Agriculture Bill (Thirteenth sitting)

Debate between Colin Clark and David Drew

Tuesday 20th November 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Dr Drew]

That is the whole point. It is a devolved matter, but it is a question of whether, as I have said, there is some degree of agreement on how to take things forward. What we are considering is just a framework, not something that will demand that different parts of the UK follow exactly what other parts will do. The reality is that they will not. We know that. In farming policy, the word “policy” is important, because legislation is one thing, but the underlying policy equally needs to be scrutinised, which we have not really been able to do. We had a rushed series of evidence sittings, and the Government’s policy paper is, at best, fairly sketchy. We shall be looking at that.

The hon. Member for Ceredigion said he wanted to probe the question, and I hope that he will consider going further, having heard what has been said, to try to be clear about the future of British agriculture—if such a thing exists, given that the issue is devolved. The people in border areas really need to know that.

[Colin Clark (Gordon) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is generous in giving way. Does he think, particularly with regard to frameworks, that it is important that we protect the internal market, or unitary market, of the UK? It is important that potato farmers in Scotland, growing seed, can sell potatoes into England, and equally that livestock can move back and forth across the border. The east and west of the country have more in common with one another than, necessarily, north and south, and it is important that we recognise the unitary market.

[Dr Drew]

That is a point. We were talking about relationships with the EU post Brexit and about whether we have some form of common market, if not a single market. It would be helpful if we knew that that would happen within the four nations of the United Kingdom, let alone in the relationship with the Republic.

The issues are pretty important, and even more so in environmental terms, so I want not just to concentrate on farming but to talk about environmental requirements. On issues such as air quality, climate change and sustainable development obligations, unless we move forward with some degree of unity, we are pulled apart individually. I hear what the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith says about agriculture being a devolved matter, but air pollution is not, because it comes from one country to another. That is the whole point about methane: the problems in Northern Ireland do not stay in Northern Ireland but affect the Republic, and that is why the Republic is worried about what is happening in the north, as well as dealing with its own problems in the south. These problems have to be identified through some degree of co-operation. Why not have a way to lay that down? This is not a straitjacket. This is not about shoehorning four nations’ agriculture into the same box. We cannot do that, as the Bill says. Instead, we are saying that there needs to be a proper framework.

Agriculture Bill (Fourteenth sitting)

Debate between Colin Clark and David Drew

Committee Debate: 14th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 20th November 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Dr Drew]

I will be very careful. I will reword what I said. The hon. Gentleman will no doubt read what I said when the Official Report is published. I am very clear that there has always been a role for some public ownership of land through local authorities, because that is an avenue by which people can come into farming. It is simply much more difficult—I talk from some experience here. A long time ago, I chaired the county farms estate in Gloucestershire when I was a county councillor. I saw people coming through, desperate to get on the land, and it was always really sad that we had to turn down very good people because never enough holdings became available for the numbers chasing them. Too often, it was not necessarily the farmers themselves but who their partners were that was a vital factor in who got the holdings, which I always thought was grossly unfair. That was the reality of trying to make good what is a difficult operation.

I am merely making the point that we ought to do more to protect county farms and smallholdings. I want to grow them but, at the moment, there should be an embargo on the future sale. The old acre for acre policy was always sensible; somebody sold a bit of land and invested in a new bit of land. The problem is a wholesale reduction of the county farms estate, which precludes many people from coming into farming.

[Colin Clark (Gordon) (Con)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that Government legislation must be clear about land ownership? The tenancy market is important; many young farmers get in through a tenancy. The experience in Scotland is that, if there is any doubt cast upon the ownership of land or the right to buy, the tenancy market dries up. Would he agree that the best entry is through tenancies?

[Dr Drew]

I do not know enough about Scotland, so I will take the hon. Gentleman’s judgment on that. One of the arguments about the Bill and the changes it implies, is that rents will possibly fall. I do not necessarily agree with that, but it has been put to me by more than one person. That is due to the removal of the area payment, which has pushed up rents because people have more value in the land that they possess. We will have to see; it might become apparent only some years down the line.

At the moment, I am clear that we should go back to the Agriculture Act 1970, which put an obligation on local authorities that had land to protect that land and make it available for those who wished to farm or do other things appropriate to the land that would be within the environmental catch-all we are pushing for in the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Colin Clark]

As the hon. Gentleman is probably very aware, moving livestock from Orkney, Shetland and the other islands in Scotland involves long journeys of eight to 12 hours. He is not proposing to ban those movements, is he?

[Dr Drew]

This is where I would always take advice; I know there are views in Scotland that are not necessarily held in England about whether that is good or bad. I sat in on a recent debate where there was a difference of opinion within the political parties, and certainly between them, about whether a ban would ever be achievable, whether it was enforceable and, indeed, whether it was a good thing. We must have that debate, because this is an agriculture Bill. If we did not have it, if nothing else, those who feel strongly about this issue would say, “You had an agriculture Bill but you didn’t discuss live exports, which is one of the dominant arguments that we have.”

I remember talking to a lady on the doorstep—a lifelong Labour supporter. She had voted to leave on the basis that live exports would be banned. When she heard that the Conservative party was very keen on banning live exports, I could not persuade her to vote Labour. She felt that was something a Conservative Government would deliver. Sadly, I can now go back to her and say she was slightly misinformed. I accept that this is a minority issue, but for people who feel strongly about it, it is a very important moral point.

[Colin Clark]

I am sorry to press the hon. Gentleman. It is important that we understand that cattle moved from Orkney and Shetland are moving from one part of the United Kingdom to another that has the same approach to animal welfare. I invite him to come to the north-east of Scotland any time he likes—we will show him how we do it. What I think the general public are against is the idea that we no longer control animals when we export them outwith this country. Will he clarify that?

[Dr Drew]

We are still in the United Kingdom. The new clause does not deal with movements within the United Kingdom; it deals with live exports outside the United Kingdom. I took my holiday in Orkney and Shetland this year to add to the Scottish economy, and very enjoyable it was. I did not see many animals being moved about, but no doubt that happens.

Agriculture Bill (Fourth sitting)

Debate between Colin Clark and David Drew

Thursday 25th October 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Colin Clark]

Q Professor Marsden, you mentioned security and stability and an amendment to the Bill. How do you avoid that tension? How do we achieve that?

Professor Marsden: One suggestion in my amendment was that, right at the start, you have interlinked and interlocking objectives: promoting farming and food systems for ecologically restoring and protecting the environment, delivering resilient forms of food production and supply, which enhances food security, and improving quality food access, consumer choice and public health benefits. If you put those three things together, rather than in separate subsections, what that conveys is that any financing would have to pass those integrated tests. On the ground, that would effectively mean that it would be re-linking production in many respects. No public financing would be given unless sustainable production was leading to environmental gain or environmental restoration. It is not either/or; it is both together. A lot of research shows that we have spent 20 or 30 years developing very complicated environmental initiatives and processes, but they have been separated from agricultural practice. This is the opportunity to say, “No, we want agricultural practice to be central to delivering on environmental gains.” That is a message that needs to be put right at the start of the Bill.

[Dr Drew]

Q Do you think there is any clarity in the Bill on what the mechanism could and should be? Are the existing institutions the right institutions to do this, or should we be inventing new institutions?

Professor Marsden: Clearly, that is an institutional question. There are a lot of institutional questions that this implies that may not eventually need to go into the Bill, but it does obviously have institutional implications.

In my view, all of this is leading to more place-based systems of integrated management of land and the biosphere. One way or another, with bottom-up partnerships or with some level of regional sensitivity, we have to manage regional diversity in the land base of the UK. That means the landholders and stakeholders being fostered to come together in different ways, not necessarily through a top-down, dirigiste infrastructure, but to develop whole tracts of land—not just a farm, but whole regions—such that we have catchments and regions that are much more sustainable and that are delivering the big goals on climate change as well as individual farm landscape. There is a big institutional challenge here to get local diversity and regional diversity at the heart of these sorts of policies.

David Baldock: As you said, the Bill does not spell out how the policy would work. We are all wondering how that might operate, and there have been some indications in a separate paper. This is clearly a source of uncertainty at the moment; you have powers with less specificity about how they are used. In principle, the public goods frame provides a good framework for delivering the right outcomes in the uplands or elsewhere, but it would be helpful to spell out how that will be met and how the local dynamics, which Terry talked about, can be matched with national objectives as well. If we look at the implications of the 1.5 degree target for the UK and for the world, we find that agriculture will have to make pretty significant changes over the next 20 years to the way soil carbon is managed and to the way energy is used in agriculture. That means that you need some strategic vision of where agriculture and land management are going, and you need to spell that out in a series of objectives a bit more clearly so that we do not have a slightly random selection of public goods that are produced according to local whims. I very much support the bottom-up approach, but that must be balanced by some quite clear strategic goals—we know we have them, but they have not been incorporated in a way we can see yet.

Vicki Hird: To add something on your question on institutions, David, we do not currently have the capacity to do that—the capacity is quite atomised. There is a lot of really good stuff on agri-environment, nature and conservation that is not doing the job adequately, because it has not got the capacity. We need to build that up, and it would have to fit with the vision, as David said.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Drew]

Q On Northern Ireland specifically, you have to take account of what happens south of the border. We should not get into Brexit, but to what extent does this Agriculture Bill have to fit with what is happening south of the border? You obviously have people who farm both sides of the border anyway, so the support system cannot be radically different from that in the Republic, can it?

Ivor Ferguson: I think it can. We fully understand that south of the border they will retain the CAP area payment system. I have been saying that we should not necessarily go along with that. We think that, if the payment structure was of low-level payments on an area basis, it would give us the opportunity to ward farmers on to an activity—producing goods, whether beef, milk or whatever.

The most important thing is that farmers who are actively farming and doing a good job should perhaps receive greater payments, and also related to their productivity and their looking after the environment. At the end of a long day, so long as the system rewards farmers for doing a good job, it does not matter in what way it is developed, because at least the farmers would be rewarded in a similar way or with similar amounts of money. We do not have to deliver it in the same way, so long as we get to the same point in the end.

Wesley Aston: In terms of the importance of the Bill to Northern Ireland, we support the idea of being able to regionalise and have that flexibility going forward. One overarching principle, at a UK level, is budgetary cycles, which are UK-wide, and also things such as standards, which are UK-wide. Those are the areas in the Bill that are important to us. In terms of the support measures, if you like, the ability to regionalise is critical, but at the UK level we have to have certainty around those other issues for all parts of the UK.

Ivor Ferguson: I would like to add on standards that it is so important for us to maintain the standards and to make sure that no food of a lower standard is imported. In Northern Ireland we export at least 80% of our products into the mainland GB market, so any lowering of standards would have a devastating effect on Northern Ireland.

[Colin Clark]

Q In your submission, NFU Scotland said that the inclusion of a schedule bespoke for Scotland’s agricultural policy needs is important. Would a schedule in any way limit Scottish policy?

Jonnie Hall: No; if the schedule was written in the right way it would be about enabling and it would provide Scottish Ministers with the powers to develop, deliver and implement a Scottish agricultural policy, as is effectively the case under the CAP. That is essentially what we are looking for. It is a choice of which vehicle the Scottish Government choose to use and whether they want the vehicle that currently has its engine running and is sitting in this particular Westminster process, or something that might be brought forward through the Scottish Parliament.