Common Agricultural Policy

Eilidh Whiteford Excerpts

Thursday 1st November 2012 Westminster Hall

[Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)]

I intend to make a short contribution. I congratulate the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh) on a worthwhile and important report, which highlights the importance of food security and climate change, and the fact that one size does not fit everybody. All too often, we have seen agricultural policies in which one size fits nobody at all. The fact that 7,000 amendments to the proposal have been suggested demonstrates aptly why people across Europe think that this process has to be made to work in individual member states, and in different geographic regions of member states. Perhaps it is even ambitious to think that a continent as diverse as ours in its climate, geography and economy could have a one-size-fits-all policy on anything.

The key point I want to make is that farmers need to be given credit for what is already happening on greening. They are already engaged in the stewardship of the land—in looking after and maintaining it. That is not always profitable. It is probable that only a small proportion of farms would be economically viable without the kind of support provided by the common agricultural policy. It is important to recognise that farmers are engaged in a wide range of climate change and environmental practices that are already helping to move towards a greener CAP. I hope the Minister will take on board that starting point and argue strongly that what many farmers are already doing is an important step.

I hope there will be room for member states—in the case of the UK, for the devolved Administrations—to tailor solutions to circumstances, and that there will be subsidiarity in how the policy is rolled out. The National Farmers Union has provided a briefing that suggests a range of sensible amendments to the greening proposals. For example, it asks for a menu approach—a regional approach—for measures on crop diversification and permanent grassland that are particularly relevant to Scottish agriculture. I hope Ministers will look at those proposals closely as the negotiations go forward and work closely with the Scottish Government to make sure that we find workable, practical solutions.

The hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton highlighted the wider context in which the greening proposals are being made. I have slightly different view on the CAP budget. Part of the problem for Scottish agriculture and the CAP to date has been a disproportionately low benefit. Scottish farmers receive €130 per hectare, compared to a UK average of €229 per hectare. I hope that the Minister recognises that we need a fairer proportion of the EU budget, and that spending should be more equitably distributed within the UK. Scotland has particular climatic, geographical and land quality issues that the CAP is designed to address. I hope Ministers will take those issues on board.

Will the Minister give me assurances today that any uplift via the convergence mechanism will come back to Scotland? The UK will qualify for uplift on the basis of Scotland’s already very low benefit from the scheme. The only countries with a lower benefit from the CAP than Scotland are Latvia, Romania and Estonia. After the proposals are implemented, we could be the worst in Europe on both pillar one and pillar two. If Scottish agriculture is to meet its food security and climate challenges, it needs to be supported in the right way. Greening measures have been accepted across the board in principle, but we need to make them work in a practical way.

--- Later in debate ---

[Neil Parish]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. I congratulate him on chairing the all-party group. We need to bring to the attention of the world what is needed, with biotechnology. We have a moral duty not only to look after the environment, but to feed people. As there is more and more global warming, northern Europe, and we in particular, will need to produce more and more food, and using biotechnology is the way forward. Europe, however, has dragged its feet, as has this country. The debate would be worth having if the potential for environmental and productive gains and slightly cheaper food could be presented to the British public, and if they could see some financial benefits—people’s hearts are on the left and their pockets are on the right.

If we look at the protein that we feed our chickens, our pigs in particular, and our dairy cows, most comes from South America and America, and most is genetically modified soya, so the idea that we are living in a world free from GM is absolutely wrong. The Americans, dare I say it—I never was politically correct—might in part be slightly overweight, but they have not died from eating GM products, which have been used to good effect in America. If we want a more competitive agriculture in Europe and Britain, denying ourselves GM in the future would be wrong. A Government who brought up that subject for debate would be brave, although I think that the public might just about be ready for it. I am interested in what our new Agriculture Minister will say. I am tempting him, ever so slightly, to comment on the subject.

We have some good stewardship schemes in this country, probably among the best in Europe. The trouble is that the Ciolos reform is trying to go down to the lowest common denominator. Of the 27 countries, some have monocultures of maize, maize and more maize, so Ciolos is trying to bring in such things as a four-crop rotation, but if we have land in stewardship schemes or permanent pasture, or hill land that is extremely valuable for its landscape, the last thing we want to do is encourage farmers to plough up part of it. Some of what is coming through from Ciolos, therefore, is complete madness. One idea is that every farm has to have 7% set aside, but some farms have anywhere between 20% and 40% of their land in a stewardship scheme—some more—while other, highly productive farms are much better off producing food and getting on with it. That is why “one size fits all” is not the way forward, as my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton said.

We will have to fight hard in Europe—I look forward to the Minister fighting his corner—because in this country we run very productive farms. We farm pretty competitively. When some of my farmers in the west country get excited if the Commission talks about small farmers, I warn them, “Don’t get too excited,” because the Commission means farmers of about 5 acres, or 2 hectares, not farmers of 50, 100 or 150 acres. Poland has more farmers than the rest of the European Union, or certainly did when it entered, because it has so many small farms. Be careful when the Commission offers handouts to small farmers, because it does not mean ours.

That brings me to a key point. As we green the CAP, what is needed is agricultural environmental policy, and at the moment too much social policy is involved. Many member states will talk about labour requirements that very much favour the huge amount of labour on the very small farms in some countries, which will put British farming at a disadvantage. That will also take the CAP from where we want it to go, because the whole idea—probably with cross-party support—is to see farmers not only farming in a green way, but producing food competitively, and we also want them to get more money out of the marketplace. That is where I disagree with the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford), who spoke before me. It is not a matter of finding more money from the CAP to support farming; it is about enabling farmers to be competitive and produce food well. I do, however, agree with the need to look much more at what land is given the CAP payments; that is where Scotland may well benefit.

[Dr Whiteford]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman on his latter point, because in Scotland we have some serious disadvantages, in the kind of land that we have, its quality and its location. My key point was that the proportion we get of the overall CAP budget, whatever its size, needs to be more equitable.

[Neil Parish]

I understand exactly where the hon. Lady is coming from, but looking at Scotland, dare I question whether the highlands and the bare rocks need the same payment as some land that can be farmed, such as grasslands? Averages of payment throughout Scotland are interesting. How I dare even suggest such things, I do not know—I do not want to get into a war with Scotland—but there are statistics and statistics.

We are at a crossroads, and at a place where Britain is well in advance of others, with regard to environment payments. We need to ensure that we can pay for those payments. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton that modulation is unfair to British farmers. However, I also know that the Treasury is not noted for its generosity, and if we do not modulate, we will not have enough money to pay for our stewardship schemes. If the Minister and the Secretary of State with responsibility for agriculture went cap in hand to the Treasury, saying, “We already receive £2 billion or £3 billion from the CAP, but we need more money from the Treasury to prop up stewardship schemes,” I suspect that they would be told in good Anglo-Saxon terms to go on their way. As we negotiate the new agricultural policy, we must ensure that those stewardship schemes are funded through it in some shape or form. We must be careful when we say that we will throw the modulation out with the bathwater, because that may not be the right way forward.

This debate is a great opportunity, and I wish Ministers well in their negotiations. The argument in Europe is always that we should have an agricultural policy for the whole of Europe and a budget to fit that policy, but in the real politics of the European Union, there is a budget for agriculture, and agricultural policy is then fitted to that budget. That is exactly what will happen this time.

We must get the best deal for our farmers and the environment. I wish our new Minister and the Secretary of State well in their negotiations with our European partners. We must be tough to ensure that we move our agriculture forward to competitive food production and a green agriculture policy, but we must not lose sight of the fact that in the end, much of the food that our farmers produce is also part of the green environment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Dai Havard (in the Chair)]

Eilidh Whitehouse.

[Dr Whiteford]

I welcome the Minister’s comments. Compliance has been the biggest single issue with the CAP. It is the issue that constituents raise most often with me, and I am sure that it is the same in his constituency. I questioned his predecessor on several occasions about whether the new CAP would tackle some of those compliance issues, and I urge him to keep trying to do away with what the hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice) called the green tape in the new CAP.

[Mr Dai Havard (in the Chair)]

I apologise to the hon. Lady. It is “Whiteford,” is it not? I got the first bit right but the second bit wrong. That is that Neath valley problem.