Diolch, Llywydd, and diolch, Llyr Huws Gruffydd, for bringing this short debate topic forward. I know you've got a longstanding interest in this area of agriculture.

Local authority farms are an important asset to the agricultural industry and remain an invaluable point of entry for many young people here in Wales. In the wider context of all agricultural land in Wales, they represent a small area, accounting for just 1 per cent of Welsh agricultural land. But they also play an important part in supporting the foundational economy in every part of Wales.

Every year, I publish, as part of my statutory duty under the Agriculture Act 1970, a report on the Welsh Government's activities, and the activities of local authorities, in relation to smallholdings in Wales. This report provides statistical information on the area and the number of smallholdings held by local authorities. The latest report published was for 2017-18 and it shows that Welsh local authorities hold just over 13,600 hectares of land for smallholding purposes, and that's divided into 963 smallholdings. So, the number of smallholdings has not changed significantly since 2009-10, when there were 967 smallholdings. What has changed is the total land area owned by local authorities and let as smallholdings. So, in 2010, around 7,700 hectares of land were let for this purpose. This means there was a reduction of around 23 per cent in the land devoted to local authority smallholdings between 2010 and 2018. 

Although this is a significant reduction, I'd like to highlight what the figures mean for the central question of how we encourage new entrants into agriculture. The majority of new local authority tenancies in 2018 were granted to existing tenants. Of the 169 new tenancies granted, only 21 went to new entrants while 148 were given to existing tenants. In 2018, 61 per cent of local authority smallholdings were under 20 hectares in size and such small farms could not be expected to adequately support farmers financially and, as such, do not offer the best route into the sector for new entrants. The management of these farms is ultimately a matter for the local authorities in Wales. The Agriculture Act 1970 does not confer ministerial control over the local authorities' powers to sell land. The sale of land and decisions about how they approach it is for local authorities to consider and is not something the Welsh Government could intervene or have a role in.

Finding a way into farming, and Llyr Huws Gruffydd referred to this, can be a daunting prospect if you or your partner don't come from a farming family background or if the family farm isn't of sufficient scale to support a newcomer. Supporting young people to enter the industry and develop their careers is essential and something I've taken a personal interest in since I came into post. If we are going to introduce innovation, energy and enthusiasm into the sector and respond to the future challenges, local authority farms are an important and limited route into agriculture.

As part of the Welsh Government's Young People into Agriculture scheme, which was done with funding agreed with Plaid Cymru in a budget agreement a couple of years ago, we made £6 million available to support young people to enter the agricultural sector and establish profitable and resilient businesses. The funding was made available over two years in the form of working capital, which will offer the new entrants flexibility to invest in their business. It paid for a range of activities, including new technology and practices to improve efficiency, or developing new enterprises and income streams to build resilience within the business. And alongside these developments, applicants were required to develop their skills and knowledge and take positive actions to deliver positive benefits for the natural environment, supporting low-carbon agriculture and animal health.

We've also got the Venture programme, which is a service established to match farmers and landowners, who wish to take a step back from full-time farming, with new entrants looking for a route into the industry, and the creation of the scheme builds on the recommendations of the next generation into farming support.

In relation to the number of local-authority-owned farms, I think it's really important that we respect local authorities' ability to develop their own priorities for how they manage the assets for which they are responsible on behalf of the communities they represent. It is my belief that we should be looking at new opportunities for collaboration with and between local authorities, rather than looking to reduce the flexibility that local authorities have to take action in pursuit of local priorities, and Llyr referred to several aspects, I think, that we can look at to do that.

I do believe there are opportunities for new collaboration around how we use the land in the public sector that would not require new legislation or placing new restrictions on local authorities. My colleague the Minister for finance announced the creation of a Welsh Government land division—a collaborative effort across the public sector to change the way that we manage public sector land to strengthen delivery of our strategic priorities, including supporting action to address the climate and nature emergencies.

So, I really would encourage Members to take an interest in this initiative as it's clearly an opportunity that is directly relevant to the debate we're having today. But, as I say, I do hope we can further explore the ideas put forward by Llyr in this debate. Diolch.