Agriculture Bill

Baroness Northover Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 16th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Dundee [V]]

My Lords, as has been intimated, many of us are particularly grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, for tabling Amendment 139. If adopted, it would greatly increase efficiency since the type of monitoring here envisaged is a comprehensive one that would apply to regulation, productivity improvements, ancillary activities and market interventions. However, to maintain consistent and improved clarity, competent monitoring must be allied with timely parliamentary scrutiny, as advocated in Amendments 133 and 232, tabled by the noble Earl, Lord Devon, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, respectively.

Therefore, I hope that my noble friend the Minister will accept both these qualifications and my noble friend Lord Northbrook’s Amendment 126, which, in calling for financial assistance to protect the production of food in an environmentally friendly and sustainable way, precisely reflects the central new joint purposes of the Bill.

[Baroness Northover (LD) [V]]

I will speak briefly in support of Amendment 105. As we all made clear at Second Reading, British agriculture is now in a period of enormous uncertainty. This has run as a theme through the Committee stage of the Bill. As the NFU notes, British agriculture does not know what will happen in relation to its main market, the EU, or access to labour from the EU, let alone arrangements for other markets around the world.

Farming is an especially long-term enterprise—as the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, rightly emphasised—and is risky and uncertain, especially for small farmers and tenant farmers, who farm a third of the UK’s agricultural land. It is therefore vital that when the Government talk about the transition period from the CAP for agriculture, they sustain the level of financial assistance to this sector despite the many demands that will be in competition.

Amendment 105 aims to ensure that there is not a reduction in the level of that financial assistance. It has been striking how short a period the Government have attached to their funding commitments, and already there are cuts. It is all very well the Government saying they “may” take certain action, as the Bill has it, but that does not mean they must or will deliver it, as my noble friend Lord Greaves said. Like him, I recall the chaos of the Rural Payments Agency.

If we bear in mind the many changes planned for the United Kingdom from next January—right across the economy, including in agriculture, and as we may or may not be coming out of the pandemic—it is understandable that farmers are deeply worried. I therefore welcome Amendment 105.

[Baroness Quin (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I also will speak in support of Amendment 105 as well as Amendment 112, both in the name of my noble friend Lord Grantchester. Indeed, I associate myself with the remarks he made on those amendments. They are designed to give farmers some degree of certainty during a challenging time of adapting to new circumstances.

So many recent speakers in the debate have stressed the importance of a smooth transition, and we certainly need to ensure there is no gap between the new system of ELMs and the present system. Such a hiatus in payment at a time of such uncertainty would be completely unacceptable. I certainly know of farmers in my own part of the country who in the past have suffered both mental stress and financial hardship as a result of schemes not being fully operational or involving late payments. We need to ensure as far as we possibly can that those problems do not recur. I am not trying to make a party-political point here. I am well aware that administrative problems and problems of implementing schemes are not unique to Governments of particular political complexions.

I also support the principle of limiting expenditure on administration and consultancy as a proportion of overall expenditure. One or two of the amendments mention that, but this point has not been raised so far in the debate. I am not sure whether the 5% limit mentioned in one amendment is the best limit, but I am interested to know whether the Government have a view on that.

Finally, I very much support the point made in the amendment from the noble Earl, Lord Devon, that Parliament should be given time to consider the plans. Obviously, we are concerned here about how much time your Lordships’ House has to consider these proposals, but it will also be crucial that the other place, the House of Commons, has ample time. As Members of Parliament have constituencies, they will want time to evaluate what the effects will be on the areas they represent. They will also want to discuss these proposals with farmers, environmental organisations and others in their constituency before coming to a verdict on them.