Agriculture: Single Farm Payments

Duke of Montrose Excerpts

Tuesday 20th July 2010 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[The Duke of Montrose]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether the issues experienced with mapping in England and Wales within the single farm payment scheme have been overcome.

[The Duke of Montrose]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. In doing so, I declare an interest as a farmer receiving payments from the Rural Payments Agency.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Henley)]

My Lords, similarly, I declare an interest. Over the past year, all farmers in England have been sent updated maps where required for the purposes of the common agricultural policy. This was intended to ensure that the maps better represented the current situation on the ground. However, we are aware that too many farmers were initially sent incomplete or incorrect maps. We intend to ensure that farmers receive a better service in the future. The Welsh Assembly is responsible for farmers’ maps in Wales.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Duke of Montrose]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that reply. Has he noted that the rural land mapping exercise was not part of the Rural Payments Agency review that has been published today? Can he confirm that one month before the closing date for single farm payment applications, nearly 1,250 farmers in England were still waiting to receive their revised maps? How many units are still awaiting their maps? Is he satisfied that the problems have been identified and that they are unlikely to be repeated?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I can confirm that the review which was published today was not asked to look at the mapping exercise. Nevertheless, due to the problems in this particular area, the review commented on it. I cannot confirm the figure of 1,250 farmers not having received their maps by the end of the period last year, but I can confirm from an Answer given by the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, that in March last year, some 10,333 were still outstanding. I do not know how far the figure dropped in the closing months. I can confirm that all have now been issued, but if my noble friend knows of any individual cases in England, I would be grateful if he could let me know.

Fishing Boats (Electronic Transmission of Fishing Activities Data) (England) Scheme 2010

Duke of Montrose Excerpts

Monday 19th July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenway]

Putting subsidies for software aside for the moment, can the Minister say whether all 200-plus fishing boats of more than 15 metres are fitted with the relevant hardware and satellite communications systems? How will that apply when the limit is reduced to 12 metres?

[The Duke of Montrose]

It is most interesting to see this issue brought forward at this time. I cannot go into the problems that have been dug up by the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, but I feel that we are going down the right road as regards the fishing industry. Countries such as Norway have had satellite tracking systems. I do not know whether, when the daily reports of the fishing vessels are submitted, that will include the satellite positioning of the boats. I would also be interested to know whether the data to be put in will include details of discards. I ask this because one of the problems with the common fisheries policy is the generally loose accuracy of reports in one way or another, including no reports of discards at all. Is that reporting a possibility under this software system? Lastly, the Minister said that at present a landing declaration has to be made. Will that be done electronically or will it be fed in separately?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I start by saying how grateful I am for the response of the noble Baroness in saying that the scheme is timely. She said that she wants to see it passed because the Government of whom she was a supporter had been keen to see it brought forward. She is right and I agree with all her earlier comments.

The noble Baroness asked a number of questions, the first of which was about the number of suppliers on the list. At the moment we have two possible suppliers. We expect to have another three or so approved shortly and others are expected to come on board later, so we hope that there will be genuine competition, which, if anything, will keep the costs down. One wants to be wary of imposing a limit and suddenly seeing everyone rather miraculously getting up to that limit, but we think that there will be genuine competition. She was right to say that we must do all that we can to communicate these matters to the industry; indeed, we have done what we can. Letters alerting vessel owners to the need to have e-logbooks on board, plus the existing funding scheme, were sent out by the Marine Management Organisation sometime this month.

The noble Baroness went on to ask whether there would be any discrimination between the devolved Administrations and this country. I can assure her that we will discuss these matters with the devolved Administrations. They have all agreed to pay the reasonable costs of the software for their industries. They are expected to have similar limits, but obviously that has to be a matter for them, as is the case for England. I understand that, going beyond the devolved Administrations, most if not all other member states are also paying for the purchase of electronic software for their shipping industries.

The noble Baroness also asked whether under paragraph 9 the Secretary of State would be prepared to reject an application if she thought that individuals were shopping around between the different devolved Administrations. I do not think that I can say anything that might fetter the discretion of the Secretary of State, but certainly she would be prepared to take that into account.

I will come to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Scott, last of all because he has asked me the hardest questions, so they are the ones that need to be addressed more closely, but I shall pick up on the point made by my noble friend Lord Lee. He asked about training for individual masters of ships on how to deal with the software. I can give him an assurance that training will come from the software provider. As with any computer software package, training on how to use it will normally be offered as part of the package that the individual has bought into. I can also assure him that the software may be similar to that adopted by other member states, so again there is the possibility of further reform.

The noble Lord, Lord Greenway, asked whether all these boats had the relevant hardware. When we are talking about boats of 15 metres and above, it is likely that they do, but obviously we will have to look at this again when we consider extending the scheme. Again, I can give an assurance to the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, that all these matters will be reviewed when we come to extending the scheme to 12-metre boats in due course.

As a lawyer, one always feels a certain degree of terror when someone such as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Scott of Foscote, points out drafting errors in an instrument, as he perceives them, and I certainly take note of what he says. On his two principal points, he suggested that there was a power and ability in paragraph 6 for the Secretary of State arbitrarily to reduce the figure from £2,000 to a negligible sum. I can assure him that we certainly have no intention of doing that. I do not know whether, spoken at the end of the debate, this assurance counts as the considered remark of a Minister under Pepper and Hart rules but, if it does, I assure him that we would certainly want to stick with the £2,000 figure.

The noble and learned Lord asked about paragraph 10 and whether the department had sufficient evidence to go ahead. I think that we do and I give him a similar assurance, which I hope will be good enough. I shall look carefully at what the noble and learned Lord has said on this matter and, if I feel that I have not said enough, I will write to him further and deal with that point in greater detail when I have discussed it with officials and colleagues in the department. As to the noble and learned Lord’s complaint that he received no reply to his letter, I can only apologise. I will make inquiries as to where things went wrong.

Queen's Speech

Duke of Montrose Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd June 2010 Lords Chamber

[The Duke of Montrose]

My Lords, Parliament now has a coalition, which, with any luck, will guide the policies of the United Kingdom for the next five years. As noble Lords will be aware, one critical event in this period will be the next revision of the common agricultural policy.

I declare my interests as a farmer and a livestock rearer. I should like to say how encouraged I was to hear the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Wakefield raising some of the issues that affect the industry. In fact, as one of the Government’s purposes is, I believe, to encourage business and manufacturing outside the south-east of the United Kingdom, they could bear in mind that agriculture has a part to play.

Strange as it may seem, the founding principles of the CAP are, in my opinion, still valid. These were: to increase agricultural productivity by promoting technological progress and efficiency; to ensure a fair standard of living for the agricultural community; to stabilise markets; and to ensure availability of supplies. The new factor that we have woken up to is that the CAP must also protect and enhance the environment. This is being achieved by the transfer of financial support within the budget from what is known as Pillar 1 to Pillar 2. Part of the Government’s task will be to see that this is carried out equitably across all our partners in Europe.

Another factor is that, as negotiations under the World Trade Organisation progress, farming will become more and more exposed to international competition. It is vital that every effort is made to maximise progress and efficiency in order to maintain competitiveness wherever possible. Here at home, as we are faced with our own financial crisis and the Government have already identified proposals to cut £162 million from the Defra budget, that will be an immense challenge. Can the Minister give any indication of the key areas in which this is likely to be achieved?

Something which the whole industry would like to see, and on which my noble friend Lady Byford made some of her points, is a reduction in the cost of administering the single farm payment. It seems quite extraordinary that, by adopting a more sophisticated structure, the average cost of administering every payment in England was, as she said, £1,743, whereas I have been told that in Scotland the figure was £240. However, the Scots are certainly now having to address the structural shortfalls in their scheme and they will have to move to an area-based system, but unfortunately they are unable to make the necessary alterations until the review takes place in 2013. Their advantage is that they now have certified maps for all the major holdings and the costs are not likely to approach those experienced in England. What cost target do the Government expect to meet when they carry out the single farm payment this year?

An area of additional expense for both the Administration and for farmers is the newly introduced sheep electronic identification scheme, under which all sheep and goats born after 1 January will have to have two ear tags, one of which is electronic. This shows every sign of being as much of an administrative nightmare as the single farm payment has proved to be.

Your Lordships’ House has already heard of many of the aspects which appear to be unrealistic. They are already posing problems in Scotland where the Administration are looking for a system that could be considered practical. There is the worry that individual farmers with their own reading machines, some of which might be less than top-of-the-range technology, will be liable to create errors. Under the system that they introduced, once all the sheep are tagged, almost all registration of movement will be carried out by drafting the sheep through what are designated “critical control points”. These will almost all be livestock markets and slaughterhouses.

The markets, in particular, can have throughputs of anything from 1,000 to 10,000 sheep a day. Various systems have been under trial and even last week at my local market, with 2,000 sheep present, the operators were proudly trying to maintain that they had only a 10 per cent error rate with the young lambs. However, this means that there could be 200 lambs with buyers which are not showing up correctly on the records.

I ask the Minister to note the proposal currently going through the European Parliament, which contends that the only practical way forward is a three-year introductory period in which the regime is allowed to operate without any question of penalty. This would allow a realistic assessment of what requirements are practical and of the processes and technology capable of delivering what is required. Can we have some assurance that the Government will be prepared to pursue this argument when it comes to the Council of Ministers?