Draft Direct Payments to Farmers (Reductions) (England) Regulations 2022 Draft Agriculture (Financial Assistance) (Amendment) Regulations 2022 Draft Agriculture (Lump Sum Payment) (England) Regulations 2022

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Tuesday 15th March 2022 General Committees

[Dame Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship this afternoon, Mr Hollobone. I cannot say that I am an expert in all things agricultural or farming, but a few general questions occurred to me while perusing these statutory instruments, and I look forward to the Minister’s response.

First, I do not think that DEFRA or this country was ever stunningly brilliant at administering the common agricultural policy scheme, so transitioning away from a stable scheme that everyone was familiar with to something different, albeit for good reasons, is bound to create the potential for confusion, worry, and maybe even administrative problems. This is quite a complex transition from a steady state to something that is evolving. It would be useful to know whether the Minister has the confidence to say that her officials and DEFRA can administer the system over its transition period, which, at seven years, is quite long.

Secondly, I understand the need for a transition period of this length, but during such a transition, the objective circumstances change. My hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge mentioned this when he discussed the unforeseen circumstances in which we find ourselves, in which volatile energy prices are impacting directly on farmers’ costs. At the same time, the cost of fertiliser and other inputs is rising, and the Government—this was preannounced and expected—are reducing direct payments significantly and putting in place a different scheme with different criteria.

Farmers face uncertain and volatile—but probably rising—costs at a time when the basic income that they are used to is transitioning. It will be difficult for farmers to deal with that volatility without some sort of reassurance from the Government, especially as the Government’s schemes are being tried out and may change. In fact, the Minister has effectively admitted that they are being shaped as the Government go along, which again creates a lot of moving parts, and more uncertainty and volatility. It also means that there may be a lot of unintended consequences. Does she have any words of reassurance about that? When all the cogs start going, we cannot always predict the output.

As a member of the Treasury Committee, which has just interviewed Lord Agnew about fraud in the coronavirus schemes, I reinforce the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge about the potential for fraud in some of these schemes. Obviously, they are about giving farmers income. The schemes have new criteria, which are being applied in new circumstances. Will the Minister reassure us about the degree of detail in them, and particularly in the mechanism for enforcement and minimising the chances of fraud? If one looks at what has happened in the coronavirus schemes and what is happening with anti-fraud enforcement across the piece with this Government, it is very, very fragmented. The enforcement muscle is weak and unused, and consequently billions of pounds are being lost to criminal gangs, opportunistic fraudsters and, quite often, fraudsters who are far more sophisticated than opportunistic. If these statutory instruments and the changes to agricultural schemes are not properly drawn up or enforced, this is another area where that might happen. Will the Minister reassure me on those points?