Agriculture Bill — House of Lords, 2020-09-15
Topic: Agriculture
Olivia Bloomfield (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I am grateful to noble Lords for their almost universal acknowledgement tonight of the importance of advice in a time of significant change to the industry. The rules of engagement have, indeed, changed fundamentally I reiterate the Government’s view that expert advice and guidance is critical to the successful delivery of future schemes. As currently drafted, the Bill already gives the Secretary of State the necessary powers to fund the provision of advice, guidance and other means of support to recipients of financial assistance under Clause 1. The Government certainly intend to use this ability; advice and guidance is one of the priority areas in the 40 live tests and trials that are feeding into this theme I will give some examples of how this could be done. For future tree health schemes, we are looking to refresh and improve our offer of plant health advice to ensure that land managers have the information they need to manage and respond to tree health issues. For animal welfare grants, these one-off payments could cover investment in equipment, infrastructure, technology and training. For animal health schemes, we are also looking at ways to increase advice given to farmers, both from vets and other agricultural advisors, to help them improve animal health. We also want to increase peer learning between farmers through, for example, facilitated farmer groups. The Government have also stated their intention to offer advice to those applying for productivity grants to help them decide which investments would achieve the greatest improvements in business performance In Committee, reference was made to the ongoing ELM scheme tests and trials. We are using these to identify the most effective means of providing advice and guidance to farmers and land managers, which will enable them to deliver on their funding agreements with confidence. Since then, the number of ELM tests and trials looking at the provision of advice and guidance has increased to 40, demonstrating the Government’s commitment to designing a scheme that works for farmers and land managers. Evidence shows that, for advice to be effective, it must be trusted, consistent, credible and cost effective. The Government are considering how these principles can be embedded into advice for all schemes and working with farmers and other land managers to do so The noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington, asked specifically about the availability of training schemes. The ELM trials are exploring ways in which skills and qualifications for environmental land management can be improved The noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, also asked how agricultural colleges could be drawn upon to provide advice and dispense information. The Government are supporting the work of the skills leadership group in exploring ways to address the fragmented nature of the existing skills, education and advice landscape. Representatives of the agricultural colleges have been involved in these conversations Defra is currently running a £1 million grant funding project to explore how it could provide resilience support to farmers and land managers in England to help them prepare for reductions in direct payments in the transition period. The project, which is targeting some 1,700 farmers and land managers, aims to identify how, where and when they may need to adapt their business models and resilience as a result. Evidence coming from this project will help inform the design of a national scheme, which is currently in development for launch in early 2022 I was asked about the availability of broadband in some areas. We are connecting some of the hardest-to reach places in the country, including through the SFB programme and the £200 million rural gigabit connectivity programme. We have also announced £5 billion of funding to close the digital divide I hope that I have managed to give some reassurance that advice and guidance are already considered in the scheme design, that the Government are committed to their provision and that we have the powers we need to deliver in this area. I hope the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, will feel able to withdraw his amendment.