Agriculture Bill (Second sitting)

Deidre Brock Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd October 2018 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

Thank you. A final question from Deidre Brock.

[Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)]

Q On the points you were making earlier regarding the free movement of goods and produce around the UK and ensuring that that is not hindered, is it not so that in some cases there are already quite significant divergences of approach in regulations in the four countries of the UK?

Andrew Clark: I did not hear the middle part of the question, sorry.

[Deidre Brock]

Q In regard to the point you made earlier about the free movement of goods and produce around the UK and that not being hindered, is it not the case that there are already quite significant divergences of approach in regulations in the four countries of the UK?

Andrew Clark: I do not want the Committee to go away with a misunderstanding. I am not saying that there should be the same policy measures in every part of the UK. There are issues such as food labelling or the use of plant protection products, for example. There is a series and I could provide a minute or an extra piece of evidence about that. There are areas where we think there is an opportunity for agreed approaches across the UK land area that would not conflict with the absolutely correct divergence of policy practice and measures in each part of the UK.

[Deidre Brock]

I note you used the word “agreed”, not “impose”.

Andrew Clark: I emphasised the word “agreed”. We agreed an approach between the UK farming unions. Minette Batters, my president at the NFU, chairs a UK farming roundtable, and we agreed the type of approach that we would like to see for a common UK agricultural policy, and the topics that should be subject to that, around a table with 15 different organisations and all the UK farming unions.

[The Chair]

Thank you. I am afraid we must draw this session to a close. I apologise to those colleagues who did not get called. I have made a note and will try to give you priority next time round. [Interruption.] No, I am sorry.

Mr Clark, thank you very much indeed for taking the trouble to come. The Committee is indebted to you for answering the questions.

--- Later in debate ---

[George Eustice]

Q On the concern about the RPA, at the moment it is responsible for things such as carcase classification. Although its brand may have been tarnished by trying to implement a very difficult and bureaucratic EU scheme, it has a breadth of knowledge about everything from school milk schemes right the way through to carcase classification. If the GCA were to do it, it would be funded by a levy, which would have to be funded by the industry itself. What is your concern about the RPA specifically?

George Dunn: You are right that the RPA runs certain supplier schemes, so we are not saying that it is completely unsighted on this stuff, but it has got no history or skill, in terms of contracts, so how do we see it playing a role within the contract environment? It has got no skill or expertise in looking at how supply chains operate from field to plate. Although it might have had a glimpse of certain aspects of it, we do not think it has got the expertise across the piece.

Christopher Price: In addition, the powers that the Secretary of State proposes to give himself under the Bill are really quite strong. I cannot think of many other areas in which a Minister has such powers as the Secretary of State will gain under the Bill. We were pleasantly surprised that the Government proposed taking them. It seems to us that the powers are so significant that it is unreasonable to say that they should be exercised by a non-departmental public body. I would have thought that they are so significant that they are the sort of thing that a Minister ought to be deciding, not someone further down the hierarchy.

[Deidre Brock]

Q We could talk about that for a long time—that is very interesting. You mentioned the drop in rents. Does that imply that you expect a big drop in rural land values?

George Dunn: No.

Christopher Price: No. A couple of per cent.

George Dunn: For the reasons that I stated earlier, the return on capital is only 2% from agriculture anyway, so there are other things driving the capital value of land.

Christopher Price: If you compare changes in the CAP with changes in land values over the last 30-odd years, there is very little correlation, which you would expect there to be. Also, the European Commission has done two reports on this topic in the last 15 years and both said it was impossible to show any direct link between the two.

[The Chair]

Thank you, Mr Price and Mr Dunn. I am sorry to bring this to a slightly early conclusion, but I am reliably informed that the Division Bell will ring fairly shortly. We will bring in the next witness and at least get him installed.

Examination of Witness

Jason Feeney gave evidence.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Drew]

Q We know about the differences between Ulster and the Republic, but there are places where farmers farm on both sides of the English-Welsh border. If there is a different system, what problems could that present?

Huw Thomas: I do not think that those problems have to be insurmountably difficult. We have different regimes for TB cattle controls, which can sometimes cause problems. There are cross-border holdings, but the England-Wales border is pretty well integrated in terms of farms, especially compared with the Scotland-England border. We have had different arrangements, which does cause problems from time to time—farmers on the border often face a delay in receiving their payments—but if the Governments of England and Wales work together more closely, I think a solution can be found. It does not have to be a problem; it just requires the political will to work closely together.

Dr Fenwick: As Huw pointed out, we already have different systems—very different, in many respects. That has been the case since 2005. What we see as the prime problem is not the difference between the systems, but—I am afraid to say—the implementation of the system on the English side. Our members who have land in England invariably face delayed payments because of delays in the Rural Payments Agency sending data to the Welsh payment agency.

[Deidre Brock]

Q The CAP payments operate to a seven-year cycle. Could you share your thoughts on the suggestion that future payments might be tied to the Westminster budgetary cycle? If farmers are lucky, that might be three to five years, but the Government might change and the money flow might stall as a result. Can you tell us about your concerns on that issue and set out your thoughts on what sort of mechanism might be used to resolve it?

John Davies: Obviously, we need a long-term, multi-annual framework to deliver support, because farming is not a short-term business. For instance, sheep that are going to the tup now will be sold in a post-Brexit marketplace. That is very short-term. We plan in generations, not years, so the longer it can be and the more robust model we can have to allow that would be useful. We are not entirely clear on any solution, because we recognise that future Governments are not bound by the previous Government, but that is a real issue for farm support going forward, because it is a long-term business.

Dr Fenwick: I agree. We have been dealing with multi-annual EU budgets for a very long time and they tally far better with farming calendars. The risks that having fluctuations on an annual basis would bring would be huge.

[Chris Davies]

Q First, may I declare that Mr Davies is a constituent of mine and that the Builth Wells office of NFU Cymru is based in my constituency?

If I may, Mr Thomas and Dr Fenwick, I will just pick you up by saying that there are not that many cross-border issues. Given that Brecon and Radnorshire share 65 miles of Offa’s Dyke, there is a lot of cross-border and I hear of great difficulties that arise on both sides of the border, with both systems, so I would not necessarily say that it is all one way.

Dr Fenwick: I am afraid to say that, on an annual basis, in terms of the payments, it is routinely the RPA that fails to provide data to the Welsh payment agency and that causes delay. Wales has an exemplary record when it comes to payments. It releases about 95% of payments on 1 December annually. I think we are the best in the UK, maybe apart from Northern Ireland, so I am afraid to say that that is not our experience. Many of those 600 cross-border farmers are members of ours and they are the ones who phone me when they do not receive payment, and they are struggling.

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[Mr Goodwill]

Q Would you say that the provisions in the Bill give a great opportunity for farmers in Wales to take advantage of this sort of scheme, which will then extend markets and take on the competition that may be coming in from abroad?

John Davies: Absolutely. We need to look to each and every lever we can pull, and there is scope within the Bill to utilise those opportunities.

Dr Fenwick: It requires the political will to use those levers appropriately, and I am afraid to say that in the past, we have not seen that political will when it comes to some co-operatives and some farmer-owned businesses. We have seen bodies broken up, effectively, because it is perceived that they have too much power, and that is the opposite of what we would like to see in terms of empowerment of the industry. We need to make up for that huge imbalance that has developed over the last 30 or 40 years in terms of the supermarkets.

[Deidre Brock]

Q I have a quick question about the consultation that the Welsh Government are conducting at the moment. Does it include proposals around the capping of payments?

Dr Fenwick: Only with regard to the capping of basic payments during a transition period in order to move money over to a public goods scheme. If I recollect correctly, there is no reference to the capping of payments, which is something that we have raised repeatedly. Indeed, some have told us that there should be no cap on payments, which is a huge concern because we saw capping as a great movement forward in terms of the reputation of what is currently the common agricultural policy and in terms of the reputation of the industry.

Sadly, when we see headlines in newspapers about millionaires or racehorse owners getting huge payments, we are all tarred with the same brush. People do not realise that in Wales they took the progressive move back in 2014 to cap agricultural payments. We appreciate that the CAP legislation was not designed as well as it could have been in terms of making it possible in every country; we appreciate that England had problems from that point of view, but it is a massive backward step not to have capping.

[Ben Lake]

Q Another quick question. We have spoken a lot about what is in the Bill today. Is there anything you would like to see that is not there? I have in mind the meat levy. There was some discussion in Wales about the possibility of including that in the Bill. Do you have any views on that particular omission and is there anything else you would like to see in the Bill?

Dr Fenwick: Certainly, there has been a lot of discussion about how this could have been an opportunity to take account of the fact that Wales is currently losing money through the red meat levy legislation. We appreciate that some moves have been made to address and correct that, but it is far from ideal. We lost hundreds and hundreds of thousands of pounds when a single slaughterhouse closed a few years ago, and that hamstrung our meat marketing body hugely in terms of how it could market its meat, whether in England or on the continent. So it absolutely needs addressing. Certainly an opportunity has been lost there.

In terms of other elements, I am afraid I am more concerned about what is in it than what could have been in it.

John Davies: We want to see agriculture in the Agriculture Bill. We want to see a real, strong focus on the active farmer and how that comes through in terms of a sufficient degree of self-sufficiency. That would be useful. We see food security as a public good or a public right. That is vital. So there are a number of issues there. We want a safe and traceable domestic food supply. We want equal standards for imports and a level playing field, so that needs to be tightened up. There is an opportunity around public procurement. There is a real, strong opportunity around better labelling. It is vital that consumers are properly informed about their purchasing decisions. So there are a number of places there where we can see room for tightening and more detail. It is broad enough. We just need to focus in on that.