Committee (3rd Day)

Part of Public Bodies Bill [HL] – in the House of Lords at 5:10 pm on 1 December 2010.

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Photo of Lord Greaves Lord Greaves Liberal Democrat 5:10, 1 December 2010

My Lords, we resume our rapid canter through the Committee stage of the Bill. Amendment 19 refers to the,

"Agricultural dwelling-house advisory committees", in England and seeks to remove them from Schedule 1. I am not arguing that this is exactly what we should do. This is a probing amendment to establish who will carry out the important role of these committees in the relatively small number of cases involving agricultural tenants of tied housing, in which some 30 per cent of agricultural workers live. They are guaranteed security of tenure in their tied housing for fairly obvious reasons; their housing is tied to their job and their job is tied to their housing. That is a relatively unusual situation nowadays; it used to be a lot more common.

These committees were established under the Agricultural Wages Act 1948 and are now established under the Rent (Agriculture) Act 1976. They are convened locally and hear about 40 to 50 cases each year. Membership is drawn from membership panels that are maintained by the Defra offices in Crewe and Bristol and the meetings are set up on an ad hoc basis according to the business to be conducted. They are not terribly high-powered bodies in the sense of always being in session and always having a lot of business. They have a relatively small amount of business, but it is important. They consist of one member who represents agricultural worker interests and is nominated by the trade union Unite; one member who represents agricultural employer interests and is nominated by the National Farmers' Union; and one independent member who acts as chairman and is appointed from a panel of persons approved by the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Agricultural workers living in tied cottages generally have security of tenure, but a farmer may apply to the local housing authority to have a protected worker rehoused if he or she needs the cottage for a replacement agricultural worker in the interests of efficient agriculture. In such circumstances the local housing authority, the farmer or the cottage occupier can ask an ADHAC to advise on the applicant's case to determine whether it is in the interests of efficient agriculture and urgent. In other words, although the committee can be asked to intervene by any of the parties to the dispute and to the attempt to evict the farm worker from his tied accommodation-in other words, the farm worker or the employer-in practice, the usefulness of these committees is to provide advice to the local housing authority, or the local council, on whether it is a reasonable request.

That is the nub of it. I am not arguing that ADHACs should continue in their present form. It may well be that the number of cases that are dealt with each year is relatively small, and that they could be dealt with in some other way. Some other body could be charged with advising the housing authority, and in this respect I am aware of the position when an application is made for planning permission for a house or cottage to be built in an area of the countryside where it would otherwise not be allowed because of planning rules on building new dwellings in open countryside, on greenbelts, or whatever. What tends to happen is that the planning authority, which is part of a unitary local authority or, in two-tier areas, the district, seeks advice on whether the accommodation is sensibly required from the appropriate department of the local authority responsible for farming and agriculture in the area. In two-tier areas that will be the county council, and in single-tier areas it is another department of the same authority.

There is a duty to advise a housing authority on whether it is a reasonable request to require the local authority to provide accommodation for someone who is otherwise in tied accommodation, so putting that duty on the relevant department of the local authority-whether it is another department of a unitary or the county council in a two-tier area-is a sensible way forward. It could provide the same safeguards and advice, which the housing authority will need anyway, within the wish of the Government to abolish this particular board organisation. There are sensible ways forward, but they require a bit of care and application by the Government not simply to abolish the agricultural dwelling house advisory committees without having first made appropriate arrangements for other bodies to do what they do because it is a very useful and necessary function. You only have to think of the situation in which you are in tied accommodation because you have been a worker on a particular farm, but you have retired, the farmer needs your house or cottage, you need to be rehoused, and the housing authority needs to have specialist advice as to whether it is a reasonable application to take precedence over all other applications for housing in that area. I hope that I can get an answer from the Government that is sympathetic to what I am putting forward. On that basis, I beg to move.