Agriculture Bill (First sitting)

Nigel Huddleston Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd October 2018 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

We have 10 minutes left, and three more Members want to ask questions. Unless anybody really wants to say something, we will move on.

Martin Lines: WTO rules are for DEFRA and the Government to deal with, not farmers. It is your problem. If you are going to design a scheme that will not work because of the WTO, do not do it.

[Nigel Huddleston (Mid Worcestershire) (Con)]

Q I will target this question particularly at you, Mr Lancaster, because you have mentioned this area several times. Clauses 12 to 16 of the Bill focus on data protection and data sharing, with a view to increasing transparency in the agri-food supply chain. In practical terms, how will that transparency help, and how can we avoid making the data collection too burdensome on, for example, farmers?

Thomas Lancaster: I mentioned it recognising its importance, as opposed to being an expert on it, given that I am from a conservation organisation. This is not just about the data collection; from our perspective, if anything, some of the other clauses about first purchases and producer organisations may be more important. I can see that there would be concern about some of the data collection. The Government might get a bit carried away in terms of what data they collect, so there should absolutely be a principle underpinning that. The Government should ask only for data that they will actually use, and data that will further their aim of improving transparency. They should have to be really clear about why they are asking for that data.

On how the powers in the middle of the Bill can improve transparency and the position of farmers, if you take producer organisations as an example, in the Netherlands there is a huge culture of co-operation in farming. That is really lacking in farming in the UK. The powers in the Bill create producer organisations in which farmers can work together to manage supply, market their produce, add value and, effectively, cannibalise some of the roles in the supply chain where a lot of the profit sits. That is how you can return more of the profit back to the primary producer.

Similarly, on the first purchaser of agricultural products clause, we know anecdotally and through reports of the Groceries Code Adjudicator that there are many instances where farmers are not treated well by the first purchaser. At the moment, the GCA extends only to retailers, whereas that clause would effectively extend that regulation of the supply chain—of that commercial relationship—to all famers who sell their products. In better regulating that relationship, you can do things such as ensure that farmers are paid within an acceptable timeframe, which effectively strengthens their position in negotiating a price for their product with whoever buys it first.

[Mr Dunne]

Q Mr Begg, as one of the largest landowners in the country, do you think that the proposals over de-linking, which might allow residual payment over the transition period to be paid up front to facilitate a retirement or some such, are in practice likely to be applied by any of your tenants, and what does it leave for the continuing tenant if there is no transition funding available for subsequent years?

Patrick Begg: Will it be attractive to some of our tenants? I suspect that it will. There may be lots of reasons for that, which we do not have time to go into. There is the risk that you have just identified: will there be a vacuum, in which case nothing could be done, or it is not an attractive place for someone to come and farm? We need to tease that out. I can also foresee a bigger risk. We do not want long-term naked acres where the money is effectively retired out of the resourcing system. We really need to safeguard against that as the Bill progresses and as we design the scheme, because I think it does have the potential to unlock quite a lot of enthusiasm.

We turn over tenancies relatively regularly. The signals out there, both from us and with regard to where the debate has been going, is that we are probably creating a queue of people who are enthusiastically waiting to get tenancies to deliver the kind of things that the Bill sets out. I have confidence that plenty of people are waiting to do this and to make great farming businesses out of vacant tenancies, but it would be a worry if that support was retired out of the scheme. We need to attend to that risk, as the Bill goes through. Is that right Martin? You have plenty of our members in the Nature Friendly Farming Network.

Martin Lines: Yes. The question is, if one goes, what support is left for the new one coming in? There are a whole load of new entrants to whom this will hopefully give a kick-start, so that they get the opportunity to get on the renting ladder.