Dear sir,

Lord Gill's speech to the SAAVA agm, as reported in The Scottish Farmer, shows him up in his true light.

His obvious disdain for '91 Act tenancies is quite apparent, and he would prefer freedom of contract as practised before World War Two, which led agriculture to ruin and the country to the brink of starvation.

It calls into question his supposed impartiality while presiding over the the two main planks of the 2003 Act, namely the Moonzie rent case and the Salvesen Riddell case. In both of these cases he found against the tenants, against all legal thought and opinion at the time.

As I recall, he found in the Moonzie case that the tenant could pay rent on a potato let which his lease forbade, and also pay rent on the single farm payment which was the property of the tenant.

In the Salvesen case he found the tenant had no human rights, while the landlord did, who lost nothing, he still got his rent, his shooting and any development value.

If he had not destroyed the 2003 act, there would have been no need for the 2016 act, half of which we still await.

Yours

Name and address supplied