The short debate is next. So, if those Members who are leaving the Chamber could do so quickly and quietly, before I call Llyr Gruffydd to introduce his short debate. I do call on Llyr Gruffydd to introduce the short debate in his name.

Thank you very much, Llywydd. Ten years ago, Welsh councils owned almost 1,000 smallholdings, which were let out to give opportunities to young farmers to gain entry into the farming industry. The latest statistics we have show that councils—and one does recognise this—that are under huge financial pressures because of austerity have been selling those assets off, and very often, as we recognise, in order to maintain core public services. But over the past seven years, over 1,000 hectares of land has been sold by councils, for a total of almost £28 million. There are now fewer than 500 farms with external buildings throughout Wales, and there is no sign that the rate of disposal is reducing or slowing down either.

The situation is even more extreme in England. Half of council-owned farmland has been sold off over the past decade, and many councils see their farms as things of the past. That toxic combination, of austerity and an unwillingness by some councils to be more creative and to innovate in order to develop new income streams or business models, is driving the decline of county farms. So, why is this important?

Why is this important? Well, you may say that 16,000 hectares of land is insignificant in the wider scheme of things, but I want to make the case for its significance in ensuring a thriving future for farming in Wales.

Council-owned farms were developed more than a century ago to enable people without farming connections or land to work in agriculture. Now, I'd argue they're needed more than ever today, especially as we're seeing an ageing farming population, with the average age of Welsh farmers being over 60, and other circumstances conspiring to make it even more difficult for our younger generations to work the land.

So, these council farms offer a unique window of opportunity for those keen to enter agriculture. And whilst not decrying those with many years of experience in any way, it's always important for any industry or sector to allow new blood to come in with fresh ideas and new perspectives. Without innovation and change, agriculture, like any other sector, would stagnate.

It should also be remembered that there are economic incentives for councils too, as the rent from county farms contributes to council balances. Councils across Wales made a net surplus of £2.7 million last year to help balance budgets and protect front-line services. Productive and thriving council farms are beneficial, not just from a financial perspective, but they bring so many more wider benefits to whole communities.

So, let's put our council farms to work in a much more creative way. Why not strike up a partnership between councils and agricultural colleges to use council farms as an opportunity for the brightest and the best of our next generation of farming to farm the land? On the understanding that they innovate and that they test and trial new systems and farming methods as part of the deal. Let's hardwire new thinking and the promotion of best practice into the system. Let's put our public farm estate to work, not just for those farming individuals, but for wider society.

And why stop there? There are other organisations that need to be part of this discussion and part of this wider movement. Look at what the National Trust in Wales is doing at Llyndy Isaf. The farm was bought by the trust around 10 years ago now. Since then, working with the young farmers' clubs in Wales, a succession of young farmers have been given a bursary to make the farm work in a modern and sustainable way. Conservation farming is as much a part of this scheme as food production, which is very much in line with our aspirations for the sector. It's a fantastic opportunity for a young person aged between 18 and 25 to have the chance to manage a farm and to learn about the business, with the support and advice of mentors who are on hand to help if needed. Now, that was a conscious decision by the National Trust to put its asset to work in that particular way.

So, my challenge today is for us to enable councils to stop looking at council farms as a quick fix to their funding problems. Let's take that longer term, more sustainable view. Let's put the public farm estate to work much more creatively for society. If we're serious about the future of rural Wales, of making sure that young people are able to live and work in rural communities, and that our farming industry is fit for purpose for the challenges of the twenty-first century, then we have to say 'no' to short-termism. Is that not what the well-being of future generations Act is all about? Isn't that why we as a legislature made sustainable development a central organising principle of the public sector here in Wales?

We mustn't, therefore, stand idly by watching this drip, drip, drip of council farms disappearing without any thought being given to what we're losing. We should be turning every stone to support local councils to be able to resist the fire sale of such an important social, economic, environmental and cultural asset—the four cornerstones of sustainable development in Wales. The very least we can do is bring all the players together to consider how we can not only stem the loss of our public farm estate, but turn it into an asset that delivers for our rural communities and wider society across Wales.

So, with all that in mind, I call on the Welsh Government, working with the future generations commissioner, to get actively involved in this matter and bring all the players together to tackle this issue. Publicly owned farms should be part of a wider movement to ensure we have a sustainable farming industry at the heart of our rural communities. The relentless selling off of our farms is a short-term solution for hard-pressed councils, but we have to take a stand against it.

Future generations who wish to put a first foot on the farming ladder need our support. That's why I've worked with those aiming to keep farms such as Trecadwgan in the public realm. This is a council farm in danger of ending its life as a living, working farm and disposed of as an asset by Pembrokeshire County Council. Trecadwgan has the potential to be a model for the future, diversifying into a community farm. They are farms that successfully combine agriculture with areas such as health and care, cultural activities, lifelong learning, job creation, and artisan businesses. These can be the lifeblood of rural communities, adding to their sustainability, and of course to the well-being of their people.

Now, I'm pragmatic enough to accept that there may be certain circumstances where selling a council farm is the only viable option. Having tried everything else, if sale is the only remaining alternative, then let's make sure that local communities have first refusal, and let's do it in a way that affords those communities the time and the support they need to make that a realistic and a viable prospect. Yes, it might take a bit longer than it would otherwise and, yes, it might not generate as much cash upfront as councils would wish, but in the longer term it would reap so much more and provide so much greater value for the community and the council, compared to a quick sale. Welsh Government and councils should learn from the example of Trecadwgan farm and make sure that all communities have a chance to play their part when these opportunities arise.

Those involved in the fight for Trecadwgan have issued a list of necessary policy changes emerging from their battle. I believe that the Welsh Government should look closely at those suggestions. Amongst them is that the Welsh Government should create a land reform review group, similar to that operating in Scotland, with a brief to examine: the extent to which lack of access to land may cramp people's aspirations and opportunities; the impacts upon employment and the rural economy stemming from that; and ways in which access to land—both rural and urban, by the way—could and should be improved. They've also called for a review of the General Disposal Consent (Wales) Order, to give much greater weight to the interests of future generations, rather than just the best price in these situations.

We also need to consider a national community wealth fund, so that we can actually help acquire farmland for community ownership. In addition, there are calls on the Welsh Government to introduce a Welsh agricultural land bank—a financial bank. As well as providing low and zero-interest loans for new entrants, this land bank could provide finance for communities looking to purchase land and farms, including county farms. It could also help local authorities to buy new land to grow the county farm estate. Now, these are all practical proposals, and I'd be really interested in hearing what the Minister has to say about these kinds of suggestions.

The current trajectory of selling council farms just isn't acceptable. What's even less acceptable, of course, is the lack of action that we're seeing from Welsh Government, who should not only be helping and working with councils to protect this important asset, but also be making sure that it's used to maximise the benefit, not just for the sector, but for wider society. Safeguarding our land, our environment, our people and our culture are all bound up in having a vision and an ambition for our public farms.

The disappearance of council farms should be a cause for concern for the whole of society. It's an important foothold into the industry for new blood and a new generation of farmers. So, please, Minister, don't sit on your hands; work with the councils, not only to protect what remains, but to work towards creating a public farm estate that will excite the next generation to want to go into farming. Turn them into something that represents an opportunity, innovation and entrepreneurship. There is an opportunity, through our council farms, to drive growth in the sector. But at the moment, of course, what we see is managed decline. There is a duty on Government to change that, and it's a duty on us to ensure that the same opportunities exist for future generations as have existed for generations in the past.

The Minister for Environment, Energy and Rural Affairs to respond to the debate. Lesley Griffiths.

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.

Thank you, Minister, and that brings today's proceedings to a close.

The meeting ended at 17:49.