Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what plans he has to reduce regulation in the agricultural industry; and if he will make a statement.

Defra has taken a number of steps to reduce regulation in the agricultural industry. In January 2014, Defra announced proposals under the Red Tape Challenge agriculture theme to scrap or improve 56% of the 516 regulations reviewed.

Defra is carrying out a thorough review of the visits made by Defra and its regulators with the aim of significantly reducing the burden on generally compliant farmers and concentrating enforcement action on those with a history of non-compliance. We expect to achieve this through improved targeting of visits, stopping unnecessary checks or visits and sharing data between regulators.

The agricultural industry will also benefit from our review of guidance and data. Our target is to make all Defra and its regulators' guidance simple, quick and clear, with an ambition to reduce the volume by over 80% by March 2015. For data reporting we are aiming to reduce the time that businesses spend on reporting data by 20% by March 2016.

As published in April 2014 in the Independent Farming Regulation Task Force report, incorporating earned recognition into dairy hygiene inspections has reduced the number of FSA inspections taking place on dairy farms by over 8,000 per year. 14 out of 31 on-farm inspection regimes incorporate an element of earned recognition and, overall, we are removing £13 of compliance costs for every pound added.

We know that we have to continue to build on this good work and have further to go.