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.

Dairy Industry

Eilidh Whiteford Excerpts

Thursday 13th September 2012 Westminster Hall

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

I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty) on securing the debate.

A belated announcement this morning from Robert Wiseman Dairies that it will increase the farm-gate price to 29p a litre, as well as use the new voluntary code of practice as a framework, is a timely reminder that the public scrutiny that we offer in the House remains a powerful tool to make processors and retailers who value their reputations behave more responsibly towards their suppliers and customers. I welcome the new voluntary code of practice for the dairy sector and the progress on pricing that we have seen in recent weeks, but we must not lose sight of the fact that 29p per litre is still less than the production cost, and until the prices paid to producers exceed the cost of production, we will not have a sustainable dairy industry.

As others have said, the problem is not new. There have been concerns about the way that the dairy supply chains operate for years, and it is worth bearing in mind—a point perhaps a little eclipsed today—that not only dairy farmers are squeezed by processors and retailers. The inspiring action of our dairy farmers over recent months may give a lead to other farmers and food producers, many of whom run small, family businesses. They find themselves caught in supply chains in which they have little negotiating power and in which a handful of large retailers and processors reap all the profit.

Earlier this summer, I joined dairy farmers from my constituency on the streets of Peterhead to highlight the intransigence of some retailers on paying a fair price for milk. We stood outside one supermarket that had a poster in the window advertising four pints for 99p. That encapsulated for me how milk prices have become completely dislocated from production costs or any market reality. Milk simply cannot be produced that cheaply if we want to ensure the welfare of the animals or that they are fed properly and if we want to maintain a viable business.

Farmers are angry, and it is heartbreaking for people who get up at 4.30 every morning to milk their cows to be working for nothing. They are seeing their livelihood and way of life destroyed, so that supermarkets can post multi-billion pound annual profits.

The dairy farmers in Banff and Buchan have little choice about where to send their milk for processing—most of it goes to Wiseman because there is no other large processor locally. That lack of competition compounds the inherent imbalance in the relationship between suppliers, processors and retailers. The suppliers are in an invidious position: they simply do not have enough negotiating muscle.

Perhaps the most egregious symptom of the prevailing regime is discretionary pricing: the ability of buyers to vary the terms of contracts without negotiation is unacceptable. I am glad that the new voluntary code of practice will tackle the issue, although I seek assurance from the Minister, whom I am happy to welcome to his new role, that the Government will look seriously at the introduction of legally binding measures, so that we are not debating this again in a few months’ time, next year or the year after.

The large supermarkets that dominate the retail market have the biggest share of responsibility. They have the margins, as others have said, and they need to take a long, hard look at their business models and to understand that sustainable sourcing is not only about environmental impact, but about the sustainability of the livelihoods and communities that depend on food production.

Earlier this summer, Tesco advertised for a buyer to operate in the Scottish islands. That advert let the cat out of the bag on how that company views its agricultural suppliers and goes about its business. The job advert asked for candidates who would

“achieve your savings/income target through the 4 ways of buying…Buy for less…Someone Else Pays…Use Less…Re-Engineer”.

For too long, scrutiny of the way in which large retailers push the costs and risks of food production down the supply chain has been inadequate. That is a global problem, not only a UK one. Tesco posted profits this year of £2.5 billion in the UK—apparently, its worst results in two decades—and yet it thinks that it is okay to squeeze margins from some of the most peripheral and marginally profitable producers, in the islands. That makes a complete mockery of any of its statements on corporate responsibility. It is incumbent on all hon. Members to highlight such instances because they are by no means isolated.

Many farmers are unwilling to speak out publicly about how they are treated by retailers, but privately they will catalogue the costs and pressures of doing business. We need greater transparency, and we need to be able to hold the retailers accountable. Too many supermarkets are still using business models that are completely unsustainable, and they are pushing producers out of business or to the brink of viability.

Whatever steps we take to mitigate the worst excesses of irresponsible corporate behaviour, we also need to address the underlying problems. A window of opportunity has been created by the actions of dairy farmers and the high profile that they have generated this summer, allowing Ministers to grasp the nettle of supply chains. I hope that the new Minister will seize that opportunity to bring transparency and fairness to the dairy pricing regime and take action to ensure fair prices for all our food producers caught in over-concentrated and uncompetitive supply chains.

Seasonal Agricultural Workers Scheme

Eilidh Whiteford Excerpts

Wednesday 20th June 2012 Westminster Hall

[Mr Weir]

I think there are particular difficulties with that. Under SAWS, the farmer must pay the minimum wage and provide living quarters for the migrant labour. It might be more difficult to do that within the UK because of the structure of the benefits system in the UK, as the hon. Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey said. Everything is worth looking at, but we must remember that much of the labour in agriculture is very hard and not everyone who is long-term unemployed would be able to undertake it, although undoubtedly some would.

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

On that point, I represent a rural constituency that relies heavily on seasonal agricultural labour, but we also have unemployment that is well below the national average. In those circumstances, it is imperative that our farmers are able to recruit the workers they need to keep their businesses going.

[Mr Weir]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. The fact remains that whatever the reason, there are difficulties in getting sufficient labour for seasonal work. If growers cannot do so, that could have a devastating effect on the local industry, which, as I said, is an important part of many of our local economies.

I stress—I think the hon. Member for West Worcestershire touched on this point—that it is wrong to regard the horticultural industry as providing work just for seasonal labour. There is a huge infrastructure behind the horticultural industry: there are jobs in administration and marketing, as well as in processing, packing and transporting the fruit, which, because of the nature of the produce, must be done quickly and efficiently. That contributes to many full-time jobs in local economies. Migrant labour underpins full-time jobs for local people. That point must be made strongly. We should not consider this issue in isolation.

I will give an example of what can happen. Earlier this year, daffodil growers in my constituency, who also rely on migrant labour, found that they had a problem. Normally what happens is that the daffodils in England bloom earlier, so daffodils are picked by labour that moves north as the season progresses. However, this year, we had wonderful weather earlier in Scotland when it was less good in England, with the result that the English daffodils were delayed while the Scottish daffodils came out in bloom. The result was that the labour that would normally pick Scottish daffodils in my constituency was not available, as it was still employed in England. It was hard for my daffodil growers to get sufficient labour, with the result that many daffodils spoiled in the field. If we are not careful, that could happen with much of our soft fruit. Growers are very concerned about it happening if they cannot obtain sufficient labour.

The growers and the agricultural industry in general are very much aware of the issues surrounding migrant labour, some of which we have heard about today, but they point out, as I have done, that many of these people come to this country to earn money to continue their studies and to improve their English. As I said, many of them will go back to their home countries having had a good experience and will be friends of Scotland and the rest of the UK for many years to come.

The hon. Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey gave details of the proposal from the NFU for amending SAWS to continue the use of migrant labour while dealing with some of the concerns that have been raised. The proposal is strongly supported by the growers in my constituency. It would return the scheme to its roots and make it a youth experience programme aimed particularly at agricultural students. As the hon. Gentleman said, the original scheme incorporated an educational element in the placement, and reintroducing that not only could benefit growers in the UK, but is likely to assist the development of agriculture in other nations. I will not go into detail about the proposed scheme, as the hon. Gentleman gave the details and I do not want to repeat what he said. However, the NFU believes that it would work, and it seems to me that such a scheme would strike the balance of fairness between the needs of the agricultural industry and the Government’s concerns.

As I said, I realise that the Minister here today is not responsible for SAWS, but I would be interested to hear his views, from an agricultural perspective, on whether the Government are likely to proceed with the renewal of SAWS post-2013, to give some assurance to horticulture that the Government are behind the industry, recognise its problems and will help it to continue to contribute strongly to both the Scottish and the UK economies.

Common Fisheries Policy

Eilidh Whiteford Excerpts

Thursday 15th March 2012 Commons Chamber

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

I begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh) on securing the debate and particularly on the work she and her Select Committee have done on the reform process for the common fisheries policy. It is very important for this to get the scrutiny it needs. The CFP is of huge significance for the fishing communities in Banff and Buchan, but coastal communities all around the coastline have a real stake in the outcome of these negotiations.

The successful reform of the common fisheries policy is going to stand or fall on whether or not measures can be put in place to decentralise decision making. That is very much at the heart of the debate, and I welcome the focus that the Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee placed on that issue in her remarks. I am concerned that, if we do not achieve that decentralisation, we will preside over the further demise of our fishing communities and the destruction of our marine environment.

I suspect that the commitment to decentralisation is shared across this House, and it is widely shared in many other fishing nations in the European Community. The problem is that the Commission’s proposals to date do not set out any workable mechanism for that to happen. There is no framework for regional co-operation among member states. Until we have that framework and that mechanism, I am afraid that our ambitions for decentralising the CFP will remain aspirational.

The part of the Committee’s report that was rightly the focus of its Chair’s remarks—and it has rightly attracted considerable attention outside this Chamber, too—is, of course, the suggestion that the exclusive competence of the Lisbon treaty could be interpreted to allow aspects of fisheries management to be devolved to member states. It goes without saying that I would like that to be the case and I hope that the treaty can be interpreted in that way. I am sure that many lawyers are rubbing their hands in glee at the prospect of a process of legal debate on the wording of the treaty to see whether it can be interpreted in that way.

It would be fair to say that, to date, the Commission has taken quite a restrictive view on how the treaty can be interpreted. In that sense, I do not want to be the party pooper, but I think we need to temper our expectations. I would love to be optimistic, but I want to hear from the Minister whether the Government have taken legal advice on this aspect of the Committee’s report. I would be very keen to know what progress we might be able to make at the European level from the proposals in the report. I look forward to hearing his remarks; I hope his legal advice will give us some cause for optimism. We also need to know from him what progress has been made in building support for decentralisation across the other member states, which will, of course, be crucial.

Decentralisation is also crucial to the sustainable management of our fish stocks and the sustainability of fishing communities and our fishing industry. If we look at the progress made since the introduction of the regional advisory councils and the industry’s involvement in fishing management, we can see that it is much better for the people affected by the decisions to be involved in the decision making. In those circumstances, we get much better outcomes.

What we have seen in Scotland with the conservation credit scheme—with increased use of selective gears, catch quotas and real-time closures—is that all its measures have contributed to significant improvements in sustainability. We have seen dramatic reductions in discards and dramatic increases in the number of stocks certified by the Marine Stewardship Council as being from sustainable sources. Crucially—this is the key point on the issue of discards—it prevented the need to discard fish by avoiding unwanted catches in the first place. That has to be the top priority.

If we are serious about tackling the causes of discarding, we need to do it fishery by fishery, and we need to take on board the challenges of our mixed fisheries. I will not repeat the remarks of the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell), but they were extremely salient. We must look in a practical way at how we do this, and be very clear that one size simply will not fit all.

[Andrew George]

The hon. Lady said that conservation measures had resulted in a drop in discards. A seasonal closure of the Trevose ground off the north Cornish coast has led to an abundance of cod, and as a consequence most fishermen are using their monthly cod quota on the first day of every month. There is a now great deal of discarding.

[Dr Whiteford]

The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point about what is happening in his constituency, and clearly there are similar stories all along our coastline. That is a prime illustration of the fact that—as I think Members in all parts of the House agree—the present system does not work, and is not fit for purpose.

A deep-seated and long-standing problem is the issue of compliance across the European Union. It is very frustrating for our fishermen to see the rules applied so inconsistently. The fact that quota restrictions are being flouted with impunity in other parts of the EU not only causes great resentment, but undermines confidence in the system and people’s sense of ownership of the system of fisheries management. We know from the experience of recent years that conservation measures that have been developed in co-operation with the fishermen have been the most effective in conserving fish stocks. The current problems are symptomatic of a top-down CFP, and of that lack of a sense of ownership.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

Having pointed the finger elsewhere in Europe, would the hon. Lady care to comment on a recent case in the United Kingdom—indeed, in Scotland? There was a parallel landing industry, and the Government were taking levies from it.

[Dr Whiteford]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving me the opportunity to take up the comments made by the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Mr Doran). I know that the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) was not present to hear that speech, but it dealt extensively with such problems.

Obviously I cannot discuss the situation while criminal proceedings are taking place, but the fact that the police launched such a successful investigation into the criminality that was taking place has taught us the lesson that we cannot take our eye off the ball in terms of our own compliance. However, we must ensure that criminality is not also symptomatic of people’s loss of confidence in the system. We should bear in mind that otherwise law-abiding people resort to it because they do not believe that the system is working.

I was glad that the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton referred to aquaculture. Because of the crisis in the sea fisheries sector, it is often not given the attention that it deserves. I am concerned about by the Commission’s proposal for multiannual national strategic plans, and, buried in there somewhere, the rather bizarre suggestion that there should be a regional advisory council for aquaculture.

I believe that Scotland is the largest producer of Atlantic salmon in the EU, and the third largest producer in the world. In 2010 we produced 154,000 tonnes of salmon, worth more than half a billion pounds at farm gate prices, which represents more than a third of Scotland’s food exports. We also export substantial amounts of shellfish including mussels, oysters and scallops, and other species such as trout and halibut. The rapid growth of the sector at a time when the rest of the economy has been stagnant has been very encouraging. It is a success story for job creation and for economic growth, including growth in remote rural communities that do not have much else going for them. I see no benefit whatsoever in imposing a new layer of European regulation and bureaucracy on that sector, and I expect a great many risks to be posed to it if we go down that road.

I have a particular constituency interest. Although Banff and Buchan is often thought of as being at the heart of the fishing industry, it is also a major centre for fish processing. The factories in the north-east process large amounts of farmed fish, and at a time when the sea fisheries are so unstable and uncertain and can fluctuate so much, the farmed fish sector has a hugely stabilising effect on the viability of the processing sector. An increase in political interference in the aquaculture sector from Brussels—or from anywhere else—would not be in anyone’s interests. We must not try to mend successful businesses that are not broken.

There is no consensus across the UK about transferable quotas—or individual transferable concessions as they are now being called. I welcome the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee’s remarks about the problems the ITCs cause for the under-10 metre fleet. Those problems are not confined to that fleet, however. Other communities will also be affected, including some in my constituency.

The real issue is that most of the fishing industry in Scotland still involves family-owned vessels that maintain a strong link to a local port. They are at the heart of communities, and I do not want those communities to be bought out by large multinational fishing conglomerates.

[Mr MacNeil]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the ITCs are a gift for speculators and that we would be bemoaning them in five or 10 years’ time?

[Dr Whiteford]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right.

My real fear is that any safeguards we put in place to protect the economic link between the quota and the community or the member state will not be robust enough to withstand the law. I suspect that they will be open to legal challenge, and that we will quickly find that our fishing communities become tradeable commodities. That would be a death blow to communities that are heavily dependent on fishing, and where there have historically been strong family and community ties at the heart of the industry.

I make this plea to the Minister, therefore: any system of quotas must not be mandatory. I would like an assurance from him on that. We must introduce a workable system that does not make such quotas mandatory.

I want to conclude by talking about the objective of social and economic sustainability. Stating that in the legislation would mark a huge step forward; it would make it clear that we want the sustainable development of our coastal communities. That recommendation in the Committee report is important, and I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton for putting it there. That move would change the whole terms of how we discuss fisheries in Europe. It would make it clear that the subject is about not only the fish in the sea, but the people who live in harmony with the ecosystem in our coastal communities, and who have done so for centuries. I urge the Minister to push for that at the European level, and, as always, I wish him well in the ongoing negotiations.

--- Later in debate ---

[Fiona O'Donnell]

I think that if the hon. Lady speaks to the under-10-metre fishermen now she will find that they do not necessarily feel that the situation is getting any better under this Government. We should all have the humility to admit that when we leave government we often leave thinking that more could have been done. I expect that Government Members will have that feeling sooner than they think.

I look forward to hearing from the Minister how the EU negotiations are progressing. First, I want to examine some of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee’s key recommendations. I congratulate the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton on her work and that of her Committee and on making sure that we have been able to debate this important issue in the House. I will then go on to outline Labour’s main priorities for reform.

As many Members have said, the genuine decentralisation of powers from Brussels towards a system of regionalised management will be key to the success of the reforms. Labour supports greater regionalisation. We think it is important that countries should work together in regional groups to ensure that fisheries are managed more sustainably. It would be helpful if the Minister could tell the House which European member states he is working with to ensure that meaningful regionalisation is delivered. Who are our allies on this issue and what progress is he making? Will he also update us on any discussions he has had about regionalisation with the devolved Administrations?

In the run-up to the EU’s draft proposals published last summer, Commissioner Damanaki spoke of her desire to overhaul the CFP to get away from the micro-management of Brussels and install a bottom-up approach. Concerns have been expressed, however, that the Commission’s proposals are falling short of the mark. The commissioner insists that that is not due to a lack of political will but is the result of the limitations of the Lisbon treaty to devolve powers and says that she has gone as far as she can go. The Committee has put forward an alternative legal framework and asked the Minister to explore that option. That issue was also raised by the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford).

Last year, in a Back-Bench debate on the reform of the CFP in the House, the Minister said that

“currently the proposals lack crucial detail on how regionalisation will work.”—[Official Report, 15 November 2011; Vol. 535, c. 741.]

What discussions has the Minister had with the commissioner on the regionalisation of powers to member states, and has he sought any legal advice on the devolution of powers from Brussels to regional advisory councils?

The Committee gave considerable thought to the implications of introducing maximum sustainable yield deadlines by 2015 and concluded that a target of 2020 is more appropriate. I think that it has benefited the House to have on the record a more reasoned explanation of the targets the Committee recommended than those we have seen in the media lately. With 75% of European stocks now exploited beyond safe levels, compared with 25% for stocks worldwide, it is clear that we need to take urgent action now. MSY has already been achieved for some stocks, but Europe is lagging behind. Labour believes that achieving MSY by 2015 should still be the goal. Does the Minister share that view? The Government must play their part in ensuring that we move towards that goal in line with our international commitments. Will he update the House on what progress is being made to achieve MSY for all commercial UK stocks by 2015?

There has been much to say on discards, which is something the public certainly care deeply about. Members from both sides of the House agree that Europe must get to grips with the problem, because throwing perfectly good fish back into the sea is utterly unacceptable. Labour is clear that we need a specific timeline. I am concerned by reports in The Guardian today that a group of member states, led by France and Spain, are attempting to pass a declaration that includes a clause dismissing the ban as unrealistic and too prescriptive, which could effectively lead to the indefinite continuation of discards. That is simply unacceptable. What discussions has the Minister had with France and Germany on that, and will he reaffirm his commitment to ending discards? Furthermore, will he tell us when and how that should be achieved? We are not asking much of him. The industry, north and south of the border, has demonstrated that using more selective fishing methods is part of the solution. Catch quota trials and Project 50% have been very successful in reducing discards. Does he agree that the scheme should be expanded in the period leading up to a ban on discards?

I would like to set out Labour’s main priorities for reform of the CFP. Overcapacity has led to the destruction of Europe’s fish stocks. The problem is simple: we are over-fishing our seas. I think that the most remarkable comment we heard today was from the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil), who harked back to a time when there were no quotas or discards and people simply went out and fished. The reality is that technology has moved on and countries can now fish in areas far from home. The idea that we could pull out of a common framework for managing our fisheries is simply unrealistic. The European fleet has grown too large and is catching too many fish. The current system favours the short-term interests of large-scale, often unsustainable, industrial operators. That has led to the lion’s share of resources and profits becoming concentrated in the hands of a relatively small number of fishing enterprises in Europe.

[Dr Whiteford]

Does the hon. Lady agree that the Scottish fleet, which has halved in size in the past 10 years, should not have to pay again for the overall European reduction in fleet sizes that is required and that the people who have done more than anyone else to promote sustainability and change the way they work should get the credit for what they have achieved?

[Fiona O'Donnell]

I think that Members everywhere in the Chamber, apart from where the hon. Lady sits, have the interest of the whole UK fishing industry at heart; that is certainly the case for me. What is certain, however, is that if Scotland became an independent nation, our fishermen would face a very uncertain future.

We have not heard much mention of fishing in external waters. One Member raised the issue, but I certainly do not want to disappoint her by returning to it today.

I congratulate the hon. Member for South East Cornwall on the Westminster Hall debate that she secured and for exposing the actions of trawlers in the waters off Mauritania. European waters have been over-fished, and now we are shipping our problems overseas. The EU fleet takes 25% of its annual catch from outside European waters, and EU taxpayers are subsidising the expansion of some of the biggest and most powerful trawlers in Europe into the waters off the western coast of Africa.

Neither EU member states nor fragile coastal fishing communities in western Africa can afford the reform of the CFP to become a missed opportunity. Reform is a real chance for change in Europe, and it could tackle over-fishing by EU fleets in external waters, so will the Minister update the House on his discussions with other member states about the exploitation of fish stocks in external waters?

Secondly, on the inshore fleet, Labour wants a reformed CFP that rewards those who fish more sustainably and selectively and with less impact on the environment. The UK’s inshore fleet represents more than three quarters of the entire UK fleet and employs 65% of its work force, yet it receives just 4% of the quota allocated to the UK under the CFP.

Labour believes that that imbalance must be addressed, and we want a fairer distribution of quota among the fleet. The draft CFP regulations contain a proposal whereby member states may withhold up to 5% of their national quota to encourage and reward operators that reduce discards and improve environmental performance. Labour thinks that should be increased to 20% to reward fishermen, including small-scale fishermen, who operate in a more environmentally sustainable way and who contribute positively to coastal communities.

Fisheries are a Government-held public resource, so we think it right that Government decide who should be able to access them, but, as the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton has pointed out, astonishingly the Government do not even know who owns the quota that they hand out. We want to see an entirely transparent register of quotas, and I join the hon. Lady in asking the Minister to update the House on progress in that area.

The New Under Ten Fishermens Association, NUTFA, the organisation that represents the domestic under-10-metre fleet, is calling for root-and-branch reform to create an inshore fleet that is fit for purpose. The Minister has responded with six community quota group pilots, so will he update the House on their progress and on the response to them from the under-10s? May I suggest to him that a crucial part of reform could be the creation of an inshore producer organisation? I have heard the proposal when meeting fishermen from the under-10-metre fleet. Is the Minister willing to consider it?

The rules that govern our fisheries are broken. Ahead of Rio+20, where food security and our oceans will be high on the agenda, it is vital that we put our own house in order. It is not too late to turn the tide. Now is the time for the Government to show renewed determination and leadership, and to pursue truly ambitious reform.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Richard Benyon)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh) for securing this important debate in the House, and I commend the excellent report that her Committee has produced. This debate has benefited from some very interesting interventions and speeches by hon. Members on both sides of the House, and I hope to refer to as many of them as possible.

My hon. Friend launched the debate with real knowledge and enthusiasm. Her enthusiasm for and interest in the subject are apparent from how she speaks about it, and they are very welcome. I enjoyed taking part in one of her Committee’s sittings on this subject, and I was impressed by the level of knowledge and interest across the Committee.

In answer to the hon. Member for East Lothian (Fiona O’Donnell) and others, I am happy to report on how we are progressing with our discussions in the European Union. On Monday I am going to Brussels, where I will be discussing, not least, regionalisation, as well as the external dimension, on which we are making some progress, although it has not yet got to where I want it to be. I entirely share the position taken by the hon. Lady and my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Sheryll Murray) in abhorring the dreadful practices that we have learned about in recent years regarding the external footprint of fishing vessels that are subsidised by our constituents’ taxes so that they can fish unsustainably in the waters of some of the poorest countries in the world. I am looking forward to putting forward a very robust line on that, and I am impressed by the progress that my officials are making on it.

We will also be talking about discards, which I will discuss later. The hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford) will be interested to know that we will deal with the thorny issue of mackerel and the perhaps not-very-sustainable activities of the Government of Iceland and the Faroe Islands. The hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil), who extolled the virtues of the Faroe Islands, might like to reflect on the fact that that country is not behaving at all properly in this matter.

I know as well as anyone how complex the issues are surrounding the whole area of the common fisheries policy and how difficult it is to unpick the diverse and interlinked problems that we face in reforming this failed policy. The Committee’s inquiry gets to the heart of these issues with a remarkable degree of perspicuity, and it has, as I said, delivered a very impressive report. The Committee’s thinking also reflects the stance that we are taking across a range of important priorities for reform of the CFP. It is crucial that we get past the “one size fits all” mindset that has served European fisheries so badly.

My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile) hosted my visit to the wonderful Plymouth marine laboratory, where we saw the impact of climate change. We saw how the fronts that change the temperatures of our seas in different places are moving, and how fish populations are moving. It is clearly ridiculous to have one constraining system for managing our fisheries that goes from the sub-Arctic waters of the north to the waters of the south Mediterranean. We must have a system that is much more fleet of foot, and we can do that only if it is more locally managed. I will come on to talk about how we are going to try to achieve that.

We are facing a critical stage in the negotiations in the coming months, and I will continue to press for radical reform; as I said, I will do that at the Fisheries Council in Brussels next week. In addition to those discussions on reform, we will have further discussions in April, May and June. The European Parliament is also considering the proposals in its committee stages, and we expect a plenary vote there on the whole package by the autumn.

The Committee’s report rightly highlights the importance of regionalisation. We must find ways to allow member states to work together regionally on the detail of fisheries management—in discussion, of course, with stakeholders—and I agree that we can do that within the bounds of the current treaty. Technical and legal constraints should not overshadow our aims in this regard, and that has been our message to others. I hope that I will discover that the issues of competence are as clear as the Committee suggests. We have been exploring with other member states the types of provision that it has identified in order to build support for potential solutions. I can assure my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton that members of her Committee are not the only ones with access to legal opinions. In my experience, there are many and varied legal opinions on the subject, and it is important that they should be robust and able to stand up to the rigours of challenge.

The Commission’s proposals reflect that same concept of empowering member states to take some of their own decisions. However, we are concerned that conferring more delegated powers on the Commission, as the proposals have the potential to do, might end up centralising decisions again.

I made an interesting visit to the constituency of the hon. Member for South Down (Ms Ritchie). I quite understand why she is not in her place, because she informed me that she would have to depart. I was shown a net in which an eliminator panel had been put in precisely the right place to allow cod to escape, but the net was deemed illegal by people who manage fisheries about 1,000 miles away from the fishermen who use it. They insisted that the eliminator panel should be further towards the cod end, even though the fishermen knew that by that stage the fish would be too tired to swim up through it. How crazy is that? What lunacy it is to have a system that does not allow the fishery in a particular area to develop the means to do virtuous things such as excluding discards.

I recognise that what I can achieve will probably never be quite what my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax), the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell) and others would like, but I will do my best to achieve as much as I can.

The genuine regionalisation that the Government and the Select Committee are calling for will need the robust co-operation of member states on shared fisheries for it to be credible and to win support from others. Empowering member states to take some decisions may form part of the process, but it might not solve the whole problem. As many hon. Members have said, many of our fish stocks are shared with other countries and can best be managed on a regional basis. I believe that a properly devolved system, with close co-operation between member states, operating with an ecosystem-based approach, as the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) mentioned, is the right way forward.

The hon. Member for East Lothian asked if we have friends in Europe on this matter. We do. There are many like-minded states that share my sense of exhaustion over and rhetoric on how appalling this system is, and we are working closely with them. It is mainly, but not exclusively, the northern European states that have a like-minded view. I hope that we will find plenty of allies in the coming weeks.

[Dr Whiteford]

Does the Minister think that the regional advisory council model is appropriate for aquaculture?

[Richard Benyon]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for reminding me of the very good point that she made. I share her view entirely that this is an area where the European Union does not need to tread. We have a successful aquaculture industry in the United Kingdom. We are all aware of the agenda here. Some of the more land-locked countries, which are seeking to access some of the European fisheries money, are interested in developing a competence over aquaculture. I assure her that I am robust in trying to exclude that possibility. How successful I will be remains to be seen.

We remain hopeful that the reformed CFP can build in a robust process to regionalise decision making. That will require agreement not only on issues of legal competence, but on practical processes for co-operation on management decisions with other member states which are transparent and enforceable. We will continue to press for that and will build support with the member states that share our fisheries.

The hon. Member for East Lothian asked when I last met the commissioner. It was just a few weeks ago. I meet her regularly and count her as an ally and a friend. I think she needs friends at the moment. I will be robust in giving our support for what she is trying to do. She needs legal advice as well. There are legal opinions coming from all directions on these matters and we are keen to provide her with ours.

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Mr Doran), who made a thoughtful speech. He addressed a serious problem that goes to the heart of the credibility of an industry for which I have the highest regard. We should not minimise in any way the fact that when black fish are sold on the scale that he described, those fish have been stolen from legitimate fishermen. That is a crime of multi-million-pound proportions, and he was both brave and right to state that.

To achieve what we want to, we will require improvements in how we collect data and develop scientific evidence. A number of Members have referred to that. At the moment, the process can often lack robust data or be too narrowly focused on the short term to be credible with fishermen or to help policy makers. A more grown-up relationship is needed between scientists, fishermen and policy makers so that we can gather more effective data on the impact of fishing on the whole marine environment, and build trust. The fisheries science partnership that we have in the UK will help to pave the way to achieving that.

Nearly every Member who spoke referred to discards. I say to the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar—[Interruption.] That pronunciation is the best I can do at this stage of the week, I am afraid. I remind him that more than half the tonnage of discarded fish has absolutely nothing to do with the European Union but is because it is made up of species that we do not eat and for which there is no market. There is a supply chain solution to that if we are imaginative. I am not diminishing the blame that must be apportioned to the system of management that creates the remainder of the discards, and we must not stop trying to deal with that, but more than 50% of discards are because there is no market. Great progress is being made on that, not least by DEFRA, through good projects such as Fishing for the Markets.

I am glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton mentioned my evidence to the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, in which I said how wrong it would be if we created a system that transferred a problem over the horizon at sea to one of landfill. Through a discard ban or an elimination of discards, we need to progress a supply chain solution to creating new markets for fish.

Common Agricultural Policy

Eilidh Whiteford Excerpts

Thursday 8th March 2012 Westminster Hall

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

I congratulate the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee and its Chair on the report and their important work in scrutinising the CAP reform process.

I want to pick up on a few key issues in the Commission’s proposals that will be of great significance to farmers in Scotland, not least in the parts of Banffshire and Buchan that I represent, where farming has been a way of life for many generations and where food production is still absolutely the mainstay of the local economy.

I suspect that there is a good deal of consensus across the House on a couple of critical issues in today’s debate, the first of which is the need to cut red tape and reduce the administrative burden on farmers. In many respects, that is about fixing a major problem with the current CAP regime and is linked to the need for effective regionalisation and flexibility for member states. I hope that the Minister will consider in his comments at the end how we can start making decisions much closer to home and in the interests of our farming communities.

[Roger Williams (Brecon and Radnorshire) (LD)]

The hon. Lady touches on an important point. A common agricultural policy is needed, but considering the difference between farming in Finland and farming in Greece, we need to ensure that local decisions are taken on local matters within the umbrella of the CAP.

[Dr Whiteford]

I agree entirely with the hon. Gentleman. Clearly, we have different climates and landscapes, diverse methods of farming and different ways of doing business in farming. Without prejudice to the common market, it is important that decisions are made in a practical way by the people best able to make them.

Member states will need flexibility in the process to tailor implementation to their own needs. Within the UK, all three devolved Administrations must be able to work around the challenges that they face in delivering sustainable agricultural development in some least favoured areas. About 85% of Scotland is classified as least favoured areas. That compares with much lower proportions in some other parts of the UK. I hope the Minister will offer assurances that he will press for greater regionalisation as the negotiations intensify and that the issue will not fall off the agenda.

The hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh), the Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, quite rightly concentrated on direct payments in her remarks. I welcome the fact that the Government have moved away from the more rigid position of the previous Government, but I am still concerned about their direction of travel. I welcome the Minister’s remarks earlier on clarifying the Government’s position. I hope that he will listen carefully to the Governments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland on direct payments and pursue a negotiating stance in Europe that reflects the needs and wishes of the whole UK.

It is worth remembering, as the hon. Lady pointed out, that direct payments are there primarily to compensate producers for the increased costs of operating in a highly regulated market and to enable them to meet the high animal welfare and food safety standards that we all expect. We need to acknowledge that that does not come for free. We need to accept the reality that, in the past few decades, farming has not been particularly viable as a commercial enterprise. If we did not support agriculture with direct payments, food production and land management simply would not be happening in large areas of the UK. Farming, especially in the least favoured areas, would have ceased a long time ago.

We cannot consider this in purely economic terms. The hon. Lady hit the nail on the head when she put food security at the heart of the debate. Brian Pack’s 2010 report, which was produced for the Scottish Government, highlighted not just the food security challenge, but the challenges of climate change, water supply, energy use and biodiversity as the starting points for CAP reform. In a global context of rapidly increasing demand for food and the need to manage our natural environment much more sustainably, the case for direct support for farmers is actually much stronger now than it ever has been in the past.

We also need to consider the future of direct payments against the historical backdrop of Scottish farmers receiving a disproportionately low share of pillar one support—a pressing issue for those Scottish farmers who want to export their produce. At present, pillar one rates in Scotland are only €130 per hectare, which is less than half the EU average, and well below the UK average of €229 per hectare. The UK needs to argue for its proper share of pillar one, not least so that it can provide a fairer allocation to Scottish farmers.

[Glyn Davies]

I want to return to the point that I made when I intervened earlier. I think that there is general agreement that pillar one is crucial. In Wales, where we have more than 80% of least favoured areas, it is absolutely crucial. Farmers who approach me are concerned that a significant part of pillar one will be subject to greening policies that are so bureaucratic that they will not be able to comply with them. The biggest threat is that the greening proposals on pillar one will probably make that part almost inaccessible.

[Dr Whiteford]

The hon. Gentleman raises a valid point. In their current form, the greening proposals are probably unworkable. They are inherently bureaucratic, which is exactly what we should be trying to move away from. I am afraid that they will have unintended consequences and that the one size will simply not fit everyone in exactly the same way as we have seen in previous incarnations.

One priority for farmers in my constituency, as well as other parts of Scotland, is the need to retain the option for coupled support for the beef sector. The hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton mentioned that in relation to upland farmers. The Minister will know that Aberdeenshire is famed for its beef, but we face challenges in least favoured areas. A lot of the land used for livestock grazing in Scotland is not suitable for arable farming. Grazing livestock is the most sustainable and environmentally friendly way to manage that land. I hope that the Minister listened to the concerns of Scottish farmers when he met representatives of the National Farmers Union earlier this week. I am sure they made their views known; I hope that he will take their concerns on board and respond to that issue.

Another issue that relates to the point about greening is the three crop rule, which will not work in those least favoured areas where only grass can grow—a lot of those areas are permanent pasture. I hope that the Minister can find a workable solution to that, too.

CAP reform gives us an opportunity to clear up some of the problems with the current approach, including the opportunity to target support at those who are actively farming the land. There has been recent controversy about so-called slipper farmers. It is worth making the point that, certainly in Scotland, more than 98% of those in receipt of farm subsidies are actively farming. It is important to keep that in proportion, notwithstanding the need to tighten up and close that gap.

This is a time of austerity throughout Europe, and everyone is feeling the spending squeeze. We need to justify the support that we give to farmers through direct payments if we want to keep public confidence in the benefits that they accrue. A very strong case can be made for our food producers and land managers, but it is hard to justify large handouts to those who are not actually involved in farming.

It is important that any active farming test is based on how the land is managed, not on an arbitrary accounting measure, because many small crofters in Scotland are part-time farmers—they either run other businesses or have other employment—and they could be adversely affected. Increasingly, perhaps more in my own area than in some others, farmers are trying to diversify their farm businesses. Renewable energy is probably the most obvious example, but they are moving into areas that are sometimes considerably more lucrative that their farming businesses. Farmers who are actively managing land sustainably should not be penalised because of their other business interests.

[Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

I imagine that the hon. Lady has similar examples to ours in Wales. Farm businesses that have traditionally formed the bulk of a family operation have been overtaken by, for example, a tourism diversification scheme. In our case, that is every bit as important. She makes a good point, but I hope that she recognises that that applies, particularly to coastal areas.

[Dr Whiteford]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point about his constituency. The picture in Scotland is more mixed. There are some areas with a tourist dimension, but there are other areas where farming and food production is much more the core business. Again, even in the UK, we cannot say that one size fits all. Even within regions in parts of the UK, there is diversity.

[Mr Alan Reid (Argyll and Bute) (LD)]

The hon. Lady rightly said that that direct payment should be linked to active farming. Does she agree that the system needs to be improved, so that new entrants will be attracted into farming? The present system with a fixed point in the past discourages new entrants.

[Dr Whiteford]

Absolutely. That has been an historic problem, and this is an opportunity to address it. The Commission’s proposals to support young farmers are probably a step in the right direction. It has been very difficult in recent decades, as the hon. Gentleman is aware, for new entrants to get a start in farming unless they inherit a family business. I am concerned that the proposed scheme will apply only to those who are already entitled to basic payments. That will not help new entrants aged over 40, or those who enter farming after 2014.

I should like the scheme to be open to all genuine new entrants to farming. I should also like member states to have the option to implement that policy, so that it can be tailored as necessary to address the real issues that we face. Likewise, a simplified scheme for small farmers could be a useful step in Scotland, where 13% of pillar one support is for less than €1,000. Crofters would be prime beneficiaries of such a move, and I hope that we will find a suitable way forward on that proposal.

[Barry Gardiner]

I agree with the hon. Lady on the importance of local understanding in the distribution of funds; they should be managed locally. However, has she considered that perhaps in other parts of the EU—not within the UK—there might be countries that could abuse or rig such a system to ensure more finances for their own farmers? That would not be good for farming in general or for the CAP’s objectives as a whole. Indeed, it would not be good for the environment.

[Dr Whiteford]

The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point, which touches on one of the key struggles that I mentioned at the outset: the problem of regulation and bureaucracy. We need to strike a balance between bureaucracy and regulation, with all the problems of compliance in recent times, and have an effective and workable system. There is no easy solution. Nevertheless, those who comply with the system should not be the ones who are punished by it. I have lost count of the number of farmers in my constituency who have complained about the amount of paperwork that they have to deal with to access CAP funding. Even though that burden of regulation has eased a little in the past few years, the single, biggest complaint that I hear from local farmers is about the very stringent and absolutely bureaucratic compliance rules.

The financial penalties for even a minor infringement or an administrative error can run into thousands of pounds, which is out of all proportion to the seriousness of the infringement. I have raised that with the Minister on more than one occasion, and he is well aware of farmers’ concerns. What prospects are there in this CAP reform round of addressing that serious issue, which has caused more problems than any other?

I hope that the Minister will respond to those concerns and to those that, I am sure, other Members will raise. There is a future for farming. It supports nearly 500,000 jobs in Scotland, either directly through agriculture or indirectly through the food and drink supply chain. Farming is a critical part of our economy and our culture, and the money that we invest in it is repaid many times over through the management of our rural communities.

--- Later in debate ---

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

I thank the Chairman of the Select Committee for securing this debate, because it is important that we debate in this Chamber the future of agriculture, farming and the countryside.

I thank the Minister for being here. He has a difficult job ahead of him. I do not blame him for all our ills; the European Commission has got it entirely wrong. I have had some slight experience of the European Commission over 10 years. The Agriculture and Rural Development Commissioner has got it absolutely wrong; we have to move to more competitive agriculture, and we must look after and manage the countryside well, but the policy that he is producing does not go in the right direction on either of those issues. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice) that one size does not fit all.

Let me provide a brief history of the common agricultural policy. It arrived at the beginning of Europe, when the Common Market was made up of six countries, France and Germany being the dominant ones. This was after the second world war, when food was hugely important. For those five or six countries in the middle of Europe, it was much easier, given the type of crops they grew and their type of farming, to devise some sort of common agricultural policy. However, now there are 27 countries, covering from the north of Finland to the south of Greece, and including Poland, Romania and Bulgaria. There are hugely different types of farms—very small farms and very large state farms left over from previous communist systems, and private farms of various sizes throughout the rest of the European Union. If we also consider the different types of crops grown, and all the complicated subsidies introduced over the years—for cotton, olive oil, sugar and everything else—we begin to see the complexity of the matter. I agree that we need to ensure that we have an agricultural policy that suits this country. I know that the Minister is trying to work on that.

The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies), mentioned fisheries, and he has a point. The Commission is offering more regional powers; whether it is giving those powers in reality is a matter for another debate, but it certainly needs to move in that direction.

Let me turn to the need for agriculture. There are now more than 7 billion people in the world. There is a moral duty to produce food, and for this country to do so. As global warming and climate change alter the growth that can take place in many other parts of the world, it becomes up to us to produce good food when we can. Also, we would otherwise have to import food. There is also the issue of the water used to grow food; many countries can ill afford to lose water. Whatever economic difficulties our nation has, we can afford to feed ourselves and buy food, but in many parts of the world, that cannot be done. We need to be conscious of that.

We must face up to the reality of where agriculture and farming are going in future; I hope that the Minister agrees with me. I think he does not want to do away with the single farm payment and support for agriculture overnight, but he does want agriculture to be weaned off public support, because we cannot accept, year after year, ever more public support for agriculture. We need competitive agriculture, and we can have it.

The hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) talked about the poultry industry; the thing to remember about it is that it is competitive even though it is unsupported. It is not supported by the common agricultural policy, so it competes well. We have a successful poultry industry in this country.

[Dr Whiteford]

In recent months, the poultry industry has had to compete on an unfair basis, thanks to EU rules that have pulled the rug out from under it after it has invested heavily. While we are in the common market, the rules must be the same for everyone.

[Neil Parish]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. It is a travesty of justice that the rest of Europe has not complied with the requirements for enriched cages for producing eggs, but that is the fault not of this Government but of a weak European Commission that has not taken proper action against those member states that have not complied. No matter what the policy, it must be properly applied across member states, and not just by our country.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr James Paice)]

Good afternoon, Mr Sheridan. I thank the hon. Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies) for that expression of support. I will start by reminding hon. Members of my own interests, as already declared, and thanking them for the way that they have contributed to this debate on what everyone agrees is an extremely important issue that probably does not get enough debating time in the House when compared with many other issues. That probably reflects people’s concerns and the fact that the country has become more urbanised in the past few decades.

As my agenda for my remarks, I want to use the proposals about CAP reform. As Members will know, although the subject of the debate is the Select Committee’s report and the Government’s response, both documents are basically obsolete, given that the report was produced last summer, since when we have had the Commission’s detailed proposals. Indeed, we have been able to explore those proposals. Negotiations have started and the Government have obviously been able to develop our own ideas. So I think that it will be more helpful to use the Commission’s main proposals, most of which have already been referred to during the debate, as a framework, and in doing so I will try to pick up on all the comments that colleagues have made about the proposals and some issues that arise from them.

First, we need to reflect, as one or two of my hon. Friends and other hon. Members have done, on the background against which—uniquely, or certainly for the first time in many decades—this round of CAP reform is taking place. In my view, which I think is shared by the hon. Member for Ogmore, that background is one of optimism.

As was mentioned right at the start of the debate, also in the background is the Foresight report, which demonstrated that global demand for food will be somewhere between 70% and 100% greater—different figures are used—in the next 40 years than it is today. That rise in demand will be brought about not only by the population increase that Members have referred to, but by the fact that a large part of that population increase will happen in the two most populous countries—India and China—both of which have a rising middle class and a rising demand for higher quality and better diets. That is part and parcel of this change; it is not just about the rising number of people.

It is also worth making the point that 1 billion of those extra people in the years ahead will live in Africa—a continent that has immense potential for agricultural production, but a potential that is woefully underused for a whole raft of reasons, many of which were mentioned by hon. Members.

Furthermore, all of those changes are set against the background of climate change, which will render parts of the world almost impossible to farm but which perversely appears to make northern Europe one of the best places to farm.

The background is crucial in assessing not only the Commission’s proposals, but where we go with agriculture in the coming years. It creates great opportunities, and the Government are disappointed that the Commission’s proposals do not really meet the opportunities that that background provides. At their worst, they could take us backwards—I do not believe that they will, but they could—so I should like to spend some time analysing them. I accept—the hon. Member for Ogmore is right—that some of what I will say is a repetition of what we discussed in a European Committee, but it was so good that I will say it all again.

The most important issue to start with is the future of the single farm payment. I am disappointed with the views of my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh) on the single farm payment. I know a lot of farmers—farming has been my life—but I do not know a farmer who would not like to do away with subsidies. Of course, there are issues around that, but they would far rather not have a subsidy and not be dependent on public money. They would prefer not to have to be apologetic sometimes or to justify themselves. That in itself is an important point, and we should therefore set our sights on achieving that.

I want to put the record straight on the issue that we touched on earlier and say exactly what the Government’s position is. When I gave evidence to the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, I said:

“I have always believed…that direct payment support…will end eventually… We are not going to see it happen in this financial perspective, but I think it will happen and I think the challenge is to help the farming industry face up to that day whenever it comes.”

That was my view, and it remains my view. It has been my view for the 25 years that I have been a Member. To confirm the official position, as opposed to merely what I have said, I refer hon. Members to the official Government response to the report. It states:

“we have made it clear that phasing out such payments”—

single farm payments—

“by 2020 is unrealistic, in both practical and negotiating terms.”

That is, as the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford) said, a significant change from the previous Government’s position. I therefore hope that there can be no debate about what we are suggesting.

The hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) said that a date needs to be fixed. In an ideal world, one would be, but the first argument to win is that we should set a trajectory. It is clear that the Select Committee does not agree. It is perfectly true that many member states and the commissioner do not believe that we should be ending, or even considering ending, single payments. We should recognise what I think will be an inevitable event at some time in the not-too-distant future but beyond this financial perspective.

We can look at what is going to happen, even though the crystal ball is extremely murky about the outcome of the negotiations. Even if the Commission’s own budget proposals for the CAP go through, that will mean a reduction in the single farm payment. That is clear. There is a cash freeze over the whole financial perspective for the CAP. Excluding one or two movements such as convergence between the highest and lowest paid member states, the single farm payment will reduce, certainly in the UK, so let us not pretend that we can somehow protect it and live on it for ever. That is not going to happen, so it is important that we spend a lot of our time and effort focusing on the CAP and trying to ensure that the industry can accommodate that and, as has been said, become more competitive.

[Dr Whiteford]

Will the Minister press for a fairer deal for Scottish farmers in the pillar one support, because we are currently well below the average in the UK and less than half the average in the EU?

[Mr Paice]

I was going to come to that point. The hon. Lady referred in her speech to the fact that I was in Scotland yesterday. I met the Scottish NFU, and I gave evidence to the Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee in the Scottish Parliament. I was asked the same question. I cannot give clear commitments, because we do not know what the outcome will be. We do not know what the total CAP budget will be. We know what the Commission is proposing. We certainly do not know how much there will be in pillar one or pillar two. We do not know what the convergence debate will lead to and whether that will be reflected in how we divide up the UK’s share of the cake, whatever it may be.

I will make the point that I made yesterday. It is a blunt instrument simply to take the total payment—to Scotland in this case—and divide it by the number of acres, because the acres are not all equal. As the hon. Lady rightly said, 85% of Scotland is in less favoured areas. Some of the land in the highlands is of little, if any, agricultural use. That bald statistic is a blunt way to compare resources. In any case, as she will be aware, the resources are simply based on the historical payments before the advent of the single farm payment. That is fact. As for the future, I made it clear yesterday that we will sit down with all the devolved legislatures to consider how to split the cake once we know how it has been arrived at and how big it is. We cannot prejudge the outcome.

I will say, because the hon. Lady intervened, that the point about the less favoured areas is crucial. The British Government fully support the need for Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England to target support at such areas, which will be renamed under the CAP. I have forgotten the phrase, but it will come back to me. Those areas will get a new title, but little else will change. I am told that they will be called areas of natural constraint. In an ideal world—I will come back to the wider aspects—the targeted payment is best made from pillar two. The hon. Member for Ogmore referred to the uplands entry level scheme, which is what we have in England. Pillar two targeted payments for those areas with natural constraints could be just as effective as a blanket per acre, or per hectare, payment.

Oral Answers to Questions

Eilidh Whiteford Excerpts

Thursday 19th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paice]

Although I cannot guarantee a single inspection regime, I am pleased to say that we are certainly moving towards a much simpler regime, as I hope my hon. Friend and the House will see shortly when I publish our response to the Macdonald report. We are using the concept of earned recognition, whereby we can trust farmers who have demonstrated their ability to comply with regulations and reduce the level of inspection on them, and in other cases we can merge inspection regimes so that one person does them for more than one agency.

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

The CAP regime involves a lot of heavy administration. I have asked the Minister about compliance issues before, but I think that the most pressing issue at the moment is whether single farm payments will continue to provide the kind of support that farmers in the least favoured areas, particularly those in the devolved Administrations, depend upon. What update can he give us on where the Government are heading with that?

[Mr Paice]

As the hon. Lady will appreciate, I cannot give any absolute answer because I fear that the negotiations will take another 18 months to reach a conclusion, but there is no doubt that the single farm payment or a form of direct payment, whatever it is called, will continue. I cannot tell her what the exact rates will be, because obviously we have not seen any budgets yet. She will be aware that the proposal we support is that all member states and regions should move towards an area-based system, which Scotland has not yet done, so it will face that challenge, as will all the devolved regions. I can assure her that we will do our very best to negotiate on behalf of the whole United Kingdom to get the best deal for British farmers and the British taxpayer.

Welfare of Laying Hens Directive

Eilidh Whiteford Excerpts

Tuesday 13th December 2011 Westminster Hall

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

I congratulate the Chair of the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh), and the other members of the Committee on securing today’s debate and on raising an important issue.

I came to the issue because there are a number of small and sizeable egg producers in my constituency, which support the local rural economy and provide jobs. Over the past few years, they have invested heavily in upgrading their facilities. I am aware that, of the £400 million that has been invested across the UK, at least £7 million was invested in my constituency by small and medium-sized firms.

The comments made by the British Egg Industry Council are important to the debate. The critical issue for the producers who have contacted me is that, although they have invested heavily, they are being put at a competitive disadvantage. They are concerned about their businesses in what are already difficult economic times for all rural businesses, and they are concerned that the reward for their investments and for improving what they do is to find their profits reduced and their businesses becoming ever less viable.

[Jim Shannon]

Clearly, in the hon. Lady’s constituency, similar to my own, many people have borrowed from banks at a time when they can least afford to do so. They feel that they are comparatively disadvantaged as a result. Does she feel that banks should give some leniency at this time?

[Dr Whiteford]

The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point. Certainly, banks in the rural economy have recently tightened up their lending processes, which is regrettable when agriculture globally is ripe for investment and is a good investment. Such businesses are often asset rich, but they need credit, as farmers all over the world do. Banks can do a lot more at present to support the rural economy.

I confess that I was incredulous when the BEIC raised the issues with me. It struck me as bizarre that some EU members are still not complying with the legislation 12 years after it was passed. One of the most pertinent points today is that not just new accession EU countries are failing to comply with the legislation, but long-standing and established EU members seem to be shrugging their shoulders and letting the issue go by.

One of the most significant issues is that there has been a complete lack of foresight regarding compliance measures. I still find it quite incredible that the enforcement measures are so weak. Enforcement measures by member states may be dismissed as a business expense by the companies that are failing to comply with the law. There are big lessons to be learned about how seriously we take legislation. At the heart of the matter, it is a legal issue. It became clear back in July just how weak the legislation and compliance measures were; that is important.

I welcome the fact that the Government have looked at contingency plans. I wrote to the major supermarkets in July this year, asking them to confirm that they would ensure that their own-brand products would comply with the law and that they would not import products. To be fair to Asda, Morrisons and Tesco, they all wrote back to me to say that they could do so with their own-brand products and the eggs on their shelves, but there was no commitment on the other products that they import from suppliers. That is where the challenges lie.

In a context where the law is absolutely ineffective, I welcome the contingency measures taken by the Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency, but they are not a substitute for proper legal enforcement. We still face the issue that liquid eggs from Holland and Germany might originate from non-compliant countries. Until we deal with the legal issue, I do not think that we can move much further forward—it makes a mockery of the law.

The hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton absolutely hit the nail on the head when she posed the key question about the loophole in regulation. Does that originate from our own laws and regulations, or is it an EU-wide issue? I hope that the Minister will address that and share the legal advice that has been given. The loopholes need to be closed with some urgency.

As we consider how we move forward, I hope that we will ask how on earth we will instil any confidence in new legislation if it cannot be enforced. Farmers are already talking about the problems of complying with regulation. If there is one issue that farmers in my constituency—not just poultry farmers, but livestock and arable farmers—are concerned about, it is compliance. They feel that our compliance, regulation and inspection regimes are much more rigid than those in other parts of the EU. In some cases, they are absolutely right, and that makes it more difficult for them to earn a living and operate internationally. If we cannot even enforce the laws that we make with a 12-year lead-in period, it makes a mockery of the law. I hope that the Minister will take that on board.

--- Later in debate ---

[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

I will do my best to fill the available time, Mr Chairman, and will happily take interventions. This is a good chance to have a detailed debate.

I welcome the debate, and I genuinely congratulate the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh) on securing it, in her role both as a constituency MP and as Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee. I also congratulate the members of the Committee on making this very much a live issue. It should be attracting the attention of parliamentarians and the wider public, and I will consider in a moment how we should deal with the consumer and market issues. I also welcome the expert, knowledgeable and detailed way in which the hon. Lady introduced the debate, and I note—as the Minister will have done—the significant differences that have emerged between her, as Chair of the Committee, and the Government, even though their positions support each other in many ways.

I very much welcome the comments from other contributors, including the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford). Am I pronouncing the constituency name correctly?

[Dr Whiteford]

It is Buchan.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

Ah, it is a Welsh pronunciation, with the “ch” sound. I am dying to see how Hansard transcribes that. The hon. Lady mentioned the importance of recognising and rewarding good producers and the investment they have made, and that has been a common theme of the debate.

The hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) made a very good contribution about how UK producers’ investment should bear fruit, or at least produce good eggs. He was certainly supportive of the idea, and I saw nodding heads on both sides of the House, of clearly identifying which producers, processors, retailers, supermarkets and restaurants use not only good shell eggs but good liquefied and other processed eggs, and which do not. There is some scope for the Minister. We might have a way forward, together with the UK egg producers and the various representative organisations.

The hon. Member for Sherwood (Mr Spencer) spoke very well about his experience with free-range hens. My household has always had a few, just for our own consumption. It has been a long-standing tradition on our smallholding, but I cannot compete with the hon. Gentleman’s much more extensive expertise. He rightly pointed out that we could do a lot with the power of consumers and the markets, but we have a heck of a long way to go.

I draw parliamentarians’ attention to research by YouGov and the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. The RSPCA would like to go even further towards free range and away from any sort of caging, but it has done an interesting analysis, which the Minister might not be aware of because it has, I think, come out only in the past few days. It looked at people’s awareness of the legislation, and at their buying power as consumers; 69% of them wrongly assumed what the law would mean for hens and animal welfare. A further 19% had not heard about the legislation at all. A fifth wrongly assumed that all battery cages would now be banned; 8% thought that all hens would now be free range and 1% thought it was something to do with farmers having to play music to their hens. We have a long way to go, not only in working with the retail sector, including supermarkets, but in highlighting the issue to consumers so that they can genuinely drive change in the market, but that is not all that I shall talk about today.

Fisheries

Eilidh Whiteford Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2011 Commons Chamber

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

I do not think that we could make this debate more timely if we tried. Negotiations to reform the CFP are under way, and it is vital that the voices of the fishing communities that we represent are heard in this debate.

The challenges that we face need to be seen in the context of a common fisheries policy that has systematically damaged our marine ecosystem for 30 years. It has eroded the livelihoods of fishing communities and fishermen, and it has been applied inconsistently in different EU states. There is a growing consensus, even in the House, that a decentralised approach offers a better way forward than the one-size-fits-nobody approach that we have at the moment, as it would allow coastal states to develop workable solutions and, crucially, it would allow the expertise of fishing industry leaders and other local stakeholders to come to the fore.

In my view the reform process will stand or fall on the strength of the regionalisation proposals, but it is not clear how regionalisation will work in practice, given the treaty constraints raised by the hon. Member for South Down (Ms Ritchie). I hope that the Minister will spell out the mechanisms and processes that are under consideration and how they might be made fit for purpose, because there is a great deal at stake for our fishing communities.

There is a great deal to be learned from the experience of regional advisory councils on the value of long-term planning and the need to bring fishing industry representatives into the decision-making process. There is a great deal, too, that we can learn from the efforts of our fishermen in recent years to put the industry on an environmentally sustainable footing. The Scottish fleet has been at the forefront of efforts to push alternatives to discarding, but when we discuss discards it is crucial to remember that they are a direct consequence of the impositions put on fishermen by the failed CFP. No one gains from discards.

In that respect, the catch quota pilot schemes in Scotland and England have shown real potential. They were trialled to see how good they were at cutting discards and improving the economic viability of vessels, and they have been extremely effective. So far, however, only a relatively small number of vessels have been able to benefit from them. More boats could benefit, and I urge the Minister to prioritise the issue with our international partners, particularly the Norwegians and the European Commission, and drive it forward so that we can expand the catch quota system and build on the success of the model across the EU.

The Scottish fleet has been more successful than any other European fleet in ending discards. Catch quotas are only one factor in that success: the conservation credit scheme, using selective gear and real-time closures, is the thing that has really made a difference by improving the sustainability of our fisheries, as has longer-term planning and sound science. Too often, science has been used to justify policy making of dubious quality, and it has sometimes been used as a blunt instrument. It has been made to say what policy makers want it to say. There is now widespread recognition that good science and sound scientific data are beneficial to everyone, but if we want to build trust in scientific data we have to use them consistently. When the scientific data show that stocks are healthy and fish are plentiful, we need commensurate increases in total allowable catches. The forthcoming Council meeting could not be more timely, as we should not have more quota cuts if the science says that that is not necessary.

Consistency is required. I have concerns about transferable fishing concessions, as the Commission is now calling them.

[Mr MacNeil]

rose—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I urge the hon. Gentleman to think before intervening. He has already made a speech, and we are running out of time. More Members have indicated that they wish to speak. It is up to the Member in charge but, to be honest. I would be disappointed if the hon. Gentleman intervened.

[Dr Whiteford]

I shall move on, Mr Hoyle.

Exaggerated claims have been made about the benefits of transferable quota schemes. Some are more successful than others. The proponents tend to ignore the unintended consequences, especially for fishing communities—a point that was made earlier—but the key factor is improved governance. I therefore urge the Minister to look carefully at that. I welcomed his comments last week on this, and I urge him to—

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order

Oral Answers to Questions

Eilidh Whiteford Excerpts

Thursday 13th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Richard Benyon]

I understand my hon. Friend’s concerns. That debate will perhaps be had at a higher level than mine, but he should remember two things. First, we are dealing with an industry in crisis, so urgency is a real factor for those involved in the fishing industry, both in his constituency and everywhere else. Secondly, we would need a mechanism for dealing with other countries whether we were covered by the common fisheries policy or not, because fish do not respect borders. We would have to continue to deal with historical fishing rights, which go beyond our membership of the common fisheries policy. I take seriously my responsibility, given the door that has been opened by the Commission’s position on the subject, to push for real, genuine, radical reform that can improve the situation for fishermen and the marine environment.

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

Alongside CFP reform, the ongoing mackerel dispute with Iceland and the Faroe islands continues to cause great concern, not just for pelagic fishermen but for the white fish fleet and fish processors. Will the Minister update the House on the progress of negotiations with Iceland and tell us, in the event of a deal, what recompense will be made available to Scottish fishermen? Might it possibly take the form of additional quota?

[Richard Benyon]

I cannot give the hon. Lady that precise information at the moment. I can tell her that there has been a slight improvement in the relationship with the Icelanders, and I hope that we can build on that. I am still pessimistic about our discussions with the Faroese, but I assure her that I will keep her closely involved, because we are talking about our most valuable fishery. It is sustainable, and we face a severe risk of losing marine stewardship accreditation for the stock, which would cause great harm to her constituents and our economy.

Common Fisheries Policy

Eilidh Whiteford Excerpts

Thursday 14th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Richard Benyon]

This has been one of the most worrying developments of the common fisheries policy in recent years. We cannot get our act together just in UK waters and in EU waters while ignoring the EU’s footprint on fisheries—if one can have a footprint on fisheries—further afield. I have been visited by fishermen from Mauritania, Cape Verde and Senegal, and have been truly shocked by what I have heard about the impact not just of EU vessels, but of vessels from other countries. Those vessels have been fishing totally unsustainably, which has had a destabilising effect on the economies of those coastal communities, along with other, social effects and the increased migration that this has caused. We have to understand that we in the EU really have to get our house in order, because it will have huge implications for developing countries if we do not.

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

I very much welcome the Minister’s commitment to radical reform of fisheries management policy in Europe. I also welcome his commitment to working with the devolved Governments in that process. However, I hope that he will also share my concern that according to the European Commission’s own impact assessment, the proposals could result in a 20% reduction in the Scottish fishing fleet—a fleet that has already been halved in the past 10 years. What assurances can the Minister give that the most conservation-conscious and aware fleet in Europe will not be further punished for the failures of the common fisheries policy?

[Richard Benyon]

The hon. Lady is right to raise concerns on behalf of her constituents. I can give her an assurance that we are working through the detail of the proposals. As she knows, this is a major step, but it is also a first step in the negotiations, which will take another 18 months to secure. I will be working closely with my colleague Richard Lochhead in Scotland and with other devolved Ministers to try to ensure that we represent all the UK fleets. I cannot say at this stage whether the impact assessment would have the effect that she mentioned. However, I entirely concur with her that the Scottish fleet has taken great strides in fishing more sustainably, embracing concepts such as catch quotas. I will continue to work with her and others to ensure that this is understood not just here, but abroad as well.