of the Falklands themselves?
Baroness Young: My Lords, I think that I have already indicated my answer to the suggestion that has been made on several occasions in the course of this exchange about an intervention by the Secretary General of the United Nations. However, the House may like to be reminded that in the recent vote in the General Assembly the result was slightly better from the British point of view than it was in 1982, and that 63 countries showed their understanding of our position by declining to support the Argentine resolution.

Food: Comparative Costs
2.47 p.m.
Lord Belhaven and Stenton: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what was the average annual increase in the cost of food between 1975 and 1979 and between 1979 and 1983.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Lord Belstead): My Lords, food prices in the retail price index increased by an average of 14.4 per cent. per annum between 1975 and 1979 and by an average of 7.7 per cent. per annum between 1979 and the first 10 months of 1983.
Lord Belhaven and Stenton: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that extremely encouraging reply. I wonder whether he could give the House comparable figures for Ireland, which used to be linked with sterling, and for France, West Germany and Japan?
Lord Belstead: My Lords, I could not have done so unless my noble friend had warned me, but as my noble friend warned me I can. Between 1975 and 1979 the average annual increases in retail food prices were as follows: France, 10·1 per cent.; West Germany, 2·7 per cent.; Japan, 5·4 per cent.; and Ireland, 14·3 per cent. The average annual increases between 1979 and the first eight months of 1983—I am afraid I have figures for that period and not for the first 10 months—were: France, 10·5 per cent.; West Germany, 4 per cent.; Japan, 3·7 per cent.; and Ireland, 10·3 per cent., respectively. The figures for Japan, unlike those for the other countries, include meals eaten out of the home.
Lord Bishopston: My Lords, will the Minister accept that our membership of the CAP means that we pay much higher prices for food within the Community than do people outside? Will the Minister urge his ministerial friends in the Government to show a little more fight to keep prices down within the Community than they have shown in relation to the situation regarding the milk regulations?
Lord Belstead: My Lords, I do not accept that the common agricultural policy has the effect which the noble Lord, Lord Bishopston, ascribes to it. It directly affects only about one quarter of the cost of food in the shops. Of course, we always negotiate robustly on behalf of Great Britain.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, will the Minister confirm or deny that the retail price index as a whole has risen by more than the price of food?
Lord Belstead: My Lords, that is right. The all-items retail price index increased by an average of a little less than the first figure I gave in my reply—namely, 13·5 per cent.—between 1975 and 1979; but it increased by a good deal more between 1979 and the first 10 months of 1983; namely, by 10·5 per cent. For the 12 months to October of this year, the rate of increase in the retail price index was 5 per cent. It might interest the noble Lord to know that the increase in the annual food price index for the first 10 months of this year compared to last year is only 2½ per cent. higher.
Lord Bishopston: My Lords, will the Minister take a little wider look than at the cost of food to the consumer?—because the consumer, as a taxpayer, has to pay hundreds of millions of pounds for storage, for getting rid of surpluses, for intervention and for all the other matters which, after all, have to be added to the cost of our food in this country.
Lord Belstead: My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord; and if we had a different system it would presumably be deficiency payments, and one would find the taxpayer paying for that.

Cruise Missiles: Control
2.52 p.m.
Lord Beswick: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government to what extent the agreement with the United States to consult before the firing of any cruise missile, is held to be consistent with the statement of Dr. Kissinger which, explaining a previous lack of consultation over a nuclear alert, said, "… allies should be consulted whenever possible. But emergencies are sure to arise again, and it will not be in anyone's interest if the chief protector of free world security is hamstrung by bureaucratic procedure …".
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Armed Forces (Lord Trefgarne): My Lords, on the
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occasion to which the noble Lord referred, United States forces were placed on a relatively low level alert which did not involve the immediate prospect of action, and the British Government were informed at a very early stage.
The operational use of facilities in this country was not in question. Had it been it would have been governed by the understanding between the British Government and the Government of the United States which provides for a joint decision to be made on any use of United States bases in the United Kingdom.
Lord Beswick: My Lords, I am much obliged to the noble Lord for that Answer. But is it not a fact that the alert to which he referred included the United States nuclear forces in Europe? Is it not a fact that Dr. Kissinger, in the records to which I refer in my Question, actually says that he was sorry that he was only able to tell the United Kingdom one hour after action had been taken? Looking at that experience in depth, is there any evidence in that experience to suggest that in an emergency the United States will feel compelled to consult their allies before taking action?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I imagine that the noble Lord is relying upon a letter to The Times which referred to this matter and which, indeed, included a considerable quotation from Dr. Kissinger's memoirs. Unfortunately, that quotation was a selective one and, in relation to this particular matter, omitted the words:
"at issue were only readiness measures, not actions".
As I say, had any action been contemplated, the formal agreement procedure—with which the noble Lord is, I imagine, by now well familiar—would have come into play.
Lord Beswick: My Lords, far be it from me to undervalue a letter to The Times, but, as someone else might have said, "Why look in The Times if one can read the book?" If one reads the book fully, one will see quotation after quotation which says that in an emergency the United States would not be able to consult their allies. For example, perhaps I may refer the noble Lord to the quotation at page 713 in which Dr. Kissinger said:
"Imminent danger did not brook an exchange of views and, to be frank"—
and this is the important point—
"we could not have accepted a judgment different from our own."
With all that evidence before us, is it not just possible that the overwhelming majority of the British people, on this one issue at any rate, are right and that the Government are wrong?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, the fact remains that the passage in the book to which the noble Lord refers includes the words which I read out just now, and, for reasons best known to the author, those words were omitted from the letter which recently appeared in The Times, and which I imagine has given rise to the noble Lord's interest in this matter, although, of course, I understand that he has the book in front of him now. The fact remains that the use of British bases by the United States is subject to agreement between the two Heads of Government concerned. I do not think that the noble Lord will expect me to repeat the words of

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my right honourable friend the Prime Minister when she answered a Question on this matter some months ago.
The Earl of Lauderdale: My Lords, would my noble friend not agree that the kind of context in which this matter could arise would be a crisis which has probably been accumulating at least over weeks, if not days, and that in the course of such a crisis consultations are inevitable?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, indeed, consultations would, of course, take place in the kind of circumstances to which my noble friend refers. But before the bases could be used, there would have to be more than consultations; it would have to be with the agreement of the British Prime Minister.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, is it not the case that, although consultation might take place during the course of a crisis, on the question of actually firing a difference of opinion might arise? In the event of such a difference of opinion, is it not the case that physical control on the spot, operated through officers responsible to Her Majesty's Government, is the only means we have of ensuring that those weapons will never be fired against the will of the Government of the people of this country?
Lord Trefgarne: No, my Lords. The United States is, of course, our closest ally and the fact remains that the weapons which they have in this country cannot be used without the agreement of the British Prime Minister.
Lord Bishopston: My Lords, would the Minister accept that, although the United States is our closest ally, that did not stop them in the so-called consultation before they invaded Grenada telling us what they intended to do and going ahead? Will the noble Lord make sure that the meaning of "consultation" is the same on both sides of the Atlantic? As a final safeguard, will he ensure that we get dual key to make sure that no mistakes arise?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, that is a wholly different matter. Grenada is nothing to do with NATO. There was prior consultation on that matter, and the United Kingdom's views were, as the noble Lord knows, made clear.
The Earl of Onslow: My Lords, is it not true that, if it was ever contemplated that any of these weapons were to be used, there would be a situation of such crisis in Europe that the Prime Minister of this country and the President of the United States would be practically permanently on the telephone to each other on open link, and it would be unavoidable that decisions of this sort would not be taken without really serious consultation? If they were ever taken, in effect the whole system of deterrence would have failed, and the object of deterrence is to stop any of these wretched weapons ever being used.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, my noble friend is, of course, quite right that the whole purpose of our
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defence policy is to prevent an occasion arising when the use of these weapons might become necessary. But, in the light of the situation that prevailed nearly 30 years ago, the Prime Minister and the President of the United States at that time thought it right to reach a formal agreement which was subsequently made public in a communiqué issued by Mr. Churchill and President Truman.
Lord Morris: My Lords, do Her Majesty's Government ascribe the same importance to the views of Dr. Kissinger as apparently noble Lords opposite do?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, that is a matter for noble Lords opposite, not for me.
Lord Beswick: My Lords, would the noble Lord be good enough to make it clear that the agreement to which he refers and to which the Prime Minister refers is the same agreement as that which was operative at the time of which Dr. Kissinger writes, when consultation did not take place? Further, is he aware that I entirely agree with what the noble Earl, Lord Lauderdale, said about a crisis developing over a period of time? But Dr. Kissinger says that there came the point when:
"our nerves taut from several all night vigils, we reacted in a manner bound to escalate tensions even further".
It is at this point, when there have been several nights of vigil, that I am afraid a mistake will be made which will be the ultimate one.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, the events which the noble Lord describes and which Dr. Kissinger describes in this book were not, of course, launching weapons or using weapons, or anything like it. It was raising the level of alertness I think by two points. The noble Lord will know that the Americans have a five-point system in this particular regard. Therefore, it is not the case that there was any risk. As I say, there was only this raising the alert. Such raising the alert does not require the prior agreement of the United Kingdom. Had any question arisen of the use of those bases for purposes of the sort that the noble Lord has in mind, then, of course, the agreement of the British Prime Minister would have been required.

Local Authority Prefabricated Houses: Repairs
3 p.m.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they intend to increase the funds available to local authority housing investment programmes to deal with their stocks of industrially prefabricated houses.
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, my right honourable friend announced last Thursday that provision for housing investment by local authorities in England in 1984–85 will be £2,522 million. Authorities were also

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notified on the same day of their individual housing investment programme allocations. Particular account was taken in determining those allocations of the need for repairs to defective systems-built dwellings. It is for authorities themselves to decide how much of their total available resources, including capital receipts, to devote to those repairs.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, is the Minister aware of the dismay that will be felt by local authorities in response to that Answer? The Question of course was superseded and somewhat dismissed from this Order Paper by the fact that the Secretary of State himself a fortnight ago announced a reduction in the housing investment programme. How does the Minister advise local authorities to deal with this problem when it has now become an accepted fact that the industrialised and semi-industrialised houses built since 1960 are the most urgent problem that they have to deal with? Where are they going to get the finance from based on a housing investment programme which has now been reduced in real terms?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, first of all local authorities have to identify the need, which it is my understanding they have not yet done. Specifically, the noble Lord's Question refers to prefabricated reinforced concrete houses. As authorities have not yet assessed the need for early expenditure, or indeed exactly discovered how great is the problem in their particular area, it is at the earliest a matter for 1985–86 rather than for 1984–85. So far as the reduction in the HIP is concerned there is quite a lot of unallocated expenditure from previous years in the system. I suggest to the noble Lord that one should not look at the direct Government grant but the total amount available for spending to local authorities, which brings the figure up to £3.7 billion.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, the Minister must be aware that there have been by some local authorities specific identifications—
Noble Lords: Question!
Lord Dean of Beswick:—of this particular problem. May I ask the Minister what he is prepared to do for authorities who have had to take decisions to demolish properties that have been built less than 15years? They have been identified and demolished. What are the Government going to do about it?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, if a house, a building, or whatever is unsafe to live in and cannot be reasonably repaired, then obviously the only course is to demolish it. However, on the more general point, the needs for repair were borne in mind throughout our discussions of the provision which should be made for housing public expenditure. But the problem should not be exaggerated either in scale or by suggesting that defects which will not arise for many years must be dealt with immediately at the cost of vast sums of money.
Baroness Birk: My Lords, is the Minister aware that the under spending to which he refers has been practically eliminated and that there is a great prospect
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of an overspend next year? Is he also aware that when he is answering in this way what he is saying is that the Government are quite prepared to let the deterioration of our housing stock continue in the area where it is getting worse and worse? If he had looked at any of the regional papers over the past few weeks, would he not have noticed that one after the other has pointed to the need for their local authorities—and is he aware that this applies to both Conservative and Labour authorities—to press the Government for grants to deal with the particular type of houses referred to by my noble friend? So far the answer has been no.
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, on the quality of housing stock generally, I have no doubt that we shall discuss this matter at great length on Wednesday when we debate the Motion of the noble Baroness's noble friend Lord Pitt. But so far as the non-traditional houses are concerned, the Government are looking at the totality of the money that local authorities have to spend for this coming year, as I understand it, without, whatever the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, may say, the full determination of the scale of the problem. There is enough money to cope with the problem.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that one particular block of flats in Leeds has had to be demolished because of structural deterioration, and that it is unacceptable socially? Is the noble Lord further aware that the demolition of that block of flats will place on every council house in Leeds a 22p increase in rent a week for the next 40 years? Does the noble Lord think that fair and equitable treatment of the other council house tenants in Leeds who will have to pay for it?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, before I could answer that question I should be extremely interested to know, first, how many accumulated capital receipts there are in the Leeds housing budget; and, secondly, how many council houses they have sold recently.

Business
3.5 p.m.
Lord Denham: My Lords, at a convenient moment after 3.30 p.m. this afternoon my noble friend Lord Glenarthur will, with the leave of the House, repeat a Statement that is to be made in another place on opticians and competition.
It may also be for the convenience of the House if I announce that dinner will be available at the usual time this evening. The Committee stage of the Agricultural Holdings Bill will be adjourned at approximately 7 o'clock for approximately one hour, and during this adjournment six legal aid orders will be taken.

Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill [H.L.]
The Earl of Longford: My Lords, I beg to introduce a Bill to make further provision for, and to amend, the law relating to disabled persons. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a first time.—[The Earl of Longford.]
On Question, Bill read a first time, and to be printed.

Disabled Persons Bill [H.L.]
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, I beg to introduce a Bill to make provision for disabled persons and to establish a commission having the functions of considering certain matters concerning the treatment of disabled persons, and of making recommendations. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a first time.—[Lord Campbell of Croy.]
On Question, Bill read a first time, and to be printed.

Oil Taxation Bill
3.8 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Security (Lord Glenarthur): My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a third time.—(Lord Glenarthur.)
Lord Bishopston: My Lords, as my noble friend Lord Stoddart of Swindon said on the earlier stages of the Bill, we welcome it, and I would not wish to impede its progress for more than a moment or two. We welcome it because it brings into effect some of the policy points for which the Opposition and others have been pressing, which ought of course to encourage greater development of the North Sea oil resources.
I want to make two points. First, to express the hope that this revenue, which we hope will increase in the immediate future, will provide the Government with sufficient funds not only to cut taxation, which is also desirable, but also to provide the means for reinvigorating British industry and getting some of our unemployed back to work. Secondly, I express a hope which I think the noble Lord may support, and that is while we pay tribute to all those who have invested in the North Sea and to the ingenuity of those who have designed the equipment there and enhanced the future, we ought also to pay a tribute to those who work in the difficult and arduous conditions, especially on oil rigs where conditions are particularly rigorous, and to give our thanks for the contribution which they are making to our country's future prosperity.
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for his general welcome to the Bill. Regarding the question of what the provision of oil does for the general state of the economy, I do not think I need be drawn any further on that now except to say that the whole economic climate is vastly affected by all that is done in the way of production of North Sea oil, and that we shall use it to best effect. I am also grateful for the noble Lord's generous tribute to those who work in the North Sea. I am sure those remarks will be welcomed by all who work in what I know from my own experience is a difficult and challenging environment,
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and one which has produced enormous rewards. I am grateful to the noble Lord for his comments.
On Question, Bill read a third time, and passed.

Agricultural Holdings Bill [H.L.]
3.10 p.m.
Lord Belstead: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now again resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do now again resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Belstead.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD ABERDARE in the Chair.]
Clause 2 [Abolition of statutory succession to agricultural holdings in the case of new tenancies]:
[Amendment No. 30 not moved.]
The Chairman of Committees (Lord Aberdare): I have to point out before I call Amendment No. 31 that if this amendment is agreed to I cannot call Amendment No. 32.
Lord Prys-Davies Lord Prys-Davies moved Amendment No. 31:
Page 6, line 4, leave out from ("shall") to end of line and insert ("only apply on the occasion when there died the first").
The noble Lord said: Your Lordships know very well that the principal part of this Bill—indeed, the controversial part—is to be found in Clauses 1 and 2. These clauses are at the heart of the NFU and CLA package. They do not stand apart in a splendid isolation, the one from the other. Clause 1 is the benefit required by the NFU in exchange for the loss of succession sought by the CLA and conceded in Clause 2. This balance of benefit and detriment, this give and take, is the basis of the bargain between the NFU and the CLA, and is the heart of the Bill.
But is this bargain still intact? If the open market valuation is to find its way into the rent formula embodied in Clause 1, or if the scarcity factor is to be dropped from Clause 1, the bargain will have been undermined and the balance will tilt or swing heavily in favour of the CLA. It has occurred to us on these Benches that in these changed circumstances the NFU will want another careful look at Clause 2. It may conclude that succession may have been sold at too cheap a price.
These comments are relevant because of the uncertainty about the extent of the Government's commitment to Clause 1 as drawn in the Bill. On the first day in Committee the noble Lord the Minister, under heavy pressure not to depart from the open market formula, invited your Lordships not to press the very many amendments to Clause 1 so that the Government could have time to consider whether it was possible to incorporate the sense of the amendments without destroying the NFU/CLA package. I am not sure that the Government can accept the sense of the open market formula which was being pressed on the Government a week ago

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without doing harm to the principle of Clause 1. I wonder whether the Minister, when he replies, can give us the benefit of his thinking over the past few days.
The object of this amendment is to ensure that, come what may, there shall be one statutory successor on the death of a tenant whose tenancy was granted after the passing of this Bill when it becomes an Act. This would secure a two-generation tenancy; a family tenancy which would, on average, extend over 40 or 50 years from father to son. I believe that this amendment recognises that some landlords have genuine fears that the effect of statutory succession in the 1976 Act is too heavy a burden, although we on these Benches do not accept that the evidence supports this contention. The amendment recognises the fears of landlords, but, at the same time, it also recognises the need of the tenant's family to a protection of tenancy—possibly a protection which the NFU may have been too ready to bargain away.
As I understand it, the Bill as drawn denies to tenancies created after its passing the benefit of any statutory succession on the death of the contractual tenant. The proposed new clause is not content to modify or to restrict the right of succession granted by the 1976 Act in the case of a contractual tenancy granted after the passing of the Bill: it takes it away. The new tenant may have been a good tenant; the farm may have been farmed well; but on the death of the tenant and on the authority of this clause, his family could be thrown out. Should the shield provided by the 1976 Act be dropped altogether in 1983 for new tenancies? Is this a wise provision? Is it not in the interests of good husbandry that this provision should be maintained?
It is rather interesting that we have not been given any firm data about how Section 18 has worked. We have been asked to reverse Section 18, but there is no firm data on how the section has worked. We have not been referred to any comprehensive assessment of the operational section. I have a hunch that we have not been referred to any such assessment because no such assessment exists.
I shall put three simple questions to the Minister. First, how many tenants have died since November 1976 leaving eligible successors who succeeded to the tenancies? That is a simple question. Secondly, how many eligible successors were found by the ALTs to be unsuitable for succession? Thirdly, what percentages of holdings which became available with vacant possession were re-let, although there was no eligible successor or suitable eligible successor? It would appear to me that we cannot form a proper picture unless we know the answers to these questions and possibly to other questions.
But, if Clause 2 is enacted, then henceforth tenants will be put into two categories: one will be a three-generation tenancy, the other will be a severely limited one-generation tenancy. If I may adopt the words of the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, this will be a very peculiar thing. We shall have a substantial number of tenants for some years to come who will be able to claim a three-generation succession and other tenants who, although possessing good records as tenants, will be denied the right of even a single succession.
Of course, not only shall we have the two categories of succession but all this will lead to at least two—and, I concede, possibly more than two—different rent valuations. This, in turn, will breed a sense of unfairness among tenants which will be quite understandable. This sense of unfairness could intensify and it would lead to a demand in due course for a repeal of the section. I would acknowledge that our amendment, regrettably, will still retain two classes of tenancy—the three-generation and the two generation—but the differential will be much reduced. So, in a sense, although the best solution would have been the deletion of Clause 2and my noble friends will speak about that later on—a second-best solution (and I acknowledge that it is very much a second-best solution) is to allow one transmission on the death of the contractual tenants. I beg to move.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: As I understand the amendment, if I understand it, it would appear from the noble Lord's speech that what they want to do is to give the NFU time to think again in case the wicked Government do them down on Clause 1. This may be an admirable sentiment but I do not think it is very sensible, because the NFU and the CLA were thinking for two years or more. I agree that, if land is going to be let and more land is going to be available for incomers to farming, it will matter just as much to the sons or daughters of tenants. and then I think that this is a sensible compromise. I must say that to move it from one generation to two generations (which the noble Lord, I think, acknowledged was second best) would be very foolish. Therefore, I think that we would oppose this amendment.
Lord Belstead: Listening to the noble Lord moving this amendment, I felt a little like the Irishman who, on being asked the way, would have replied that he would not be starting from there, anyway, if he had the choice. Really, on any objective judgment, the position which we have reached in 1983 under the terms of the 1976 legislation is not desirable and, some would say, is disastrous. In his remarks the noble Lord said perfectly fairly that no evidence had been given by the Government of this assertion—which, of course, my noble friends and I have made before now from this side of the Committee.
I am not sure that I can answer the detailed questions which the noble Lord put to me. I think that some of them are not capable of a reply because we do not have the information. But let me give the Committee two very simple pieces of information. Between 1970 and 1975 the percentage of agricultural land (as expressed as a percentage of the total amount of agricultural land in England and Wales) which was rented went down by 0.6 per cent. Then, from 1976to 1982, the percentage of tenanted land as a proportion of the total area of agricultural land went down by very nearly 5 per cent. In statistical terms, that, arguably, has been the effect of the 1976 legislation, although I would not deny that there may have been other reasons as well.
I think that it is fair to ascribe weight to that accelerated decline in the area of agricultural land which has been tenanted since the 1976 Act became law. One has only to use one's common sense. To sign away a great

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deal of real property for a period of three generations really is asking a very great deal of the private landlord—and my noble friend Lord Swinton in his Second Reading speech showed from his personal experience how the 1976 Act had prevented the letting of land in his family. If I may say so, the report of the committee of the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, in paragraph 626, was in no doubt that the 1976 Act was having an effect on tenanted land. There is, therefore, so far as the Government are concerned, no feeling that we need second thoughts on this matter.
What we have tried to do is to draw Clause 2 of the Bill—in which we would repeal if the Committee agrees, the 1976 Act—in as fair a way as we possibly can by making sure that there is no retrospection. This is the effect of subsection (2) of Clause 2. I want to place that on the record because I was not entirely sure from the words of the noble Lord that he entirely agreed with that. The effect of subsection (2) taken with subsection (1) is that Clause 2 allows for no retrospection in the repeal of the 1976 Act. I am afraid that I cannot go further than that in replying to noble Lords opposite. I acknowledge that noble Lords are trying to take a step in the direction of the Bill in bringing forward this amendment but I am afraid that it is not acceptable to the Government.
Lord John-Mackie: I think that this requires a little more ventilating than it has had. The noble Lord, Lord Belstead, has made a reply which I do not think will satisfy us at all. I should like to emphasise what my noble friend Lord Prys-Davies said on this subject, but more from the practical side of a tenant than in relation to the legal points that he made. There has been a lot of argument about just what effect the 1976 Act has had. I have made some calculations and I also have here a graph done by a firm of land agents which shows the position all the way from 1920 onwards. In the period from 1975 to 1982 that graph remains absolutely steady, although it shows a steady decline.
I do not know where they got the figures from after 1982, but I presume it was from the Northfield report, which shows that graph continuing at a steady decline. Nor am I sure where the noble Lord got his figures, but I should imagine that he has taken acreage. Of course, if a 20,000-acre hill farm were let in that time, that would probably distort the figures considerably. My noble friend Lord Prys-Davies has said that we cannot get proper figures. For the noble Lord to quote acreage instead of the number of farms is, I think, very misleading. As I say, you have only to have a couple of 20,000-acre hill farms in that figure and it distorts the argument altogether.
I made some calculations on the actual figures that I could get, and I admit readily that there was a slight difference between 1977 and 1982. The noble Earl, Lord Caithness, doubted my figures. He may be right. As I say, there was a difference but it was not significant. He produced some more figures which just add to the confusion that we have. We do not have proper information to continue this argument to any degree of sense at all, and I want to make that point very clear indeed.
As regards the case for succession, agriculture is a
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long-term business and on many things it takes years before a farmer sees the benefit from his work. Starting with the longest term of the lot—the planting of trees—just how many tenant farmers are going to plant trees if their families are not going to get the benefit of them? I am planting trees at the present moment, as it happens, in the hope that if I live long enough my youngest son will get the tenancy of the farm but with the proverbial bus going up and down the streets of London continually, that may not be the case. So my family may not get the benefit of the trees that I am planting at the present time.
I want to make a point about drainage. I have just drained the whole of the farm that I have tenanted over the past seven years. I am talking about drainage in all its aspects. It takes years and years (a) to write off the cost and (b) to get the benefit. How on earth are farmers going to get the benefit of that sort of work if they do not have some confidence that their families are going to get the benefit?
Then there is the question of buildings, fencing—often road making—and all the business of fixed equipment which tenants help landlords to deal with. Many tenants do it. I know many tenants who provide nearly all the fixed equipment themselves. How do you get the full benefit of that for your family unless you have some succession?
May I mention liming and fertilising, which is one of the most important means of keeping land in good heart? There again, liming particularly is a very long term business indeed. I know that some noble Lords may bring forward the argument that if a farmer has a proper tenancy agreement he will get full recompense and a tenant rights agreement at the end of his lease—or rather, if he is a life tenant, after he is dead. That is not a lot of compensation, if I may say so. I do not want to get emotional on the subject of farming but I have farmed myself for a very long time. It is a way of life. It is slightly different from other businesses and I think in many ways it has to be treated differently. My noble kinsman may disagree with me: he has three daughters and I have three sons.
Most noble Lords hold their land in perpetuity. Why grudge the man who works that land and looks after it? Why grudge him at least a succession for his son for which we are asking? We are not asking for two successions but only for one. I should have thought that noble Lords would have agreed with that.
We are not talking solely about private landlords, many of whom, I agree, are first-class landlords. The noble Earl, Lord Swinton, instanced what he did. I was intrigued by the way he put it: that they had looked not only for giving one son succession but that if there were two sons he looked for farms on the estate for that as well. He was proud of doing that and he had 89 per cent. of his land in hand and he said that was just right, he thought, for the size of the estate. Then when it became mandatory, he turned against it. I do not quite understand that; but that is what he said. I suspect it was the advice he got which he admitted he agreed with. But it seems strange to have done that.
Not all landlords are private landlords. We have the Church, Crown land, colleges and other charities. Now more and more are managed by, if I may say so, hard-faced investment managers, who do not know the land

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and have no feeling for it. I should like to give my own experience of that particular point. On my farm we had a disaster with Dutch elm disease and all the elms died. There were very many of them. I have now the hedgerows with all the dead elms cleared, and this is the re-planting that I am doing at the present moment in my hedgerows. I thought that as the county council were giving me a grant the landlord should maybe go half and half in my share; but I received the reply, "We cannot invest any money that does not show an immediate return." That is the sort of thing that you get, and that is why I am scared stiff at the growing institutional landlord system that we have. They will be managed by even harder-faced investment managers, and that makes me very doubtful whether they will manage the land as the old landlords have done. Unless we get mandatory succession, farmers may not get much consideration at all from that type of landlord.
I do not think that whatever is put into this Bill as it stands—and we do not yet know what the Government are going to do in Clause 1—will make any difference to the number of farms coming on to the market. Much more radical things will have to be done to the Bill before that happens. The NFU have given away their right to succession, with nothing in return. I should like to quote from a document which illustrates the point more than anything else. This is a document which was written by my great grandfather 160years ago and he wrote it after he had been given the tenancy of a farm of 105 acres—50 so-called arable and 55 unclaimed land, or bog. He set about claiming the 55 acres, and when I read what he did it makes me very humble indeed.
This is what he said at the beginning of a report which he gave to the Highlands Society and was commended for it in 1831 when it started to show business. I want to read two short passages. He says:
"the former tenant not having been under any restriction as to cropping and it having been intimated to him several years before the expiry of his lease that it was not to be continued as a farm, the soil was completely exhausted and unfit to bear a crop of any sort."
That is what happens when he has no succession. At the end of the report my great grandfather wrote:
"Before concluding this report I cannot omit mentioning with feelings of much satisfaction that the Earl of Aberdeen, on account of the exertions I made in improving my farm, has agreed to renew my lease at the present rent for a period sufficient, I trust, to enable me to recover the capital I have laid out and a remuneration for my own time and trouble."
That was 160 years ago and the situation is the same today.
3.40 p.m.
Lord Walston: The noble Lord, Lord John-Mackie, has spoken with a wealth of personal experience. He even makes those of us who are doubtful about it think that there may be something in the hereditary principle after all, when he quotes the experience of his great grandfather. But what he is in fact saying is that everything lying behind this Bill is wrong. He is saying that what there was before the three-life tenancy was good. He might even have gone on to say that tenancies in perpetuity are better because that is the logic of his argument, and where it must inevitably lead. I think most of us here have accepted that,
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although the results of the three-life tenancy have not shown a marked and absolutely certain decline in the lettings, that has been a contributory factor. Your Lordships will remember that most of the speeches on Second Reading said that this Bill will do little, but it removes the absence of tenanted land and it is a move in the right direction.
Having accepted that—and I think that even the noble Lord, Lord John-Mackie, and his friends rather grudgingly and unwillingly accepted that—I cannot for the life of me see the logic behind his proposals and those of his noble friends. All he is saying is, "We would like to have had a three-life tenancy. We do not think that a one-life tenancy is sufficient, so let us compromise and have a two-life tenancy". But if the arguments that he has adduced showing what happens towards the end of a one-life tenancy are true, if the fertility of the land is not maintained, if the drainage is not maintained, if the soil is not limed, if the dead elms are not cut down and if yew trees are not planted at the end of a one-life tenancy, precisely the same thing will happen at the end of a two-life tenancy. We shall be no better off, accepting that the majority of us sitting here in this Chamber will not be here to see it. But from the point of view of agriculture, there will be absolutely no change whatsoever.
Therefore, reluctantly and sadly—because I do not like disagreeing with the noble Lord, Lord John-Mackie, who has so much wisdom and experience—I feel that all he is doing is attempting, not very wholeheartedly, to postpone the evil day, if indeed it is an evil day, and thereby doing a great deal to vitiate any success that this Bill might have. So I am afraid that I must join with my noble friend Lord Mackie of Benshie in opposing this amendment.
Lord Nugent of Guildford: I enjoyed listening to the noble Lord, John-Mackie, with his great experience of agricultural matters, putting some technical flesh onto the political bones of his noble colleague, but I am not sure that all the flesh really fitted. It would be a very short-term farmer who did not get the fertiliser value back out of his land in his lifetime; and there might be one or two other technical points on which the noble Lord, as fluent as ever and, as always, delightful to listen to, was a little on shaky ground.
But, of course, he is right when he says that it is not possible to prove it. He is probably right that, if you drew a graph from the 1920s till now, the downward trend of tenanted agricultural land would continue in a fairly straight line. But, of course, my noble friend was contending that there was a significant jerk after the 1976 Act, and I should have thought that it was significant. But nobody could prove that, and we all know it. I can well remember, however, when we were debating the 1976 Act here, which I strongly opposed with my noble colleagues because I felt sure that it would further diminish what was left of the tenanted agricultural land, which was already far too little.
The significant point about which I would remind noble Lords on the other side is that the Government did not put that provision in their Bill when they introduced it into the Commons. It was put in by an amendment from the Back-Benches, as the noble Lord, Lord John-Mackie, will remember, and Ministers accepted it because clearly, for political

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reasons, they could do nothing else. So that by the time the Bill came here, there it was in the Bill. We did the best we could with it, but clearly the weight of political numbers was going to defeat us. But the fact is that any act of judgment at that time, certainly by someone—
Lord John-Mackie: Will the noble Lord allow me to intervene? Is he suggesting that the weight of political numbers at the present moment does not have any effect?
Lord Nugent of Guildford: Of course it has, and I hope that it will have a very good effect this time in trying to put right some of things that have been put wrong. But the point I was making was that the political judgment of the experts—that is, the Ministers and the officials behind them in the Ministry of Agriculture of that day—was that, on the whole, this would probably further diminish something which most of us very much wish to see not diminished. That is really why we opposed it then, and I and my noble friend, and indeed all my noble colleagues, are trying to rectify to some extent the mistake that was made in 1976.
I am the last to say that I think that this Bill will transform the whole situation; I am sure that it will not. The fiscal factors are so weighty against the letting of agricultural land that there is all too little of it left now. But, at least, it will do something if we put this Bill on the statute book to retard (I do not say that it will even stop) the downward trend. That is the reason why all of us who are interested in the prosperity of the countryside and. indeed, the social structure of the countryside, and especially in the prospect of youngsters coming in and becoming tenants of agricultural land, wish to proceed with this Bill, to put it on the statute book and, at least, make this marginal improvement in what we consider a very unhappy situation now. So I warmly support my noble friend and I hope that he will stick to his guns.
The Earl of Swinton: As the controversy in this debate seems to be growing, I think it might be a convenient time to take the Statement. I beg to move that the House do now resume.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House resumed.

Optician Services: Competition
3.46 p.m.
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I will now repeat a Statement that is being made in another place by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Social Services. The Statement is as follows:
"With permission, I will make a Statement on opticians and competition following the report of the Office of Fair Trading published earlier this year.
"At the end of 1981, the Office of Fair Trading was asked to report on the effects of the 1958 Opticians Act upon competition in the supply of
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opticians' services. They found that the requirements imposed under that Act led to restricted competition and resulted in unnecessarily high prices. In particular, the Office of Fair Trading criticised the rules limiting optician' advertising and the monopoly on the supply of glasses granted to opticians and doctors. The Government accept these conclusions, and believe that the interests of consumers would be better served by acting upon the OFT report. Accordingly, the Government intend to bring forward legislation to deal with two main areas.
"First, we propose to take action on advertising. At present, the rules made by the General Optical Council allow no general advertising of the price of glasses or advertising on such matters as the speed of service. This handicaps the consumer who wishes to get the best value for money and also holds back the optician who can provide a better deal or wider choice. The General Optical Council did review their rules in the light of the report by the Office of Fair Trading, but the changes they proposed came nowhere near to those needed. Legislation will therefore be introduced to enable the rules operated by the General Optical Council to be amended to allow freer advertising. These powers will be used carefully. In particular, we will draw a distinction between the professional function of sight-testing and the commercial activity of selling glasses. The aim will be to ensure that the public are provided with more information about the prices of glasses.
"Secondly, we propose to take action on the monopoly to dispense and sell glasses. There is still a need for public protection in certain areas such as dispensing to children or fitting of contact lenses. However, all laws which create a monopoly have to be examined to see whether, under the cloak of public protection, there is not simply too much protection for the seller. We have concluded that this is the case with opticians. The legislation which the Government will be introducing will therefore allow non-opticians to sell glasses under carefully prescribed conditions. The conditions laid down will ensure that no risks are taken with people's sight. All sales will have to be made against a recent prescription, following a sight-test by an appropriately qualified optician or doctor, and no one other than a qualified optician or doctor will be able to sell glasses for children or to fit contact lenses. It is our intention to maintain the present arrangement for the registration of qualified opticians, and the public will therefore be able to make a choice between the services of a registered optician and those of other competitors.
"The action I have announced on advertising and the end of the dispensing monopoly will, I believe, bring down the price of glasses. This will have an effect on the general ophthalmic service. At present, the general ophthalmic service provides free sight-tests by either an ophthalmic optician or a specially qualified doctor. We intend to continue this arrangement. It also provides a range of frames and lenses free to children and families on low incomes. This free provision will also continue. But other people who currently buy NHS glasses will in the future be able to obtain a wider selection of non-

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glasses at reasonable prices. Although the NHS will continue to provide free sight-tests and to supply glasses to the present exempt groups, there will no longer be any need for the general supply of NHS glasses. The legislation I will shortly be introducing will give effect to this.
"Mr. Speaker, my right honourable friends the Secretaries of State for Scotland and Northern Ireland will also be bringing forward proposals to give effect to these changes. We believe that the changes I have announced will enable greater competition to take place; will provide greater choice; and above all will have the effect of bringing down the prices of glasses for the public."
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
Lord Wallace of Coslany: My Lords, first may I thank the noble Lord for repeating a very important Statement, but he need not have taken the trouble. If he had looked in the Library at the Standard he would have seen that the Government's Statement had already been made—to which I take exception because I have had to deal with this matter at very short notice, not having had time even to read this paper.
I have a number of points to put to the noble Lord, Lord Glenarthur. First, may I ask him how the Government are going to draw a distinction between the professional function of sight-testing and the commercial activity of selling glasses? Is not the provision and checking of lenses a vital professional function? Advertising in general will have to be carefully controlled. In any case, there could be the risk of loss of profitability for the small optician who is forced to provide a prescription but who is likely to lose other business arising from the provision of that prescription. This could lead to a serious decline in the optical service at present enjoyed by many people in their own areas.
Naturally, I welcome the fact that a prescription will still be needed. To put it bluntly, anybody needing glasses would be foolhardy to obtain them without a prescription. However, may I ask whether it will now be an offence for anybody to sell glasses for which there is no prescription? Will the Government include a provision to cover this point in their legislation? Furthermore, what does the Minister mean by the very important statement that there will no longer be any need for the general supply of NHS glasses? Are they to be supplied in future only to those classes which are exempt, which I believe include those aged 16 to 19 in full-time education and those on supplementary benefit? There is no mention of the old-age pensioner. Am I right to assume that they, too, are exempt? Perhaps the noble Lord will tell me. If this is not the case, a vital NHS principle will have been abandoned. I must demand from the noble Lord clarification of the phrase,
"no longer be any need for the general supply of NHS glasses".
I take the view that this is a very severe cutback in the NHS service and means the abandonment of a principle for which many of us have fought for so long and so hard.
Baroness Seear: My Lords, from these Benches may I thank the noble Lord the Minister for repeating the
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Statement. We are broadly in agreement with the general principle. Undoubtedly the price of glasses has been a great deal too high. The introduction of competition should bring about a long overdue reduction in the price of glasses. However, the Statement raises one or two queries concerning which we should like further clarification. How recent is "a recent prescription" to be? Unless care is taken, the standard of treatment for eye conditions could deteriorate. People could buy glasses which do them very little good.
Secondly, may I ask the noble Lord about free spectacles through the NHS no longer being provided except for exempted groups? Could he say how widely the exempted groups will be drawn? Who will be included in those exempted groups? The Statement refers to children and low-income families. It is assumed that the price of glasses will quickly come down. If it does not, a very heavy charge will be laid on some people just above the low income level who nonetheless need glasses and have been able to get them practically free up to the present time.
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Coslany, raised a series of points not altogether welcoming what had been said in the Statement. First may I pick up the second from last point which he made, about old-age pensioners. The answer is that at present old-age pensioners are not exempt unless they qualify under the social security provisions. The noble Baroness, Lady Seear, also asked about exemptions. The answer is that all those who are presently exempt will continue to be exempt. So far as the information contained in the Standard is concerned, the noble Lord is one up on me; I have not seen it. How it got there, I do not know; but the noble Lord knows how these things happen.
The noble Lord alluded to the fact that the provisions in the Statement represent some sort of step towards a further dismantling of the NHS. This is far from the truth. The NHS is about the provision of health care. So far as eyesight is concerned, there are many who feel that this means sight-testing. We do not propose to stop sight-testing. Indeed, that is made clear in the Statement. Sight-testing will still be provided free. So far as the supply of glasses is concerned, most people are already nearly paying all the cost, anyway. Provided we can be sure that a supply of reasonably priced glasses will be available to the public, there is no need for the Government to provide them.
The noble Lord also asked whether or not it would be an offence for somebody to sell glasses when a prescription had not been made available. This is a matter for the legislation in due course, and I do not believe that I can usefully follow up the Statement which I have just repeated. The noble Baroness, Lady Seear, asked how recent "a recent prescription" would have to be. Again, this is a matter for consultation and discussion when we deal with the legislation in due course. Therefore, I do not think that I can usefully be drawn on that point now.
The noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Coslany, may have raised one or two other points with which I have not dealt. If that is so, I shall be delighted to follow them up in correspondence.
Lord Wallace of Coslany: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Glenarthur, made the point that the matter before us now is not one of health care but the supply of glasses. That is an amazing statement. In many cases, disease is identified when somebody applies for glasses. I could quote diabetes and many other diseases which are discovered as a result of eye tests and the provision of glasses. So it is a question of health care, not merely a question of buying glasses off the peg somewhere else.
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, there has been a great deal of discussion in the medical profession about the provision of glasses. The discussions have led us to believe that it is important for us to retain the free sight-testing which I described earlier. There is, of course, divergence among the professional people involved as to exactly what sort of diseases are best found by those who look into these things. The noble Lord mentioned some, and I am sure he is quite right. The medical expertise in searching for these diseases will be maintained. The provision of the actual lenses is a matter for a much more mechanical process in many cases, and not quite so important as the sight testing, which will remain.
Lord Kilmarnock: My Lords, may I press the noble Lord a little further for clarification. I refer to the phrase, "There will be no longer any need for the general supply …".Does this mean that all persons needing glasses, other than the exempt groups, will have to go fully private as regards the supply of frames?
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, the intention is that the duty to supply appliances will cease on 31st March 1985. However, it is quite likely that opticians will continue to stock them if they are wanted, but they will then have to be privately supplied.
Baroness Gaitskell: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord the Minister—because I am a little confused about it—whether it will now be necessary, when someone gets the first prescription for glasses, to be recommended to a specialist or to an eye hospital? Is that so, or is it just that we can buy spectacles, as the Americans do, over the counter?
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, at the present time anyone who wants glasses has to go to a registered optician to obtain the glasses prescribed, but the intention of the legislation to be introduced will be that one will be able to get them over the counter—that is the point—but only following a recent assessment by an optician to satisfy both himself and the person needing the glasses that that person needs such a prescription.
Lord Ross of Marnock: My Lords, can the noble Lord the Minister say how much he expects to save? Secondly, he expressed the belief that glasses would be cheaper, thanks to competition. Will there be any monitoring of the effect of the price of glasses, and will the Government take any reserve powers to control prices if the noble Lord's belief proves to be misguided?
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, I cannot give a figure off the top of my head to answer the noble Lord's first point, but of course advertising will help to lower prices, in three main ways. First of all, the consumer will be able to choose the optician giving best value for money. At present consumers can pay as much as £50 more for the same prescription from different opticians. Advertising will also help the optician seeking to expand by offering a cheaper or quicker service. At present it is hard for the optician offering better value to let people know that he is doing that. Thirdly, advertising will help new, keener opticians who want to start up on their own. At present it is hard for them to tell the public what they offer that existing opticians do not offer.
Lord Somers: My Lords, speaking as one who is wholly dependent on his glasses, may I ask whether the noble Lord can give us some assurance that this will not mean that we shall get second-hand lenses? The noble Lord must know that cutting a lens is a highly expert job. I hope this will not mean that we shall be getting lenses that are not suited to us.
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, as I understand it, the present arrangements are that, while some lenses have to be specially cut, the prescription houses hold stocks of the more regularly used lenses. So I do not understand that there can be any question of anybody picking up second-hand lenses.
Lord Ardwick: My Lords, one can see that fashionable spectacles may well be cheaper under this system, but will the kind of spectacles now prescribed under the NHS be cheaper or dearer?
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, by introducing the form of competition which this system will allow, spectacles will, for some of the reasons I have described to the noble Lord, Lord Ross, and others, become cheaper.
Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge: My Lords, at the moment one can buy under NHS rules spectacles on prescription for a price of something like £10 to £12, and for the same sort of thing one is apt to pay £70 to £80 through a registered optician. Does it mean that the price will go up to £35 or £40 instead of the £10 or £12 under the NHS? Secondly, may I ask the noble Lord whether he is aware that the main objection to the monopoly of the opticians has been that it is based on a false premise: that to use glasses not prescribed by a proper doctor can hurt your eyes? The general view of all competent oculists, professors of optics and others, is that it does your eyes no harm whatever to use glasses which are not the best for your eyes to see through; it is just tiresome. This is a very bad reason for a monopoly. I should like to welcome this move in the right direction but to question whether it has gone nearly far enough.
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, I am well aware of the point the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, makes about the fact that having the wrong sort of glasses does not do any damage to your eyes, but merely means that you cannot see so well, and in that case you obviously

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go and get another pair. This is something that has been threshed out by the experts and has been raised in your Lordships' House on more than one occasion.
Lord Rugby: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord the Minister whether it will now be possible for people over 50, the presbyopic people, who virtually all take the same magnification, and who break and lose their glasses fairly constantly, to get immediate replacements instead of having to be subjected to the appalling delays which the opticians have put upon them and the quite ludicrous prices they have charged for replacements? Does this Statement cover the presbyopic, like myself and many others, who simply uses simple magnification?
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, as I indicated earlier, this is something which will have to be considered, but there is no intention that there should be the sort of delay to which the noble Lord refers. I think it is something which has to be discussed with the expert bodies concerned, and again when legislation goes through your Lordships' House and another place. As I understand it, there will be no difficulty in obtaining replacement glasses in the way the noble Lord describes.
The Earl of Onslow: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether the question of contact lenses will be excluded from over the counter buying? I believe that the mark-up is considerable between wholesale and retail prices of contact lenses. I speak from a very vested interest, as I wear them and am extremely keen on them. I believe the wholesale price for a pair of soft contact lenses is something like £16, and if you go to an optician it is something in the region of £110. That does seem a marginally excessive mark-up. If these are going to be excluded from over the counter sales, plus prescription, then the privilege is going to be kept for one and only half given away in the case of spectacles.
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, contact lenses can damage eyes if wrongly fitted. We shall continue to limit contact lens fitting to qualified staff. The same applies to children. which is a point mentioned in the Statement.
Lord Northfield: My Lords, since some of us have campaigned for 25 years for a change in the law, may we offer at least a guarded welcome for the decision to divorce the commercial aspect of selling spectacles from the medical aspect of testing eyes? That is precisely what the Government are doing today. So in that sense we can offer a guarded welcome. Does the Minister realise that there must be some room for competition? If I may give an example, I was recently able to buy fully glazed spectacles in the streets of Hong Kong, very good ones which I have as a spare pair, for £1·50. I am looking forward to the day when competition like that will occur here. May I ask the noble Lord this. There are other recommendations of the Office of Fair Trading, some of them quite important. Can the noble Lord say which recommendations have been rejected so that we shall know where the Government stand on the full body of their report?
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, it would probably weary your Lordships if I were to go through the entire weighty tome which is the report produced by the Director-General of Fair Trading. The important points which I have covered deal with the meat of the question which the noble Lord asked.
In picking up one point made by the noble Lord, Lord Rugby, may I amplify what I said earlier. Those who need glasses can go anywhere to make a purchase, provided that they have a prescription, and where they believe they will get the best and, of course, the quickest service.
Lord Cullen of Ashbourne: My Lords, have the Government abandoned their review of the NHS general optical service which was promised about 18 months ago?
Lord Glenarthur: Yes, my Lords; now that we have studied and reported our views on the OFT report, that supersedes the report to which my noble friend refers.

Agricultural Holdings Bill [H.L.]
4.11 p.m.
House again in Committee on Amendment No. 31.
The Earl of Caithness: Perhaps this is an opportune moment to refocus on agriculture and to pick up one point made by the noble Lord, Lord John-Mackie. He referred to the number of tenancies as a result of his beloved 1976 Act. He produced a graph that a firm of land agents had given to him which showed that the trend of loss of agricultural land to tenancies was on a continual decline. There is a fallacy in his argument because if his 1976 Act was to be a success the graph should have gone up, not down. To take the graph to its logical conclusion, one reaches the stage where there are only two tenancies left in the country. If we then lose one, the noble Lord will say that that is marvellous because we have lost only one tenancy. In fact, we would have lost 50 per cent. The crucial point is that since 1976 the percentage loss of tenanted land in this country has increased dramatically over the previous years.
I recommend to the Committee the publication Contractual Relationships in Farming published in May this year by the RICS. It contains a complete set of tables giving the amount of agricultural land that is lost annually in the tenanted sector. In fact, on its figures the loss since 1950 has been at a lower rate every 10 years. Between 1950 and 1960 there was a loss of 52,000 tenancies; between 1960 and 1970 the loss was about 40,000 tenancies; and between 1970 and 1980 the loss was only about 32,000 tenancies. However, I come back to my point that the percentage loss increases every year and has increased even more dramatically since 1976.
Lord John-Mackie: I do not think that I should cross swords with the noble Earl on this subject of statistics. He is quoting from one publication and I am quoting from another. As I told him on Second Reading, my calculations were based on figures that I

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had. There would be no advantage in going further into the statistics. While I am on my feet, I should like to reply to the noble Lord, Lord Walston, and point out to him that this is not our Bill. It is a Government Bill and although we would like to continue with our 1976 Act, we know perfectly well that we have no hope of that. Therefore, we are trying to put forward the maximum that we think can be screwed out of the Government. That seems to be a sensible thing to do and it is ridiculous to start any polemics on what we said in 1976. We are trying to get the maximum that we can, and although I do not think we shall get it we shall still try. On that basis I beg to move that we divide on this amendment—if that is the correct phrase.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 31) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 55; Not-Contents, 144.

DIVISION NO. 1

CONTENTS

Ardwick, L.

Lovell-Davis, L.

Beswick, L.

Melchett, L.

Birk, B.

Molloy, L.

Bishopston, L.

Nicol, B.

Blyton, L.

Oram, L.

Brockway, L.

Paget of Northampton, L.

Brooks of Tremorfa, L.

Peart, L.

Bruce of Donington, L.

Phillips, B.

Carmichael of Kelvingrove, L.

Plant, L.

Collison, L.

Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L. [Teller.]

Darling of Hillsborough, L.

David, B. [Teller.]

Prys-Davies, L.

Davies of Penrhys, L.

Rea, L.

Dean of Beswick, L.

Ross of Marnock, L.

Elwyn-Jones, L.

Shinwell, L.

Ewart-Biggs, B.

Stallard, L.

Gaitskell, B.

Stewart of Alvechurch, B.

Gormley, L.

Stewart of Fulham, L.

Hale, L.

Stoddart of Swindon, L.

Hatch of Lusby, L.

Stone, L.

Hooson, L.

Strabolgi, L.

Jenkins of Putney, L.

Strauss, L.

John-Mackie, L.

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

Kearton, L.

Underhill, L.

Kilbracken, L.

Wallace of Coslany, L.

Leatherland, L.

Wedderburn of Charlton, L.

Listowel, E.

Wilson of Rievaulx, L.

Longford, E

Wootton of Abinger, B.

NOT-CONTENTS

Airedale, L.

Buccleuch and Queensberry, D.

Airey of Abingdon, B.

Alexander of Tunis, E.

Byers, L.

Allerton, L.

Caithness, E.

Alport, L.

Campbell of Alloway, L.

Amherst, E.

Campbell of Croy, L.

Ampthill, L.

Clinton, L.

Annan, L.

Coleraine, L.

Attlee, E.

Constantine of Stanmore, L.

Avon, E.

Cottesloe, L.

Aylestone, L.

Craigavon, V.

Balfour of Inchrye, L.

Cromartie, E.

Banks, L.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Belhaven and Stenton, L.

Daventry, V.

Beloff, L.

Davidson, V.

Belstead, L.

De Freyne, L.

Bessborough, E.

Diamond, L.

Biddulph, L.

Digby, L.

Blake, L.

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

Boyd-Carpenter, L.

Dormer, L.

Bruce-Gardyne, L.

Drumalbyn, L.

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Ellenborough, L.

Mountgarret, V.

Elton, L.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Ezra, L.

Murton of Lindisfarne, L.

Forbes, L.

Northbourne, L.

Forester, L.

Northchurch, B.

Fraser of Kilmorack, L.

Nugent of Guildford, L.

Glanusk, L.

Onslow, E.

Glenarthur, L.

Orkney, E.

Glenkinglas, L.

Pender, L.

Gray of Contin, L.

Penrhyn, L.

Gridley, L.

Peyton of Yeovil, L.

Grimond, L.

Radnor, E.

Grimston of Westbury, L.

Rankeillour, L.

Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L.

Reigate, L.

Renton, L.

Hanworth, V.

Ridley, V.

Hayter, L.

Robson of Kiddington, B.

Hemphill, L.

Rochester, L.

Henley, L.

Rodney, L.

Hives, L.

Rugby, L.

Holderness, L.

Sainsbury, L.

Home of the Hirsel, L.

St. Davids, V.

Hornsby-Smith, B.

Salisbury, M.

Hunt, L.

Sandford, L.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Sandys, L.

Kemsley, V.

Savile, L.

Kennet, L.

Seear, B.

Kilmany, L.

Selkirk, E.

Kilmarnock, L.

Sempill, Ly.

Kinloss, Ly.

Skelmersdale, L. [Teller.]

Kinnaird, L.

Stanley of Alderley, L.

Kinnoull, E.

Stodart of Leaston, L.

Knutsford, V.

Strathcona and Mount Royal, L.

Lane-Fox, B.

Lauderdale, E.

Swinton, E. [Teller.]

Lloyd of Hampstead, L.

Teynham, L.

Lucas of Chilworth, L.

Trenchard, V.

Lyell, L.

Trumpington, B.

Mackie of Benshie, L.

Vaux of Harrowden, L.

Malmesbury, E.

Vickers, B.

Mancroft, L.

Vivian, L.

Margadale, L.

Waldegrave, E.

Marley, L.

Walston, L.

Masham of Ilton, B.

Westbury, L.

Massereene and Ferrard, V.

Whitelaw, V.

Merrivale, L.

Wigoder, L.

Middleton, L.

Wilson of Langside, L.

Mills, V.

Winterbottom, L.

Molson, L.

Wise, L.

Monk Bretton, L.

Wrenbury, L.

Monson, L.

Wynford, L.

Montgomery of Alamein, V.

Young, B.

Mottistone, L.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.
[Amendment No. 32 not moved.]
4.24 p.m.
The Chairman of Committees No. 33: I have to point out to the Committee that, if this amendment is agreed to, I cannot call Amendment No. 35.
The Earl of Radnor The Earl of Radnor moved Amendment No. 33:
Page 6, line 5, leave out from ("holding") to end of line 7.
The noble Earl said: In speaking to Amendment No. 33, I wish to declare again my interest as a landowner. The purpose of this amendment is perfectly straightforward. As far as I am concerned, its importance far outweighs the small number of words which the amendment would take away from the beginning of Clause 2. As your Lordships will realise, in terms of this debate—includingthe Second Reading—it perhaps rather dramatically re-establishes the status quo and re-establishes the position that there was in the farming industry so far as landlords and tenants

459
were concerned before that particular part of the 1976 Act came into force.
We have been talking a great deal already about this Bill. One of the themes and remarks that comes up again and again is that the Bill will do nothing very much at all. I remember the noble Lord, Lord John-Mackie, saying that it was a mouse; and again and again people have said that it will not have the effect that at the same time everybody was saying they wished it would have; that it will not allow people outside the farming industry who have been trained, perhaps, in our agricultural colleges and who may bring in some fresh ideas to get into farming for so long that it is almost too much for us to contemplate. Most of us will certainly be dead when the three-generation succession has worked its way through and has allowed a few farms to get out into the tenanted sector.
It is important that we bear in mind that practically everybody acknowledged that that was a very important thing. That is one reason why I feel that a three-generation succession should not exist—not just for the tenancies created after the enactment of this Bill but also for those tenancies which existed before. There would. of course, be a relatively small number of farmers who have already succeeded since 1976, and that situation would not be disturbed by this amendment. They would still have their security for life.
Another very important point which bears talking about briefly once more, and which, again, noble Lords from all Benches have mentioned, is the extraordinary situation—and "extraordinary" is really the only word to describe it—of having two kinds of tenanted land and two kinds of tenant. I cannot really believe that the Committee wants legislation of that kind to go through. It will mean that we shall have one type of tenant who, because we have made a law in Parliament, is almost enfranchised or, shall we say, semi-enfranchised, while others who come a little later will not be in that position at all but will just have security for life. That seems totally wrong in parliamentary terms, apart from any other consideration such as social divisions. I believe that most of us are against situations which are divisive anyway, and this is something that I consider to be at least pretty divisive.
If one carries that argument a little further, one sees the ridiculous situation so far as the land is concerned. There could be two fields next door to each other that are absolutely the same: the same value so far as concerns growing crops, rearing stock and so on. There is a fence in between, and it is the boundary between a landlord who has a successional tenant and one who does not. Suddenly there is the anomaly that the land on one side is a fraction of the value of the land on the other. Also, I am quite aware that there is yet another factor—vacant possession land. It would be absolutely wrong to go on breaking up England in this false manner.
Those are the two main points that I want to make in supporting this amendment. I feel that they are very important. There are others, but I think they are peripheral. On reading the 1976 Act one finds that a number of people can succeed to the farm. I am not sure that I am too keen on the list, but, as I say, I think
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it is rather a peripheral matter. Broadly, there could be temptation for people succeeding to stay with the farm perhaps for understandable reasons of security. They might not be good at, trained in or interested enough in farming, although they could get the farm. The quality of farmers in England could gradually run down. I have almost a gut feeling that it is important to have outside blood, innovators and people with completely new ideas. I think I said in my Second Reading speech that that is absolutely vital to the well-being of the industry.
That is enough to start the debate going. I believe that if your Lordships feel that this Bill, as it stands, is not doing enough for the industry, we should redress the ill which was acknowledged at Second Reading. The ill was the passing of the 1976 Act. As I said on Second Reading, it seems absolutely logical to reverse the decisions made then. We might then see an improvement in the situation. I beg to move.
4.32 p.m.
Lord John-Mackie: Before I say anything about the content of what the noble Earl, Lord Radnor, said, may I correct him on his reading of the Second Reading debate? I thought that I was hard enough in calling the Bill a poor thing; it was the noble Lord, Lord Walston, who was rude enough to call it a mouse.
Nineteen seventy-six is not all that far back. Figures have been quoted for the number of tenancies since then. The noble Earl, Lord Radnor, is worried about having different tenancies on neighbouring land. He pointed out that the situation could be different on the other side of the fence. If all the tenancy agreements made since 1976 reverted back to life tenancies, it would greatly affect all those farmers who have made plans for themselves, their sons and so on. I do not think that the noble Earl would subscribe to the situation that it would create. If he did not want retrospective legislation, he should have voted for our amendment, which he has just voted against. It would have at least done something to bring the two situations closer together than they are now, with no succession and two successions. That is all that I have to say on the subject.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: For once I find myself in some agreement with my noble kinsman. I also have a certain sympathy for the arguments used by the noble Earl, Lord Radnor. It is true that there will be certain anomalies, but I think that what the industry needs is some stability. We at last have a Bill that has some chance of standing. Progress can be made from here, instead of the reversals that we have had since the war, with legislation being passed by one Government and reversed by the next. No industry can go ahead on that basis. I am afraid that the noble Earl's amendment is not a proper amendment at all; it is a completely wrecking amendment—although it is the job of the Government to say this. It destroys the whole purpose of the Bill. Although I have sympathy with some of his arguments, from these Benches we shall oppose the amendment.
The Marquess of Salisbury: I should like to support the amendment moved by the noble Earl. Like him, I must declare an interest, in that I have a number of tenanted farms in my family. I entirely agree with the

461
view expressed by the noble Earl about the undesirability of creating two classes of tenancy for similar land. As I understand it, this matter is still part of the package between the CLA and the NFU with a view to creating more tenancies. I cannot see that the proposal will have very much effect on the situation. It does not matter very much whether a son succeeds a father or the farm is let to someone else, because it is some completely newcomer to the industry. The amount of extra land available is nil. The only way the proposal could help is if it encouraged landlords to let more land. For the reasons that I gave on Second Reading, I can see nothing in the Bill that will do that.
I find some support for that view in what the noble Lord, Lord John-Mackie, said in moving the previous amendment, when he said that, after all, a landlord has his land in perpetuity; why should not the tenant farmer have it for rather longer than just one life? If you carry that to its logical conclusion from the point of view of the landlord, he should get all the benefits and not let the land at all; and then this question does not arise.
I think that this has some bearing on this amendment as well as the previous one. I was also a little surprised at some of the arguments that the noble Lord, Lord John-Mackie, advanced for extending the terms of a tenancy for three lives. He mentioned tenant's improvements and buildings erected. I do not think that you need three life holds to justify erecting a building. As we all know, most are written off in 20 to 25 years at the most and often in a shorter period. The same goes for drainage. By the time that the third life had come into being, it would be time to redo the drainage altogether. I do not think either of those arguments justifies a longer tenancy. If you turn the argument the other way round, there is a lot to be said for shorter tenancies.
The other thing that we must bear in mind is that, if the proposal is a very insignificant change, what is the merit in it? We are sacrificing standardisation for some very limited advantage. I should like to ask a question. I do not know what the answer is, and I do not know whether the information I have been given is correct. If anyone has the answer, it would be helpful to know it. The other day I received a letter from a gentleman in Somerset. He claimed to have information about the views of the NFU with regard to the length of tenancies. He said that the NFU was telling its branches that it was never its intention to create more tenancies; the sole object in creating this package was to ensure security for three lives of its members. It was not interested in future intake. I do not know whether that is true. I rather suspect that it is not, but, if not, I hope that someone will be able to deny it. It casts something of a shadow on the suggestion that there is general agreement on the objectives of this Bill.
I should like to say a word about what the noble Lord, Lord John-Mackie, said at the end of his remarks about what, in effect, I think he feels is retrospective legislation. The noble Lord suggested that tenants, since 1976, will have made plans, and so on. I dislike retrospective legislation, just as I suspect most of your Lordships do. I therefore asked myself whether this was retrospective in the sense that one normally refers to that term. I concluded that it was
462
probably not, although it could be argued that the dividing line between what is retrospective and what is not is very fine. It is, however, clear cut that someone, who has taken action to make money, which is perfectly legal, can find that taxation is placed on that operation in a subsequent Budget and Finance Bill, although it was untaxed perfectly legally at the time. That seems to be a general guide to what retrospective legislation is all about.
In this case, however, what we are really talking about is whether one section of a community is being penalised or suffering loss because of proposed legislation. It seems to me that if you applied that principle, we should have very little legislation at all. Almost always, someone suffers from proposals. I would suggest to your Lordships that the Rent Acts on residential accommodation would bean example. There is every reason for not adjusting rents even though it has cost the tenants more. It seems to me that this is a parallel. The suggestion that this is a case of retrospective legislation does not hold good. For these reasons, I support the noble Earl's amendment.
The Earl of Caithness:If this amendment is carried, I shall not be able to speak to my Amendment No. 35. It might therefore be for the convenience of the Committee if I mention a few points relating to it now. The basis of that amendment is very much in support of the amendment that we are discussing at the moment. However, mine is slightly more moderate in that all the tenancies created between 1976 and the passing of this Act should have security. My argument for saying this is that up to 1976 the tenancies, although they were annual agricultural tenancies, were effective for the life of that tenant. That is a contract that two parties entered into in good faith.
Suddenly, in 1976, we had retrospective legislation that threw a lot of estate and farm planning into total disarray. From 1976 to the passing of this Act, everyone knew there was succession. Any tenancies that were created were done in that knowledge. There should therefore continue to be succession for those tenancies created during that time. For future tenancies, I support the Bill in that there should be no succession because I am against the principle of it for tenancies. I believe that there are other ways of encouraging succession rather than by writing it into legislation.
However, having said that, I am concerned about one point that the noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie, raised, and that is agricultural ping pong. A comment was made by the noble Lord, Lord John-Mackie, in col. 151 of Hansard on the first day of the Committee, which I interpret as meaning that what one can say and do in Opposition does not bind one to what one does in Government. I agree with that, but one should be responsible in Opposition. It was his noble friend Lord Melchett who raised the real scare of land nationalisation that is still a worry to many people. Some of us fear that, if and when the Labour Party comes to power, it will bring in land nationalisation.
From what the noble Lord, Lord John-Mackie, and the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, said on the first day of the Committee and today, I rather fear that a Labour Government will bring in succession for tenancies regardless of what we do today. This is the

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real point that all landlords must bear in mind if they are going to create tenancies. There is a threat, from what has been said, that if and when a Labour Government get back to power they will bring in more retrospective legislation to make succession for all tenancies.
Lord Monson:I rise to support the amendment. I must declare an interest, both as a trustee and as a direct landlord, although the acreages involved are modest in each case. For the Government to accept the amendment would not mean that they were condoning the breaking of existing contractual agreements freely entered into, although, in passing, I must say that even if it did mean this, it would not be the first time that a Conservative Government condoned a breach of existing contractual agreements. The recent volte face over the moral acceptability of the 1967 leasehold reform legislation is a case in point.
I agree wholly with the noble Marquess, despite what the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, claims, that this amendment is not truly retrospective in effect, although, even if it were, it would not be the first time that the Conservatives have initiated or acquiesced in retrospective legislation. One might cite the Burmah Oil war damage compensation affair, or the Conservatives' decidedly lukewarm opposition to the blatantly retrospective 1975 Air Travel Reserve Fund Bill.
What the amendment, if agreed, would do is alter some individuals' financial expectations. There is nothing novel or radical about this. It is what most legislation does. Every annual Finance Bill alters people's financial expectations. Every measure of denationalisation does so. There must be many individuals who embarked upon a career with a nationalised industry in the expection that they would have a secure job for life, come what may, to be followed by an indexed-linked pension. Denationalisation may well dash those expectations. The Matrimonial and Family Proceedings Bill, which your Lordships read a second time the other day, alters the financial expectations of divorced husbands and divorced wives respectively. But, unlike the Matrimonial and Family Proceedings Bill, this amendment merely seeks to correct a temporary aberration and restore things to what they were, and indeed what they had been for a very long time prior to 1976.
The noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie, spoke about the need for continuity. I agree with him. But we realise, do we not, following the Division that has taken place, that the Opposition have no intention of accepting Clause 2 as it stands if they return to power? They have made clear—at least that is my inference on re-reading the winding-up speech on Second Reading of the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies—that if returned to power they will alter Clause 2 of this Bill. Even if one forgets the moral arguments, which we should not do, the Government's attempt to placate the Opposition by compromising largely on the Opposition's terms will not work in the long term.
4.49 p.m.
The Earl of Onslow:I should like to support the amendment on some of the grounds raised by my noble friend Lord Salisbury. He doubted whether the
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NFU was actually interested in extra tenancies. It is palpably obvious that they are not interested in extra tenancies. The NFU, rightly, from its own point of view—I suspect that it is fairly narrow—is interested in protecting the rights and extending the privileges of its present members. That is what its members pay it for. It is for us in Parliament, when people behave like SOGAT—I am sorry, I mean the NFU—to say that perhaps they should not behave like that. It is for us to say that it is in the interests of the community as a whole that farming should be thrown open to a wider audience.
The noble Lord, Lord John-Mackie, made a speech on the last amendment which was the most perfect Tory squire speech of about 1880 that I have ever heard. My heart went out to him. I sympathise with every single thing he said. He was arguing passionately for the trees around his farm and for the inheritance of his children and his grandchildren, and he told us what his grandfather had said. We shall have him moving up in the peerage if he goes on like that any more. It was superbly good stuff. But he did not in any way even possibly allow for one extra bright young man to get into farming, and that, I think, is what we are trying to do. The Bill may or will go a little way towards that. It will be considerably improved if the 1976 tenancy arrangements are taken out, and if and when we come to short-term tenancies or fixed-term tenancies I hope that it will be improved very much indeed.
It is important that the life of the countryside should continue; it is important that the life of the countryside should be enriched by new blood; it is important that larger numbers of people should live in the big areas of Wiltshire, Suffolk and Norfolk. All of those things actually go against the interests of the NFU, but I suggest that they are in the interests of the country as a whole and that on this occasion we should not go along 100 per cent. with the views of the National Farmers' Union.
The Earl of Swinton:It has been suggested that the Bill as drafted does not go far enough and that Clause 2 should operate to restrict succession in the case of existing tenancies as well as tenancies entered into after the Act is passed. Though perhaps not entirely effective in terms of drafting, my noble friend's amendment seeks to do this and would seem to restrict succession by virtue of the retention of subsection (2) to tenancies where one succession has already taken place.
Though in agreement with the view that the 1976 Act was ill-conceived, I feel it would be equally wrong and damaging to abolish or limit succession to existing tenancies. This would be a radical and retrospective measure. I think it was my noble friend Lord Radnor who mentioned the question of two types of tenants being produced. I agree that this is probably not ideal but we do not live in an ideal world. In fact, the Government had to take a view between the two extremes of either leaving things as they were, and not repealing the 1976Act. and taking the line that has been pressed by several of my noble friends here today and making the whole thing retrospective. We reckoned that the lesser of the two evils was to go for a system which would end up with two types of tenants. In fact, it will in time cure itself. Many noble

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Lords have said in the course of these debates that agriculture is a very "long time" business. It certainly is; it will take a long time for this to work its way through and for there to be one general standard. However, that is a small price to pay.
We cannot in any case ignore the fact that many tenants, probably a very large number, may have made arrangements and may have entered into very substantial financial commitments based on the assumption that the present succession arrangements, based on two generations, will continue to apply. I am sure it would be wrong to try to go further than we are already proposing in correcting the excesses of the 1976 legislation by introducing provisions which would adversely affect such tenants and their successors.
We have been accused of placating the Opposition. I do not think that the Opposition appear very placated by the Bill, and I am certain that the one matter upon which they would agree with this side of the House is that we definitely have not been trying to placate the Opposition. It seems to me a strange and very peculiar argument that there is no point in passing any legislation which you think that the other side, when they get in, will repeal. If that were taken to its logical conclusion no Government, of any party, would produce any legislation at all. That might go down extremely well with the general public; there might be loud cries of. "Hear hear!"from the country. But I do not think that it would go down very well in this House because, after all, it would do us out of a job and this is a jolly comfortable place to come and work in as I am sure all of your Lordships appreciate. So, in my view, that is the most extraordinary argument that I have ever heard put forward.
However, I want to be serious about this matter. One of the greatest criticisms of the 1976 Act was that it was unfair to landlords in its retrospective effect. To legislate now to remove succession from existing tenancies would have equally damaging consequences. I hope we can agree in this Committee that two wrongs do not make a right. That, of all things, is upon what I would rest the Government's cause. It is not just to act retrospectively. My noble friend Lord Salisbury has tried to argue that this is, in fact, not retrospective legislation. I suggest to the Committee that it is retrospective. I have said it once and I will say it twice and even three times; two wrongs do not make a right and I hope, therefore, that my noble friend will not press the amendment.
Lord Monson:Is the noble Earl really saying that no privileges granted to pressure groups by a Labour Government, however unjustifiable those privileges may be, should ever be revoked by a Conservative Government?
The Earl of Swinton:The noble Lord gets me considerably confused. The first time he argued that it was no good doing anything because when the other side come in they will turn it hack again. If I understand him aright, he is now trying to say that there is some sort of deal so that we do not undo what they did. I do not think he can have it both ways.
Lord Prys-Davies:We very much agree with the Minister that this is a severe amendment. We believe that it is retrospective. Since 1976 many tenants have relied on the 1976 Act and they have acted on the strength of its provisions. Moreover, being induced by the expectation that an eligible member of his family will probably succeed to the tenancy, a tenant may have embarked in good faith on liabilities and altered his position by borrowing or by expenditure on his farm. Therefore, we submit that, since the 1976 Act has created in a tenant's mind the expectation that a member of his family would succeed to the tenancy on his death, technically Parliament should not allow that expectation to be defeated. If this amendment were carried it would allow that expectation to be defeated.
The Earl of Onslow:Before the noble Lord sits down I should like to raise a matter with him. He has said that it is certain that several people have entered agreements based on succession. Can he give us an example of just one such agreement that has been entered into, or is it just surmise on his part?
Lord Prys-Davies:What I said was that, induced by the expectation, it is probable or likely that the tenant will have embarked upon liabilities and expenditure and, indeed, will have continued to farm.
The Earl of Onslow: In other words, it is a guess on the noble Lord's part? He has no evidence of it.
Lord Prys-Davies: There have been so many hunches. When I asked Ministers for evidence that Section 18 has produced ill effects I was told that there was no firm evidence; there was no comprehensive assessment of the ill effects of the Act. I am sure that my noble friend Lord John-Mackie will be able to rely on his own experience in the farming community and produce evidence where tenants have incurred liabilities on the expectation that they would have the benefit of the Act.
The Earl of Caithness: Having listened very carefully to the noble Lord's speech, would he agree that the argument he used to support the tenant's case can be used, with exactly the same words, to support the landlord's case for tenancies pre-1976?
Lord Prys-Davies: The answer to that is, No. The 1976 Act was not meant to be an experimental Act; it was not meant to be a temporary Act: it was meant to be long-standing.
The Earl of Caithness:The point is that landlords entered into an agreement in the belief that the tenancy could be reconsidered at the end of that tenant's life. The arguments which the noble Lord put forward for maintaining the 1976 Act can be put forward in exactly the same way for maintaining the landlord's position pre-1976.
Viscount Mountgarret: Perhaps it would be helpful if I intervened at this juncture because my amendment, No. 36, might go some way towards meeting the point made by my noble friend Lord Swinton that two wrongs do not make a right. While in theory and in principle having great sympathy with my

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noble friends Lord Radnor and Lord Salisbury, who moved this amendment, it would seem that perhaps we are going too far completely to unscramble the terms of succession of the 1976 Act, for reasons which perhaps I ought to go into when my amendment is reached.
However, if my noble friends would read my amendment, No. 36, they might think it better possibly to withdraw this amendment and to see whether we cannot find a more middle-ground approach to the problem.
The Earl of Radnor: There has been a very considerable debate on this matter and I think that most of the questions which have been posed have been answered satisfactorily by Members in other parts of the Committee. Therefore, I shall be brief in my conclusion, but there are some matters which I must mention, at least to say who I agree with and who I do not.
First, I should like to touch on the matter of retrospection. I must admit that I agree with my noble friend Lord Salisbury. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Monson, outlined very well other pieces of legislation which have been in exactly the same position, with not too much comment being made. I do not believe that this is truly retrospective and it is certainly not what I would call retroactive. I hope noble Lords will forgive me if I forget who said what. Of course, one absolutely agrees with the wish to avoid "ping pong" legislation, but this Bill is a change. I think that the best way to deal with it is to go back to 1976 and then to sit tight. That is the best way to avoid further change. In none of my speeches have I mentioned a rather broad concept concerning ping pong, which is that I think the landlord is beginning to lose confidence in Parliament over legislation to do with land tenure. If he did not lose it in 1976 and this Bill goes through as it is drafted, I am sure he will now. That will be another nail in the coffin.
I should like to comment on the remark by the noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie, that I had produced a wrecking amendment. The whole idea of tabling this amendment was not to wreck the Bill but to improve it, and I am quite sure that it would improve the Bill.
I think that I have said quite enough for one day. My noble friend Lord Swinton has said that two wrongs do not make a right. So far as I am concerned the 1976 Act was wrong and this Bill in this respect is wrong, and those are the two wrongs which I do not like very much. I should like to get the Bill straight from now on. This is a part of the Bill that does not allow for compromise. Last Tuesday, Clause 1 provided a great deal of fun for everyone and many experienced people made very lucid speeches. This is perfectly simple. It is no good my asking my noble friend to take the matter away, think about it and hash it about. So I shall have to divide the Committee to find out what your Lordships think.
5.5 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 33) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 18; Not-Contents, 171.

DIVISION NO. 2

CONTENTS

Brooks of Tremorfa, L.

Knutsford, V.

Caithness, E.

Monson, L.

Coleraine, L.

Northbourne, L.

Craigavon, V.

Onslow, E.

Cromartie, E.

Radnor, E. [Teller.]

Forbes, L.

Salisbury, M. [Teller.]

Forester, L.

Somers, L.

Kinloss, Ly.

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

Kinnaird, L.

Wrenbury, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Airey of Abingdon, B.

Henley, L.

Allerton, L.

Hives, L.

Alport, L.

Holderness, L.

Ardwick, L.

Home of the Hirsel, L.

Attlee, E.

Hornsby-Smith, B.

Avon, E.

Houghton of Sowerby, L.

Aylestone, L.

Howie of Troon, L.

Balfour of Inchrye, L.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Belhaven and Stenton, L.

Jenkins of Putney, L.

Beloff, L.

John-Mackie, L.

Belstead, L.

Kaberry of Adel, L.

Bessborough, E.

Kemsley, V.

Biddulph, L.

Kilbracken, L.

Birk, B.

Killearn, L.

Bishopston, L.

Kilmany, L.

Blake, L.

Kilmarnock, L.

Boston of Faversham, L.

Kimberley, E.

Boyd-Carpenter, L.

Kinnoull, E.

Broadbridge, L.

Lane-Fox, B.

Brockway, L.

Lauderdale, E.

Bruce of Donington, L.

Lawrence, L.

Bruce-Gardyne, L.

Leatherland, L.

Buccleuch and Queensberry, D.

Lloyd of Hampstead, L.

Longford, E.

Byers, L.

Lucas of Chilworth, L.

Campbell of Alloway, L.

Lyell, L.

Campbell of Croy, L.

Mackie of Benshie, L.

Carmichael of Kelvingrove, L.

MacLehose of Beoch, L.

Clinton, L.

MacLeod of Fuinary, L.

Collison, L.

Malmesbury, E.

Colwyn, L.

Mancroft, L.

Constantine of Stanmore, L.

Margadale, L.

Cottesloe, L.

Marley, L.

Cox, B.

Massereene and Ferrard, V

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Maude of Stratford-upon- Avon, L.

Darling of Hillsborough, L.

David, B.

Mayhew, L.

Davidson, V.

Merrivale, L.

Dean of Beswick, L.

Middleton, L.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Molloy, L.

Diamond, L.

Molson, L.

Digby, L.

Monk Bretton, L.

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

Mottistone, L.

Drumalbyn, L.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Eccles, V.

Murton of Lindisfarne, L.

Ellenborough, L.

Nicol, B.

Elton, L.

Northchurch, B.

Elwyn-Jones, L.

Nugent of Guildford, L.

Ewart-Biggs, B.

Ogmore, L.

Fanshawe of Richmond, L.

Oram, L.

Fitt, L.

Orkney, E.

Fortescue, E.

Peart, L.

Fraser of Kilmorack, L.

Pender, L.

Gainford, L.

Penrhyn, L,

Glanusk, L.

Peyton of Yeovil, L.

Glenkinglas, L.

Phillips, B.

Granville of Eye, L.

Pitt of Hampstead, L.

Gray of Contin, L.

Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L.

Grimond, L.

Porritt, L.

Grimston of Westbury, L.

Prys-Davies, L.

Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L.

Rankeillour, L.

Reigate, L.

Hale, L.

Renton, L.

Hatch of Lusby, L.

Ridley, V.

Hemphill, L.

Robson of Kiddington, B.

469

Rochester, L.

Strauss, L.

Rodney, L.

Swinton, E. [Teller.]

Ross of Marnock, L.

Terrington, L.

St. Davids, V.

Teynham, L.

Sandford, L.

Thorneycroft, L.

Sandys, L.

Tranmire, L.

Savile, L.

Trumpington, B.

Seear, B.

Underhill, L.

Selkirk, E.

Vaux of Harrowden, L.

Sempill, Ly.

Vickers, B.

Shinwell, L.

Vivian, L.

Skelmersdale, L.

Waldegrave, E.

Spens, L.

Wallace of Coslany, L.

Stallard, L.

Walston, L.

Stanley of Alderley, L.

Wedderburn of Charlton, L

Stewart of Alvechurch, B.

Westbury, L.

Stewart of Fulham, L.

Whitelaw, V.

Stodart of Leaston, L.

Wigoder, L.

Stoddart of Swindon, L.

Wilson of Langside, L.

Stone, L.

Wise, L.

Strabolgi, L.

Wootton of Abinger, B.

Strathcona and Mount Royal, L.

Wynford, L.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.
[Amendment No. 34 not moved.]
5.18 p.m.
The Earl of Caithness The Earl of Caithness moved Amendment No. 35:
Page 6, line 6, after ("granted") insert ("before the coming into force of that section of the 1976 Act or")
The noble Earl said: I have spoken to this amendment. It is similar to Amendment No. 33 but a great deal more moderate, and in that case I hope it will commend itself to the Committee. I beg to move.
Lord Walston: Again I have sympathy with the noble Earl in this amendment. On the face of it, it has a considerable amount of justice; and on the face of it, it does not have the disadvantage which the previous amendment had of retrospective legislation. Thinking about it in more detail and somewhat more deeply, I am afraid I must oppose it, and we on these Benches will oppose it, on two grounds.
First, although it is not retrospective in the sense that the previous amendment was, there is no doubt at all that farming families, as a result of the security which the 1976 Act gave to them, have taken certain steps and have made certain provisions which they could not have done had they had security for only one life. Let us take the somewhat hypothetical example, based on fact, of a father in his forties or fifties, perhaps, when the 1976 Act came in. His son was in some other occupation, as frequently happens, but because of the security which was offered, not only to the son but to the grandson also, he decided to give up that occupation to farm with his father. As a result of the amendment being accepted, at the age of 40 or 45, having been farming perhaps for 15 years, he will now find that he no longer has the security which he was led to expect would be his, and his whole way of life has been altered.
That is not an isolated case. Your Lordships can all think of similar cases which have arisen or which would arise if the amendment were accepted. On those grounds of an element of retrospection and injustice, I believe that the amendment should be opposed.
My second ground is that we do not want to over complicate the Bill. We have already had a whole
470
series of amendments, some of which may be accepted, and I hope some modifications will be incorporated as a result of others which have been discussed. This is a relatively minor matter not affecting a large number of people, but will add a further complication and give rise to further discussion. I should like to avoid that, and I suspect the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, would also like to avoid it.
We must remember why we do not want to be dictated to either by the CLA or by the NFU. The Bill is a result of a delicate balance and discussions between them. While I am quite prepared on a matter of serious importance to upset that balance and come down more on one side than the other, in a matter of this sort, which is of only minor significance, it would be unfortunate if the balance were disturbed. I advise noble Lords to reject the amendment.
Lord Belstead: I should like to recognise that my noble friend Lord Caithness has thought seriously about trying to make alterations to the Government's policy on the repeal of the 1976 Act, and in this amendment is endeavouring to do so moderately and reasonably. Indeed, the amendment has, on the face of it, the merit of impeccable logic. But in this country we are not all that strong on logic and tend to prefer the pragmatic approach, or, in plain English, to ask the question: will it work?
I do not think that this amendment would work very well. For a start, it does not deal with the problem of those pre-1976 tenancies which may already have passed to the second generation. Thus a chain of succession has already begun; and on that question the amendment is silent. My noble friend does not give sufficient weight to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Walston—namely, the distress which could be caused to tenants who have already laid plans and made investments for the future, on the assurance that the 1976 Act would not be repealed retrospectively. Although I well understand the motives of my noble friend, I am afraid I cannot accept the amendment.
The Earl of Caithness:I am grateful for the reply from my noble friend. I have no wish to press the amendment. In cases where succession has already taken place, my amendment would have no effect because that would be the current tenant and that would be the end of the matter. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Viscount Mountgarret Viscount Mountgarret moved Amendment No. 36A:
Page 6, line 8, leave out subsection (2) and insert—
("(2)(a) The right of succession as provided by section 18(1) of that Act will only apply for one succession beyond the present tenancy provided the existing tenant exercises his right (if any) to pass the tenancy on to his heir prior to attaining the age of 65.
(b)Succession shall apply automatically if the existing tenant dies before attaining the age of 65, provided the successor is qualified under the provisions of the 1976 Act.
(c)Where a first succession tenancy has been established before the passing of this Act, the provisions of paragraphs (a) and (b) of this subsection shall not apply.")
The noble Viscount said: Your Lordships' Committee has recently demonstrated that they feel very strongly indeed about the idea of returning to the

471
status quo prior to the passing of the 1976 Act. I hope, therefore, that the suggestion that I have made in this amendment, which seeks to mitigate the retrospective and rather more painful aspects of the 1976 Act, might perhaps find some sympathy with the Government.
This section of the 1976 Act was primarily concerned to ensure that the existing tenanted land available at that time would remain available to tenants for a considerable length of time ahead. It did very little, if anything, to encourage further availability of land for letting; in fact, it did just the reverse. My amendment provides that there should be only one right of succession beyond the present tenancy, rather than two as at present. The present tenant should retain his right to be a tenant for life, but his right, if any, to pass the tenancy on to his heir should be valid only if exercised before reaching the age of 65. That may be a useful clause because it gives the landlord and the tenant family some idea of the future and what the plans and proposals arc. If the tenant dies before the age of 65, succession should be allowed automatically, provided that the heir or successor is qualified under the present arrangements.
Furthermore, in paragraph (c), if there has already been a succession since the 1976 Act, these provisions should not apply. The reason I suggest that is because in 1976 existing tenants had a terrific bonus issue. They did not know what would be handed out to them. They could not expect then that automatically their family, heirs and successors would remain on the farm for a long time ahead. If we could limit that length of time out of fairness and equity to the tenants, that would go some way towards easing the great inconvenience presently found by many landlords. Where existing tenants have understandably laid plans for the future for their immediate successors, I do not think it is likely that they will have gone as far as to make plans and provisions for the second generation. Therefore, any possible change of plan at this stage should not be greatly inconvenient to the second generation successors.
As a final point on this amendment, it says in the first half of the amendment
"… leave out subsection (2)…";
in other words, in its entirety. I should like to say that subsequent to tabling this amendment, I am given to understand that it is probably undesirable to take out the existing paragraphs (c) and (d) of the subsection because (c) might well be a necessary protection for the parties in ensuring proper management of the land; and that there should be an ability to contract in; and paragraph (d) provides some protection for the tenant against the landlord possibly seeking to adopt avoidance measures. I understand that. I would not want to go very much further on that particular point and therefore I shall be withdrawing the amendment. But I should be grateful and interested to know what my noble friends on the Front Bench might feel able to do and what the Committee might feel about trying to get some of the provisions of the second half of the amendment written into the Bill. I beg to move.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: I should like to say that although this amendment has a great deal to commend it, the objection is the same as to the
472
previous amendment which has been voted on, that it cuts across the whole sense of the Bill. It alters one of the main clauses and therefore destroys any degree of agreement which was reached. It is a little illogical in some things but it is not a bad amendment, really. However, it has the great fault that it wrecks one of the main purposes of the Bill.
Lord Belstead: I repeat, if I may, what I said on the last amendment; namely, that I genuinely understand the reasons why in this case my noble friend Lord Mountgarret has moved this amendment. I think it is not unreasonable for those of us on this side of the Committee to recall that when the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, produced his very substantial report, in paragraph 626 the noble Lord and his committee rather drily remarked of the 1976 Act:
"If the legislation were not already in existence it is unlikely that we should be recommending identical provisions as being right for agriculture".
You can say that again! It really was the most disastrous thing to do, to put as a sort of afterthought in another place three generations of succession which would go on for over 100 years and to ask those who own land simply to sign away their birthright when what they would be wishing to do would be as landowners have done over the centuries: voluntarily to have the sort of agreement between landlords and tenants which has been such a bastion of British agriculture. It really was disastrous. I understand absolutely why my noble friends Lord Mountgarret and Lord Caithness put down these amendments.
Having said that, there are difficulties. One of them is that, in a strange way the first bit of my noble friend's amendment does the same thing as noble Lords opposite were trying to do in Amendment No. 31. I am sure that my noble friend Lord Mountgarret would not dream of doing anything that noble Lords on the Benches opposite would do; namely, to restrict succession to only one generation of succession. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie, has justification in saying that in cutting across the intentions of the clause, we then run into other troubles. I think that it is questionable, if I may say so, whether one should say in the final subsection of his amendment that because a successor happens to have succeeded since 1976 then that is it and nobody else should succeed at all. I think that that is pretty draconian.
Thirdly—and here I say it very much more helpfully—I think that the middle part of my noble friend's amendment about retirement age is a very interesting suggestion which we are going to come on to again (although the age of 65 is not specifically mentioned) in the very next amendment by my noble friend Lord Kinnoull. It is a matter we shall come on to yet again on amendments which have been taken down from different parts of the Committee. In saying to my noble friend that I well understand the motives for this amendment, I am sorry but it is difficult for the Government to be able to go further than to express understanding and sympathy. To accept the amendment will bring us back into retrospection, and we are determined—I believe, rightly—not to do that.
Viscount Mountgarret: I am grateful for what my noble friend has said. I am not sure that I go along

473
entirely with everything that he has said. I wondered why I was in some difficulty in finding myself in total agreement with the noble Lord, Lord John-Mackie. My noble friend Lord Caithness said, I think, that that was all right. I will look to see what precisely has been said. In the meantime, I will withdraw the amendment as it stands. I should like to think more about it and may come back to some part of the amendment on Report stage. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
5.38 p.m.
The Earl of Kinnoull The Earl of Kinnoull moved Amendment No. 37:
Page 6, line 24, at end insert—
("( ) Without prejudice to subsections (1) and (2) above, the said section 18(1) shall extend and apply in any case where the sole (or sole surviving) tenant of an agricultural holding gives twelve-months' written notice to the landlord and the tenant desires to retire as tenant, as section 18(1) would apply were the tenant to die on the date of expiration of the notice; and the subsequent provisions of Part II of the 1976 Act shall (except as mentioned in section 18(1)) apply accordingly with necessary modifications.").
The noble Earl said: I beg to move this amendment standing in my name. This is the second amendment to try to improve the complicated succession provisions of the 1976 Act. It infringes upon the eligibility test of succession for existing tenants which, of course, are not being taken out of their rights under this Bill. The provision of succession rights of the tenants under the 1976 Act are by no means perfect. Perhaps I may quote a leading Queen's counsel who said that the provisions as they are drafted at present fail to shut out the claims of many applicants who are extremely well provided for and cannot by any stretch of the imagination be said to require the benefit of the Act of 1976; and, conversely, some applicants who are in genuine need of rights of succession find themselves undeservedly disqualified. I think that is a very balanced view by a leading QC.
The amendment seeks to improve in one aspect the eligibility test, the aspect of retirement. It is a very strange situation that in every other walk of life it is quite normal to find that people retire at 60, 65 or 70, but not so in farming. Why not in farming? The noble Lord, Lord Northfield, and his committee suggested, I think in paragraph 467, under the sub-heading "Fewer exits" that it was just "a way of life". Is farming today just a way of life? Does it not require high risk capital? Does it not require enormously hard physical work and does it not require both skill and judgment in a continually changing world of technology, where noble Lords who may have been trained even 10 years ago are now out of date in some technology?
There is no excuse in my view for encouraging and for continuing to encourage generations of geriatric farmers. I am not pointing a finger at anyone in this Committee in saying that. Perhaps on a more serious note, there is no excuse for blocking the farmers' ladder, as my noble friend Lord Stodart said at Second Reading. The present position of the 1976Act does not allow any real flexibility for the tenant to retire. He has two options. Either he can retire by agreement with the landlord or he has to die. That is a very narrow option, and how damaging to the industry! This amendment will allow the tenant to give notice to
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the landlord that he wishes to retire without endangering his succession rights. My noble friend has not given much away so far during the two days of our Committee and I hope that he will perhaps "break his duck" on this amendment. I beg to move.
Lord Northfield: I wonder whether we might ask the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, to be helpful to the Committee at this point. Would he agree that we might have a general debate at this stage about the whole issue of retirement at 65 which arises on my Amendment No. 45A and also on the amendment of my noble friend Lord John-Mackie, No. 59? If he says he would prefer us to deal with this retirement issue in one debate, it would be helpful to know.
Lord Belstead: If the noble Lords, Lord Northfield and Lord John-Mackie, have no objection, I would have thought that would be for the convenience of the Committee, but I am in the hands of your Lordships.
Lord John-Mackie: We would very much agree with that because our amendment is very much like that of the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, and I am sure it would save a lot of time if they were discussed together.
Lord Stanley of Alderley: May I make just one point: there are two sorts of retirement. One is the retirement concerning those who are protected under the 1976 Act, and then there is the question of retirement for those who are not covered but who will be covered by future tenancies. As I understand it, my noble friend's amendment is really dealing with those who are protected under the 1976 Act. I just wonder whether I ought perhaps to make a remark on that specifically at the moment.
Lord Renton: Could we be told exactly which amendments are therefore to be discussed together?
Lord Northfield: It is suggested that No. 45A, which is called "transfer earlier than death", and also No. 59, which is also called "transfer earlier than death", are both on the same point as that raised in the amendment of the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull. May I say I do hope that we can discuss them together so that we can get some response from the Minister as to how he sees the whole issue of retirement, as opposed to waiting for death and succession.
I do not necessarily want to read from my Committee's report, but I would point out that first of all we did say that we objected to compulsory retirement because that can cause a good deal of hardship in particular cases, except in the case of small holdings; and we can deal with that matter in connection with another amendment. But in the case of voluntary retirement my committee recommended that there should be encouragement to transfer earlier than death, and we said:
"We are agreed that this could be achieved by providing that the tenant might, at or after the age of 65, with his nominated successor, apply for transfer of the tenancy. The landlord could contest the application both to oppose the succession and to put his own case for possession".
This is what I have tried to deal with in my Amendment No. 45A. That says in effect that the provisions of this Act—namely, Clause 2 and the new

475
kinds of tenancies—as well as of the 1976 Act, shall apply where tenants, joint tenants and so on reach the age of 65 and application is made to the tribunal for the transfer of the tenancy at that age without waiting for the death of the person concerned. It ends by saying:
"such transfer, if agreed to by the Tribunal, shall constitute statutory succession within the meaning of these Acts".
In other words, I have tried to combine most of the views about retirement; but there is one particular point I have to emphasise. My amendment suggests that it is also the landlord who can apply to the Tribunal to force the pace of succession at age 65 of the tenant or tenants. I do that because evidence that we took indicated that there were cases where a tenant was, if one might say so, "hanging on" unduly and was probably best succeeded, in terms of what would be good for the farm and the land generally; the tenant ought really to be succeeded, in view of his age, by his successor. Therefore, I have put in my amendment the right of the landlord to go to the tribunal to "force the pace" as well as the eligible persons who would otherwise succeed.
I believe this whole issue is very important indeed because if we are going now, as we do in this amendment, to proceed beyond the strict agreement of the NFU and the landlords to broaden this Bill in ways which would make more tenancies available, then this is one of the first steps that we should be taking. It is the case that people do hang on because there is no statutory right of succession until death occurs and, in my view, it would be sensible to pick an age and let the tribunal adjudicate finally as to who was being reasonable about the whole affair—whether the landlord was being reasonable, the tenant, the successor or whoever. That is why my amendment is deliberately put down as a new clause to allow the tribunal to look at the whole situation as it stands and suggest the correct way to proceed.
If I may say so, one of the problems, I think, with some of the other amendments is that the desire to retire, or being ill, or whatever, is considered. I do not think that comes into it at all. It should simply be the case that at 65 someone should have the right—in my amendment I suggest it is the tribunal, because the tribunal makes all the other decisions in regard to the 1976 Act—to say, "Look, we think it is in the general interest of the holding, the landlord, the farmer and the eligible person to succeed". On balance, it is, or it is not, right that this tenancy should be transferred at age 65 without waiting for the death of the tenant. That is why I have put down the amendment in this form. I hope that this has opened a debate on the whole issue, and I present it in that spirit.
Lord Stanley of Alderley: I agree entirely with the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, that this is a most important subject to which we should address ourselves this afternoon. What I do not agree with him on, needless to say, is how we should do it. It is absolutely vitally important that your Lordships should get quite clear in your minds the position of someone under the 1976 Act. It is totally different from the position of someone who will come in after this Bill is passed. I should like those two issues to be dealt with separately; otherwise we shall get ourselves
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in a muddle and, what is very much more important, if we send the Minister away to think about it and the industry also has to think about it, they will get into a muddle over it. I think that totally different provisions should be made for the two.
If I may, I will say something very quickly about my noble friend's amendment, My noble friend Lord Kinnoull said that it is normal to retire. That is so, but I would point out straight away that if you bring in compulsory retirement for farmers, they will be the only self-employed people who will have compulsory retirement. I am not immediately ruling that out, but I am just saying that I think my noble friend is slightly at a miss there.
I am in agreement in principle with my noble friend's amendment for some form of retirement, certainly so far as the 1976 Act tenants are concerned. I believe his amendment will have technical problems attached to it. I am told you will have to write the 1976 Act again more or less completely; but that is merely a technicality which I am sure can be done. I hope therefore that my noble friend will be patient here and I also hope that the Government will be patient while they listen to the debates that I am sure we are going to have on the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, to try to get a consensus here.
Again, as regards my noble friend's amendment, I would hope that some definite age might be put into the wording because, although it may sound nice to have any old age, if your Lordships think about it carefully it could cause considerable family problems. For instance, you might get, "Let's kick the old chap out at 45". That is what they might say, and I think that would be wrong. But let me hasten to add to my noble friend Lord Kinnoull that I have great sympathy with his amendment. I hope that at some time the Government will be able to think about it, together with the other discussions that we shall have later on.
Lord Walston: I certainly support the principle behind the amendment of the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull. I think that it is sound and I speak as a geriatric farmer myself who has, to all intents and purposes, retired from farming. It is very important that it shoud be easy for farmers, when they reach a certain age—and what that certain age should be is very difficult to arrive at—if they have security of tenure for their sons, to pass it on rather than have to wait till their death. It is absolutely essential that that should be done and it would enormously strengthen any legislation such as that which we are now talking about.
I am not so happy about the proposals of the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, and they require a great deal of thought. I know of several cases where the old man hangs on and says, "There is nothing I should like better than to give up, but I have to wait a few more years, because the boy is not quite up to it yet, and he is having problems with his wife and children", or whatever it may be. "I shall do it in another few years". But of course that time never comes and he stays on and on, because he likes wandering around the fields saying "Don't use those sprays. We did not do it that way", and so on.
Unless he is going willingly, you will have all sorts of frictions and unhappinesses not only between the

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landlord and the tenant, but between the tenant and the heir. After all, one must remember that in most cases the old man owns the tenant capital—the tractors, the combines, the cows, and so on—which amounts to quite a lot of money. Unless he is prepared willingly to hand those on to his successor—his son—you will not have a very satisfactory situation. The tribunal may say, "The old man is too old and doddery. He is no good and the son should take over", and the landlord may be content with that. The old man does not quite say, "Not over my dead body", but says "If he is going to take over, I shall not give him all the tenant capital. He will have to buy it". The son will not have the capital with which to buy it, and if he borrows he will be overburdened with debts and will not make a success of the farm. Those are some of the practical difficulties which come to my mind.
I am not saying that I am against the proposal of the noble Lord, Lord Northfield. I should like to see it work, if it can be worked out in such a way that it is practicable and does not cause more troubles than it seeks to avoid. But as regards the amendment of the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, that seems to be an admirable one and one which deserves our support.
Lord Prys-Davies: We on these Benches cannot bring ourselves to advocate compulsory retirement, but we see considerable merit in our Amendment No. 59, in the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, and in the amendment which is before the Committee. We reject the principle of compulsory retirement, because that would cause hardship. If we were to single out for retirement a farmer who is conducting his own business, that would be the only example of a self-employed person being compelled to retire.
Nevertheless, the principle of voluntary retirement and redundancy has been an important feature of social policy throughout our century. It will continue to occur and our amendment, and the amendment of the noble Earl, are an encouragement to voluntary retirement. As has been said, under the 1976 Act, unless there is an agreement between the landlord and the tenant, the succession provisions apply only on the death of the contractual tenant. The result is that tenants hold on to their tenancies, sometimes into advanced age, at the expense of the standards of husbandry. When a farmer who is conducting his own business ought to retire is dependent upon all the circumstances, and they vary considerably. That is why we find difficulty in going along with this magic age of 65. His retirement must depend on the state of his health, on his wishes and on his finances. But when the time comes and he wishes to retire, if the landlord is unwilling to agree an assignment of the tenancy to an eligible successor during his lifetime, then it appears to us that the tenant ought to be able to go to the ALT and apply for the transfer of the tenancy to his nominated successor. So there is a great deal of common ground expressed by these three amendments, and I hope that the Minister can respond constructively to the underlying principles.
Earl Waldegrave: I am sure that the Minister will respond constructively, as he has done all the way
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through the Committee stage, but I hope that he will keep one point very clear in his mind when he replies. I refer to the point which my noble friend Lord Stanley of Alderley made, that one has to think very differently about these two classes of tenant—the man who has the three-generation tenancy and the new tenant who will have the one-generation tenancy. This will be the most difficult point and that is why, if we are to vote, it may be necessary to vote separately on these amendments.
5.58 p.m.
Lord Belstead: If I may pick up the point made by my noble friend Lord Waldegrave at the very end of his remarks, may I express the hope that we will not find ourselves voting on these amendments, because I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, that there is a good deal of common ground and I should like to make it crystal clear to the Committee that the Government very much welcome each of these amendments as being a step towards an objective which seems to be shared on all sides. If we can provide in this Bill in your Lordships' House for a really fair provision for voluntary retirements, and thereby increase the frequency with which tenancies come forward, then we shall have done a good job.
If I may take, first, the amendment of my noble friend Lord Kinnoull, this is a very attractive concept. But my noble friend will forgive me if I suggest that the drafting appears to be a little compressed towards the end of the amendment, and I think that the draftsman would need to have a look to see how we should talk about "necessary modifications", without just referring to them by those rather sweeping and dismissive words. But that is a drafting matter.
It is interesting that my noble friend does not mention an age in his amendment. That is a matter which has already been picked up in this brief debate and I am not sure whether my noble friend omitted that deliberately. Certainly, an age is being discussed by those who are interested in this matter and, again, thought would have to be given to decide whether 65—if an age was written into any amendment—was the right age and whether that would be suitable if one were talking about the retirement age of women. Here I am afraid that I have to look at the Committee and say that I think it is a matter to which we need to give a little thought.
I assume from my noble friend's amendment that the application would be decided in the final analysis by the agricultural land tribunal, though my noble friend's amendment does not say so in terms. Assuming that that is the way it will be decided, as my noble friend will know, in some other amendments there is provision that, having made such an application, you cannot go on making the application again. This is a protection for the landlord. Would not my noble friend wish some such provision to be put into the amendment?
Turning to the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, again I listened with very great interest to what he had to say, and as I did so it occurred to me that what he is seeking to do in Amendment No. 45A is covered in part by existing legislation and in part by Clause 2(2)(c) of the Bill.

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Under Section 18(5) of the 1976 Act, the tenant can seek the agreement of his landlord to retire and to be succeeded by an eligible successor. The section also ensures that such successions can count for the purposes of the two succession rule. This is further reinforced by Clause 2(2)(c) of the Bill, which provides that agreements in writing entered into in this way can count for succession purposes. To that extent, the noble Lord's proposal would run concurrently with what has been proposed and is being proposed in legislation. A further point is that under Section 18(5) the tenant may seek the agreement of his landlord at any time. He does not have to wait until the age of 65, although I recognise what the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, said in speaking to his amendment: that the landlord can take the initiative. Again, the Committee would wish to give a certain amount of thought to whether or not that was desirable.
Before leaving the noble Lord's amendment, may I say that I recognise that this matter was raised by the noble Lord's own committee and that we are indebted to his committee for the genesis of the ideas which are coming forward now in these important amendments. That is not mere politeness: if we can do something here, we shall most certainly have taken a step in the right direction.
Finally, may I deal with the amendment moved by the Front Bench opposite. Aspects of the amendment will obviously appeal to the Committee. It is made very clear in the wording that this is to be permissive, not mandatory. It is to be the wish of the tenant to retire on account of ill health and to be desirous of assigning the tenancy. It enables the eligible person to apply, with the written consent of the tenant, to the tribunal. It is most certainly permissive. Having said that, it chooses 60 rather than 65, gives ill health as the ground for retirement and (what is somewhat controversial) provides that only the eligible successor, rather than the tenant and the eligible successor together, need apply. To go quite so far as is proposed in the amendment in those particular respects would perhaps tip the balance rather too far in the tenant's favour, but we ought to look very carefully at Amendment No. 59 as well.
I realise that by taking these amendments together I have not satisfactorily answered my noble friend Lord Stanley of Alderley, and that I must look at his point. Both he and my noble friend Lord Waldegrave said that they feel that the tenancies formed under the Bill compared to tenancies formed before the Bill came into effect might need to be looked at differently. I must confess to both my noble friends that this expression of view has taken me aback. I say quite openly that I am not briefed on this point, and that I do not know quite how to answer. Therefore, I shall say what I intended to say: that if your Lordships feel that this is a sensible way to proceed, I would ask that these amendments should not be pressed.
I suggest that we should proceed in this way. I give an undertaking that the consultations on this point which have been taking place should now be brought to an end, that the Government should very seriously consider what has been said in your Lordships' Committee on this point and that we should use our best endeavours, if we possibly can, to bring forward
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an amendment which would receive all-party support at the Report stage. We shall certainly attempt to do this. As I have said before, I cannot promise that we shall be successful, but I have a feeling that the problems in this area should be easier to overcome than some of the other problems we have in the Bill.
Lord John-Mackie: I must thank the noble Lord for being what is called conciliatory at the Committee stage. The noble Lord, Lord Walston, said that to all intents and purposes he is retired. I must say emphatically that to all intents and purposes I am not retired. My only point relates to the question of age. The noble Lord, Lord Belstead, must have our original amendment in front of him, not the new starred Amendment No. 59, which does not have in it the age of 65 and illness. We gave the matter further thought and took out the age of 65 and illness. The amendment deals just with the tenant who wishes to retire.
I have been a member of various bodies all my life, including in particular the Forestry Commission. It has always worried me when I have seen young, able men of 60 having to retire. If one looks at the Civil Service as a whole, one sees that civil servants have to retire at the age of 60. To insert an age would spoil everything. When the Government look at the matter and come back with suggestions, I appeal to them not to put in an age qualification. Some people are becoming geriatric at the age of 50, while others do not approach the geriatric stage until they are nearly 80; so I appeal to the Government to leave out the age question.
Lord Stanley of Alderley: Before the noble Lord sits down, may I ask him whether he said that he wants an age in, or whether he does not?
Lord John-Mackie: I do not want an age in.
Lord Belstead: The noble Lord, Lord John-Mackie, is the best possible advertisement for not wanting an age in. May I offer my apologies to the noble Lord for using a line or two of a speaking note which referred to a previous form of the amendment. It is indeed a fact that ill health is not mentioned, which makes the amendment in the name of the noble Lord and his noble friend that much more attractive.
The Earl of Caithness: While we are discussing the problem of retirement, may I refer to a point which I made in my Second Reading speech; namely, the tenant who wants to retire but who has no successors and the landlord who agrees that the tenant can retire and who wants to relet the holding? A problem arises where the tenant cannot afford to retire. At Second Reading I raised the point that the tenant should be allowed to assign his tenancy for a capital sum, as is allowed in the commercial world. I have been unable to put down an amendment for this stage. I apologise for the fact that I got totally bogged down with the drafting. As so many amendments relating to retirement were put down, I thought that I would wait for this discussion and come forward with an amendment at the Report stage. I hope my noble friend will take this matter into consideration when thinking about the problem of retirement.
The Earl of Kinnoull: We are all grateful for the contributions which have been made on this subject. Of the three amendments at which we have been looking, mine is the gentlest, while those of noble Lords opposite are the hardest. They go soft, hard, hardest. Funnily enough, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, who leaves it to the agricultural land tribunal to decide the issue. I hope my noble friend will not duck the sensitive issue of allowing the landlord as well as the tenant the choice of electing to go to the agricultural land tribunal.
The sort of case which obviously will come up is where the tenant has lost some of his senses of good farming and has become extremely aggressive or difficult and is disruptive. It would be difficult, if that was effecting very bad farming—or it might come under bad husbandry; nevertheless, it would be difficult if one could see that he was no longer prepared to be conciliatory, even for the rights of his son and those who might succeed him.
My noble friend suggested that my own amendment was a bit compressed. I will only say that it was compressed with a refreshing air compared with Clause 1, which is not compressed. I hope that my noble friend, when he comes to look at Clause 1, will help to compress it further. I am happy to withdraw my amendment. My noble friend has given a handsome assurance that he will look very carefully at this important subject and will seek to obtain a fair provision of voluntary retirement. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
6.11 p.m.
On Question, Whether Clause 2 shall stand part of the Bill?
Lord Bishopston: I wish to move the Motion standing in the name of my noble friends in relation to Clause 2. This clause deals with the succession aspects of the 1976 Act and presents and alternative to those tenants of the future. The Bill is of course mainly Clauses 1 and 2; and the intention of the Bill, as the Minister pointed out on Second Reading and since, is to ensure that more people have entry into the farming industry.
But noble Lords are far from being satisfied that the Bill does that. There has been a great lack of enthusiasm on the Government Benches, highly populated as they always are during these sessions by noble Lords who have an interest—and quite rightly so—as landlords or as tenants. I have already declared an interest as a Church Commissioner and a member of the council of The National Trust—two bodies which have enormous areas of land under various uses, and not least under cultivation; although at the moment, I am speaking of course for the official Opposition.
The noble Lord, Lord Walston, was one of many in the industry who gave a most damning view of the Bill when he said during the Second Reading,
"The birth is a mouse; it is no more than that".—[Official Report, 8/11/1983; col. 720].
He is quoted as saying that the primary aim of the Bill, as made out by the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, was to arrest the decline of the tenant farmer. The noble Lord
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went on to say:
"If that is the primary aim—and I accept that it is—then I must say quite frankly that it has failed".
He was not the only one. The noble Lord, Lord Stodart of Leaston, stated that he took a more favourable view, but he said:
"Other than the NFU and the CLA, organisations which have written to me about this Bill seem to concentrate on two points. They say that to remove the succession laws would be of minimal benefit. They say that it will be far too slow and will create two kinds of tenants".—[Official Report, 8/11/1983; col. 729.]
That point was made also by the noble Earl, Lord Waldegrave, only a few moments ago. The noble Lord, Lord Stodart of Leaston, went on to say:
"and how, without indulging in retrospective legislation, could one do otherwise? They say that the rent formula is pretty useless"—
and indeed the Minister himself has already very kindly—and wisely I thought—agreed to take Clause 1 back—
"and that the open market value is just about the only way. They say with a fair amount of unanimity that, therefore, this Bill will achieve virtually nothing".
As I said out of fairness, the noble Lord, Lord Stodart of Leaston, went on to say:
"I take a much more favourable view than that, although I am somewhat cautious in forecasting a swift re-introduction of the farming ladder as we used to know it".
So there has not been a great deal of enthusiasm, although the Bill, as we know, is a package agreed between the NFU and the CLA, and about which I make no complaint because if one can get agreement within the industry before a measure comes here, that is going some way towards getting a Bill.
I will not mention that the same precedent might be used in relation to trade union, local government and other reform; the principle of getting agreement before it comes here. That may be for another day.
So we have those comments from members of the official bodies—the CLA and the NFU—and from people talking, as noble Lords quite rightly do, from their experience in the farming industry. So I say, and others have said the same thing, that we are left with two kinds of tenants. One kind is the tenant who has the benefit of succession under the 1976 Act. That Act was brought in during a period when I was Minister of State and my noble friends had responsibility. Despite the attacks on it, the principles of the 1976 Act had the support of the NFU. Indeed, the NFU even today, in a recent letter, say much the same thing:
"Whilst ideally the NFU would have wished tenants of new lettings to enjoy the family succession rights available under that Act, it has accepted that it is necessary to restrict successions to existing tenancies only so as to encourage new lettings".
The NFU is still in favour of the 1976 Act, but maybe to get this package they have accepted a compromise, which is before the Committee still.
The Northfield Committee report tells us very clearly that there is a need for much more information about the farming industry. To the credit of my friend Mr. John Silk in, when he was Minister of Agriculture and I was with him, we recognised that one could not answer questions in either House about the farming industry because there was a great lack of knowledge. My noble friend Lord Northfield has performed a great service to the industry by producing his report. I only wish that we could have more time to study some of its facts and recommendations.

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If one reads the report, the idea of Clause 2 that one can change the present situation with that clause and overcome many of the problems which are of concern to us all is not real. The report talks about the enormous changes which are taking place in the farming industry. They went back into the last century and came in three stages, right up to the 1970s. Noble Lords will know of the enormous changes. First, there was the enormous amount of manpower needed to operate farming in the old days. We know that there has been a great deal of mechanisation and that new technology has been brought in, and that fewer people are involved. The industry has contracted in many ways as far as opportunities are concerned—not only for farm workers but also, as a result of a contraction, in the number of farms available. We have seen amalgamations taking place, encouraged by all Governments to make increasingly efficient use of agriculture. That is bound to mean fewer opportunities for people to come into the farming industry.
There are many other factors as well. We all know about the effect of the common agricultural policy. Indeed, in the debate last Thursday there was an indication of the fear many have, not about coming into the industry but about staying in the industry. More people are likely to leave the industry even as a result of the Government's policy in relation to the CAP on the dairy industry; many will leave who are anxious to stay in.
There has also been a reduction in the number of opportunities caused by county councils selling smallholdings, and there has been the Land Settlement Association situation. There are all these matters to consider, apart from the points which the Government have made about the need for Clause 2 in order to stop the drift of people from the land because there is no opportunity to come in.
As I said earlier, I am a Church Commissioner and the Church Commissioners have for a very long time had the succession principle. We have a number of families who had succession for over 100 years. This has not meant that farming has gone down, that farms have deteriorated. Indeed, we all know that those who believe in the 1976 Act principles believe in having the best kind of farmers, able to make the farm viable; otherwise, of course, it is bad for all concerned.
Of course, when we are talking about rents and conditions of farming, we have to realise—and when I was a Minister I mentioned this to many meetings of the NFU—that on the one hand it is the job of Governments and others to make sure that the landlord and others in the industry can get a fair return—otherwise, there are no letting opportunities—and, on the other hand, it is also essential that the people to whom we wish to let farms are able to pay the rents demanded. So there is a very fine balance which has to be made between producer and consumer—the cost of the produce, the ability to buy it, the incentives a landlord has to let the farm and the ability of the tenant to find the rent.
Noble Lords will not need to be reminded that the number of people entering farming, or indeed staying in it, depends on taxation as well; but, of course, in this Bill we are not looking at all these aspects. I am not
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saying you can have a Bill covering all the aspects—financial, statutory tenancies and so forth. So we believe that this clause does need review. My noble friend Lord Prys-Davies has already said that the two clauses go together, and here we are discussing Clause 2, which is a certainty in the Bill at this moment, and we do not know what is going to come on the other part of the partnership, Clause 1.
We are hoping that the noble Lord the Minister will be pursuing the promise he made last week, and I am sure he will do his utmost. But how he can reconcile not only his own restrictions of the rent clause, Clause 1, with the objectives of your Lordships' Committee last time, running in about eight different directions, is something to be seen. But we are hopeful. I feel that this matter of Clause 2, which hangs together with Clause 1, is one which the Minister will see as requiring him to say that he will be prepared to reconsider Clause 2 in view of his promise to look at Clause 1. I hope that he will recognise some of the points my noble friends and I have made about some of the other factors over a wide range of situations which concern whether or not people enter into the farming industry. If I may say so, I think he will be well advised to say that he will look at Clause 2 and Clause 1 and come with comprehensive alternatives if possible.
Lord Stodart of Leaston: The noble Lord, Lord Bishopston, was kind enough to refer to some of the things I said on Second Reading. To make it quite clear, although I quoted, I qualified the quotations by saying that they were not my views. On the clause we are now discussing I said on Second Reading that, to me, Clause 2 is entirely basic within this Bill with a view to getting more tenancies on to the market.
I agree with the remark of the noble Lord, Lord John-Mackie, about the steady decline in tenancies and the slightly misleading figures that were given merely taking acreages of land. What I find quite astonishing, in view of the questions that can be answered, is the fact that since the Scottish legislation came in—a good many years ago now—or since 1976, nobody has apparently been able to say that in the 10 years from 1965 to 1975 X number of farms were let and in the following so many years X number of farms were let. It seems to me quite astounding. I can recall as a very junior Member in another place once asking the Minister of Public Building and Works, rather mischievously, how many pelicans there were in the Royal Parks, and what was their sex. I received the answer that there were two males and four females. I remember that my supplementary question was how the Minister knew this because certain textbooks said that the only thing that could determine the sex of a pelican was another pelican. If you could get an answer to that, how on earth is it that the two departments are unable to give us this information?
Of one thing I remain totally convinced, and that is the effect of the 1968 Act in Scotland and the 1976 Act which we are now discussing. Nothing will shake me in the belief that this did not put the most tremendous deterrent on landlords from letting farms. The attitude of the National Farmers' Union with regard to the 1976 Act has been quoted by the noble Lord, Lord Bishopston. In 1968 (I think I am right about the date) in an Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill

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applying to the United Kingdom, by some extraordinary coincidence—I was not here or in the other place in 1976, but, from what I have heard today, within the 1976 Act this provision was introduced at a slightly later stage in the Bill; but in the 1968 Act, which applied only to Scotland, it was at the Committee stage—the attitude of the English National Farmers' Union could not have been more forthright. They wrote to all of us and said there were absolutely no grounds for the hereditary system in farming; there were no valid grounds whatever for saying that a son or any near relation was likley to farm the land better than somebody from outside. To my mind, the most important thing—and I have said this before—is the farming of the land and the letting of new blood into the industry.
6.27 p.m.
Lord Middleton: I wondered what noble Lords opposite would say in regard to the Question whether this clause should stand part. As one would have expected, the noble Lord, Lord Bishopston, spoke very moderately, and with enormous experience, again as one would expect. He has asked the Government to modify Clause 2. Clause 2 is crucial, and I really do not think it could stand a great deal of modification. I have kept quite quiet during the more than two hours we have been discussing Clause 2, but perhaps I might say a word. Despite the disbelief of noble Lords opposite, and despite their graphs, the fact is that the 1976 Act did have a profoundly adverse effect on the landlord-tenant system. My noble friend Lord Stodart is quite right in saying so.
We have heard that statistics in this field are scarce. But surely the significant statistics should be the number of new lettings since 1976 as distinct from succession lettings. On Second Reading I referred to the survey which was done by the CLA of its landlord members. The replies to that survey were overwhelming: private owners were not prepared to create new tenancies. And why not? It was because of taxation and because of the succession provisions of the 1976 Act. They were unanimous. The supply of tenancies from private owners simply dried up.
The noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, in moving his first amendment this afternoon, told us that only the CLA wished to modify the succession provisions. But despite what the noble Lord, Lord Bishopston, has just said about this Bill being narrowly based upon a consensus reached by the CLA and the NFU, virtually the whole farming industry and all the professional bodies are asking for the succession provisions to be altered. Not only the CLA but the National Farmers' Union, the Tenant Farmers' Association, the National Federation of Young Farmers' Clubs, the RICS, the CAAV and the ISVA all support the Government in what they aim to achieve—perhaps not in precisely the same way but certainly they support the Government on Clause 2. It is difficult to find an industry that is more united on any issue.
The succession provisions are modest. They represent the very minimum that can be done to give a boost to new lettings. The main weight of criticism on Clause 2, as we have heard today, is that it does not go far enough. However, unless that minimum is done
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there will not be any new lettings and it will be the young who will suffer. If it is desired to be the final coup de grâce to the landlord-tenant system in agriculture then one is asking for the full 1976 Act treatment to continue for all tenancies. That is what will happen if one knocks Clause 2 from the Bill. I know that is not how the noble Lord put it, but that is what will happen and the agricultural industry deserves better than that.
Lord Renton: May I briefly say that I support what my noble friend Lord Stodart of Leaston said? When the 1976 Act was going through the House of Commons I had already represented for over 30 years a very large farming constituency and kept in constant touch with the local branch of the NFU, which was a very strong one. I had the clear impression that the Government were almost taken by surprise at the pressure exerted by the headquarters of the NFU at the time of the negotiations on the 1976 Act. It has become perfectly plain that the system of land tenure in England and Wales is, as I am afraid previously happened to some extent in Scotland, becoming fossilised. I was hoping that out of these negotiations and into this Bill we should get a system which broke, much further than the Bill does, into the rights of succession. That is in the general interest of farming and those who want to enter farming. As my noble friend Lord Middleton said, the proposals in Clause 2 are about as modest—I would almost say as ineffective—as one could possibly have expected to see. I hope, therefore, that my noble friend and the Government will not succumb to any pressure from the Opposition to make them even less effective.
Lord Belstead: I was interested in the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Bishopston, because not only has the noble Lord very great experience of the Ministry in which I am fortunate enough to work but he was a Minister in another place when the 1976 legislation was going through. I and my noble friends on this side of the House well understand why the noble Lord felt that he should intervene at this moment in the Bill. Indeed, we listened to what the noble Lord said with great interest.
However, I am afraid that on this occasion it does not necessarily mean that we agree with the noble Lord. It is incontrovertible, as my noble friend Lord Stodart of Leaston, also a previous incumbent of the Ministry, said, that Clause 2 is basic to the Bill. That expression of view was echoed by my noble friend Lord Middleton, who has done so much work in making it possible for the Bill to come forward.
I apologise to my noble friend Lord Stodart of Leaston because it is not possible for my department to produce figures on the decline in the number of tenancies. I must apologise for the fact that I have spoken on previous amendments about the decline in area: my noble friend was right to take me to task in saying that that does not give a very good picture. My noble friend said that it seemed to be possible to find the number of pelicans in the Royal Parks so why was it not possible for the Ministry of Agriculture to give the number of tenancies in this country from year to year? I can only say that I think the reason is because over the years landlords have resisted surveys rather more successfully than have the pelicans in the Royal Parks.

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The noble Lord, Lord Bishopston, was, of course, defending his own legislation. But the noble Lord will acquit me of discourtesy if I say that over a period of seven years it has been judged and found wanting. The noble Lord, Lord Northfield, and his committee—I must not misinterpret what the noble Lord and his committee said because they did not reach exactly the same conclusions as are in this Bill—were quite clear that the 1976 Act had not succeeded. In his wind-up speech on Second Reading my noble friend Lord Swinton was quite clear from his own personal experience that the 1976 Act had not succeeded so far as his own family lands were concerned. Who was it who, seven years ago, were also quite clear that the 1976 Act would not succeed? It was the National Federation of Young Farmers' Clubs, which could see quite clearly, where perhaps others did not see quite so clearly, that unless young farmers were of the family of a tenant by succession the legislation of that year would create a situation which would make it precious difficult for them to succeed to a tenancy at all.
It is for that reason that the Government believe that we must look to the future and that we must do our best so far as we can in this Bill to see that we take a step in the right direction. The noble Lord, Lord Bishopston, who is always fair in the way he speaks, will forgive me if I say that not the noble Lord or his noble friends on the Front Bench but his party would do much for the future of tenanted land if it would rethink both its fiscal policies towards tenanted land and its policies towards public ownership and tenanted land.
For our part, therefore, we are determined, and my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has shown it this year, to try as best we can to take fiscal steps in the right direction. The second Finance Bill this year has proved that. In this Bill, we believe that Clause 2 will be another step in the right direction. As my noble friend Lord Renton said, the clause is so fair that it has been criticised by my noble friends on previous amendments as being too fair. But sometimes that is not a bad fault. For us to be able to say that we are bringing in a Bill which ends legislation which we do not like but at the same time is not retrospective and which protects the situation where a chain of succession has been establised, is the right way to proceed. That is why we intend to stand by Clause 2.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: I was fascinated by the noble Lord's instruction to the Opposition to rethink their fiscal policy towards the landlord-tenant system. Does that mean that the Government are rethinking their fiscal policy?
Lord Belstead: What I meant was that this year we built upon the Finance Act 1981 by extending capital transfer tax relief from 20 per cent. to 30 per cent. As was explained at the time, that was supposed to be a positive inducement to owners to let land. Six months ago the Labour Party said in its manifesto that it would reverse most of the Conservative Party's concessions on capital transfer tax. That is what I meant.
Lord Northfield: I should not have intervened on this matter but for the joke about the pelicans, which,
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if I may say so, unfortunfately got taken rather too far. It enabled the Minister to have a throw-away line and to say that we do not know anything because landlords resist surveys. With respect to the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, that just is not good enough.
In paragraph 282 of our report we made it quite clear that the sort of information which we desperately need about occupancy of land in Britain—and which, if I may say so, we shall need more and more as the tenancy sector declines, and more and more charges are made about who is responsible and what will relieve the situation—could readily be provided by similar means to those used in Scotland at the moment. Every June the Scottish census form asks questions which enable a sensitive appraisal to be made of the trends in land occupancy in Scotland. In paragraph 282 we suggest that the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food should extend the June census in England and Wales on the lines of the Scottish experience so that we can take account of these developments in occupancy.
I therefore hope that the Minister's good joke—and, if I may say so, the good follow-up joke—that came from talk about pelicans will not be the end of the matter. There is a simple way in which we can have more information available. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, will look into the matter to see whether we can have this information as the years develop.
Lord Bishopston: I think that we have had a useful debate on this matter. One of the main points in my noble friends' tabling this Motion was to get the House to realise that there are other aspects of entry into farming besides the one in Clause 2. Noble Lords opposite will be familiar with them. There is the high cost of entering farming. The high capital cost prevents many young farmers from getting a farm of their own, no matter what the availability may be. Then there are problems of taxation and the problems of loss of agricultural land, which is mentioned in paragraph 67 of the report of the noble Lord, Lord Northfield. Between 1971 and 1978 the average recorded loss of land for farming in the United Kingdom was about 50,000 hectares. which as noble Lords will know is 125,000 acres. The change in farming structure is also mentioned in paragraph 64. The advance of technology means that there are fewer people working on farms. This is reflected in the number of people running farms. There is farm amalgamation. These are all aspects which, in fairness, must be recognised as factors affecting entry into farming. It would be good for the industry if the Government were to recognise these points and not to think that because they have brought forward this Bill they have solved the problem.
After all, succession has a lot to commend it. A family investing in a farm put capital and work into it. The husband and wife may run the farm, or the wife may be helped by the husband and the sons, and so on. They know that there is long-term security. People talk about succession in the 1976 Act meaning that there is a blight on entry, but the sons and daughters of the tenant can come in. They are young people with young blood and new ideas. We should consider the entry into the industry of those who are heirs of others who

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have farms. I and my noble friends are not defending what the Labour Government did in 1976. If we felt that there were shortcomings, we should be happy to change them.
As I said earlier, noble Lords opposite are notable by their lack of enthusiasm for this measure. They may be saying that they do not like the present position and this is the only alternative presented and therefore they must support it. It has been helpful to the Committee that in the debate in the past few days on this measure noble Lords have felt free to express a variety of views which we all hope that the Government will take into account. We value the fact that the Minister has said that he will look again at Clause 1. Good luck to him in the process. It is an unenviable task that he has undertaken. I am sure that the House hopes that the Government will look at all the other aspects of the matter which may not be in the Bill but which need urgent review, as many noble Lords have said. With those comments, I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Clause 2 agreed to.
Clause 3 [Amendment of provisions relating to statutory succession in cases not excluded by section 2]:
6.45 p.m.
Lord Northfield Lord Northfield moved Amendment No. 38A:
Page 7, line 6, leave out paragraph (a) and insert—
("(a) in paragraph (c) of the definition of "eligible person" for the words from "he is not" to "licensee only" there shall be substituted the words "he is not a person to whom the provisions of subsection (2A) apply;" ").
The noble Lord said: I hope that your Lordships will allow me to suggest that we can take seven amendments together at this point and thus make considerable progress in a few minutes. I suggest that we can take with Amendment No. 38A, Amendments Nos. 39, 40, 41A, 43, 43B and 72A. That may save time. The noble Earl, Lord Swinton, as Deputy Chief Whip, will be pleased that we are making good progress.
The Earl of Swinton: The Deputy Chief Whip is very pleased. I wonder whether the noble Lord will repeat those numbers.
Lord Northfield: Amendment No. 38A is really a paving amendment for Amendments Nos. 41A, 43B and 72A. Then we have Amendments Nos. 39, 40 and 43, which I suggest can be discussed together with these because they were early attempts to do the same work that is done by Amendment No. 38A and the amendments consequential on it. I shall not be moving the latter amendments if we reach a satisfactory conclusion on Amendment No. 38A. I repeat again that the amendments which I suggest we can take with this amendment are Amendments Nos. 39, 40, 41A, 43, 43B and 72A.
Amendment No. 39:
Page 7, line 11, at end insert—
("(aa) in paragraph (c) of that definition after the word "not" there shall be inserted the words "at the date of death";").
Amendment No. 40:
Page 7, line 11, at end insert—
("(aaa) in paragraph (c) of that definition after the word "occupier" there shall be inserted the following words—
"as tenant, joint tenant, partner, owner, joint owner, or through a share in a limited company".").
Amendment No. 41A:
Page 7, line 19, leave out subsection (3) and insert—
("( ) After section 18(2) of that Act there shall be inserted the following subsection—
"(2A) The provisions of this subsection apply to any person whose circumstances, either at the date of death or at the date upon which he makes an application under section 20 of this Act or any such application is heard by the Tribunal, are such that there is available—

(a) to him; or

(b) to any person with whom he is engaged in partnership; or

(c) to any body corporate of which any part of the issued share capital is owned beneficially by him or on his behalf;

an amount of agricultural land which—

(i) is available as aforesaid for the purposes of carrying on an agricultural business by him or any such partner with him or any such body corporate; and

(ii) is owned in fee simple or is held as an agricultural holding under a contract of tenancy by or for and on behalf of himself or any such partner or body corporate (either solely or jointly with any other person); and

(iii) is sufficient to enable him to derive from that business a livelihood which is adequate for himself and any person dependent upon him,

and in determining whether any such land is sufficient there shall he taken into account in addition to the needs of the person in question the needs of any other person whose livelihood depends upon the business conducted on that land and whose needs it is reasonable to take into account." ").
Amendment No. 43:
Page 7, line 28, at end insert—
("(3A) In section 18(4) of that Act (exceptions to the right to statutory succession) after paragraph (e) there shall be inserted the following paragraph—
"(ee) if, on application for a notice to quit made by the landlord to the Tribunal within three calendar months of the death, the Tribunal is satisfied that the eligible person is already holding a tenancy, joint tenancy or tenancies which form a viable economic unit or units, taking into account the productive capacity of the land, and that the landlord is willing to create and let a new agricultural holding that includes the land to which the notice relates;".").
Amendment No. 43B:
Page 7, line 29, leave out subsection (4).
Amendment No. 72A:
Page 29, line 55, column 3, at end insert ("Section 18(6).").
We are here discussing a very difficult part of the 1976 Act. We are dealing with who is and who is not eligible to succeed to tenancies under the 1976 Act. We are dealing with Section 18(2)(c) of that Act. That is what all these amendments are about: who is and who is not eligible to be a successor. The intention of paragraph (c) was to exclude potential successors who already have a holding which gives an adequate livelihood. The facts are that the Act has not worked out in that respect. It was also the intention of that Act to include as a successor someone whose present holding is as a licensee on a precarious tenancy. That was the clearly expressed intention of that paragraph.
I and the noble lords who are co-sponsoring this amendment and the consequential amendments (Amendments Nos. 41A, 43B and 72A) are greatly indebted to Mr. Derek Wood, QC, of the Agricultural Law Association, who has provided a brief which shows the intense legal complexity that has resulted

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from the failure in clarity of that part of the 1976 Act. I have made sure that that is available to the Minister's office. It is the Agricultural Law Association that has provided these substantive amendments beginning with 38A plus 41A, 43B and 72A.
Without going into all the cases, some of which have reached your Lordships' House for decision, I think that the criticisms of the 1976 Act are what I shall now describe. The section as drafted has failed to shut out some successors who do not need the tenancy. I see the noble Lord, Lord Middleton, nodding his head in agreement. That is certainly true. Some people who do not need the tenancy have actually managed to succeed and some deserving would-be successors have been undesirably disqualified. Some people who ought to have had succession have been disqualified. The prime sort of example is where several partners jointly are occupying a unit. For instance, three or four partners are operating a unit and have tenancy of it, and this holding is a commercial tenancy within the meaning of the Act, but it is not big enough, if taken alone, to provide a living for all those partners. The problem arises when it is not possible to bring a group of four people squarely inside the terms of the Act and they suddenly find themselves disadvantaged.
The word "licensee" has proved totally ambiguous. A licensee, I would remind the Committee, is someone whose holding is on a precarious tenancy and he was therefore to be allowed to succeed. But what some artful tenants have managed to do is to set up all sorts of evasion strategies and artificial schemes, making themselves, for example, into family companies which then become treated by law as licensees. The result is that if you already have a holding which is a good commercial unit and, under the test of the 1976 Act, you should not succeed to this particular unit on someone's death, if you transform yourself into a family company, you can get treated as a licensee and get the tenancy anyway, totally, against the intentions of the 1976 Act.
My own Committee pointed to this and other ambiguities and evasions that were going on. We suggested in Paragraph 629:
"It would need to be made clear that an applicant would not be eligible"—
to succeed, that is—
"if, at the time of death of the existing tenant and taking account of the terms of his will, the applicant was effectively farming a commercial unit whether sole owner, tenant, in partnership or by means of a company".
Amendment No. 38A, plus the more important Amendment No, 41A, which is the substantially drafted part of the group, would have the following intention. I quote Mr. Wood in his brief:
"The tribunal should principally consider the question whether the applicant,"—
the would-be successor—
"if denied a new tenancy of the holding, would be able to derive a sufficient livelihood for himself and his family from an agricultural business carried on by him or by some person on whom he is dependent upon agricultural land other than the holding. The tribunal should be empowered to form a broad view of the case".
That is the intention of our amendment. I believe that it carries it out. But the amendment also points to the disadvantages in the Government's present drafting. The Government drafting leaves all the
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confusion attaching to the word "licensee". We must sweep that away and get the matter resolved once and for all. It fails to deal with a unit occupied by more than two occupiers. That is the sort of example I was giving earlier. There are, besides, all sorts of blemishes in the present Government drafting. For example, what is the meaning of "net annual income" of the unit already farmed? What you have to say, if the Government are relying on that phrase, is that someone has a good net annual income from the unit already farmed and therefore does not need to succeed to the tenancy. What is the net annual income? It is nowhere defined. There can be limitless arguments about what it all means and what is to be taken into account, interest on capital, et cetera. Our amendment tries to deal with all these things comprehensively. I hope that it commends itself to the Government and to the Committee. I beg to move.
Lord Renton: The noble Lord, Lord Northfield, on one hand, and my noble friend Lord Kinnoull and myself, on the other, tabled the Amendments Nos. 38A, 41A, 43B and 72A to which I wish to speak without knowing that each other had done so. I am glad that the name of the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, appears first on the Marshalled List because these amendments are an attempt to carry into drafting form the recommendations of the committee of which he was chairman. I do not need to say very much to add to what the noble Lord has said. The noble Lord, no doubt due to his usual modesty and moderation, did not mention that these amendments follow from the report of his committee. I think I should invite the attention of the Committee to the fact that the final sentence in Paragraph 629 of the report states:
"It would need to be made clear that an applicant would not be eligible if, at the time of death of the existing tenant and taking account of the terms of his will, the applicant was effectively farming a commercial unit whether as sole owner, tenant, in partnership or by means of a company".
That is the main intention underlying these amendments. Clearly, the present law is unsatisfactory, especially in relation to the definition in Section 18(2)(c) of the 1976 Act which attempts to define "eligible person". That has caused a great deal of trouble in the courts. Twice in 1980, hair splitting decisions had to be made by the Judicial Committee of your Lordships' House. Their Lordships were not agreed in one of those cases. It was an extraordinary situation for us to reach. So something must be done.
The trouble with the present law, as the noble Lord has indicated, is that it lets in well-provided applicants who do not require the benefit of the succession terms of the 1976 Act but it keeps out some people who could do with succession and who, if there is to be succession as a principle, can be said to need it. The Bill attempts to improve the situation but does so by means of a new definition that I find rather strange. It links the rights and the decisions that have to be made to the concept of full time employment of two people on the holdings. In some cases, that might do; but in other cases, it might not. It is much too inflexible a thing to write into a statute in my opinion. Also—and I am not sure that this is a wise thing for it to have done—that viability of the unit is no longer to be decided by the unchallengeable certificate of the Minister of Agriculture. That is a system which under the present law, I understand, is working not too badly.

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In these amendments, we do away, I hope, with the legalistic criteria which have caused trouble in the past and introduce a new test that implements the recommendation of the Northfield Committee to which I referred. It is neither pro-landlord nor pro-tenant, but it is intended to confine the benefits of succession under the 1976 Act to those in genuine need. Mr. Derek Wood, who drafted these amendments, has been so good as to say that he thinks that they could be further improved, and no doubt the Government will consider whether that is so. But surely the principle is right.
Lord Middleton: The "commercial unit" test has indeed caused serious problems and conflicting decisions of the ALTs. These amendments would deal with a number of unanswered questions. As we have been reminded, the policy of the 1976 Act is to exclude close relatives from obtaining a succession tenancy where they have the advantage of a viable unit elsewhere. By getting away from the difficult problems caused by having to decide whether an applicant is the occupier of a commercial unit and whether he is occupying it as a licensee only, these amendments make the law clearer. They also fulfil the policy of the 1976 Act better, by providing a livelihood test rather than an occupation test.
I fully support what these amendments are trying to do. I must say that I am not sure how a livelihood test would be applied in practice, nor how one measures what is an adequate livelihood. However, subject to that, I join the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, and my noble friend Lord Renton in preferring these amendments to what is now in the Bill in subsection (3). I hope that the Government will be sympathetic.
Lord Stanley of Alderley: I also agree with the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, that there has been trouble in the past over whether one is eligible or not. What I think we do not disagree on is the principle. As I understand it, the principle that we are all trying to get at is that we want to exclude someone who is tenanting or owning and farming another viable holding. But, rather like my noble friend Lord Middleton, I am concerned as to whether the amendment achieves that.
There are three matters at which I would ask my noble friend, Lord Belstead, to look very carefully. One of those matters concerns subsection (2A)(i). It says that the holding "is available". If a tenant owns another farm but cannot get possession of it, is it available? Is he, therefore, disqualified even though he cannot get possession of it? I do not know. Another matter arises under subsection (2A)(i). If he is in partnership or part of a body corporate with an interest in the farm does that also disqualify him? Finally—and this is most important—I take up the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, that at present there is reference to the term, "net annual income". Is that any more difficult than the words:
"a livelihood which is adequate for himself"?
That seems to me somewhat vague. Is it for me or is it for my noble friend Lord Renton? Our needs might be totally different. I am worried about whether it achieves our objective, but, if it does achieve what we all want, then I welcome it.
Lord Northfield: On the last point raised by the noble Lord, I think that "net annual income" is a technical term that needs definition. "A reasonable livelihood" would be something for the tribunal to make a judgment about. That is the difference between the two.
Lord Walston: I only want to say that I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, that the present Act has not worked well in this respect. It may have worked well from the point of view of lawyers who have been consulted and who have even brought cases as far as your Lordships' House, but from the point of view of both tenant and landlord it has created a great deal of uncertainty. It needs modification. On the face of it, the proposals put forward in these amendments look as if they should do it. I cannot pretend that I am qualified to give them my full approval. They obviously need very close study, and they need study by those who are expert in these matters. But the ideal behind them is correct. I hope that the Government will accept them in that spirit.
Lord Renton: In view of what the noble Lord, Lord Walston, has said about members of our profession, I think it only fair to point out that it was members of the Agricultural Law Association who used their initiative to draft the amendments to fulfil the recommendation of the report of the noble Lord, Lord Northfield.
7.4. p.m.
Lord Prys-Davies: I am not sure that I fully understand the significance of all the amendments, but for that I blame myself rather than my noble friend's drafting. Certainly one goes along with any amendment that will help to clarify the law and make clear that which is unclear.
The noble Lord, Lord Northfield, also referred in passing to his Amendment No. 43. I was in considerable difficulty with Amendment No. 43. As I understand it, the thrust of the amendment is in the following direction. First, one has to define what is "a viable economic unit". I am not quite certain whether the noble Lord will in due course give us a definition of "a viable economic unit", but does it also mean that, if the landlord offers him an acreage of land additional to his existing holding, he would thereby—if it were a viable economic unit—lose his right of succession under the Act?
Lord Northfield: I wonder whether I can help my noble friend at this point and also save the time of the Committee. Amendment No. 43, together with Amendments Nos. 39 and 40 were early attempts to meet the points we have been discussing. They were amateur attempts by me at drafting. It was when Mr. Derek Wood and the Agricultural Law Association provided us with Amendments Nos. 38A, 41A, et cetera, that we realised that there was a much more professional way of doing the whole job. That is why I said that we could discuss them together. But my intention would be never to move Amendments Nos. 39, 40 and 43 if the Minister were to accept Mr. Derek Wood's suggestions in Amendments Nos. 38A and 41A. My amendments are clearly defective and very amateurish.
Lord Belstead: I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, for taking so many amendments together in the interests of speed. In the interests of wear and tear on the Government spokesman I am not quite so sure whether my thanks extend quite so warmly, but I will do my best to reply. The first group of amendments which is in the name of the noble Lord, and also my noble friend Lord Renton and my noble friend Lord Kinnoull—Amendment No. 38A and the other amendments which hang with it; namely, Amendments Nos. 41A, 43B and 72A—are undoubtedly important. I should like to say straight away that there are elements in these amendments which I am advised are certainly capable of adoption. but we should like to reflect on the matter further, particularly in the light of the short debate that we have had.
As I understand it, this group of amendments does two things. First, the amendments would replace the definition of a "commercial unit" as it presently appears in the existing legislation and also as it is revised in Clause 3 of the Bill. Secondly, this group of amendments would replace the machinery for assessment of such units by the Minister and leave it entirely to the land tribunal to determine whether the applicant is debarred under the test which the noble Lord and my noble friends have provided. I believe that the new definition which is included in the Bill—I am talking here about Clause 3(3), new subsection (3A)—is a sensible and a reasonable one. I believe that the new procedures whereby the certificate which is to be provided by the Ministry will in future be open to questioning in the agricultural land tribunal will be a great help. That is a provision in the Bill.
I know that I am now being critical, but some of your Lordships have pointed to Amendment No. 41A which refers to subsection (2A)(iii) and the definition:
"to enable [the tenant] to derive from that business a livelihood which is adequate for himself and any person dependent upon him".
With respect, I do not think that that would be a very easy definition for the ALT to interpret, and I would simply leave your Lordships with that thought on that particular point.
As regards our own definition in the Bill, a very full explanation is included in paragraph 15 of the Notes on Clauses, which I deposited in the Printed Paper Office. Paragraph 15 is a very long paragraph extending to two pages and relates to the note on Clause 3. Before your Lordships are too hasty in sweeping aside the definition of "commercial unit" in the Bill, I would beg your Lordships to look at that explanation once again.
I should like to say just a few words on Amendment No. 40. If the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, will forgive me, I shall not waste the Committee's time at this hour in traversing the various definitions which the noble Lord raises in his amendment, including "owner tenant", "joint owner", "joint tenant", and so on. The real nub of this amendment, and the difficulty with which it tries to deal, is when it refers to a beneficiary, a person who owns shares in a company. This, of course, is the difficult question. The question of whether a person who owns shares in a company which occupies land should himself be considered the occupier, although the company of course is an
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independent and intervening legal body, is a matter which I realise is open to question.
I think that considerable caution is needed in contemplating this proposal, as it is apparent that many farmers will own equity shares in commercial companies which, for one reason or another, occupy farm land, and, clearly, it would be inappropriate to attribute ocupation of a farm held by one of these companies to an ordinary shareholder. Therefore, there may be a considerable problem in defining the family farming company, which I think the noble Lord has in mind in the part of Amendment No. 40 which deals with this particular difficult problem.
However, subject to this reservation—and I emphasise that I think it is a very important one—I believe that this is an amendment which it would be useful to examine further to see whether the legislation should be clarified. If the noble Lord will allow me to take it away in that spirit, I am very ready to do so.
Finally, I come to Amendment No. 43, which is, indeed, the amendment which talks about the "viable economic unit" test. I shall not ask the same questions as the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, but there is a difficulty here which the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, has himself set. There is also one other difficulty. There is a provision in Amendment No. 43 relating to a landlord's willingness:
"to create and let a new agricultural holding".
I think that this really might be impracticable. It would seem to me to be dubious law to provide a disqualification on account of someone else's willingness to do something. Perhaps I could just plant that thought in the mind of the noble Lord, Lord Northfield.
I hope that my reply so far has not been too incoherent, but this is a rather formidable grouping of amendments. On behalf of the Government I can certainly agree to consider Amendments Nos. 38A 41A, 43B and 37A—the first group—and also Amendments Nos. 39 and 40. I admit that I have not spoken to Amendment No. 39 at all, and perhaps your Lordships will forgive me for not having done so. However, there is the difficulty, which I have just mentioned, regarding Amendment No. 43. But I hope that I have shown my goodwill enough in looking at these perhaps to make it possible for the amendments to be withdrawn.
Before I conclude, there is one last point that I ought to mention. The question was asked as to what is annual income and how is it to be assessed. I am advised that the Ministry of Agriculture is at present in discussions with the industry and with the professions as to how income is to be assessed with a view to having an agreed basis, possibly published in a statutory instrument. But, again, this might be a matter to which noble Lords, might wish to return at a later stage of the Bill.
Lord Northfield: The noble Lord, has been more than generous and I am very happy indeed to ask the Committee's permission to withdraw the amendment. Perhaps he will consider the amendments in the three names of myself and my noble friends; they are the substantial amendments that we hope will form the basis of a new set of amendments that could come

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forward at the Report stage. I would simply say that Amendment No. 39 is, in fact, covered in Amendment No. 41A. Amendment No. 39 was to deal with the problem about which the courts have been exercised—the date at which certain things happen: is it the date of death or the date when application is made to the tribunal? That point is, in fact, covered at the beginning of Amendment No. 41A anyway, so it falls by the wayside as soon as Amendment No. 41A is considered.
I shall not detain your Lordships any more. This has been a very good debate and the noble Lord has been extremely constructive. I must express some faint surprise that the Government were not nearer to getting this right first time. Our report has been on the table for four years and points to these problems. I should have thought that it would be possible to have got the matter slightly more correct first time round than the Bill has so far. Nevertheless, I do not want to qualify my thanks to the noble Lord, and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Skelmersdale: After those generous gestures all round the Committee, this might be an appropriate moment for us to adjourn for dinner and for me to resume the House. I should tell the Committee that it has been agreed through the usual channels that we shall not return to this Committee stage until at least 8.15 p.m.
I beg to move that the House do now resume.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House resumed.

Legal Aid (Financial Conditions) (No. 2) Regulations 1983
7.17 p.m.
The Lord Chancellor (Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone)The Lord Chancellor (Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone) rose to move, That the regulations laid before the House on 8th November be approved.
The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, I rise to move the first of the six Motions standing in my name on the Order Paper. With the permission of the House and if it is for the convenience of the House, I shall speak to all six together and move the remaining five formally one by one. The first three Motions relate to legal aid and legal advice in England and Wales, and the other three relate only to Scotland.
The first two Motions increase respectively the income and capital financial limits for civil legal aid and legal advice and assistance. This is the second increase this year. In the last two years the review of the limits has taken place at the beginning of the financial year. Dependants' allowances are automatically increased in November in line with those for supplementary benefit. So there have been two changes each year in the financial conditions. This has proved administratively complex and also confusing for applicants, and it has therefore been decided, if the House agrees, to revert to a November up-rating for the financial limits this year and in the future.
The income limits for legal aid and for legal advice and assistance are to rise by 4.3 per cent. This ensures
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that the present relationship between legal aid limits and those for supplementary benefit is maintained. The alignment between the lower capital limit and the supplementary benefit capital limit introduced last April is preserved.
Moving on to describe the regulations in greater detail, the legal aid regulations raise the lower disposable income limit—that is the level of disposable income below which no contribution is payable—from £1,965 a year to £2,050. The upper income limit—that is the level above which legal aid is not available—increases by the same proportion, from £4,720 to £4,925. The lower capital limit (below which there is no contribution from capital) increases from £2,500 to £3,000, and the upper capital limit (above which legal aid is not normally available) increases from £4,000 to £4,500. The advice and assistance regulations raise the lower disposable income limit for the Green Form scheme from £47 to £49 a week, and the upper income limit from £99 to £103 a week. The capital limit above which assistance is not available increases from £700 to £730.
The House will also be aware that I have made a further set of regulations for which an affirmative resolution is not required. These are the Legal Advice and Assistance (Amendment) Regulations (No. 2) 1983, which consequentially revise the scales of contributions which an applicant for advice and assistance may be required to make towards his costs.
The corresponding Scottish regulations are a little different. Their lower disposable income limit for advice and assistance does not appear in the regulations which require affirmative resolution, but in the instruments subject to the negative resolution procedure together with the amendments to the contribution scale. These are the Legal Advice and Assistance (Scotland) (Financial Conditions) (No. 3) Regulations 1983.
The remaining two motions are the Legal Advice and Assistance (Prospective Cost) (No. 2) Regulations 1983 and the corresponding Scottish regulations. These increase from £40 to £50 the cost of the advice and assistance which a solicitor may provide to a client without first obtaining the approval of a legal aid general committee of the Law Society or a local committee of the Law Society of Scotland. The limit is not a bar on the total amount of advice and assistance which a solicitor may provide but an administrative check which enables the Law Society to control the use of the scheme.
The limit was last increased in 1980. Rising costs have made it increasingly difficult for solicitors in many cases to provide adequate advice and assistance without exceeding the £40 limit. As a result, the administrative burden for the Societies' committees has steadily increased. The increase is to £50. This should enable solicitors in most cases to provide advice and assistance without incurring the trouble and possible delay involved in applying for an extension, and reduce administrative costs. I should, I think, also inform the House that I have made, and placed before it under the procedure for negative resolution, four instruments which have the same effect on the legal aid and advice provisions for Northern Ireland.
I should also wish to inform the House now that although in the end, I suppose primary legislation will be necessary, for which I will seek an appropriate opportunity, I have decided to make a change in the capital limit for assistance by way of representation which, as an extension of legal advice and assistance, provides representation for certain specified proceedings before courts and tribunals. The present capital limit is the same as for the low cost Green Form scheme. Because the costs of assistance by way of representation can be considerably higher, and because I believe that the present limit bears unduly heavily on those involved in proceedings for which no other form of legal aid is available, I have decided to increase the capital limit for assistance by way of representation to the level of the lower legal aid capital limit. This will be £3,000 if these regulations are approved. Applicants with capital resources between £700 and £3,000 will therefore for the first time become eligible for assistance of this kind. My Lords, I beg to move the first regulation standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That the regulations laid before the House on 8th November he approved.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
7.25 p.m.
Lord Elwyn-Jones: My Lords, the House will be grateful to the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor for introducing this number of regulations. I hope that at an early stage a child's guide to these complexities will be produced for the benefit of the public and, of course, the lawyers who will be responsible for implementing these provisions. That there was need to increase the availability of legal aid and assistance, and legal aid and advice, was already apparent.
The formula that has been used for some years now is to maintain, as the noble and learned Lord has said, a relationship between legal aid benefits and supplementary benefits. I understand that the figure of 4.3 per cent. is the relevant figure. We have had explained to us how the capital sums and disposable limits, and the other factors, have all, as I understand it, been raised by that percentage of 4.3 per cent. I was not clear whether the Scottish provisions were more or less generous (if "generous" is the right word) than the English provisions. There will he a great deal of trouble if they are less generous, and perhaps the noble and learned Lord will indicate to us what the position is with regard to that.
What one would like to identify is the extent to which these changes meet the real need. I do not know whether it is possible for the noble and learned Lord, in relation now to the legal aid provisions, the provisions relating to the financial conditions, to give any statistic as to what proportion of the population in terms of a family of father and mother and two children will be covered by these regulations. I recollect that before I, in the position of the noble and learned Lord, introduced in 1979substantial improvements, increments, in the provisions, we then hoped to be able to cover about 70 per cent., I think it was, of families within the scope that I have mentioned of the husband and wife and two children who could be brought into the legal aid and advice scheme.
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Perhaps that statistic is not readily available, but if it is I am sure it will be of great interest and, I hope, encouragement, because I fear that before I introduced those regulations in 1979 the provision had fallen back very badly indeed.
The noble and learned Lord has refrained from telling the House what the financial cost of these changes is. I do not know whether that material is readily available, but whatever the cost may be I am quite sure that in this complex world of legislation, claims, rights and liabilities there is a need for the provision for the citizens of the means of obtaining legal advice and assistance from solicitors—it used to be called the Green Form scheme in my day—to be extended, as I understand it, to provide also for some finance and facilities for legal representation in the courts, extending the sphere of mere legal advice and assistance to actual representation. That I regard as a beneficial step. If the noble and learned Lord could give an indication of where we are going in this field, both in the terms of cost and availability, I am sure the public will be greatly interested.
In the meantime, I thank the noble and learned Lord for bringing these regulations forward and for the timing. I do not criticise, and I have doubt there is a good administrative reason for, the November uprating. In so far as these regulations improve the financial means by which the citizen can be legally advised and assisted, we on this side of the House most strongly welcome them.
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble and learned Lord for the kind way in which he has greeted this series of Motions. Yes, we acknowledge that a child's guide (if that is the right phrase) is desirable. We have reprinted the leaflets to correspond with the new regulations, so that anyone who runs may read. I doubt whether it is quite provender for primary school age yet, but we will do our best.
Yes, the Scottish formula is also 4.3 per cent. I agree with the noble and learned Lord that if it had not been there would have a terrific row; but I am told that all is well.
Yes, the population coverage is about 70 per cent. of households. I think it may be a little more rather than a little less. That has been maintained.
I ought to have the exact cost with me, and probably have, but I could not give it to the noble and learned Lord by looking in my papers in a hurry because he sat down so compendiously. But I thank the noble and learned Lord very much indeed.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Legal Advice and Assistance (Financial Conditions) (No. 2) Regulations 1983
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, I beg to move the second Motion in my name.
Moved, That the regulations laid before the House on 8th November be approved.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Legal Advice and Assistance (Prospective Cost) (No. 2) Regulations 1983
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, I beg to move the third Motion standing in my name.
Moved, That the regulations laid before the House on 8th November be approved.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Legal Aid (Scotland) (Financial Conditions) (No. 2) Regulations 1983
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, I beg to move the fourth Motion standing in my name.
Moved, That the regulations laid before the House on 14th November be approved.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Legal Advice and Assistance (Scotland) (Financial Conditions) (No. 3) Regulations 1983
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, I beg to move the fifth Motion standing in my name.
Moved, That the regulations laid before the House on 14th November be approved.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Legal Advice and Assistance (Scotland) (Prospective Cost) Regulations 1983
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, I beg to move the sixth Motion standing in my name.
Moved, That the regulations laid before the House on 14th November be approved.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Viscount Long: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now adjourn during pleasure until 8.15.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, motion agreed to.
[The Sitting was suspended from 7.34 until 8.15 P.m.]

Agricultural Holdings Bill [H.L.]
House again in Committee on Clause 3.
[Amendment Nos. 39 and 40 not moved.]
Lord Belstead Lord Belstead moved Amendment No. 41:
Page 7, line 17, leave out ("the deceased's agricultural work") and insert ("agricultural work carried out by either the wife or the deceased (or both of them)")
The noble Lord said: This amendment remedies a
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defect in the drafting of Clause 3(2)(b). It will ensure that a widow will be able to satisfy the livelihood test if, in five out of the seven relevant years, her livelihood was derived either from her own or from her late husband's agricultural work on the holding or a combination of either his work or her work. It is this last eventuality which the wording in this subparagraph did not cover and is now put right in the amendment. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendment No. 41A not moved.]
Lord Sandys Lord Sandys moved Amendment No. 42:
Page 7, line 24, leave out from ("capable") to end of line 28 and insert ("of providing employment for at least one person reasonably skilled in agriculture; the method of calculating whether a unit is so capable shall be determined by statutory instrument made by the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food;")
The noble Lord said: Having remained silent during much of your Lordships' discussion, I think it is appropriate that I should now declare an interest, which I do with pleasure, as a landlord. I think that the purpose of this amendment is to probe and to probe the question of whether the commercial unit test is an adequate reflection of hardship to the applicant and also to ask how the Government would propose to assess net annual income, a subject which the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, referred to before we adjourned during pleasure; and also the question of when a unit is farmed under competent management.
I have taken the opportunity of studying with care Paragraph 15 of the Notes on Clauses to which my noble friend Lord Belstead referred, and my noble friend advised me that the Government's recognition of the need for defining the commercial unit is contained in those notes. I have examined them with interest and I read in the Notes on Clauses a particular reference on this:
"It is therefore now considered that a definition of commercial unit should appear in the 1976 Act which will be independent of any other legislation and be expressed in terms of income generated by the unit".
Regretfully, I do not feel that this has gone quite far enough in this situation. May I therefore on this subject ask Her Majesty's Government this question? Does the commercial unit reflect hardship? May we look at the present situation in law as it stands. The 1976 Act purported to prevent hardship to the successor of a tenant after his death. It was recognised that if the successor was already an occupier of a holding large enough to support him, there was no place for him to have the right to succeed to that tenancy.
The 1976 Act interprets "hardship" by applying the commercial test that we have already considered. It defines the commercial unit in terms which are to be found in Section40 of the Interpretations in Part II of the 1967 Agriculture Act; but does it reflect hardship satisfactorily? Evidently, the Government do not think so and have introduced a different test in this Bill which deals with the viability of the holding and its capacity to employ two full-time male agricultural workers. If a farm is too small to be viable, it is quite understandable that the occupier's successor should be permitted to apply for the tenancy following the death of his predecessor. If the farm is big enough to be viable, then there is no obvious hardship.
The Ministry are well accustomed to applying the viability test. They apply it under the Agricultural and Horticultural Grants Scheme. If I may quote an example from Statutory Instrument 1980/1072, it requires the Minister,
"to be satisfied that the greater part of the employment of at least one person reasonably skilled in agriculture".
The definition proposed in this amendment, however, omits the words "the greater part of ".
The effect of this amendment is not always to reduce the size of the farm at which the applicant becomes ineligible to apply for the right to succeed below that under the method proposed in the Bill. I feel that this amendment, while being only a probing amendment, will give the Government the opportunity to state the situation as it now stands and to offer your Lordships' Committee the opportunity to discuss this problem of viability and the commercial unit a little further. I beg to move.
Lord Middleton: The difficulty about subsection (3A) is that it seems on the face of it to be enlarging the number of potential eligible successors to a holding on the death of a tenant. Yet, as we know, the broad intention of the 1976 Act was to make ineligible for succession an applicant who is already the occupier of a viable holding. If a unit is not to be judged a commercial one until it is capable of producing a net annual income of an amount not less than the average annual earnings—earnings, not wages—of two full-time workers, then there must surely fall outside the category of "commercial units" so defined, a number of holdings that most people would consider perfectly viable.
I do not think it is the intention of the Government to allow the criteria in these cases to be relaxed, and I do not know of any organisation which has asked that that should be so. If, as my noble friend has suggested, that might be the effect of the clause as it stands, then I join him in asking the Government to have another look at it. I say that subject to what I have just said about what I call "the Northfield amendments", which of course I prefer.
The Earl of Swinton: I am very grateful to my noble friend Lord Sandys for having introduced this matter. He said it was the first time he has spoken in this Committee. From the very eloquent way in which he moved his amendment, I am sorry that we have not heard him before and I hope that he will not stay silent from now on.
The revised definition of "commercial unit" contained in Clause 3(3) is designed to deal with some of the anomalies which have resulted from the application of the existing definition in Section 18(2)(c) of the 1976 Act. This definition is one which is in effect imported from the 1967 Agriculture Act and depends on the opinion of the Minister that the unit is capable of providing full-time employment for at least two people. The way in which the standard applied by the Minister (600 standard man-days) currently operates means that in certain circumstances—notably where we are dealing with extensive arable units—the result is unduly favourable to applicants.
This is why the Bill would apply a different test,
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based not on the employment which the unit would create but rather on the income which it would generate. We therefore chose an income standard which is expressed by "the average annual earnings of two full-time male agricultural workers". This is based on the recommendation of the working party, on which the NFU, the CLA and the professional organisations were represented.
As I have already made clear, it is certainly not our intention that as a result of this change the commercial unit test would be relaxed. I can assure my noble friend Lord Middleton on this. Indeed, if my noble friend is interested. I can provide him with figures which show that in a wide range of circumstances the test would be somewhat tougher than the one we already have, and in some cases considerably tougher. I do however accept that the degree of toughness depends on the precise method for calculating the "net annual income"—and here I can tell my noble friend Lord Sandys that this does not describe hardship. This is why we are discussing with the industry the detailed method which ADAS officers will use in making their assessments, and I hope that we shall be able to reach full agreement on the criteria to be used.
I note in this context that my noble friend has referred to the possibility of describing the method in a statutory instrument. This is a possibility which we will be considering, if only to reduce to a minimum the possible scope for argument. I hope, in the light of this explanation and of the assurances which I have given, that my noble friend will he prepared to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Sandys: I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Swinton for his reply; but there are certain matters which are still unanswered. At an earlier stage, when we were discussing Clause 1, the question of the size of the holdings arose under Amendment No. 9. If I may refer the Government to col. 178 of the Official Report of Tuesday, 22nd November, the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, there referred in some considerable detail to the different ways in which a holding could be made viable or unviable by certain different practices of farming within that holding.
One of the great treasures of British agriculture is the farm structure and also the farm size. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Belstead and the staff at the Ministry of Agriculture for providing a reply to a Written Question which I put down on the size of farm holdings in five countries. It is very interesting to note that the United Kingdom had an average farm size in 1981 in hectares of 69.4, and in acres of 171.5, compared with three notable competitors in the EEC. That is, Germany, where they have an average farm size of 38.3 acres; France, where they have an average farm size of 63 acres; and Italy, where the figure is 18.3 acres. I feel that these figures are significant in this context, because the United Kingdom farm size is so significantly higher that it does bear very closely upon the point. I have not translated the acres into hectares, which I could very easily do from the figures in front of me, but I feel it would weary the Committee to do so. Nevertheless, this is a very important point as to whether the viability test is sufficiently satisfactory. But I take the points made by my noble friend, and I

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feel that it would be much more appropriate if at this stage I withdrew the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 43 not moved.]
[Amendment No. 43A had been withdrawn from the Marshalled List.]
[Amendment No. 43B not moved.]
8.30 p.m.
Lord Northfield Lord Northfield moved Amendment No. 44:
Page 8, line 9, at end insert—
("(4A) In section 20(8) of that Act (matters to be taken into account by the Tribunal when determining the case of an applicant applying for tenancy of a holding) there shall he inserted at the end of paragraph (a) the following words—
"and meets the standard which would be required by a responsible landlord".").
The noble Lord said: We are now moving on to a new part. The Northfield Committee was very anxious to improve the opportunities for people to enter the industry and wanted to tighten up the rules governing succession and eligibility, so that the less desirable made way for successors who were more desirable and for other people outside to have an opportunity to farm. In that context, the committee was anxious about the restrictions on the landlord's ability to get possession in the case of particular applicants who were, in certain ways, unsuitable and who should make way for others.
Paragraph 631 of our report states:
"Recent trends have made it more difficult for landlords to ensure that good farming is practised. We therefore recommend that the successor should meet the standard which would be required by a responsible landlord"—
I use those words in the amendment—
"This change would mean a stricter application of the rules on eligibility, but primarily it would turn on the test for suitability. The object would be to ensure that the successor was experienced in husbandry and business management, had been trained in a way appropriate to the type of holding and had adequate capital. If cases of hardship arose, it would he for the ALCs and the SLC to settle them."
Therefore, what the amendment tries to do is to say that the simple ability to practise good farming should be extended to include the sort of things that also matter to a landlord—being trained in business management, trained in a way appropriate to the type of holding and having adequate capital with which to maintain, develop and improve the farm; indeed, to farm it correctly. I hope that this amendment commends itself, because it is an important amendment which tightens up on the less desirable successors who might otherwise take over a farm. I beg to move.
The Earl of Swinton: I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, for explaining the purpose of his amendment and I really do not see a great deal between us. However, I feel that it reflects the considerations which tribunals already bear in mind in determining an applicant's suitability under the existing provisions of Section 20(8) relating to an applicant's training, experience, age, physical health and financial standing. I should have thought that that covered matters like business management, farming expertise and the necessary finance which the noble
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Lord has mentioned. Provision is also already made for the landlord to express views, if he wishes, on the suitability of the applicant, and I should have thought that this covered everything which the noble Lord mentioned.
If the noble Lord could indicate any additional factors which tribunals should be expected to take into account in applying the proposed "responsible landlord" test, I should be prepared to consider the point further. However, I must make it clear that, unless there is a good reason for including these extra words, I should be reluctant to to so because of the scope for additional argument to which they could give rise in dealing with succession cases.
Lord Northfield: I confess that I did not think that Section 20(8) went as far as I was hoping to indicate. I shall leave it that I would prefer to study what the noble Earl has said and then, perhaps, come back with a redraft at Report stage if I can improve on the matter. Meanwhile, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 3, as amended, agreed to.
The Earl of Onslow The Earl of Onslow moved Amendment No. 45:
After Clause 3, insert the following new clause:
("Fixed term tenancies.
.The Minister may give his consent to fixed term tenancies of periods up to twenty-five years.").
The noble Earl said: I hope that your Lordships will bear with me if I take more than two or three minutes to deal with this amendment, because it is quite an important idea that I want to put before your Lordships. In the early part of this century, something like 87 per cent. of the countryside was tenant farmed, but, according to these bits of paper which I have been given and which I am told give very reliable statistics, that figure was down to 41 per cent. in 1981. I think it is recognised by everybody that it is very important that there should be an increase in the tenant part of the farming population.
As I said earlier, the NFU are interested only in protecting their own members' interests. That is absolutely right and proper and it is what Sir Richard Butler is paid for. But there is a wider interest—that is, the interest of the community as a whole—in seeing that that basis should be expanded. There is only a limited supply of land and at the moment, when land for tenancy becomes available, it is taken in hand, farming partnerships are created, share farming is created or it is arranged by the institutions, but I think I am talking here only about the private landlord. These partnerships or share farming arrangements are, to all intents and purposes, disguised tenancy agreements and it seems to me much more wise that we should get such agreements open and above board.
I am not suggesting that we should undermine the whole principle of the 1948 Act, which I bet will be in the brief of my noble friend Lord Belstead when he gets up to say that he does not agree with this amendment, because that is what the NFU say automatically. What I am suggesting is that certain parts of the agricultural landscape could be let for a little bit of time and within limited arrangements.
I shall take my own personal case, because it is sometimes easy to argue from personal experience. As we know, the noble Lord, Lord John-Mackie, has been doing it like a Tory squire who has had it well bred in him for a long time. I am privileged enough to own a 600-acre farm. It might be that I shall become old, go "ga-ga", fall off a horse, be run over by a bus or something like that, or that my son has a career which he does not want to interrupt. But, eventually, I should like my son—as does the noble Lord, Lord John-Mackie, with his son—to take over the farm, and it is possible that he would then like a 15-year or a 20-year tenancy for that farm.
The amendment is not very satisfactorily drafted. It makes eminent sense to a layman, but it is probably too broad for the lawyers. But it would seem a reasonable arrangement that the Minister could make regulations in the context of a farm which I want to let for 15 or 20 years. I could even let it in two or three bits to youngsters starting up. They could possibly share the buildings and so on. It would start people on the road. I am not suggesting that it should undermine the Agricultural Holdings Act 1948. I am suggesting that it should be supplementary to it. In the 1976 debates my noble friend Lord Middleton advocated a different method of doing it, and I know that the noble Lord, Lord Howard of Henderskelfe, will move a slightly broader amendment.
I do not believe that any of us are particularly worried about the method by which it is done, but I would suggest to your Lordships that if by regulation a small amount of land could be let on fixed term tenancies it would help the community and broaden the agricultural base. It might bring more people back to the countryside and broaden the social base of the countryside. It might also make a little bit extra of a rung. I would not dream of trying to undermine the 1948 Act, even though it can be argued conclusively that if you take away the happiness of the landlord at his rent and the happiness of the tenant at his profit out of the farm you destroy the system.
It is beyond doubt true that the 1948 Act increased the decline in lettings. If you cut the value of somebody's property by one half and make sure that he cannot get it back, he will not go ahead and let it again. That follows as night follows day. I do not want to go into that matter. All I would say to your Lordships is: would it not be a good idea if we put in a little bit of extra regulation? The regulations could allow for variation from region to region. It might be reasonable not to allow it in hill farm areas, although it might be reasonable to allow it in the grain land areas of East Anglia.
I am suggesting that the Bill should contain an enabling power for the Minister to make regulations. We have had arguments in this Chamber until we have been blue in the face about "may" and "shall", because we always enjoy it; but I suggest that if the Minister may make regulations to enable short term or term tenancies to be brought into existence it would help to breathe a little more life into the countryside. I beg to move.
8.42 p.m.
Lord John-Mackie: Because I happened to mention
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during the Second Reading of the Bill the question of fixed tenancies, it was immediately presumed that I was in favour of them. I simply gave a list of matters to be discussed, and I am glad that the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, has raised the question of fixed tenancies. As I said then, I believe that it should be discussed. For instance, a widow who is left a farm which she cannot afford to farm herself may have a son of 15 who in 10 years' time might be able to afford the farm and be capable of farming it; so it would be let for a short term. One could instance a number of cases like that.
I know that the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, has made the point that this would not break the spirit of the 1948 Act, but I feel that it would be a side door by which to get past the tenancy law. The noble Earl mentioned the early days of this century, when some 80 to 90 per cent. of tenancies in this country, particularly in Scotland, were fixed term tenancies—tenancies for 21 years, with seven-year breaks. But those days are past, mainly because the days of landlords like the late Lord Aberdeen, of 160 years ago, have gone. The situation in which you could almost trust that a family would succeed or that a short term tenancy would be a success have gone. The noble Earl must remember that the institutional landlords are increasing daily and that they have got to be considered. Although I appreciate the noble Earl's point, I am afraid I could not support his amendment.
Viscount Massereene and Ferrard: I am all in favour of my noble friend's amendment. Where practical, it is a good idea, and I do not see why it should not be practical. I was here for the first day of the Committe stage of the Bill, but unfortunately had lost my voice, much to the relief of your Lordships. I have now regained it, so I should like to say a few words about this matter. We have heard that the real problem is to get young people as farm tenants. If the Minister were given the power to allow a certain number of fixed term tenancies for 20 or 25 years, the problem which would arise then, if you wanted young tenants, would be how they were going to pay for their livestock. In Scotland, I have tenants on my farms. I have farms in England, too, but no tenants. In Scotland, the Highlands and Islands Development Board gives grants to new tenants to help them to buy their stock. Although there is no Highlands and Islands Development Board in England, a similar arrangement in this country would help.
I was brought up under the landlord-tenant system. We knew our tenants, their families and their ailments, As the noble Lord, Lord John-Mackie, said, that has all gone, but it would be a tragedy if the tenant farming system were to die. With due respect to my noble friend Lord Belstead, the Bill as drafted will not help. The tenant-farmer system will die. Therefore, I would personally clutch at any straw, however impracticable it may seem to civil servants. It seems quite practicable to me. I hope the Government will consider something along these lines and that the Minister will have the power in certain circumstances to allow fixed tenancies for a term of years.
Lord Howard of Henderskelfe: I want to correct one fact which came from the noble Lord, Lord John-Mackie. He made the statement that an increasing

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amount of land is being acquired and dealt with in various ways by institutions. As we have heard on several occasions during the debate, this is just not so. It is a popular myth. Nearly all the land that comes on to the market, whether for sale or by way of letting, is grabbed hold of as quickly as possible either by neighbouring tenants or by neighbouring owner-occupiers, so we must not blame the grasping Church Commissioners, the horrible Oxford and Cambridge colleges and the rest. It is the farmers themselves who are taking that land in hand, because they know what is good for them.
Lord Northfield: May I make two short preliminary points on fixedterm tenancies? First, we must not forget that the possibility of short term tenancies already exists under Section 2 of the 1948 and 1949 Acts. The Minister has already said that the Government are clarifying the rules that they apply in using those two parts of the existing legislation. It would be helpful to know tonight to what extent they propose to clarify them and to use them in future to allow a farmer's son to take over for five years, or whatever period it may be.
Secondly, there is no unanimity in the industry about the matter. There are varying waves of opinion. The young farmers' clubs in Scotland were, I believe, against them when we inquired into the matter, while the young farmers' clubs in England were in favour of them. There is no unanimity, but that does not mean to say that one does not have to take action.
The real point is that we must beware, if we are to start fixed term tenancies, of this becoming the norm. That is the danger. If one has too broad a provision, it could quickly become the case that farms would never be let on any other form of tenancy, by some landlords at least. Secondly, one has to beware that the system does not lead to extractive farming; that is, people taking on farms for a relatively short period and then running down the agricultural value of those farms in the final years of the lease. That is a very real danger, although there is some evidence in Ireland, where such provisions exist, that that danger has not in fact arisen. Nevertheless, it is a point that has to be watched.
In those circumstances, it all depends on what could be added to the proposed provision by way of limitation on the Government's powers. Could we prescribe a set of rules that should go with any system of fixed term tenancies? All I venture to say on that point is that my committee did have a shot at it. I am not going to read out that part of the report because it covers the whole of one page and part of another—but we did try to set out the type of restrictions which ought to accompany any idea of fixed term tenancies.
I believe that those restrictions were quite reasonable. For example, we suggested that there would be a minimum of 20 years, say, for fixed term tenancies—or that if the farmer started later in life, the tenancy should at least continue until he was aged 65. The aim was to find some way of limiting matters so that the system does not become a ridiculous one which bleeds the land in various ways.
I must say that I have undergone a conversion on this point. I support the ideas of the noble Earl, Lord
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Onslow, in general, provided we can impose sufficient limitations and qualifications to stop the system being abused. If carefully and sympathetically applied with a set of rules, such a system might well give an opportunity to provide what is in fact a missing rung of the ladder in many cases—for people to have a shot at running a farm for a fixed period of time, before establishing their own suitability and financial viability, and then moving on when the occasion occurs, and if it is possible for them, to a farm with a full tenancy on their own. On balance, I would support what the noble Earl is proposing.
Lord Walston: As it stands, I cannot support the amendment of the noble Earl, Lord Onslow. The nobleLord, Lord Northfield, was perfectly correct in one of his statements, although he did not seem to follow it through in the way I expected—his statement that anything of this kind is liable to strike a blow at any of the normal tenancies. It can only work if it is very closely hedged in.
I should be very favourably inclined towards the proposal if it were possible to define in a perfectly clear manner within an Act of Parliament or statutory instrument the conditions under which a fixed term tenancy might be granted. An example might be an arrangement made in order to enable a minor to take over a farm when he came of age or had proved himself adequately trained. But that would have to be done in a very strict and narrow way. I should be surprised if parliamentary draftsmen, with all their skill, could evolve a form of words that would make that sufficiently narrow. If an attempt can be made to do that which we could discuss at Report stage, I should certainly be very happy, hut, as the amendment stands, I cannot support it.
Lord Middleton: I was very interested to hear the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Northfield—and from what he said it is very clear why there is no unanimity in the industry at the moment. I was absolutely delighted when I saw this amendment because I could understand it in a flash. I did not have to spend half an hour on it as I have had to do with other amendments! Having said that, I must tell my noble friend Lord Onslow that, if he wants to provide for short term tenancies, this is not the way to do it.
My noble friend referred to the amendment I put forward in 1976 and to which your Lordships agreed. That amendment provided that a notice to quit served after a given time could not be met by a counter notice; and in any year of the tenancy it remained a tenancy from year to year—thereby retaining all the advantages of the agricultural holdings legislation. Those advantages are considerable. I believe that my noble friend knows as well as I do the benefits that follow from a year to year tenancy under the ordinary Act, and so I will not enumerate them. I believe that that amendment provided for a tenancy of 25 years to which your Lordships agreed at that time, although it was not agreed to in another place. After that time, notice to quit could not he met by a counter notice. If one is going to do it at all, then that is the way one should do it—not in the way suggested by my noble friend Lord Onslow.
Lord Belstead: I believe that almost everything that ought to be said about this matter has been said. It is a highly difficult and contentious matter. It is looked upon by many people as a matter of principle going back over 35 years to the 1948 Act. It is not a political matter. It is not a factual matter. It is a practical matter, as to whether an amendment of this kind could harm long term planning and investment in tenanted land. I say that hearing in mind that my noble friend Lord Onslow has done his very best by making his amendment permissive and for the Minister's discretion.
None the less as the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, said, if it became accepted as the norm, people would be left with the anxiety that it could lead to extractive farming. I put it to my noble friend—who I know is particularly interested in conservation matters—as to whether an amendment of this kind would be in the interests of long term conservation planning on agricultural holdings.
All your Lordships have probably read at one time or another the recommendations of his own committee which the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, mentioned. Whereas it was the unanimous agreement of the noble Lord's committee that unrestricted fixed term tenancies should not be justified, his committee added that those members of the committee who would support them considered that certain conditions should be applied to such an arrangement. Again, the noble Lord mentioned a couple of them.
It is at this place in the Bill, if I may so, that we are at least making a move towards what some members of the Northfield Committee recommended—and a little nearer to my noble friend's objective. As we heard on Amendment No. 37 from my noble friend Lord Kinnoull, there is support for provision to be made to facilitate succession on retirement of a tenant. Before my noble friend says that, no, that is not what he is after, let me remind him that the age of 65 was mentioned as one of the options in the Northfield Committee report if limited fixed term tenancies were to be considered.
What is more to the point perhaps, and to answer one or two of the questions which have been put to me, we now have a cast-iron undertaking by my right honourable friend that the arrangements under Section 2 of the 1948 Act will be extended for the Minister's power to be used in two particular ways which are of interest under this amendment. There will be an increase, my right honourable friend has said, from three years to five years in the period for tenancies granted under the Minister's discretion under Section 2 of the 1948 Act when either an inexperienced tenant needs a period of trial before entering into a full tenancy agreement, or the landlord's son or daughter is expected shortly to take over a vacated holding. That measure will be implemented administratively and requires no amendment to legislation. The extension of time for the period of trial would, I hope the Committee will agree, be a step in the direction which, I realise, my noble friend wishes us to go. I know that does not meet my noble friend's point, but I hope I have said enough to show that we are doing our best in what is undoubtedly a controversial area.
The Earl of Onslow: I notice that my noble friend did not produce the argument that I forecast he would about undermining the 1948 Act; but I suspect he might have done had I not said that he would. I take the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Walston, and the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Northfield. Of course, one has to avoid extractive farming. I also note very carefully and agree with the point made by my noble friend Lord Belstead about the conservation aspect. I do take these points to heart. But all of these matters can be overcome by administrative order.
I am not suggesting that it should become the norm: I do not want it to become the norm. All I am hoping is that at Report stage we can put in a permissive power that the Minister may make regulations. Those regulations would have to be circumscribed so that it does not become extractive farming, so that conservation is protected. I would suggest, for instance, that you could say that no holding could be let successively on two-term tenancies; any tenancy after a one-term tenancy immediately becomes a fully protected tenancy. I do not want the term tenancies to become the norm. I want them to become an extra rung on the ladder, as one noble Lord said. That is what I want to do; and that, I think, would be a good thing.
I am not going to press this amendment to a Division at this stage because I think it would possibly be counter-productive. However if I can consider this further and possibly discuss it with various other noble Lords, and if we can produce a permissive amendment at Report stage which allows the Minister to do certain things with lots of protections engulfed in it, then I will be very tempted to divide on Report. With the Committee's permission, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 45A not moved.]
Clause 4 agreed to.
Clause 5 [Amendments with respect to cases excepted from restriction on operation of notices to quit]:
9.3 p.m.
Viscount Ridley Viscount Ridley moved Amendment No. 46:
Page 9, line 4, leave out ("omitted") and insert ("replaced by the following words—
"Case A—the landlord is a smallholdings authority for the purposes of smallholdings within the meaning of Part III of the Agriculture Act 1970, and—

(a) the holding was let to the tenant in pursuance of the said Part III as a tenancy terminable between the seventh and tenth year of the tenancy;

(b) the instrument under which the tenancy was granted contains an acknowledgement signed by the tenant that the tenancy is subject to the provisions of this Case: and

(c) the notice to quit takes effect not earlier than the beginning nor later than the end of that period.".").

The noble Viscount said: This is the first of three amendments in my name designed to increase the number of smallholdings coming on to the market for letting and so to increase the number of young people who are entering the farming industry. This, as I was told some hours ago, is what this Bill is all about. I talk only about statutory smallholdings, which have been a

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county council function since 1908. The number of smallholdings now in England and Wales—Scotland is not covered by this legislation—is about 8,000. After recent reorganisation following the Wise Committee report, they can now be regarded as by and large economically viable units with an average size of 19 hectares and an average rent of some £86·00 per hectare at the latest count.
The purpose of these smallholdings was—and is—the laudable one of providing what is called the farming ladder whereby farm workers or other young people can start to farm on their own account and, it is hoped, progress in due course to larger farms as tenants or even as owners. Over the years it has been an effective way of introducing new blood into the industry; and I am sure we must all subscribe to the objective that it stands for. For example in England alone over the past three years Ministry statistics just published show that out of the 7,000 English smallholdings only some 120 per annum have come to be re-let, and I think your Lordships would agree that this is not enough. The trouble of course is that many smallholding tenants have not been able to move on; either they lack the opportunity or they may lack the capital, or indeed they may lack the will to do so. The ladder is only an effective mechanism if people either get off at the top, topple off halfway or come back down and get off at the bottom. It is the objective here to see that the ladder is improved as a means whereby people can flow up and achieve what they are after in a new holding.
I do hope the Government will not say that there is no room for legislation in this Bill on this matter. I know it is not part of the pact between the CLA and the NFU, but that should not rule it out. I do not believe those august bodies would oppose it. Indeed I have evidence that the NFU support it in a recent brief to us, although the CLA have remained ominously silent on the matter. There may not be another opportunity to consider smallholdings legislation for many years; I hope the chance will not be lost, and I think we should look at it.
Amendment No. 46 provides that a statutory smallholding authority—in practice a county council—shall have the power to grant an agricultural lease on what is called a starter holding intended specifically to provide an opportunity for young people starting out to prove themselves in farming. Such a starter tenancy is to be terminable as of right by the landlord at any time between the seventh and tenth year of the tenancy. The idea of this is fairly and squarely one of the most important recommendations, to my mind, in the chapter on smallholdings of the Northfield Committee report, and it is taken purely from their report.
This provision is very much in the interests of the farming industry generally. If the tenant is not able to prove his capabilities with such a holding within the fixed period of the lease, the authority should be able to obtain possession so as to enable movement within the smallholding estate. Another young entrant to farming might have the opportunity to prove his worth. The knowledge that an agricultural tenancy of this kind is specifically a starter tenancy should
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encourage a successful tenant to build up experience and capital in order to apply for a tenancy of a larger farm or indeed to move in some other way up the ladder.
The need for these starter tenancies—my noble friend Lord Onslow said that one must anticipate the Minister's reply—cannot be met satisfactorily by the Minister using his power under Section 2 of the Agricultural Holdings Act 1948. This would enable him to grant tenancies for a shorter period than for life. If this was the case then I would not be moving this amendment, but past history of the use of the discretionary powers by the Minister under that section is very unsatisfactory. Notwithstanding many representations by county councils and by the Association of County Councils and an undertaking by a previous Minister to widen the exercise of his discretion under that section, county councils are continuing to meet resistance in the face of reasonable and proper requests for the use of Section 2 to grant short-term licences for a period longer than one year.
I have ample evidence that no fewer than 11 English county councils have fallen foul of Section 2 of that Act, but it is not in the Committee's interests, nor mine, that I read them out tonight. However, I can assure your Lordships that it is not an isolated case which has caused me to raise this point. There is the additional point that Section 2 involves the Minister in exercising a role in an area where a decision needs to be taken by the smallholdings authority in the interests of proper management of its estate. If the Minister is to do no more than endorse the policy of the smallholdings authority there is no point in him duplicating a function that can properly be done by that authority. Surely it is the policy of this Government to give as much power as they can to local authorities.
The amendment itself is drafted in such a way as to be in addition to the provisions of Section 2 of the Agricultural Holdings Notices to Quit Act 1977. I repeat that the amendment only applies to statutory smallholdings provided by county councils and not to any other form of agricultural holding. I accept that it may be necessary, if the principle of the amendment is accepted that we will need safeguards to stop wicked authorities, having obtained possession under this provision, immediately selling the land in order to cash in. With that proviso, I beg to move.
Lord Prys-Davies: I have one question for the noble Viscount. I followed his argument with a great deal of interest, but what becomes of the smallholdings tenant if he receives a notice to quit between the seventh and tenth years and he is without an alternative tenancy?
Viscount Ridley: The answer to that is he must know when he accepts such a tenancy agreement that termination is likely to occur. He must therefore be prepared, if he takes the chance of entering farming, to find himself alternative accommodation. I accept it may be necessary to write in further safeguards, but the principle I seek to establish is that there should be such things as starter tenancies and that people who succeed should be able to move on and those who do not should be asked to make way for others who want to have a go.
Lord Northfield: This is the most difficult point in the amendment of the noble Viscount. I support his amendment in principle but when my Committee studied this matter we suggested that notice could be given between the seventh and tenth years. However, we also said that the tenancies would be terminable if the authorities could, at the time of termination, offer a larger holding suitable to the needs and resources of the tenant in terms of size and type of enterprise, or which met criteria agreed between the parties when the first tenancy was granted. In other words, we could not see the tenant—young or old as he might be—simply thrown out over seven years with no hope at all.
We went on to say that if no holding became available in the county during the period when the notice could be given then, except in various circumstances, we proposed that the right of the local authority to terminate the tenancy for this special purpose would lapse and the tenant would have the security which would normally apply. We were trying to make it a real rung on the ladder—to make a real ladder exist—and that the provison should apply when the county could offer a larger holding for the man to move on to after his initial apprenticeship, the building up of capital, and so on, that would take place in the seven or ten years. I support the idea but I hope that if we come back to this at a later stage the noble Lord will try to find some way of qualifying the suggestion in the ways we suggested; otherwise I am sure that there would be some hardship.
Lord Stanley of Alderley: There may be some small fault in the drafting of my noble friend's amendment. However, I hope that when my noble friend Lord Belstead replies he gives the principle a very fair wind.
Lord Walston: Again I find myself in agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Northfield. I have some sympathy for this amendment, but it would be very unfortunate if a good young tenant who started farming in his early 'twenties and, having farmed well, found himself at the age of 30 moved out of his farm and unable to get another larger farm. It is true that the county councils' smallholdings were originally designed as a ladder; but if there is nothing at the top of the ladder one should not push the man off when he reaches the top. He should be allowed to stay there. If it were possible to restrict this power to those cases where the tenant has had the opportunity to get a larger holding but has refused to take it for some reason—although I do not see how this can be done—that would certainly be most attractive.
I wholeheartedly agree with the final point made by the noble Viscount. I was going to raise the matter if he had not done so. It must be made completely impossible for the county council, having given notice, then to sell the whole thing with vacant possession. That provision must clearly be incorporated in any legislation which may arise.
9.14 p.m.
Lord Belstead: The difficulty of comparing this amendment with the proposal in the report of the committee of the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, has
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been fully explained. Whatever the merits and demerits of fixed-term tenancies, they have the major drawback that in the absence of a reasonable supply of normal tenancies they are likely to mean that the beneficiaries—if that is the right term—are likely to find themselves out of a job and out of a home at the expiry of the term. It is the fact—and I am sorry that it is the fact—that over the 10 years to 1981 I am told that an average of only 14 tenants per year made a move to farms in the private sector. That is out of a total of approximately 7,000 tenants. We are talking of a situation where, however successful in themselves the smallholdings may be, the concept of them being a rung on the farming ladder has in so many cases not been achieved.
The damage to a man and his family of his going out of a job and a home would be accentuated by the fact that, since the Wise Committee made its recommendations, a larger proportion of smallholdings have become larger viable units, so that, in a sense, the damage being done is the greater. That is one area of difficulty. In listening to my noble friend Lord Ridley I think that we have to face that.
There is another area of difficulty. My noble friend was perhaps a little dismissive of the Minister's discretionary power under Section 2 of the 1948 Act. I have taken on board what my noble friend said and I shall follow it up. But I repeat what I said only a few minutes ago on a previous amendment. Currently my right honourable friend's approval is definitively going to be given for trial tenancies for an extended period from three years to five years concurrently with the coming into force of this legislation. These provisions are not perhaps as widely known or understood as they should be. We are therefore to issue public guidance on how they will operate. I am sure that they will be sufficient to give new entrants a sufficient period of trial where it is reasonable to do so. If I may say so on this amendment, it means that the maximum period we are envisaging at the moment for trial tenancies of five years falls only two years short of the seven to 10 years—the lower end of the scale which my noble friend is choosing for his amendment.
I am very ready to go away and think about what my noble friend has said and in particular about his criticisms of the way in which the Section 2 powers have been used. But I would ask him, if he would, also to think about what has been said about the difficulties of comparing this amendment with the Northfield proposals and also the possibility of making use of the new arrangements that there will be under Section 2.
The Earl of Kinnoull: I wonder whether my noble friend the Minister could expand a little bit more on the Section 2 provision. My noble friend Lord Ridley criticised it, and I must say that I have also heard criticisms of it, partly because, being discretionary, it seems that the Minister has this total power to say yes or no. Will the extension of the period from three to five years be introduced by statutory instrument or does the Minister have the power under the 1948 Act simply to state that the period will be extended? Secondly, can my noble friend go further? Could it be seven years? Whitish the object of going only to five years if he talks about a trial tenancy?
Lord Belstead: To answer my noble friend's first question, the period can be extended administratively. I think that I have said that the intention is that this would be done administratively concurrently with the passing of this Act. In response to my noble friend's second question, I would say that my noble friend is a past master at getting his foot in the door and then levering it open. Of course there is nothing to stop my right honourable friend extending his concept of the use of the Section 2 powers to a greater period than a maximum of five years. But I would draw my noble friend's attention to the fact that my right honourable friend has gone out of his way to see that, of all the grounds on which Section 2 discretions of the Minister can be used—those grounds extend to about seven different grounds on which you can give short-term lettings—he has chosen only two. Those are trial tenancies, and tenancies where you want a bit of time because a son or daughter of the owner of the land is coming along a little later. On those occasions, my right honourable friend has said specifically that he will be prepared to extend the time.
So my right honourable friend is being cautious about extending the scope of the use of Section 2 and is also being cautious about extending the period of time for which he would extend Section 2. Why is my right honourable friend being cautious? Because, once again, we come back to the old chestnut. He is concerned that there should be no question of breaching the principle of the 1948 Act that tenancies should be tenancies for life.
Viscount Ridley: I shall not waste time; I shall reply briefly. The noble Lord, Lord Northfield, will recall that what he published was not quite in accordance with the evidence of smallholding authorities. Nor can I accept the theory of the noble Lord, Lord Walston, that a good farmer can be thrown out on his ear at the age of 30. There is no question of that. It is surely a matter of getting rid of the chap who is not trying very hard. I accept that Section 2 of the 1948 Act, which my noble friend Lord Belstead promised to look at, is welcome. I shall not read out a lot of letters from his predecessor. There is room for improvement. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Murton of Lindisfarne): Before calling Amendment No. 47, I should perhaps point out to your Lordships that it should read:
Page 9, line 5, after ("Case C"), insert ("—(a)");
and also that the subsequent Amendment No. 48A should be marshalled immediately after Amendment No. 47. I understand that these are alternatives. It might be for the convenience of your Lordships' Committee if they were discussed together.
9.23 p.m.
Viscount Ridley Viscount Ridley moved Amendment No. 47:
Page 9, line 5, after ("Case C"), insert ("—(a)").
The noble Viscount said: I am sure that it would be for the convenience of the Committee if Amendments Nos. 47, 48 and 57 could be discussed in the same
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debate. I hope that this is acceptable to my noble friend, and I have no intention of speaking twice.
Amendment No. 48: Page 9, line 10, at end insert ("and
(b) the following shall be added at the end—
"For the purposes of this Case, in determining whether the tenant was or was not fulfilling his responsibilities to farm in accordance with the rules of good husbandry, the Tribunal shall have regard not only to subsection (2) of section 11 of the Agriculture Act 1947 (good husbandry) but also to the extent to which the tenant has complied with any covenant in his tenancy relating to the conservation of the landscape or the protection of wildlife or archaeological features.".").
Amendment No. 57: After Clause 7, insert the following new clause:
("Amendment of Schedule 1 to the 1948 Act.
. In Schedule 1 to the 1948 Act (matters for which provision is to be made in written tenancy agreements), after paragraph 10 there shall be added
"11. A covenant by the tenant to do or refrain from doing anything specified in the covenant relating to the conservation of the landscape or the protection of wildlife or archaeological features.".").
I move these amendments on behalf of my noble friend Lord Gibson. As your Lordships will be aware, he is chairman of the National Trust and, unfortunately, is unavoidably detained elsewhere tonight. He has put down these amendments on behalf of the National Trust. Your Lordships will I think agree that the National Trust deserves the most sympathetic and serious hearing on matters of this kind. Not only is it one of Britain's largest landowners, but its policy of letting land to tenants rather than farming itself or, indeed, of creating the dreadful new partnerships we hear about make it in this sense a model landlord. It now owns over 400,000 acres in England and Wales, of which no less than 200,000 acres are designated as SSSIs. That shows its interest in conservation if nothing else does.
The trust is very concerned, as are other bodies, that conservation has so far had no place in the Bill. The amendments seek to remedy this defect in a modest way. As the law stands, there is no statutory provision for conservation matters to be written into an agricultural tenancy agreement. A tenant following such principles may be at risk of accusations that he is farming in a manner inconsistent with the rules of good husbandry and of incurring any penalties that this might imply. Also, the landlord seeking to restrain practices inimical to conversation—I am sorry, I should have said, "to conservation"; we have all made that mistake—could be thwarted if the tenant can prove that such practices are inconsistent with the rules of good husbandry as stated in Section 11 of the 1947 Agriculture Act.
That Act was passed at a time when food production took precedence over conservation. Indeed, I think it will be agreed that the word "conservation" had hardly been invented then. Now there is need to be able to provide for more up-to-date control over such conservation issues as well as greater protection for a tenant who observes them. The amendments are by no means wholly designed to punish tenants but to protect them and to see that agreed conservation measures have some statutory backing in farmers' tenancy agreements in the future, and that tribunals should take note of them where necessary.
As your Lordships are well aware, lately there has been a very great deal of adverse criticism of the

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farming industry. Indeed, the Permanent Secretary, Sir Michael Franklin, according to the BBC said only recently that the tide of opinion is running against the farmer. The Secretary of State for Agriculture said three days ago that he had very important statutory conservation responsibilities. We all know the stories about hedges which have been removed, marshes drained, down land ploughed up and so on, and no redress is possible in the terms of the Landlord and Tenant Acts. I do not wish to start at this time of night a diversion on the Wildlife and Countryside Act. I am delighted to know that the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, is not in his place, or we should have had just that. Let us keep this matter in perspective.
We wish to make statutory provision for a clause concerning conservation to be written into a tenancy agreement where necessary and, by an addition to Case C of Section 2(3) of the 1977 Act, to widen the consideration of the tribunal beyond solely the rules of good husbandry to conservation matters in a tenancy agreement. The National Trust quite obviously by its very nature has many farms where conservation issues are of the greatest national importance. If this were acceptable, no longer would a tenant be able to disregard conservation responsibilities under the pretext of farming well; nor could he bow to the pressure to achieve high production to the detriment of the environment because of fear of these rules of good husbandry.
The NFU's brief on this matter while not totally unsympathetic, fears that a tenant might be disadvantaged in regard to security and to dilapidations. The purpose of these amendments is to see that that is not the case and that the tenant's anxieties are totally relieved in this respect. This is a most vital and important matter and an opportunity, which may not present itself for many years, to give effect to our responsibilities in this field and legal backing to environmental management. I know that the amendments will have the full support in principle of the Nature Conservancy Council and also the Countryside Commission. I cannot see any reason why my noble friend cannot welcome them with very open arms at the same time. They may only be a first step in the right direction. They may—they probably do—need much further discussion than we have time for at this stage, but I hope that they can be looked at in that light.
I know that Governments are apt to resist amendments of this type on three mains grounds. The first ground is that they just do not agree with them. That is a matter of opinion. The second ground is that the amendments are badly drafted. That is something which I can accept myself because I am not competent to argue. The third ground is that there is no need for the amendments. That I cannot accept. Much technical argument has gone on in this field about the fact that a "breach of covenant", obtainable from the court under the Law of Property Act 1925, is alleged to be an adequate substitute for conservation matters in an agreement. This really is no excuse for not making at this point a serious effort—not perhaps in detail tonight but during the course of the passage of the Bill—to bring these matters up to date. It is a unique opportunity for the Nature Conservancy
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Council, the National Trust, et cetera. They have sought legal advice on this and they do not believe that the Law of Property Act is going to have any effect. It is not true that it is an answer.
I believe that the CLA and the NFU, as I have said on a previous amendment, will be able to stand aside like two sacred cows and allow this amendment to pass between them. They are not, I think, affected and I hope that they are not biased for or against. There is, as I am sure your Lordships are well aware, a very great deal of concern in the country at large at the way such issues of conservation are developing. I hope that the Committee will give a sympathetic hearing and support me in the principle of these amendments. I beg to move.
Lord Sandford: I should like to support my noble friend in this amendment, and I can do so quite shortly because I think he has explained it very thoroughly to the Committee already. The fact of the matter is that the experience of the practitioners involved in the type of legislation with which we have been dealing, as it has so far been drafted and so far enacted, hinders rather than helps in the adoption of management agreements between public bodies such as the Nature Conservancy Council, the national park authorities, the local authorities on the one hand and landlords or their tenants on the other for the proper management of land in the countryside in the interests of conservation and a whole range of other activities on the land besides that of farming and agricultural production.
The amendment refers particularly to, "the conservation of the landscape", the conservation of wildlife, flora and fauna, and the conservation of "archeological features". However, there are other important aspects which this amendment does not cover but which I hope the Minister will bear in mind when he is reflecting on this debate, such as the use of the countryside for recreation and access for the public.
The fact of the matter is that landlords enlightened in this respect, wishing to enter into and adhere to management agreements, can be hampered by philistine and unco-operative tenants. Tenants, with the right ideas in these matters, can find their tenancies put at hazard by landlords questioning their husbandry if they seek to follow some of these agreements. So far from ironing out this problem in their Bill, neither the CLA nor the NFU have addressed their minds to it—it does not look as though they have—and nor does it appear that the Ministry has.
In the process of ensuring that this Bill meets the public interest as well as the interests of the NFU and the CLA, it is our job to ensure that from now on minds are addressed to this problem.
Lord Middleton: Does my noble friend distinguish between the public interest and the interest of the CLA and the NFU?
Lord Sandford: Indeed I do and so do many of my noble friends on both sides of the Committee. This is what we are here for. But I do not think that I need go into this matter much more. All that is necessary is for the Minister (if, as I hope, he agrees with the general

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drift of this amendment) to call into consultation some of the people who are involved besides the CLA and the NFU, such as the Nature Conservancy Council, the Countryside Commission, the associations and others. If this amendment or this formulation designed to deal with this matter is not the best, then others can be devised. However I am quite certain that something along these lines needs to be enacted.
Baroness White: From this side of the Committee I should like to support the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, and the noble Lord, Lord Sandford. Although I am not familiar with the precise details of the matter, it appears to me essential that something of this nature should be included in this proposed legislation. This time—almost to the minute—tomorrow evening I expect to be at Grosvenor House at the Red Dragon Ball, together with some 1,200 other good Welshmen and friends of Wales, listening to his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, because the ball is in aid of the National Trust in Wales and the Prince's own Environment Committee, of which I have had the honour to be a member for a number of years. I am quite sure that it would cause considerable unease and disquiet if, for any reason, this case proposed by the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, supported by the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, and in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Gibson, was not found, in principle at least, to be acceptable.
As the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, and the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, have made very clear, plainly this kind of provision is essential if this part of the countryside is to have a fair deal. We are entirely in favour of many of the provisions in the Bill, but I think that this particular safeguard is a very necessary one and I hope that it will be found acceptable in all quarters.
Lord Stanley of Alderley: For the second time this evening I should like to support my noble friend Lord Ridley on this amendment. But, as a rather suspicious sacred cow, which I think he was trying to say I might be, I would ask my noble friend Lord Belstead to confirm two matters when he replies: that, should this be favourable to the Government, am I correct that there would be no question of a case of bad husbandry put against the tenant, so getting him removed, and indeed that there would be no case for giving greater dilapidation? I understand from my noble friend Lord Ridley that that is the case. I should be happy to hear the Minister confirm that, in which case I support this, too.
9.35 p.m.
The Earl of Caithness: I rise to support this amendment too. It follows logically from Amendment No. 11 which we discussed on the first day of the Committee stage, which was an amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Gibson, and myself. Everything has been said, and therefore there is nothing more for me to say, but I hope that my noble friend would give it a warm reception.
Lord Bishopston: In the absence of the noble Lord, Lord Gibson, who is chairman of the trust—and of course I declare an interest—may I say that the case
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has been well put by the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley. He made some reference to my noble friend Lord Melchett, implying his enthusiasm for the subject of conservation. Perhaps I may tell him that I was in your Lordships' company with many others on Saturday when we had a seminar on conservation, and I am well prepared for the amendments which have been discussed tonight.
As the noble Viscount said, the trust is concerned about the definition of good husbandry under the Agriculture Act 1947 and the Agricultural Holdings Act 1948, and the definition of good husbandry under the Acts does not heed the conservation of landscape, wildlife and archaeology, so that it is not possible to enforce clauses in a tenancy agreement necessary to define or promote these particular aspects.
Also the trust is concerned in particular about the provisions for remedying the breaches of covenant, where the approval of the agricultural land tribunal is required to a notice to quit for a breach of covenant. The trust also feels that the definition of the rules of good husbandry should in some way be amended to include the recognition of the importance of conservation in the management of a holding.
It would also like some means of enabling a landlord to introduce new restrictions into a tenancy agreement to prevent a tenant damaging an interest which has come to light since the granting of the original tenancy, and arbitration might be one way of achieving this. Finally, I feel that your Lordships, with your concern for conservation, will agree that conservation is not something to be added on to our other responsibilities. It is indeed an integral part of our responsibility for good farming and for good husbandry. I hope that the Minister will be able to give the Committee some assurances about the points which have been raised.
Earl Waldegrave: We have had support from all sides of the Committee, and I should have thought that it would be seen as an omission to leave out this amendment from this new piece of legislation on agricultural holdings when the whole question of nature conservation is so much in the public eye and when so many of the big landlords—such as the Duchy of Cornwall, with which I used to be associated but I am not now and I do not speak for them—take this matter so very seriously. It would strengthen those who are trying to make these voluntary agreements work—both private and public corporations—if there was some reference of this sort in the Act. I hope that this can be in this Bill when it becomes an Act, and I hope that this clause will be supported.
Lord Walston: The only thing which modifies my wholehearted support for this amendment is that all voices which have been raised so far have spoken in favour of it, and I cannot help feeling that there must be some reason against it. But I have overcome that feeling and I seriously give this amendment my wholehearted support. Farmers have traditionally always had the job of producing food; but they have also had the job—which they have fulfilled in the main extremely well in the past—of preserving and enhancing the environment. That is something which they must continue to do.

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In many of the debates and discussions which have been held on this subject it has been asserted—and rightly asserted—that farmers are the best conservers of the environment. It is therefore right that this Bill should contain some provision to ensure that that minority of farmers who do not fulfil their obligations in this respect can be called to book. I believe this to be a good amendment. I should like to add that my noble friend Lord Hunt, who is president of the Council for the National Parks, was anxious to speak in support of this amendment, but unfortunately he could not remain here. He asked me to signify his strong support for it and the support of the Council for National Parks: support which is reinforced by very many documents and works which have been done pointing out the importance of this and how it can best be achieved.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: There is a slight rift in the Alliance. I have viewed with grave suspicion some of the people who have supported this amendment. It needs to be approached with extreme caution. It is a little hard to put into a tenancy agreement a covenant relating to the protection of the landscape, the protection of wildlife and archaeological features. One can say to a hardworking farmer, "You must not cut down trees. You must not plough up this site". But according to this one might direct him to divert his energies and, instead of trying to make a living, to conserve the wildlife round the place and forget about the vulgar business of farming and producing food. This bristles with difficulties, I agree.
The NFU has produced some useful figures about the number of trees that farmers have planted in the last 10 years. I know that most farmers do an excellent job in conserving the countryside and wildlife and improving the beauty. But we need to be extremely careful about the obligations that tenants may be forced to take on. The most we can do is to make them negative; to make them positive would not be useful.
The Earl of Caithness: If that concerns the noble Lord, I am very surprised that he did not support the noble Lord, Lord Gibson, and myself on Amendment No. 11, when we specifically asked for these matters to be taken into account in rent reviews.
Lord John-Mackie: I should like to make a few practical points, rather than support my noble kinsman's remarks. There is a world of difference between ripping up woodland, draining marshes, tearing out hedges, et cetera, and good husbandry on land that is already cultivated. With all due respect to my noble friend Lord Melchett, he has suggested that we leave two yards round all our hedges and such things.
I remember my father telling the story of his neighbour who told him that he had noticed that every time a fresh member of the family was born they took another furrow away from the hedgerows. I have pointed out to my son and to my foreman that when they leave a large corner into which it is too difficult to reverse the plough or turn the combine harvester, they are probably leaving enough land to feed an Indian family. This is what we need to watch—the difference
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between tearing up hedges, woodlands, et cetera, and cultivating properly, keeping down the weeds round the hedges and so on. There is a world of difference between the two and I felt I should point that out.
Lord Belstead: I do not think there is a difference between everyone who has spoken in this short debate about the necessity to try, wherever possible, to promote the conservation of the countryside. Indeed, in no way do I dissent from what one noble Lord said about there being no dividing line, or that there should not be a dividing line, between someone who wishes to conserve and someone who wishes to farm. Those who have been farming best over many years have been some of the best conservationists.
Having said that, I am advised that provision in the tenancy agreement is sufficient to provide protection for the tenant. That is advice which did not surprise me. In fact, it would have surprised me very much if there were provision in a tenancy agreement for conservation. Then the tenant could not be protected from a notice to quit on the grounds of bad husbandry. I should be absolutely astonished if that were the case. Therefore, I wonder (if I may say so to my noble friends Lord Ridley and Lord Sandford) whether Amendment No. 47 is necessary.
The effect of Amendment No. 57, however, is rather different. Here we have an amendment which, as I understand it, will make it naturally an implicit provision of the tenancy agreement that the tenant shall enter into a conservation covenant. Here I think we come rather nearer to the words spoken by the noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie. While many landlords and tenants enter voluntarily into conservation arrangements—and may I make it crystal clear that the Government applaud efforts in this direction—I think it is questionable to introduce a form of compulsion. Again, I should be very ready to look at this for it is an important matter, and clearly many noble Lords think that it is an important matter: but I would ask my noble friends to look at what I have said in reply.
Viscount Ridley: In years of moving amendments late at night I have never had such support before. I am sure that your Lordships will agree that it is a gratifying experience. I think we have made the case. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, remains to be convinced that it is necessary; but I hope that those of your Lordships who understand the law will be able to convince him before lunch tomorrow that it is necessary that something of this kind be done. I hope that if he is not convinced he will allow me to move an amendment at the Report stage which to some extent meets the objections made.
I entirely take Lord Mackie's point. It is not intended to introduce more compulsion in this matter than is necessary. I think that the debate has shown that something has got to be done in this field, and must be seen to be done. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment in the hope that it is not forgotten.
Lord Belstead: Before my noble friend withdraws the amendment, may I ask why is it important that I,

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the Government spokesman, be persuaded before lunch tomorrow? Is it that after lunch, in some way, I shall be incapable of being persuaded?
Viscount Ridley: It is because I think it will not take that long to get it over.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
9.47 p.m.
The Earl of Caithness The Earl of Caithness moved Amendment No. 48A:
Page 9, line 5, leave out from ("Case C") to end of line 10 and insert ("for subsection (a) there shall be substituted the following—
"(a) were satisfied in relation to the holding that the tenant was not

(i) managing it to the standard which would be required by a responsible landlord; or

(ii) farming it in accordance with the rules of good husbandry; or

(iii) managing or farming it to the standard which would be practised by a responsible tenant on a comparable holding".").

The noble Earl said: The purpose of Amendment No. 48A—which we are bringing forward before Amendment No. 48 because it comes before it in the Bill—is to facilitate the obtaining of a certificate of bad husbandry. It is quite proper for a prudent landlord to be concerned about the way that a tenant farms, notwithstanding that the law as it stands at the moment gives the tenant protection for three generations and that the chances of a landlord obtaining vacant possession during that time are small. The trouble is that history has shown that it is extremely difficult for a landlord to obtain a certificate of bad husbandry. The farm has to become a virtual disaster area before the tribunal will agree to the landlord's contention. This was a point faced regularly by the Northfield Committee, and I am delighted to have the support of the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, for this amendment.
A certificate of bad husbandry was issued recently in the case of Leak v. Pick. The tribunal found that there was no reasonable prospect of the tenant's standard of husbandry improving and that he had detrimentally affected the structure of the soil in a field by the tracking of vehicles to reach a large number of wooden pallets which were being stored and repaired on the holding. However, to me the interesting point was that the tribunal said that had the case been a marginal one the landlord's previous inactivity might have tipped the scales against him. It was only because the farm was such a disaster that the certificate was awarded. Few landlords therefore pursue claims of bad husbandry as they are so difficult to obtain.
The 1976 Act created a very privileged person in the form of the tenant, and with this privilege should come more responsibility. It must be logical for the landlord to be able to obtain possession of a holding where the tenant does not come up to the required standard. This is particularly important where succession has taken place and the landlord has not chosen the tenant. It is clear from the recent tribunal decision that landlords who are concerned about bad husbandry must serve notices to remedy and follow them through on a regular basis. However, I do not think this is enough. Farming has changed, and it will continue to do so. Very often there will be more to a tenancy than pure farming and, as we have just discussed, wildlife and conservation. There are broader aspects.
We discussed this at some length on the first day of Committee and I will not repeat what I said then. However, the hope of broadening the base was that a tenant, instead of farming a holding, would have to manage it; and it follows that a certificate of bad husbandry must be able to be granted against him to
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cover all the tenant's new functions. Our amendment therefore covers the aspects of a tenant's not managing a holding to the standard required by a responsible landlord, not farming it in accordance with the rules of good husbandry and not farming it or managing it to a standard which would be practised by a responsible tenant on a comparable holding. This last point is very important as it would allow comparable holdings farmed by competent tenants to be used in determining whether or not a certificate should be issued.
I turn briefly to the positioning of the amendment with regard to this Bill and the 1977 Act. We have by error taken out a very useful amendment to Case C by deleting the last two words on line 6, and lines 7 to 8 inclusive on page 9 of the Bill as it now stands. These words result from, I think, Amendment 93 of the working party, and should be retained.
I apologise if this has confused some of your Lordships. If, as I hope, our amendment is accepted in principle by the Government I will beg leave to withdraw it and to reintroduce an amendment at a later stage. I have given my noble friend Lord Belstead a copy of a possible amendment, where it can be brought in, together with the words as they stand in the Bill. In the meantime, I commend this amendment to your Lordships, and I beg to move.
Lord Northfield: I hope the Minister will be sympathetic to the principle of the amendment, despite the fact that we have made a mistake in drafting. As I understand it—and I am no expert on the matter—landlordshave virtually given up trying to get certificates of bad husbandry. It is almost impossible, given the case law and the particular difficulties in every case. We really need now to follow up the recommendation in my committee's report, paragraph 632, which stated that the procedure,
"for obtaining certificates of bad husbandry should be revised to ensure that they can be used as proper sanctions."
This is what the amendment is trying to do, to say that it should not just be bad husbandry, as measured by things like the quality of soil, extraction farming or the state of the property, or whatever it is. It should be a much more general view of the competence of the person concerned in his management function of the whole farm and in comparing it not with some absolute standard which is wrapped up in the words "good husbandry" but with the standard which reasonable farmers are practising on comparable farms. I am sure that something like this has got to be done. I venture to repeat that at the moment I think the law is a dead letter and landlords have almost given up trying to get certificates of bad husbandry.
Lord Belstead: I have become familiar in the last few months with views of the kind expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, and I am not unsympathetic to them. But I think the Government still feel that the considerations which tribunals already have to bear in mind in considering applications for bad husbandry certificates are in fact already covered in the purposes of this amendment.
I would draw your Lordships' attention to the definitions of good estate management and good

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husbandry in Sections 10 and 11 of the Agriculture Act 1947. Section 11, with which I am sure your Lordships are familiar, sets out both in general terms and more specifically the requirements of good husbandry. They include the maintenance of permanent pasture, the cropping and conditions of arable land, the managment of livestock, the control of pests and diseases, the protection of harvested crops and the necessary maintenance and repair which is not the responsibility of the landlord. The basic requirement is that the occupier should maintain,
"a reasonable standard of efficient production",
while,
"keeping the units in a condition to enable such a standard to be maintained in the future".
If my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, could indicate what additional factors the tribunals should be expected to take into account in considering applications for certificates under Case C, I should be prepared to consider that point further. But I must make clear that, unless there is good reason for including extra provisions, the Government would be reluctant to widen the scope of Section 11 of the 1947 Act, because this could provide scope for further argument and contention in hearings before the tribunals. I have taken on board what my noble friend Lord Caithness said about the drafting slip in his original amendment and I know he will be considering that if he wants to bring this amendment forward again.
Lord Northfield: Before the noble Lord sits down, is not the onus to some extent on the Minister? Does he not agree that the present law has almost become a dead letter and that it is not possible under the present law to carry out the intentions of Parliament; namely, to facilitate getting possession in a case of bad farming? If that is the case, may I suggest that the onus is partly on him to try to find a way of tightening up the Act? Otherwise, we shall end up by saying, "There it is, and nothing has been done about it".
Lord Belstead: The noble Lord has made a good point and it is more than a debating point. But if the Government are to go down this road, we shall need to consult the industry with some care as to whether there is agreement that the requirements of good husbandry, from which the penalties for bad husbandry are derived should be considerably tightened up. I must not be two-faced about this. I said at the beginning that I had become familiar with the sort of remarks that the noble Lord has made, and I agree that we have some responsibility in the Government to look at this. But if both the noble Lord and my noble friend feel that they want to pursue this themselves I should like to repeat that we should need to know more specifically what additional factors the tribunals should be expected to take into account. We, for our part, would have to bear in mind that we should have to be very careful not only that we carried the industry with us in changing these requirements of good husbandry, but also that we did not provide scope for further argument and contention in tribunal hearings.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: I should like to support, if not the amendment, what the noble Earl, Lord
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Caithness, has said. It is true that, if you know of cases of bad husbandry, it takes the most tremendous amount of work and time before they are recognised as such. In fact, as has been said, they have to be a disaster, useful only to the conservationists in the amount of buttercups and wild flowers that you see below the grass. Good farmers these people certainly are not. I do not like the amendment, and particularly sub-paragraph (iii):
"managing or farming it to the standard which would be practised by a responsible tenant on a comparable holding".
That could lead to as much trouble as the remark about good husbandry. I think that the Minister ought to look at it. One does not want tremendous persecution of mediocre farmers, but I could not agree more that it appears to be far too difficult to get rid of a really bad farmer—disastrous, yes, but bad, no.
The Earl of Caithness: I was somewhat disappointed by my noble friend's reply, because I feel that once again, with all due respect, he has missed the point. The point is that in future more and more tenants will be looking for means of raising income to support their way of life other than just pure farming, and the definition of "good husbandry" and "good estate management" under the 1947 Act is a purely agricultural one.
He asked for further evidence and I would again refer him to my speech at col. 171 of the Official Report of the first day of the Committee, when I cited the example of a caravan site. I can think of many cases where recreation is involved, and where it would be in the interests of the landlord and the tenant to encourage this, maybe at the expense of farming. However, I do not want to continue this debate unnecessarily. The noble Lord, Lord Northfield, and I ought to put our heads together on it and see the Minister, because we have a valid point. I am grateful for the support of the noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie. In the meanwhile, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 48, not moved.]
10 p.m.
Viscount Ridley Viscount Ridley moved Amendment No. 49A:
Page 9, line 38, at end insert—
("( ) A new Case shall be added as follows—
"Case 1—the notice to quit is given on the grounds that the tenant is aged 64 years or over and the holding consists of land held by a smallholdings authority for the purposes of smallholdings within the meaning of Part III of the Agriculture Act 1970 and the tenancy was granted in pursuance of the said Part III after the commencement of the Agricultural Holdings Act 1983 and suitable alternative housing accommodation will be available for the tenant when the notice to quit takes effect.".").
The noble Viscount said: This is another Northfield Committee recommendation dealing with statutory smallholdings and the farming ladder. In reply to my noble friend Lord Onslow's amendment, my noble friend Lord Belstead said that he was looking again at the whole question of fixed term tenancies, retirement ages, and so forth. If that is so, I will happily withdraw the very long speech I have here. If that is not the case, I will make it. Before I start on it, perhaps my noble friend will enlighten me, for it would save a lot of time.
Lord Belstead: I ask my noble friend not to make his speech, although I enjoy listening to him. I am prepared to consider the possibility at a later stage of bringing forward a suitable amendment, in consultation with my noble friend, to achieve the objectives outlined in this amendment. It is rather sad that I have not enabled my noble friend to make his speech so that I could say what I have just said as a result of his speech; but my noble friend knows that the persuasiveness of his drafting would have been exceeded only by the persuasiveness of his speech.
Viscount Ridley: With that assurance, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
The Earl of Caithness The Earl of Caithness moved Amendment No. 50A:
Page 9, line 38, at end insert—
("( ) There shall be added the following new Case—
"Case J—the notice to quit relates to a holding where—

(i) at the date of the granting of the tenancy, the holding was not a "commercial unit" as defined in the 1976 Act, and

(ii) the written contract of tenancy records that the tenant acknowledges the fact that the landlord or his successors in title may require vacant possession of the holding upon the giving of 12 months' notice to quit under the Agricultural Holdings Act 1983 to terminate the tenancy on a date not less than 5 years from the beginning of the tenancy

and it is stated in the notice to quit that it is given by reason of the matter aforesaid.
For the purposes of this Case, no valid notice to quit shall be served under this Case where, for a period of 7 years before the granting of the tenancy, the holding formed part of an agricultural unit comprising a commercial unit (disregarding any part acquired by a Public or Local Authority in exercise of its compulsory powers).".").
The noble Earl said: Many of your Lordships might automatically associate notices to quit solely with the termination of a tenancy. While my amendment does that, it is designed in the first instance to create a tenancy where a tenancy would not have been created before. It is a new concept to try to broaden the base of the landlord-tenant system. It relates exclusively to uncommercial holdings. I stress that existing tenants of such holdings are fully protected by current legislation. My hope is that in the future landlords, who might for very good reasons require vacant possession of an uncommercial holding, will let that holding, subject to certain provisos.
The first is that the tenant acknowledges that the landlord might want the holding back some time in the future, but not before the expiration of at least five years of the new tenancy has elapsed. The second is that twelve months' notice needs to be served on the tenant. There might be a fear that a landowner would deliberately break up a larger farm. Consequently, a further proviso has been added, that if the holding formed part of a commercial unit at any time within the last seven years then a notice to quit could not be validly served. The exception is when land has been taken by compulsory powers—which, of course, is out of the hands of the landlord.
We all know of instances where tenancies such as this could be of use. I will mention just one. A farmer
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friend of mine in Oxford shire farms land for five landlords in the neighbourhood. Each parcel of land is an uncommercial unit in its own right. His agreements to farm the land vary from a tenancy under Section 2 of the Agricultural Holdings Act 1948 to a gentleman's agreement. He acknowledges in each case that he is tenant for a limited period only; but how much more sensible it would be if he could farm the land on the same basis for all landlords. It would soon encourage other landlords to participate in the scheme, and it would therefore make available land which otherwise would remain owner occupied. This would surely be of benefit to farmers and tenants. I beg to move.
The Earl of Swinton: I am grateful to my noble friend for explaining what I found to be a rather complex amendment, although I must admit that I am not absolutely certain that I understand it yet. In essence it seems that the amendment would allow fixed term tenancies in relation to small parcels of land which do not amount to a commercial unit. Since I agree that my noble friend's objective is to bring into agricultural production small parcels of land which would otherwise remain unworked—may I ask my noble friend whether I am right about that? I am not quite sure that I am.
The Earl of Caithness: No.
The Earl of Swinton: Then I must say that I am in a real muddle. The example which my noble friend gave of his friend in Oxford shire is just the sort of situation which I should have thought would cause problems: where a tenancy may not in itself amount to a commercial unit but may amount to one when taken together with other parcels of land which the tenant rents, perhaps from different landlords, which I believe is the very case my noble friend was mentioning. I should have thought that in that situation, it would be wrong to interfere in a way which would make the total holding non-viable. I hope that my noble friend will withdraw his amendment. I shall have to read what was said because although I stated that I found his explanation very helpful, it has confused me all the more!
The Earl of Caithness: I am sorry if I have confused my noble friend and kinsman. The point I was trying to get across was this. Let us take the example of a new tenant coming into a viable farm. I, perchance, own 50 acres adjoining his farm which I do not want to farm—but I might want those 50 acres back in 12 years' time. That land can be given to the tenant on a tenancy, but the tenant in the first place having agreed that I might want it back. It is an uncommercial unit in its own right. It is not absorbed into his existing holding and therefore does not become a commercial unit. It remains uncommercial—but it does serve the purpose of providing more land for adjacent tenants to farm. This is perhaps something we ought to discuss in more detail between now and the next stage. I therefore beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Mackie of Benshie Lord Mackie of Benshie moved Amendment No. 51:
Page 9, line 38, at end insert—
("( ) A new Case shall be added as follows—
"Case K—at the date of the giving of the Notice to Quit the tenant, under a tenancy agreement drawn up in accordance with the Model Repairs Clauses as in S.I. 1473 (1973) and entered into after the passing of this Act, has passed the age of 65 years; providing that vacant possession of the holding is required in order to re-let to a tenant farmer under the age of 35 years.".").
The noble Lord said: We put down this amendment in something of a hurry and we are now profoundly dissatisfied with it. However, I regret that I cannot withdraw it because the amendment raises a point that the Committee will want to discuss. And if I were to withdraw our amendment, I believe it would prevent the noble Lord, Lord Monk Bretton, from putting his rather better amendment to our amendment.
The problem is a simple one which we have touched on already in this Committee; it is that if under the new Act one has a life tenancy, and if there is nothing for the tenant to do and he has not made enough money to retire in great comfort, he will hang on until he dies—thereby keeping someone else out of the tenancy.
As we have drawn it here, it is a further restraint on landlords letting land, in that we would be creating if not a permanent tenancy for one family or one man, then a permanent tenancy because, if the land owner had to re-let the land to a tenant farmer under the age of 35, as we have put the amendment down, it might apply when that chap came to be 65 as well. The problem is well known to us in this Committee. Many things could be done. It has been suggested that there should be, in the case of a new letting of a certain size of farm, a compulsory agreement between the land owner and the tenant to have a pension scheme. Indeed, I see in one of the local authority smallholding amendments it is suggested that a house be made available for anyone who is retiring from a farm.
So it is an unsatisfactory amendment, we admit, but taking out the part about vacant possession and re-letting to a tenant farmer under the age of 35 years, it does pose a problem. The amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Monk Bretton, seeks to insert the words,
"vacant possession of the holding being required in order to create an opportunity for a new entrant"—
and if the amendment stopped there, it would be a good amendment. But the amendment continues,
"or for an existing tenant desirous of developing his farming business".
That would do something we do not want to do socially; it would reduce again the number of starting places and farms in the countryside. With that, I leave the matter open to discussion. I beg to move.
10.10 p.m.
Lord Monk Bretton Lord Monk Bretton moved as an amendment to Amendment No. 51, Amendment No. 51A:
Leave out lines 6 and 7 and insert ("vacant possession of the holding being required in order to create an opportunity for a new entrant or for an existing tenant desirous of developing his farming business." ")
The noble Lord said: I am greatly relieved that the noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie, has taken so
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kindly to my interference in all this. Of course, both the amendment of the noble Lord and my own are outside the package; I have a feeling that they are perhaps not so far outside as all that—at least, I hope they are not, because I believe they carry the seeds of something important.
A retirement provision would provide more new lettings than simply a return to life tenancy without that provision. It is the purpose of the Bill to provide more farms to let, and therefore it should be in agreement with the purpose of the Bill. I believe a retirement provision would produce less strife also than a return to lifetime tenancies without that provision.
I found the noble Lord's amendment too restrictive to achieve as much as I felt it ought, and therefore I sought to widen it. I hasten to say at this point that I am not a landlord seeking a charter for himself. What I put down is in fact the original wording that came from the Tenant Farmers' Association. I trust the Committee will bear in mind that the source is a body that consists entirely of tenant farmers. I thought that this amendment should see the light of day at this stage, warts and all, because again I doubt whether it is perfect.
In passing, I feel that a first criticism of the noble Lord's original amendment is the age of 35 being the maximum age at which he could come into a holding where a former tenant has retired was too low, and I believe that 45 would be more realistic. I thought of the logjam in council holdings currently, and I also thought of the tenant who would like to and who might be capable of taking on a larger farm.
To landlords there is considerable advantage in being able to let to retirement age. This particularly applies to private ones. They would know more clearly how long they would be letting. They would be letting for a little shorter period. I do not believe that is a very big factor; but I do believe overall they would be considerably more willing. As for tenants, I say this. I think that often, when they ask for lifetime tenancies, they possibly have not thought the matter through as well as they might. I think that lifetime tenancy tends to discourage them from making proper retirement plans and provisions. I also think that too often the son is expected to be a tractor driver, dogs body, or whatever, as we have heard already today. And there is that tendency for the farmer to want to keep his hands on the reins and to do so for too long. The advantage for the son of the tenant is that he is in a better position to find out his own fate with that particular farm and to make a plan for his own life, and I hope also that this provision would free other possible tenancies for him. Lifetime tenancy is fine so long as the decisions on what is to happen are made at or around the time the tenant is reaching retiring age. If such decisions are not made at that time it can lead to bitterness. After all, owner-occupiers do have to face these decisions at that time and one is right to ask why tenants should not do so, too.
I now come to the effects of the amendment. It widens the definition of the person who takes over the farm after retirement from a new tenant under 35 to

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"a new entrant". He may be another tenant, of course, and I think this should cover a tenant from a smaller holding—an important point that must be considered. He may be a purchasing owner-occupier. The Tenant Farmers' Association repeatedly says that it recognises and accepts that landowners may have to sell for family or tax reasons, or both. The association does not want to bar this and emphatically states that it wants to provide landowners with more encouragement to let. A "new entrant" could cover the owner's son; it could cover the owner without a viable holding wishing to farm. What I think "new entrant"would not cover is the owner of a substantial viable holding proposing to add to it. The proposal goes on to admit the addition of the holding to that of an existing tenant; I think the reason being to provide for cases where good estate management precludes letting an unviable holding.
There could have been a simpler proposal than the amendment as I have tabled it. I could have proposed to delete all the words in the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie, after "35 years". That would have been much simpler for me because it would have been less difficult to explain and the drafting problems would have been considerably fewer. I think it is worth saying that the Tenant Farmers' Association would pretty nearly go along with that. So I am not quite sure whether I have interpreted the drafting correctly. I have tried to gather what I understood to be the wishes of the Tenant Farmers' Association in this matter and doubtless it will be able to read my remarks and tell me or my noble friend the Minister whether I have got it wrong. I dare say that the whole matter needs much thought and further refinement. I am very anxious to hear views on this amendment, particularly the Government's views. I am very reliant on what has already been said; that the NFU/CLA discussions should be widened to take more fully into account the whole of the industry. I hope that possibly something may come of this. I very much hope that something can be done. I beg to move.
Lord Belstead: This is another amendment dealing with retirement, and from that point of view I welcome it because, as I made clear earlier on behalf of the Government, this is an objective to which we must find the right answer. On the other hand, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie, will not mind my saying that arguably it would be wrong to allow mandatory retirement provision—because that is what we are talking about here—to be enforced by notice to quit, even in the limited circumstances provided for in this proposal. I also think that, arguably, it would be wrong to link retirement to the nature of the repairing conditions of the tenancy agreement.
That brings me to the third issue relating to relating. I readily understand the arguments in support of this proposal, but I wonder whether it would work in practice. Even with the amendment of my noble friend Lord Monk Bretton, could we, for example, prevent someone who it was thought was going to be the tenant then in fact choosing to or being induced to go off
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elsewhere? It would be asking too much of the tribunals to require them to enforce this provision, even as amended by my noble friend or amended along the lines that the noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie, wanted. I really do have my doubts as to whether that part of the amendment would work in practice.
I think that it is important to add one other thing. The Government are considering proposals to encourage voluntary retirement in the case of existing tenancies by making it easier for an eligible and suitable successor to take over earlier than on death. I started off by reminding the Committee of this and I repeat it now. Tenants who wish to make provision for their retirement will in the future be substantially assisted by a provision that my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer is proposing to include in the next Finance Bill. He has announced that he is to do this. It will give tenant farmers who wish to purchase retirement accommodation the opportunity to benefit from tax relief on the mortgage interest paid on their retirement home. Having said that, the Government are reluctant to go so far as to introduce an element of compulsion. Although of course we should be very ready to look at this amendment along with all the others so far as trying to bring forward the right amendment on retirement is concerned, from our point of view it suffers from that particular disadvantage.
Baroness Robson of Kiddington: I was going to apologise for daring to take part in this all-male preserve of the Agricultural Holdings Bill, but thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady White, I am the second speaker from our side, so to speak.
I fully accept what the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, says about the amendment. We are in agreement that something that encourages retirement at 65 would be a good thing. I am particularly of that opinion. I think back to before the 1976 Act and remember from my own experience farmers who went on in their tenancy until they died. Quite frequently as a result they left their widows and children without any particular provision. It is in the interests of the farmer to think in terms of retiring at 65 and to make the right provision for himself and his family. If he has a life tenancy without the encouragement to retire at 65, the incentive is not so much there. That is important.
I take the point that it is difficult to make a mandatory retiring age for a farmer who is a self-employed man. It is argued that no other self-employed person has a mandatory retiring age. But there are people in society, apart from civil servants, who are professional men. It is true that it is not mandatory but in a partnership they agree that they will retire at 65. Somehow or other that kind of principle should be incorporated in the Bill. I believe that it would be in the interests of the tenant and of his family.
Lord Prys-Davies: I am in sympathy with the Minister's response. We are all in favour of encouraging retirement, but compulsory retirement as a deliberate act of policy is very much another matter. Certainly, compulsory retirement should not be

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rushed through in an amendment such as this. It could cause an appeal brought about without adequate preparation, support and discussion within the industry. Having said that, we are very much in sympathy with the principle that the farm be relet to a tenant farmer. I think that the first part of the amendment is particularly helpful. We are not especially impressed that the reletting should be to a tenant of any age in particular but that the opportunity should be given for a new entrant to the industry.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: I started by saying that we were dissatisfied with our amendment. That has been proven by every speaker who has commented on it. However, the matter has been ventilated. Everyone agrees that it is a problem and the sort of thing that we need to look at. We ourselves are most unhappy about compulsory retirement by notice to quit and so on. As it has been ventilated. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Earl Cathcart): I think that it would be the correct procedure to dispose of Amendment No. 51 A first. May I ask the noble Lord, Lord Monk Bretton to speak?
Lord Monk Bretton: I think that at this hour we have had a good discussion. I should like to thank my noble friend the Minister for what he has said. I am glad that he is looking at retirement in general, though I am a little disappointed that he was not more amenable to our problem. I should like to return to the matter at Report stage but, in the meantime, I am sure that my best course is to beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment to the amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: I beg leave to withdraw Amendment No. 51.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 5 agreed to.
10.27 p.m.
Lord Northfield Lord Northfield moved Amendment No. 52:
After Clause 5, insert the following new clause:
("Additional consent to operation of notice to quit.
The following paragraph shall be inserted in section 3 of the 1977 Act (Tribunal's consent under s. 2 to operation of notice to quit) after subsection (3)(b)—
"(bb) that the tenant is already holding by statutory succession within the three calendar months which precede the landlord's application, a tenancy, joint tenancy or tenancies which form a viable economic unit or units, taking into account the productive capacity of the land, and that the landlord is willing to create and let a new agricultural holding that includes the land to which the notice relates.,".").
The noble Lord said: I can be brief, although the point is of immense importance. I am sorry that it has come on late at night, when we cannot test the opinion of the Committee upon it. Earlier, we were talking about restricting the right on an eligible successor and we said that we wanted to reinforce the point that a tenant who already has a good farm, a viable farm, should not inherit another one that is the subject of a tenancy.
This thinking was taken further by the committee which I chaired when we recommended that we should say that no-one should inherit a holding or a collection of holdings that formed more than a single viable commercial unit; in other words, that when a tenant dies there should be a chance for a challenge as to whether the whole of the perhaps scattered system of tenancies that he had built up should be passed on, or whether that succession should be limited to what, in effect, comprises a viable commercial unit with the landlord then able to let the rest to someone else. It would create more opportunities for tenancy and more opportunities for new entrants than almost anything we have been discussing today if we could stop this indiscriminate, if you like, inheritance of tenancies when they comprise together much more than a single viable unit.
It was a star recommendation of my committee in paragraph 630 of the report, and I am surprised that it has not had a good deal more attention in the four years since the report has been published. It is of great importance. I suggest that it would have enormous effect if people could inherit only enough to form one viable holding. I beg to move.
Viscount Ridley: I wonder whether the noble Lord could say whether this is a retrospective amendment? If not, I think that it is worthy of the greatest support, and I hope that it will be agreed to.
Lord Northfield: As far as I can see, I do not think that it is retrospective because it would insert the power of the tribunal to apply a notice to quit from the date of the passing of the Act. Therefore, it would be up to landlords at any time after the passing of the Act to go to the tribunal and say that they would like to contest the power of the successor to inherit the whole of the tenancy. The landlords would say, "We think that it is more than one viable unit and we are prepared to let the land to somebody else". No, I do not think that it would be retrospective.
Lord Belstead: This amendment suffers from the same defect as the noble Lord's Amendment No. 43; namely, we require a definition of "viable unit" before we are through, and I think that the noble Lord accepts that. Having said that. I should like to look at what the noble Lord has said as regards this amendment. At this hour I do not want to go through a lot of reasons as to why we do not like the amendment. However, I am advised that there are certain technical defects.
If the noble Lord would not mind my leaving the matter in that way at this hour of the evening, I should like to have a close look at what he has said because there is no question about it that the objective of the noble Lord is to try to deal with an intractable problem. I accept that. I am not absolutely certain, to be perfectly honest, whether this particular amendment, No. 52, would achieve it, quite apart from the need to find the right definition. I hope that that is not a very slipshod way of replying on this particular occasion.
Lord Northfield: I am most grateful to the noble Lord. The fact is that it is amateur drafting by me,

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rather than drafting with legal advice. If the noble Lord will have a look at how it could be drafted (even if he does not want to put the amendment down himself) to help me get it right before the next stage, I shall be delighted. Meanwhile, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 6 agreed to.
[Amendment No. 53 had been withdrawn from the Marshalled List.]
10.34 p.m.
On Question, Whether Clause 7 shall stand part of the Bill?
Lord Mackie of Benshie: I rise to give notice of my intention to oppose the Motion That Clause 7 shall stand part of the Bill. In so doing I should like first to apologise to the President of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, because during my Second Reading speech I meant that for this function they were the worst people in the world. It went down in Hansard like that, but the House understood that I meant that remark to apply to this function. However, in Hansard it stood by itself, which was an insult I did not intend in any way. Hansard are not to blame. They took it down as I said it, but of course it looked different in print. However, it is a most unsuitable function for the President of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors to appoint an arbitrator for this function.
However well they mean, their main function, and the main place from which they draw their income, is of course the sale of land or the letting of land, and, try as they may, they cannot help but be prejudiced by their function. If they are not prejudiced then certainly the farmers who are under dispute or who are applying for arbitration will feel that they are prejudiced. What I cannot understand is why the Government, with this agreed Bill, should go against both the NFU and the CLA in this matter. I would not of course dream of using unparliamentary language, like "stupid" or "bonkers" or anything like that. It would be quite wrong of me to do that. I shall confine myself to saying that it is lamentable and unbelievable that they should produce this scheme.
It is the only mistake in the Bill; and they have been extremely sensible, and up to now have discussed a great many differences of opinion in this Committee. I hope and trust that they will return to the simple method of the Ministry picking the arbitrator. They seem to think that they will save some money. I cannot believe that they would save any significant amount of money; and, anyhow, I think that the tenants would rather pay a little more than have the Ministry give up its function to the Institution of Chartered Surveyors.
I should like a strong assurance from the Minister that he will listen to the opinions in the Committee and will genuinely reconsider this clause. It is of great importance, because to have in this Bill (in respect of which so much has been said about confidence, progress and the difficulty of reaching an agreement on a delicate subject) Clause 7, which is wholly opposed
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by both the main parties to the agreement does not appear to me to be sensible. I therefore oppose the inclusion of Clause 7 as part of the Bill.
Lord John-Mackie: I am afraid I must disagree with my noble kinsman on one remark that he made; namely, that this is the only mistake there is in the Bill. I think that the Bill is full of mistakes, and this is certainly one of them. I shall be very brief indeed. Whatever happens, I think that when the arbitrator is appointed he must be seen to be fair by the tenant and the landlord. It is always considered that, in appointing arbitrators, the Ministry has been as fair as it possibly can be. However, if one hands this task to an association such as the RICS then it is bound to be biased—I think my noble kinsman used a rather stronger word—in which case there would be some doubt. I think that the Government must be seized of the fact that nearly everybody is against this clause, and I am sure that the noble Lord will see fit to withdraw the clause from the Bill.
Lord Stanley of Alderley: I strongly support the noble Lord, Lord Mackie. I cannot support the retention of this clause for one minute. The RICS must be seen to be impartial, and it cannot be at the moment when it is to be both judge and jury. I should like to quote a Written Answer which I received on 23rd November to the following Question. This brings out the point very clearly. It is as follows:
"To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are prepared to consider nominations to the Lord Chancellor's panel of arbitrators constituted in accordance with Schedule 6 of the Agricultural Holdings Act 1948 from organisations representing farmers and landowners; and, if not why not."
My noble and learned friend replied:
"Farmers and landowners are the parties at arm's length to the disputes which are subject to these arbitrations. Arbitrators nominated by organisations representing these interests would not be seen to be impartial."
What is sauce for the gander—need I go on? If that is the line of my noble and learned friend, then I implore my noble friend on the Front Bench to take a similar view.
I would urge the Government very seriously to think again about this, and either to throw Clause 7 out completely or, perhaps much better, to think about it and rewrite it altogether. I do not want to go through the Lobbies because if I do I shall certainly not be in the same Lobby as my Front Bench.
I am afraid that I really do smell dogma here. I am not objecting for one minute to paying the going rate, and I do not mind to whom I pay it, provided that the person to whom I pay it can be seen to be impartial. I hope that when he replies to this matter my noble friend will allow me to stay in my place and not go through the Lobby, but I shall go through unless a categoric assurance is given by him that he will do something when he brings back the Bill next time.
The Earl of Caithness: I rise to oppose this Question, that Clause 7 should stand part of the Bill. This problem first came up in the working party, and the RICS was approached on the matter. They said at the time that appointments should be a decision for the Minister and not the president of the RICS. The matter lapsed and the RICS were more than a little

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surprised to have it raised again just prior to the publication of the Bill. They did not ask for this clause.
Of course the president of the RICS is capable of performing the functions required, and indeed is probably the best person for the job other than the Minister. However, welcoming something does not mean that there is not a better alternative. As has been pointed out, we are talking about human nature. Notwithstanding the fact that surveyors act for more tenants than landlords, they have become affectionately known as, "landlords' men". It is unfortunate that this is true in agriculture, because in the commercial and residential world the title does not apply at all, as in those fields particularly tenants realise the complexity of the law and seek advice of surveyors. There are a number of tenant farmers however who think that they can do a better job than surveyors, and because they have come unstuck, they have labelled them "landlords' men".
It is important that the appointment of the arbitrator is not only impartial but is seen to be impartial. The passing of this duty to the president of the RICS would, in some people's minds, cast doubt on the impartiality; but of course this would be erroneous. However, if that feeling of impartiality is not in the tenant's mind, then we are going to cause a great deal of May I ask my noble friend what savings the transferring of this function to the president of the RICS will achieve? If it is going to save any money—and I believe it is going to save something in the region of £50,000—why does not the Ministry itself introduce a fee to cover all these costs?
Viscount Ridley: Could the noble Lord give those of us who are members of the RICS some guidance? Can we vote, or not, on this issue?
Lord Renton: May I ask two questions which are relevant to this, and on a matter on which I must confess I am an honest wobbler? It seems to me that there may be little difference between the appointment of these people by the Minister and appointment by the RICS. The same people are likely to be appointed in any event, and therefore there would not be very much difference. But we are told in the Notes on Clauses that this is an honest attempt at privatisation. Of course the expenses incurred by the Ministry in carrying out these administrative functions will presumably have had to be expended by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. Will the Institution be reimbursed when they spend the money, and how much will it cost?
The Earl of Kinnoull: I should like to add my name to this debate. I believe the RICS would do this job rather well, but I do not support this clause. As others have said, it would appear unfair. I think that there are 207 agricultural arbitrators under the Lord Chancellor's panel. They are held in high respect, and it would be damaging if that respect were in any way lessened because what appeared to be fair now did not appear to be fair in the future.
10.44 p.m.
Lord Belstead: This proposal in Clause 7 is an example of a situation where the private sector not
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only can but should provide a service which is at the moment being provided by Government. I was asked by my noble friend Lord Caithness how many people are involved on this work at the moment in my right honourable friend's department, and the answer is four people are involved. I am not making a joke when I say that those who have been supporting the Government Front Bench in the Ministry of Agriculture would dearly have loved to have four additional personnel to help with the considerable amount of work that there has been on the Bill and will be on the Bill in the future. All of your Lordships who are interested in agriculture would, I am sure, be able to tell me of occasions where extra members of ADAS would be more than welcome. Another four members, instead of working on this particular work, could be better involved out in the field. So the examples can go on.
The noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie, who in characteristically fair terms moved the motion that the clause be left out—indeed, I am sorry to be crossing swords with him on this matter because he has been more than supportive to the Government in a difficult Committee stage over the two days of the Committee—said that this, nonetheless, was an unsuitable proposal. The RICS already appoints arbitrators in many non-agricultural cases; I am advised that the number exceeds 2,000 a year. The institution is also designated, by statute, to appoint arbitrators in agricultural cases where the Crown is a party to an arbitration. I have no doubt that the Royal Institution can carry out this extended function objectively and impartially as it already does in the case of the appointments for which it is currently responsible.
Lord Howard of Henderskelfe: The president of the RICS told me only last week that the Institution deals with between 4,000 and 5,000 commercial arbitrations per year, and that although he does not personally appoint all of them, they all come under his jurisdiction.
Lord Belstead: I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Howard of Henderskelfe, for underlining the point that the Royal Institution is admirably qualified, both in its qualifications and in its track record, for making these appointments for non-agricultural matters and where the Crown is party to arbitrations. It is also, by statute, required to make similar appointments, though there are very many fewer.
My noble friend Lord Caithness, quite rightly, said that these appointments must not only be impartial but must be seen to be impartial. I should like to make it clear that we are discussing the appointment of arbitrators only from a standing panel of arbitrators. This panel is appointed by the department of my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor and no change of any sort will be made in those arrangements.
My noble friend Lord Renton said that he rather suspected that there would really be no change in practice if this proposal were agreed to—
Lord Renton: In personnel.
Lord Belstead: In personnel—my answer to that is that virtually all the members of this panel, 202 of

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them out of 206, are, in any case, members of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.
As to the practical arrangements, the president of the RICS has given an assurance that the procedure currently followed for the appointment of arbitrators would remain substantially the same if this clause were to be agreed to as he would undertake to make the most suitable appointments in all cases, whether the arbitrator concerned is a member of the RICS or not. Officials of my right honourable friend's department and the other agricultural departments would cooperate closely with RICS officers during the hand-over period to ensure that the new arrangements operate smoothly and effectively right from the start.
On Second Reading I made the point that we would not intend to bring this into effect at once because everybody would want time to get used to the idea. There is the power in Clause 10(4)(a) for it to be brought in later on and the intention of the Government would be that it would be brought into effect no sooner than one year after the Bill comes into force.
I return to my original point. It may not sound to some a very persuasive argument that there is a shortage of manpower in the public service and we must make the best use of that manpower. However, it is the truth, and it is the truth—if I may remind my noble friends—because all of us and everybody else outside the Committee have to dip into our pockets through our taxes for pay for the public service. Therefore we in Government have a responsibility to see that we are making the best use of the manpower—the overworked manpower—that we have. And the Government genuinely believe, for reasons that I have tried to outline in the last few minutes, that this is a function which would be most admirably discharged by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. I therefore hope your Lordships will agree that Clause 7 shall stand part of the Bill.
Lord Walston: May I ask the noble Lord one or possibly two questions? As I understand it from what he said, the object of this exercise is basically to save money, to save the salaries of four officials. Would the noble Lord agree with me that it is tantamount or analogous to say that undoubtedly money would be saved if our judges were appointed not by the Lord Chancellor but by the Bar? They would be able to do it and they could probably do it cheaper, and various public officials could probably be dispensed with. But nobody would suggest that that is the right way of doing it. We do not want to save money at the expense of having litigants feel that they are not getting a square deal as they do today. Yet the noble Lord is saying to us that, in order to save a very small amount of money, we should run the risk—a risk which has been expressed by people who are very close to both farmers and landowners—that those litigants in dispute will feel, if the present system of appointing arbitrators is dispensed with, that they are not getting a square deal.
The second point on which perhaps he could enlighten me is this. There is a panel, as I understand it, appointed by the Lord Chancellor, of some 200 experts, respected people, most of them nominated by the president of the Royal Institution of Chartered
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Surveyors. There are not a very large number of arbitrations every year. I do not know what the number is. He undoubtedly does know. But is he really telling us that it takes four full-time officials to choose which of those 200 or 220 eminent and suitable people should carry out an arbitration; or are there other works that they are doing, and, if so, perhaps he could tell us what are these other works?
Lord Belstead: I think there is a misunderstanding. uncharacteristically, on the part of the noble Lord, Lord Walston, about the qualifications of the RICS for this particular matter. The noble Lord was suggesting in his remarks that it would be equally possible for others to discharge this function but that it would not be right for them to do so, either. In this case, not only is the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors professionally qualified for this matter but, as I sought to lay before the Committee, the RICS is actually designated by statute to appoint arbitrators in agricultural cases where the Crown is a party to the arbitration. I will not mislead the Committee by saying that those appointments are all that frequent. They run, I think, into two rather than three figures each year.
Nonetheless, the RICS keeps on making those appointments and as I understand it—and as all the Committee would expect—it is done in the most admirable fashion by the RICS in addition to—as I said 2,000 and as the noble Lord, Lord Howard, was saying, he understood that it was nearer 4,000—arbitration appointments made for nonagricultural cases. Therefore, with respect, I would reject the argument that in some way one could say, "Oh yes, this is an organisation which is very well qualified, but it is wholly unsuitable".
The Government really do believe that the RICS would be highly suitable, not only by way of qualification but by way also of its track record in the matter of making these appointments. So far as money is concerned, I think I ought to make the point (which I have not yet made) that there would have to be a fully-costed analysis by the president of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors to back up the level of fee which would be charged if Clause 7 were to be agreed to; and, of course, noble Lords would know, from looking at the text of the Bill, that that fee would then have to come before both your Lordships' House and another place to receive affirmative resolutions under a statutory instrument. There is that matter also. And finally I come again to the point that no change is to be made in the fact that the names will be drawn from a standing panel which is kept by the Lord Chancellor's Department nor will any change be made in the personnel who will be chosen, because the panel consists already of 202 out of 206 in total being RICS members.
The noble Lord, Lord Walston, asked me how was it that four people can be engaged in this work. The reason is because judgment has to be used when a particular case comes up on a particular kind of tenancy in a particular part of the country as to which panel members will be the most suitable and, indeed, as to whether they will be acceptable both to the landlord and to the tenant. That has to be done with care, and the number of arbitrations take that amount of people to do the work.

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I am speaking now off the cuff: I am not aware that those four personnel are involved in other work. I will not tread the same ground again. I will just say that your Lordships are very knowledgeable; your Lordships could all say to me where an extra four people could be so well used in the agricultural industry in this country instead of sitting behind a desk and doing work which is important but which could be so well done by the private sector. I hope I have said enough to persuade your Lordships that Clause 7 is necessary. I do not do it out of any intention to try in any way to cut across the advice which your Lordships have given. We genuinely believe that this is a desirable step and that it will do harm to none.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: The Minister has fought hard and well. He is able and persuasive, but really I do not think that he has made the case for the Government and I do think that he really made our case when he said that these four men in the Ministry were experienced; they knew the people; they knew the different parts of the country; and the selection of an arbitrator to suit both the landlord and the tenant, to he fair, was a job calling for great skill. That great skill lies in the Ministry where these four people have been working at it for years. There is no doubt that the expert opinion on all sides of this Committee does think that the expertise and the standing of the Ministry should remain to make this Bill a workable one. So, with great regret, I must maintain my opposition to Clause 7.
10.59 p.m.
On Question. Whether Clause 7 shall stand part of the Bill?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 39; Not-Contents, 17.

DIVISION NO. 3

CONTENTS

Airey of Abingdon, B.

Margadale, L.

Avon, E.

Middleton, L.

Beloff, L.

Murton of Lindisfarne, L.

Belstead, L.

Renton, L.

Boardman, L.

Ridley, V.

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Rodney, L.

Bruce-Gardyne, L.

St. Aldwyn, E.

Cox, B.

Sandford, L.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Sandys, L.

Glenarthur, L.

Savile, L.

Gray of Contin, L.

Shannon, E.

Harmar-Nicholls, L.

Skelmersdale, L.

Harvington, L.

Swinton, E. [Teller.]

Home of the Hirsel, L.

Trumpington, B.

Homsby-Smith, B.

Vickers, B.

Howard of Henderskelfe, L.

Waldegrave, E.

Kimberley, E.

Whitelaw, V.

Long, V.

Windlesham, L.

Lucas of Chilworth, L

Wynford, L.

Lyell, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Bishopston, L.

Mottistone, L.

Boston, L.

Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L. [Teller.]

Caithness, E.

Hives, L.

Prys-Davies, L.

John-Mackie, L.

Robson of Kiddington, B. [Teller.]

Kilmarnock, L.

Kinnoull, E.

Stanley of Alderley, L.

Lawrence, L.

Walston, L.

Mackie of Benshie, L.

Whaddon, L.

Monk Bretton, L.

Resolved in the affirmative, and Clause 7 agreed to accordingly.
Lord Denham: I am in the hands of the Committee. It is always a little difficult at this stage, noble Lords having waited so long to move their amendments, to know whether or not one is being unfair to them in adjourning early. My feeling is that the Committee would probably like to adjourn now to another day, but if I am wrong no doubt noble Lords will let me know.
I beg to move that the House do now resume.
Moved accordingly, and. on Question, Motion agreed to.
House adjourned at eight minutes past eleven o'clock.