Direct Payments to Farmers (Legislative Continuity) Bill — House of Commons, 2020-01-21
Topic: Agriculture
Ben Morgan Lake (Plaid Cymru, Centre-left to left): My hon. Friend has put it far more impeccably than I could. The important thing is having co-decision making on these issues and the agreements being jointly made between the four Governments of the UK, so as to ensure that the internal market is not undermined. Such an endeavour would require us to tackle issues such as the principles underpinning agricultural policies, the quanta of funding that can be allocated to different objectives and the specific challenges relating to cross-border holdings, of which the hon. Members for Montgomeryshire (Craig Williams) and for Brecon and Radnorshire will be aware. We can come to some sort of agreement on all these measures, which is what I am trying to emphasise this afternoon. I am not pretending that this will be easy, far from it, but I am saying that it is deeply important that we do reach some sort of arrangement. Frameworks currently exist and they address the issues and questions I have just raised. They ensure that the national Governments can base their policies on a set of common objectives. In other words, they are boundaries within which the four nations and the Governments of the British Isles can tailor their policies to address the specific challenges that face their respective industries, while preventing harmful market distortion and disruption to supply chains. These questions need to be addressed anew to ensure that unfair advantages do not arise and that the internal market is not compromised. Many of the issues will have to be addressed as part of the discussions on the UK Agriculture Bill and in collaboration with the devolved Governments, but this Bill does offer us a brief opportunity to raise some questions about the funding framework, to which I hope the Minister can respond as he concludes the debate As I have mentioned, the Bill allows BPS payments to come from domestic UK funds, and in that sense it is mainly a housekeeping exercise. One question that has been raised by stakeholders in Wales is whether the Bill requires devolved Governments to spend these moneys in this way or whether they have discretion as to how to spend them. I would be grateful if the Minister addressed that point. The Bill also raises some questions about long-term arrangements for UK agricultural funding. My hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards), and the hon. Members for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) and for North Cornwall (Scott Mann), have touched on the need for multiannual financial frameworks. As the Secretary of State mentioned in her opening remarks, the Bill also implements a lot of the findings of the Bew review. It has been received warmly across the House, but in Wales there are severe concerns about the allocations and the decision that the review came to on the UK funding allocations. For example, the Farmers Union of Wales has pointed out that the total difference between average annual Scottish and Welsh farm payments has now diverged to about £16,200, which leaves the average farm payment for Scotland at about 175% of the average Welsh payment. This is not me begrudging farmers in Scotland something they deserve; the question I am raising is: is there not a case to be made for Welsh farmers receiving an equivalent amount of funding, so as to ensure that we maintain that level playing field that the hon. Member for North Herefordshire mentioned The distortions that the allocations outlined by the Bew review have made clear surely highlight the need for a proper financial framework, agreed by all four Governments, that secures long-term funding for agriculture across the four devolved nations and is based on a fair and objective formula that minimises market distortion. I have grave reservations that the Bill, on its own, will not do that, so I would welcome any insight that the Minister can offer on how the UK Government intend to tackle this. Furthermore, by what intergovernmental mechanism will these questions be resolved? If any disputes arise, how will they be settled? Do the Government acknowledge something that I raised in the Committee considering the previous Agriculture Bill, which is that some sort of more formalised intergovernmental agreement system, based on co-decision making and co-operation, could make multiannual financial settlements easier to implement and would ensure that we avoid the sort of market distortion that unions in Wales are so fearful of, which will ultimately make Welsh farmers worse off?