Agriculture Bill — House of Lords, 2020-07-16
Topic: Agriculture
Lucy Neville-Rolfe (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone. She is right about pace. I am sorry that we have lost the noble Earl, Lord Caithness; I think he sacrificed himself to help this important Bill make progress. I congratulate him on the earlier debate on Amendment 73 and his closing emphasis on the importance of sequestration in meeting any climate change targets I agree with the spirit of the lead amendment in this group, Amendment 105, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester. I agree with him that the transition to a new funding system should not result in a reduction in the overall financial assistance provided for agriculture and associated purposes. However, this may go a bit far, given the disastrous impact of Covid-19; everyone, including the agriculture community, may have to make a contribution to recovery However, farmers will need continued support from next year, as we leave the CAP on 31 December, albeit for different functions. Farms are mainly small businesses. I understand the issues well, as my father was a farmer who went bust in the 1960s when his credit with the bank ran out—that was before the CAP changed everything. Farmers’ work is vital to the rural community, our landscape and our food webs, and a free market is not an option, particularly given the level of support for agriculture almost everywhere else in the world I refer also to Amendment 112 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, and to the similar amendment, Amendment 128, in the name of my noble friend Lady Rock. These would allow unspent funds allocated in one year to be carried over into future years. The Treasury, where I had the honour to be a Minister, will rightly never allow this. The wider ramifications for control of public expenditure are unacceptable and it could be a recipe for wasteful spending My main interest—perhaps "concern" would be a better word—in this group is Amendment 135 in the names of the noble Lords, Lords Lucas and Lord Addington. This seeks financial assistance for the provision of advice, with less emphasis than proposed on regulatory enforcement and penalties. Others assisting with the scrutiny of this Bill have talked about a revival of something like ADAS for this purpose. I do not support either proposal. What we need—I hope my noble friend the Minister will agree—is a professional implementation plan for all the new schemes, especially ELMS, with proper training and lead times, as you would find in a commercial context. It needs to be very clear and consulted on, with a view to successful, easy compliance and not just to satisfy interest groups. As much effort needs to be put into implementation as to policy formation. Much of that is, unfortunately, still to do, as the Lord, Lord Adonis, pointed out earlier We can learn from the initial failures in the health and safety context when the EU six-pack was introduced; that included things like manual handling, risk assessment and, indeed, PPE. It was burdensome and chaotic, providing opportunities for consultants, who flourished on the complications. There was uproar, especially in small businesses, but under a very able official, Jenny Bacon, the system was radically simplified with good guidance written by the HSE. The political heat went out of the issue despite the inevitable burden of these EU laws. The use of digital for documents and seminars for farmers and land managers makes all of this easier today I would be very happy to offer the Minister and his officials thoughts from my long experience at Tesco—I register an interest, as I am still a shareholder. Simplicity, clarity and training were essential to successful projects, whatever the scale. We do not want or need to set up a costly new advisory service, or to reimburse the cost of advice Finally, I do not agree with Amendment 232 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett. Of course data should and will be collected, but this should be done as part of Defra’s normal research programme and in the context of a five-yearly review of food security .