Direct Payments to Farmers (Legislative Continuity) Bill

John Redwood Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 21st January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Luke Pollard]

I thank my hon. Friend for that comment. I was proud that our party went into the general election with a commitment to have a path to net zero by 2030, and thanks to some of the amazing work being done by farmers up and down the country, the National Farmers Union has a plan to get to net zero by 2040. But 2040 is too late. I want to send a message loudly and clearly to the Secretary of State that we need bolder and swifter action. The Bills that she is proposing fall short in ambition, planning and detail, and I hope that she will take our criticism as a friendly gesture to try to improve these Bills, because they need to be improved if we are to tackle the climate emergency fully.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Does the hon. Gentleman think that people need to change their diets? How can we have more British-grown food?

[Luke Pollard]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for raising that point. We need to talk about food miles much more. We need to be buying local. That does not only mean buying from the region we live in, buying British and looking out for the Red Tractor symbol on the food we buy. It also means calculating the food miles of the trade deals that will be done in the future. It is a nonsense to have trade deals that will encourage consumers to buy food from the other side of the planet, at huge carbon cost, when there is perfectly good, nutritious, healthy food grown and reared to a high standard in our own country. I will return to that point time and again in this Parliament.

Direct Payments to Farmers (Legislative Continuity) Bill

John Redwood Excerpts

Committee stage & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons & 3rd reading & Committee: 1st sitting
Tuesday 28th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice]

The Bill will absolutely give them that certainty. The Bill is essential if we are to give farmers their direct payments—those area-based payments—in December. If this direct payment regulation did not come into UK law, we would be unable to do that.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Will the Minister confirm that as we move on to the new policy, there will be an emphasis on growing more food at home for import substitution, so that these general moneys can lead on to moneys that help us to build a bigger domestic food industry?

[George Eustice]

My right hon. Friend will be aware that we have presented a separate Agriculture Bill, which has had its First Reading. It sets out all the powers we would need to reform agriculture policy. The direct payment regulations before us bring the CAP into UK law and on to the UK statute book, and in the Agriculture Bill, there are powers to modify these regulations, so that we can remove the rough edges and simplify them. There are also powers in the Agriculture Bill to strike a very different course for our agriculture—a course based on payment for public goods, but also on providing farmers with grants to invest in new technology, so that they can improve their profitability or add value to their produce. That Bill also recognises that our food security is vital, and commits the Government to reviewing it every five years. That, however, is obviously a matter that we will debate in the coming weeks and months; I want to return to this direct payments Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[George Eustice]

My hon. Friend makes an important point, and I will come on to that when I describe some of the regulations that will be brought across by the Bill. The system will be exactly the same, including the so-called three crop, or crop diversification, rule, the requirement for environmental focus areas, all the scheme deadlines for getting forms in, and the penalty matrix. I am not a huge fan of many of those things, and have been critical of them in the past, but we have taken a decision that charting a different course is a matter for the Agriculture Bill. This is a short Bill that is about providing farmers with immediate continuity and legal certainty that they will get their payment in exactly the way they used to—for this year only; then we will set out a different approach and a different course.

[John Redwood]

Can the Minister remind the House how, in the implementation period, we will avoid having to pay twice—both sending money to Brussels and paying direct?

[George Eustice]

As my right hon. Friend will be aware, under the financial settlement in the withdrawal agreement, we did not make a contribution to the next multi-annual financial framework, so the UK will not contribute to the EU budget from 2021 onwards, and will therefore not contribute to the budget that would fund this current year of BPS. We will fund it domestically, and that is why the direct payments regulation must be brought on to a UK regulatory footing.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Redwood]

I just want to say well done to the Minister. It is really uplifting that there is something positive and that we can save some money.

[George Eustice]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that comment. He and I have taken a similar view of pan-European legislation for some time, and obviously there will be many opportunities as we leave.