Agriculture: Farming

Lord Plumb Excerpts

Wednesday 14th July 2010 Lords Chamber

Tabled by

[Lord Plumb]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government when the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs’ Task Force on Farming Regulation will make their recommendations.

[Lord Plumb]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. In so doing, I declare my interest as a farmer.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Henley)]

My Lords, I, too, declare my interest as a farmer. The Task Force on Farming Regulation, to be chaired by Richard Macdonald, will identify ways of reducing the regulatory burden through a review of relevant regulations and their implementation, as well as advising on how best to achieve a risk-based system of regulation in future. It will produce its initial views in early 2011.

[Lord Plumb]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply and I congratulate him and the Government on calling for a task force to consider this whole issue, which has got out of hand in the past year or two. Although the Rural Payments Agency has been making improvements, the way in which it has operated over the past couple of years or so has been a great shambles. Action is therefore needed to simplify the whole process. Is the Minister aware, therefore—I know that he is, of course—that all cattle reared on farms have to have a passport and that sheep have to be electronically tagged? Think of the difficulty of getting 5,000 sheep off a hill to electronically tag them. Livestock movements have to be recorded in quadruplicate. On the whole question of the movement of livestock, forms are supplied in second-classed envelopes. The Minister is obviously aware—

[Noble Lords]

Question!

[Lord Plumb]

Does the Minister accept that every field, hedge, pond and tree has to be entered on the environmental map, to name but a few of the problems that we face, all creating high costs for little benefit? Does the Minister accept—

[Noble Lords]

Too long!

[Lord Plumb]

Does the Minister accept that future procedure needs the application of a bit of common sense to reduce the regulatory burden on farming without compromising standards?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, if I can answer briefly, we must move away from the idea that the only way of solving problems is to regulate. To take just one of my noble friend’s examples, the EID for sheep, I can give him an assurance that, when Commissioner Dalli, who has responsibility for this in the EU, visits this country, we will certainly make him aware of the problems that electronic identification of sheep is creating. I am sure that my honourable friend in another place, Mr Paice, will make a point of encouraging him to visit one of the big sheep sales to see what the problems are.