Direct Payments Ceilings Regulations 2020

Lord Mann Excerpts

Wednesday 1st July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mann (Non-Afl)]

My Lords,

“The beef and butter mountains, they never seem to stop

When the little streams of bureaucracy come a-tricklin’ from the top

Why we joined it, I don’t know at all.”

I could continue; it was a song that we sang in the 1970s campaigning against the common agricultural policy—I could do the hand gestures from those days from memory.

I warn the Government that the view in the “red wall” of the common agricultural policy and that use of taxpayers’ money remains consistent; people do not like it. If we are to continue in the same format, it will be unpopular and the excuse that “it’s from Brussels” will not hold for government.

I myself am shocked by the way in which tenant farmers in my immediate locality are being driven off the land as landowners see more profitable opportunities available through the market, yet the basis of the common agricultural policy was that it would guarantee our agriculture into future generations. When the market suits, the market operates, and the tenant farmer is powerless.

Agricultural policy in this country now needs fundamental reform. I shall not force a Division on these regulations—the Government need time to adopt, adapt and bring forward proposals—but the current system is not sustainable, politically or economically, even into the medium term. A wise Government would get agricultural reform firmly on the agenda and make tenant farmers a key part of the recipe for future sustainability and success.