Baroness Rock calls for fairer deal for tenants hit by development

Tenant farmers facing land losses due to development must be given “adequate and fair” compensation, the House of Lords heard this week, as Baroness Rock urged ministers to act now rather than wait years for reform.

Speaking shortly before midnight on Monday (3 November), Conservative peer Baroness Rock – author of the government-commissioned Rock Review into agricultural tenancies – tabled three amendments at the Report Stage of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill.

These aim to ensure farm tenants are properly compensated when landlords reclaim land for development or when holdings are affected by compulsory purchase.

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She cited the case of Rob and Emma Sturdy, tenant farmers on the Fitzwilliam Malton estate in North Yorkshire, who risk losing half their farm after a planning inspector overturned a local council’s refusal of a solar energy scheme.

Developer Harmony Energy has withdrawn a voluntary compensation offer and now plans to pay only the statutory minimum – six times the rent value.

“That is wholly unacceptable,” said Baroness Rock.

“The prime minister promised tenant farmers the soil beneath their feet was secure.

“But Rob and Emma are now feeling the emptiness of those words,” she told peers, urging government to “level the playing field” for tenants.

Her amendments sought to update compensation rules under the Agricultural Holdings Act 1986 and the Agricultural Tenancies Act 1995, where current provisions fail to reflect tenants’ actual commercial losses.

Labour recognition

Labour’s Baroness Taylor of Stevenage, responding for the government, said she recognised the “truly shocking” example of the Sturdys’ case and agreed that existing law needs review.

However, she said the issue should be addressed through the Law Commission’s forthcoming review of agricultural tenancy law rather than this bill.

Baroness Rock warned that such reviews “take years and years”, pressing instead for immediate protections.

Baroness Taylor agreed to meet her and the Tenant Farmers Association (TFA) to discuss options, but maintained that “this bill is not the place” for the changes.

Baroness Rock said she was “disappointed” by the response and reserved the right to reintroduce her amendments at third reading.

TFA gratitude

Commenting on Baroness Rock’s intervention in the Lords, TFA chief executive George Dunn said: “We are hugely grateful to Baroness Rock for raising these important issues about compensation payable to tenant farmers.

“She never misses an opportunity to speak up for tenant farmers and the tenanted sector of agriculture in all that she does.

“Sadly, the government’s response, whilst predictable, was poor.

“I’m looking forward to joining Baroness Rock for her meeting with ministers to press the case for better compensation for all tenant farmers who lose land to development.”