I have sat up all night for an opportunity to raise a very important issue, and I make no apology for doing so. I wish to bring to the notice of the Government the considerable financial hardships caused to compulsorily dispossessed tenant farmers whose land is being taken over for development. I am very grateful to Mr. William Snooks, former National Farmers' Union Bucks County Chairman, and to his colleagues in that branch for drawing my attention to this very great injustice, under which tenant farmers have been suffering for so long.

I wonder whether my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary would consider improving agricultural tenants' compensation. The reasons for my request are, first, that the subject is urgent. Urban development in my constituency of Buckingham and throughout the country is going on at a pace that present legislation never envisaged. Large-scale dispossession of approximately 200 farmers, more than half of whom are tenant farmers, is threatened in my constituency by virtue of the Government's plan to set up a new city to take London's overspill population of about 150,000 people. As is well known, the supply of farming land is limited because dispossessed farmers and horticulturists—who number many thousands all over the country—cannot easily start up again and then only at a very high cost. Hence the need for much better and fairer compensation. The threat to the tenant farmers of my constituency is a nightmare, because they realise that their livelihood and their homes are at stake and that their chance of getting another farm to rent is extremely small.

They feel that the present basis of compensation is both low and diabolically unjust. Present terms of compensation are, in my opinion, mean, niggardly and inhuman. Tenant farmers should receive five years' profits or 10 years' rent, whichever is the higher, when they are compulsorily dispossessed. Farmers would much rather be left alone with their farms. If they have to go, they would rather be compensated by the Government helping to find them an equal-sized farm. If a farmer takes over a derelict farm and makes heavy investments—as in all other businesses—he could and often does lose money in the first two to five years.

By being given the option of five years' profits or 10 years' rent, a farmer could be compensated in a fair way instead of being dispossessed, possibly at a most difficult and disadvantageous time.

The present legislation governing compensation to dispossessed farmers is contained in Section 34 of the principal Act, the Agricultural Holdings Act, 1948, and in Section 22 of a subsidiary Act, the Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1963. The principles of compensation are laid down in Section 34 of the principal Act and the maximum and minimum limits are set out. The minimum limit is laid down as one year's rent and the maximum as two years' rent. The rent is the current rent which the tenant farmer pays to his landlord.

No doubt, in 1948, this basis of compensation was fair and reasonable, but time and the value of money have changed. Farming has become big business in which a substantial sum of capital investment is involved. I therefore suggest that the rigid limits laid down in the principal Act have become as out-dated as the penny-farthing in our jet age. There are many aspects of development which affect tenant farmers in my constituency, who until recently have had little cause to fear dispossession or to concern themselves about the compensation to which they might be entitled as a result of their being dispossessed of the land on which they have gained their living.

However, with the threatened setting up of this great new city in my constituency, many of them have had to start concerning themselves with this question, and they are shocked and amazed at how unfairly they would be treated under the present Act. At the moment, the problem of unfair compensation applies most particularly to the tenant farmer, because the dispossessed owner-occupier—of a home, a business or a farm—gets the full market value. Though he may not be able to find another farm, if he is beyond the age at which he is able to find alternative employment, he has at least some capital on which to fall back.

Is it realised that more than 60,000 acres of land are being swallowed up every year by development projects? This is occurring annually, and hardship is being suffered by hundreds of farmers, their farm workers and their dependants. Is it equitable that a young farmer who is making a great contribution to this industry should be penalised on exactly the same basis of compensation as a farmer who is about ready to retire in a year or two? It is very hard on people who are farming as tenants and suddenly find that their land, which is the tool of their trade, is removed from them.

I ask my hon. Friend to consider stating emphatically that compensation should be paid on the basis of five years' loss of profit or 10 years' rent, whichever is higher. I hope that I am not out of order in complaining that the former Administration, who were in power for almost 13 years and who have been pretending to be friends of the farmers, refused to bring in the necessary legislation to put right this gross injustice. For this reason I hope that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture will honour the pledge which he gave when he said that in principle he accepts that adequate compensation should be given to a farmer who suffered because of the take-over of his land for non-agricultural use. Under the legislation of the previous Administration it was the practice to make ex-gratia payments.