Direct Payments to Farmers (Legislative Continuity) Bill

Debate between Theresa Villiers and Jonathan Edwards

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

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Theresa Villiers)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

This is a Government who are backing Britain’s farmers. We will always recognise the importance of the work that they do to care for our countryside and our natural environment and, of course, to put food on our plates. We know that, if we are to level up the rural economy in the way we want to for our whole country, we must support the agriculture that is at the heart of our rural communities.

The Bill is a short technical piece of legislation with a simple purpose: to empower the UK Government and the devolved Administrations to pay basic payments to farmers for the 2020 scheme year. It therefore maintains the status quo for pillar 1 for this final period before we start to leave the common agricultural policy behind completely.

The core purpose of the Bill is enacted by clause 1, which puts direct payment legislation for 2020 on the domestic statute book. That provides a legal basis to make such payments for the 2020 scheme year. As hon. Members will be aware, almost all EU legislation was imported on to the domestic statute book by the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, but funding for the 2020 basic payment scheme will come out of the 2021 EU budget. That would therefore have involved the UK in the next EU multi-annual budget cycle. In the negotiations, the EU and the UK agreed that they did not want that to happen, so the CAP provisions providing the basis to issue basic payments in the UK for 2020 were disapplied by the terms of the withdrawal agreement reached last year.

That policy decision has left a legal gap, which we are now proposing to fill. This legislation will provide clarity to farmers on funding support this year. If Parliament were to reject the Bill, no direct payments could be made by the UK Government or by the Administrations in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland. That would have serious consequences for farmers across the nation who have planned their businesses on the basis of continuity of direct payments for this scheme year.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)]

The next European multi-annual financial framework will run from 2021 to 2027, but this Bill will allocate funds for one year only. What is the British Government’s intention: will there be a multi-annual framework for farming support, or will the decision be made annually?

[Theresa Villiers]

In our manifesto, the Government set out our commitment to retain 2019 levels of support for farmers throughout the current Parliament. The exact basis of the allocation and division of those funds remains to be determined, but we will work closely with the devolved Administrations in taking decisions.