Direct Payments to Farmers (Legislative Continuity) Bill

Earl of Caithness Excerpts

3rd reading & 2nd reading & Committee negatived & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & 3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & Committee negatived (Hansard): House of Lords & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 3rd reading (Hansard) & Committee negatived (Hansard)
Wednesday 29th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted to follow my noble friend Lady Byford, with her knowledge, day-to-day livelihood in farming and the expertise that she brings. I thank my noble friend the Minister for bringing in the Bill. The Government promised it, they have delivered, and we have a little bit of stability for the farmers for this year. It is nice to be able to welcome a Bill that has six principal powers in it, five of which have sunset clauses at the end of the year. That is not something that happens very often in legislation in this House and is to be commended; this Bill is an eleven-month wonder.

I will make one comment about farmers. We have talked—as we tend to do in the House—about farmers in generality, all receiving grants. Not all farmers receive grants. I agree that the great majority do, but there are some forms of land management and farming that do not receive grants, and we must not forget that there are such people in this country too.

I turn briefly to the forthcoming Agriculture Bill. I will not follow the noble Baroness, Lady Young, in setting out what I believe should be in that Bill, but I think that the words of the noble Earl, Lord Devon, and of my noble friend Lady Byford are well worth taking on board in Defra. We need that Bill as soon as possible. If we do not get it, the farmers will be severely prejudiced in future. It will obviously suffer the guillotine process in another place, but this House does not have a guillotine, and nor should we. There will be a huge amount of discussion on the Bill; we will need the expertise of people such as the noble Earl, Lord Devon, and my noble friend Lady Byford. Where I do agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Young, is that I too shall be concerned about bringing a land-use plan into that Bill. That was one of the recommendations of the House of Lords committee, and I shall raise it again in two weeks’ time when we come to our forestry debate, because it is relevant to that too.

I have five or six quick questions for my noble friend the Minister. Is he confident that all the farmers in England know exactly what is going to happen in the next year? I got an email from the Scottish NFU today saying that it has emailed all its farmers to tell them exactly what the process is and that they have to abide by the rules to get their payments. We live in the Westminster bubble; we think we know what is going on but, if you are a busy farmer who has been subject to recent weather conditions, you might not know. It would be very sad if some farmers were not kept as up to date as possible.

The Countryside Stewardship Scheme is not as I understand it part of the Bill, but is there any flexibility for increasing payments this year? On DAERA and Northern Ireland, when does the Minister expect the uniform entitlement to come into operation? It is, as he rightly said, operational in England, Wales and Scotland. When can we expect it in Northern Ireland? Also, talking of the devolved Administrations, do we have the legislative consent orders from Scotland and Wales yet? If not, does this pose a problem? We are told that the Bill must be passed by 11 pm on 31 January. If we do not get the legislative consent orders by then, will that mean that the Scots and the Welsh will not be able to claim money this year?

On greening, under Pillar 2, I ask my noble friend to bear in mind the point again mentioned by the noble Earl, Lord Devon, that there are a number of farmers in the upland and West Country who have not ripped out hedges, who farm on small fields and who are not so prone to being able to get greening under Pillar 2. It would be wrong if they were penalised for having been the good guys all along.

It was a delight to hear the noble Lord, Lord Bew, comment on his review. I will not say any more, because my noble friend Lady Byford covered that. So I hope that my noble friend will be able to answer her points and therefore mine.