Clause 9 - Information services etc.
Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill
5:00 pm
Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby, Conservative)
That was precisely the point that I was going to make about information on the payments made to farmers. It is not just a case of people being embarrassed when it is generally known in the pub how much they are getting from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. It is the fact that landlords would often have a figure written on a piece of paper, and that would be the opening bid in rent negotiations. That has happened in my part of north Yorkshire, and it puts the tenant in a difficult negotiating position to know that the landlord knows how much the cheque from DEFRA will be for, and basically says, “Well, give me that as the rent, and you can have whatever you make otherwise.” That is worrying, quite aside from the embarrassment that a couple of very large landowners were subject to when those sums were published.