§ Mrs. Ann WintertonTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and rural Affairs what recent assessment she has made of the future viability of local authorities' tenanted farms. [12807]
§ Mr. MorleyThe 47th Annual Report to Parliament on Smallholdings in England was published in 1999. This report which is available in the Library of the House, covered the period to 31 March 1997. This showed that the total expenditure in the year to 31 March 1997, by local authorities with smallholdings, was £16.9 million and total income in the same period was £25.3 million. The Department also conducts an annual survey of tenanted land although this does not separately identify local authority tenanted farms.
We have also commissioned work to establish the role local authority tenanted farms play in providing farming lets to new entrants. A preliminary assessment of the impact of the Agricultural Tenancies Act 1995 was conducted by the University of Plymouth in 1997. This indicated that county smallholdings play an important but reducing role in providing farming lets to new entrants. A full policy evaluation of the 1995 Act is currently under way and this explores this area further. This work should be completed in early 2002.