We do indeed. I shall speak to Amendment 222 in my name. I feel, at this precise moment, like having a rant about the inadequacies of rural broadband, but I shall restrain myself. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Randall, for supporting Amendment 222.
The community infrastructure levy was introduced in 2010. Some local planning authorities apply it to new agricultural buildings, but some do not. Agricultural buildings are often required for things such as housing livestock or storing grain, and new buildings are often driven by changes in regulations on animal welfare or food safety standards; or, they may enable business growth or productivity. These things will be important in the new agricultural world we are envisaging in the Bill. New agricultural buildings, however, are not like commercial buildings or housing developments, which are built by investors for immediate profit by selling or letting. Farmers have to stump up for the CIL payment, which can be tens of thousands of pounds, for loans they have taken out to construct a building, and they add to the servicing costs of loans—a direct cost on the farm business.
We are, in the Bill, seeing an environment where farming businesses will need to invest in an innovative way to improve their competitiveness and productivity. The CIL charge for new farm buildings risks inhibiting such investment. It is even more complicated in the current position, because some planning authorities, as I said, choose to levy the CIL on new farm buildings, and some do not, so there is an uneven playing field across the country, for a farming industry that supplies national and global firms. I can imagine the conversations with the supermarkets if you tried to tell them about your CIL charge when they are pressing down on costs across industry as a whole.
We need to bear in mind what the CIL was intended to do; it was a charge to fund local facilities, infrastructure and services to meet increased pressures that new developments often cause. Agricultural buildings are often large in size, so they attract a higher CIL, but low in impact on community infrastructure and services. Cows do not really need social services or want enhanced transport routes. Agricultural buildings are clearly defined in planning laws, so there is no danger of this becoming a creeping extension to any exemption, and there is clear evidence that imposing the CIL discourages investment in these farm businesses. So, this amendment would enable the Government to help farm businesses when they are facing what will, by all accounts, be very
uncertain times as a result of the major changes in the agricultural support system. I hope the Minister might see his way to supporting this amendment.