Queen’s Speech — House of Lords, 2016-05-25
Topic: Agriculture
William Fletcher-Vane (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I begin my short contribution to this debate by reiterating the declarations of interest that I have put in the register. While I have been a consistent, long-standing and, I hope, considered supporter of membership by this country of the EU, I have equally been a consistent and long-standing critic of a number of aspects of it. Of all these, perhaps the one that I have been the most vociferous about is the common agricultural policy. A number of the mechanisms that it has introduced have been more or less completely dotty. However, as I get older I increasingly come to recognise the value of the underlying ethos of the idea of interdependence between town and country. There is a danger of losing it in the UK, which is the same kind of issue as the division between London and the south-east of England and the rest, which my noble friend the Minister alluded to in his opening remarks It seems that politics here at Westminster is increasingly conducted in a bubble. Certainly for my own part I felt that the Select Committee on National Policy for the Built Environment, on which I served, and the subsequent debates in the Chamber of this House during the passage of the Housing and Planning Act, focused excessively on the problems faced by the south-east of England and London, and did not sufficiently recognise different but equally important difficulties that are experienced elsewhere in this country It is a commonplace that the character of the economy in the 21st century is changing. The importance of things such as intellectual property, natural capital and ecosystem services becomes ever greater. It seems that these in turn cannot necessarily be paid for and hence exploited to the best advantage by traditional market mechanisms. This in itself is nothing novel—after all, we are used to having seen it in the context of the Armed Forces, health and education In my own home county of Cumbria, tourism, based on landscape, is the biggest employer. The area is of huge value to the rest of the United Kingdom, our national inbound tourist industry and to this country’s soft power. Yet in reality much of this is a by-product of livestock farming, an activity that is completely "down in the economic dumps". The environment requires investment and creates wealth—which I am very conscious of, as I am the chairman of the Cumbria Local Nature Partnership. And yet there seems to be no way to bring all these things together It is self-evident that government cannot do much about world commodity prices, but there is little doubt that the nation is getting rural Britain on the cheap, and the rest of the country is freeloading on the back of it. Its contribution, both actual and potential and taken in the round, is enormous as regards the way wealth will be created in the 21st century In the case of my own county of Cumbria, we are recovering from the floods. I put on record my appreciation as a vice-president of the Cumbria Foundation for the match-funding of £5 million the Government have given to that foundation. However, there is still a lot of long-term unquantified damage, particularly to both land and buildings, both of which are wasting assets and require long-term maintenance After having thought about it for quite a long time and having had doubts at one time, I see the economic sense of the minimum wage. However, let us remember that its impact on employers is greatest on those who can least afford it. Low-wage areas will find it hardest to achieve what is demanded by statute, and what is simple in SW1 may be very difficult in CA10 Others have pointed out before me—again, it is another commonplace—that broadband provision is lamentable in many places in this country, not only in rural but in urban Britain as well. I regret to say that I live in one of them. The problem was identified by the Communications Committee when I chaired its report into broadband more than five years ago. While the Government’s recent words on the subject have been fine, they will not butter any parsnips. What is needed is action, which hitherto has been conspicuously absent. It is simply a matter of results, results, results, and delivery, delivery, delivery However, probably the biggest problem facing the agricultural sector in this country is the Rural Payments Agency. It is not appropriate and nor is there time available to relate its treatment of my personal affairs, but my experiences are typical. It is a failed organisation, with which no self-respecting person should wish to be associated. However, it is more than that—it is Brexit’s best recruiting sergeant in rural England, which is particularly ironic since it is the UK’s own delivery arm of EU policy under the doctrine of subsidiarity. Its shortcomings are exclusively the responsibility of Defra and it causes untold damage In conclusion, I suggest to the Minister that all Defra Ministers are where the buck stops—at this point I apologise to my good personal friend and MP Rory Stewart, for whom I have the highest political and personal regard—and that each of them should have their ministerial pay frozen from the opening of the payments window until the last farmer receives his payment. At this stage I do not suggest that they lose it all for making a minor and unintended mistake in the course of their duties, as is the case for the farmers, but in this way they will be able to stand shoulder to shoulder with the victims of this travesty of public administration. I would be grateful to hear the Minister’s thoughts on this and the reasons for what he tells me.