Leaving the EU: Upland Farming

Ben Lake Excerpts

Tuesday 26th June 2018 Westminster Hall

[George Eustice]

We will ensure that we have the new schemes in place by the time those agreements start to run out.

As I said, this area is devolved. It is recognised by everyone that there will be a need for some UK frameworks, particularly when it comes to delivering international obligations such as our obligations to the World Trade Organisation, which I will return to, but also in ensuring integrity in the UK single market. We are taking two approaches. There will be areas where things may be reserved—for instance, where they are directly attributable to international trade and international agreements that we have entered into. There will be others where we can construct frameworks through memorandums of understanding. There is already a lot of quite detailed work being done in that space.

The hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr asked about our working with the Welsh Government. I reassure him that we are in regular dialogue with Ministers from across the devolved Administrations and that, at an official level, there has been incredibly close working on developing, for instance, the statutory instruments that we all need to bring forward in our various legislatures under the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill. There is a lot of close working on that. We have also done some quite detailed work on what future frameworks would look like, looking policy line by policy line at where we think a memorandum of understanding would work, what we think can be fully devolved and what we think should be reserved. That work is at an advanced stage.

We should be positive here. We can look forward to a future where we all have far more power. Under current schemes, we are told the minimum and maximum width of a hedge, what width a gateway is allowed to be, what types of crops someone can grow and whether they can claim that a cabbage is the same as a cauliflower or winter wheat is the same as spring wheat.

The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) raised the issue of the frustrations regarding countryside stewardship schemes. I agree with him. Farmers should be able to enrol on those schemes in any month of the year, but get this: we used to be able to do that, under the old schemes. The European Commission proposed that we change to a common commencement date for everyone. The UK opposed that vociferously, but the EU ignored us. As a result, we have an administrative nightmare, trying to put all these schemes in place on the same start date. We can leave all that behind and no longer fret about disallowance risks.

We had a consultation earlier this year on future agricultural policy, in particular as it relates to England. We have had over 44,000 responses. We are clear that there will be an agriculture Bill in this Session of Parliament, but we have also made a few other things clear. In our manifesto, we committed to keeping the budget the same in cash terms for the duration of this Parliament, out until 2022. We were clear in our manifesto that we would replace the common agricultural policy with the future funded scheme, to be rolled out thereafter.

We have also been clear that we think we can spend the money better, focusing it on the delivery of public goods and environmental outcomes, rather than on arbitrary payments based on how much land people own or control, which clearly makes no sense if we are seeking coherent policy. Finally, we have been clear that we recognise that there is quite a lot of dependency on the basic payment scheme and area-based payments. We will make changes gradually, over an agricultural transition period running for a number of years. We have invited suggestions on that in our consultation.

[Ben Lake (Ceredigion) (PC)]

Before the Minister moves away from discussing the funding arrangements, could he assure me that, in designing a future funding arrangement, the Government will look at ensuring there is a period of similar length—perhaps five or seven years? That gives certainty to farmers that a shorter period simply would not.

[George Eustice]

There have been a number of representations about how long that period should be. Most people have suggested that somewhere in the region of five years or possibly a little bit more makes sense. As the Secretary of State has indicated for illustrative purposes, something in the ballpark of five years seems to make sense and seems to be where the consensus is.

We also recognise that we need to help businesses prepare during the transition. We recognise that we may need to take account of the less favoured area status of some areas, particularly the more financially vulnerable upland areas, and of the impact on those rural communities. We are certainly willing to do that, and we flagged the potential need for it in our consultation.

However, there is more than one way to approach this. We could continue with something similar to what we have now, but a number of organisations representing upland interests have actually said to me that they see great opportunities in the principles and the approach that we advocate. For instance, the Uplands Alliance told us that it was very keen to move to a system of payment for the delivery of public goods. It makes a powerful point, because at the moment the uplands, and particularly the moorlands, get less area payment because they are deemed to be disadvantaged areas on less productive land. That could not be more upside down.

In fact, they potentially have the opportunity to deliver more by way of public goods, in terms of public access, flood mitigation, carbon sequestration, peat bog restoration or improvements in water quality. There are many opportunities for the uplands to deliver those public goods, and several people are starting to say that, if we are serious about payment for the delivery of public goods, they see a vibrant, profitable model for upland farming.

We also set out, in an annexe attached to our consultation, ideas about the type or flavour of the options that we might offer. We have about 30 years of experience in various environmental land management schemes. For instance, even in the current schemes there are options for enclosed rough grazing, the management of moorland, the protection of native breeds and the shepherding supplement. We also have grants for stonewall protection, hedgerow restoration, the maintenance of weather-proof traditional farm buildings in remote locations and haymaking. There are many options within those existing schemes, and we have a lot of experience of making them work.

I will turn to some of the points made by hon. Members. The sheep sector is very important for Wales. There are 10 million sheep—around 30% of the UK total —and some 14,000 holdings with sheep, many of which are in disadvantaged areas. It will be for the Welsh Government to design a policy that works for their own farmers and their own circumstances. The hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr mentioned how closely we are working with the Welsh Government. As I pointed out earlier, very detailed working is going on. My hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Peter Heaton-Jones) highlighted some of the great work being done on Exmoor, and I very much agree with him. I visited the mires project, run by South West Water and other local partners on Exmoor, and some innovative policy thinking is going on there.

The hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) raised a number of issues relating to trade. I do not accept that we need a customs union, but we need a customs agreement. That is exactly what the Government seek—a comprehensive, bold free trade agreement with no tariffs and agreed customs arrangements. I do not agree that we need absolute uniformity on regulations. It is possible for us to recognise equivalence, since our starting point is that we are departing the single market; we are not a country with a very different regulatory tradition.

The hon. Lady also asked about the WTO. We believe that we should treat this as technical rectification, and we are working with the European Union to split our WTO schedules, both on tariff-rate quotas and aggregate market support, which is the ceiling on market support and subsidies that can be paid to farmers. Those will simply be divided based on historical use, which we do not believe will provide us with any problems.

Finally, on future trade deals with other countries, we have been crystal clear that we have standards and values that we will not abandon, and we will not abandon or compromise our standards in pursuit of a trade deal.