Oral Answers to Questions

Elizabeth Truss Excerpts

Thursday 19th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

1. What steps she is taking to reduce the administrative burden on farmers.

[Elizabeth Truss (South West Norfolk) (Con)]

9. What steps she is taking to reduce the regulatory burden of inspections on farmers.

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

Before answering my hon. Friends’ questions, I believe that it is right to congratulate you on a certain anniversary, Mr Speaker, if I am correctly informed, so many happy returns of the day—it is always best to start on a good note.

In my written statement of 3 November I announced the publication of the interim response to the independent farm regulation task force and stated that the Government’s final response will be published early this year. That is still my intention.

[Mr Paice]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that extremely important question. The only assurance I can give is that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I are working extremely hard not only in Brussels but in capitals across Europe, speaking with fellow Ministers to try to ensure that what appears to be a more complex and complicating set of proposals are altered to meet the objectives that my hon. Friend, his farmers and, I think, every farmer and farming Minister in Europe want to see.

[Elizabeth Truss]

Tomorrow I am holding a farming forum in Shouldham Thorpe. What can I tell local farmers about progress towards a single farm inspection regime that would save them time and the Government money?

[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.