Queen’s Speech — House of Lords, 2020-01-09
Topic: Agriculture
William Fletcher-Vane (Non-Affiliated, Unknown): My Lords, like most Members of your Lordships’ House, I have a life away from here—in my case, as intimated in the register, 300 miles north in Cumbria. Being unable either to campaign or to vote, I spent quite a lot of time thinking about farming, land use and management and their financial and other prospects. All these things are integral to wider rural society and to the economy as a whole. Rather like stout Cortez standing silent on a peak in Darien, I and everyone else engaged in the sector see a vast and empty panorama in front of us. When I speak in the first person, I am speaking as Everyman We all know how unpopular the CAP has become and that we are going to leave it. Of course it had its follies, but it was not quite as stupid as those who did not understand it supposed. Doing nothing about all this is not an option. That farmers should not be paid just to farm must be right—that is of course unless farming is itself a public good, in which case the subsidy or support becomes a payment for a public good. The real criticism is that it was either insufficiently targeted or not targeted at all and farming is no longer perceived as a public good. Rather, outputs of farming, land management and other rural activities are identified as such, and should be targeted and supported as appropriate, which modern technology makes increasingly possible and straightforward The reality of today’s world is that in a number of ways the state is the purchaser of ecosystem services and the products of natural capital, if not directly then indirectly or as a broker or some other form of intermediary for other parts of society. These outputs are intimately and comprehensively linked to the rest of wider society and contribute huge benefit to it in general and to the economy in particular. They are as much a part of this country’s core infrastructure as rail, the grid or digital connectivity For that to be done sensibly, all land use must be done deliberately, as Dieter Helm has pointed out in the context of wilding. Simple abandonment and dereliction, which has been so expensive and disastrous in an urban context, will be the same in a rural one unless, paradoxically, it is managed. As I have said, the moment has now come for the Government to lay out their approach to public ecosystem services and public goods and how it is all going to be paid for. What is certain is that, as across the rest of the economy, if the money is not applied in the right way then the desired outcome will not be achieved. Ebullience or sugary words are no good because they do not pay the bills Whatever happens will involve the application of resources, which have to be paid for. The provision of public goods has to be properly rewarded and taxed along with the sector outputs of conventional goods, the market for many of which now seems to be somewhat less than bullish, to ensure that those engaged in such activities generate an acceptable standard of living and can finance reinvestment and generate prosperity in future. No one suggests that government Ministers or workers in the NHS should not get paid. Many in rural Britain earn less than the equivalent of the living wage. Urban Britain often seems too happy to overlook those who work outside towns and that they have families and are real people too. I have a suspicion that for this to be done effectively the amount of money involved may have to increase, not decline, simply because of the extent of what will be required, not least to make up for past failure Rural Britain, as opposed to the suburban countryside, shows the self-same characteristics as much of the urban north and Midlands, which are now being prioritised by the Government as it is recognised that they have missed out on much of the national wealth enjoyed by the prosperous parts of the south. I speak as chairman of the Cumbria Local Enterprise Partnership and part of the Northern Powerhouse 11: just as steps are being taken to invigorate the north, so similar measures must be taken for rural England—l’Angleterre profonde—and the rest of the UK, not for the sake of the countryside alone but in the best interests of the nation at large.