STRONG lobbying has led to the announcement by DEFRA that it will proceed with the appointment of a Commissioner for the Tenant Farming Sector in England.
Tenant Farmers Association (TFA) Chief Executive, George Dunn, said “In what has been an extremely dark week for farmers considering the October Budget, the announcement of the appointment of the Commissioner for the Tenant Farming Sector offers a shaft of much welcome light.”
The idea for the appointment of a Commissioner came from the recommendations of the Rock Review into agricultural tenancies, conducted by Baroness Kate Rock in 2022.
“Following the publication of the recently agreed Code of Conduct for landlord/tenant relationships within agriculture, it was vital that the Government took the extra step of appointing a Commissioner to oversee that Code. This appointment will give that Code additional and much needed teeth,” said Mr Dunn.
The expectation is that the identity of the new Commissioner will be announced in the spring of next year following an open competition. The TFA very much hopes that the individual appointed will display similar characteristics to the current incumbent of the role north of the border in Scotland, Bob McIntosh.
“Bob McIntosh has shown what can be achieved in what has been a pretty fraught landlord/tenant environment north of the border. And with a TFA survey concluding that 30 per cent of tenants felt bullied or harassed by their landlords and 37 per cent by their landlords’ agents, clearly there is some very important work to do south of the border,” said Mr Dunn.
The terms of reference produced by DEFRA suggest that the Commissioner will largely be looking at dealing with complaints on a confidential basis and will report to the Farm Tenancy Forum. Depending on the workload, it is envisaged that the new Commissioner will work between three and five days per week.
“As well as reacting to complaints, the TFA believes that there is a role for the new Commissioner to provide a sounding board for DEFRA and wider Government to tenant proof it’s policies, statutes and regulations. Additionally, the TFA would want to see the Commissioner conduct an overview of the conduct of formal dispute resolution facilities, including arbitration, within the landlord tenant sector to see how they can be streamlined, made more cost-effective and less burdensome,” said Mr Dunn.
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