Direct Payments to Farmers (Legislative Continuity) Bill

Victoria Prentis Excerpts

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

[Bill Wiggin]

I absolutely agree. Another element to direct payments is that, by paying our farmers, to some extent we control what they are doing. I hope we will get away from that when we cease to be controlled by the common agricultural policy, but it does mean that, as taxpayers, we have a say in the beauty of our countryside. Of course, when one looks at the size of the tourist industry or, indeed, any of the other industries that live off our views or our environment, we see that this is a tremendous advantage. That is why it is critical that the Bill is passed.

[Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)]

I thank my fellow farmer for giving way. He mentioned that it is significant that farmers develop their skills over many years and often many generations. When considering direct payments, does he agree it is important that farmers are able to plan for their future by knowing what subsidies they are likely to receive so that they can tailor their farming practices accordingly?

[Bill Wiggin]

My hon. Friend makes a vital point, and it is why the Government have a seven-year tail to this policy. The Bill does not do as much as she and I would both like it to do in delivering certainty. That is a huge problem in my constituency. I have 10,500 people working on farms in my constituency, 88% of which is farmland. Some £23.2 million a year comes into my constituency in subsidy, and it is critical to those farm businesses that they know exactly what is happening.

One problem I face is the current trend away from eating meat, which is a disaster for British agriculture. I was stopped during the general election campaign by someone who said, “Mr Wiggin, you don’t like vegetarians.” I said, “That’s not strictly true, but I do have an issue with this desire to go to a plant-based diet, because it means importing soya from Brazil. It means living with the big pharmaceutical companies determining our diet.”

I am keen that we get back to direct payments for livestock farmers, particularly in Herefordshire, and that we return to British food for British voters, constituents and consumers, so I thoroughly look forward to seeing this Bill become law, and to the Agriculture Bill that follows, so that we can get a lot of these details on to the statute book for the benefit of all concerned.

Direct Payments to Farmers (Legislative Continuity) Bill

Victoria Prentis 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]

I agree that we must learn the lessons of the common agricultural policy. Having dealt with it for some seven years in total, I know that it is something of a bureaucratic quagmire. It is very difficult to navigate, and we tend to find that the more rules we invent, the more rules we need in order to make sense of the ones that we already have. That is why we end up with all sorts of complexity, as set out in the 127-page document containing guidance and rules for farmers.

The real lesson to be learnt is that whatever we do in future should be less rules-based and more based on delivering outcomes, and should also be tailored to the needs of an individual farm. When farms have poor profitability, we should try to tackle the causes of that poor profitability by helping farmers to invest and improve fairness in the supply chain, rather than by means of an arbitrary area-based payment. That is the direction of travel that we have set out.

[Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that those like me who have smallholdings are often overwhelmed by the body of rules, and end up not claiming money that they should rightly claim? Has that been a problem historically, and are there any records that show how many people are covered by this?

[George Eustice]

Every month I have to deal with appeals lodged by farmers following decisions made against them involving, for instance, penalties or disqualifications for their particular claim year, perhaps because they were late in submitting their claim. There is often a tragedy behind those stories, and the scope for a Minister to address that within the boundaries of EU law is often quite limited, but we will have the chance to address it in the future.