Agriculture Bill (Eighth sitting) Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
David Drew
Main Page: David Drew (Labour (Co-op) - Stroud)Department Debates - View all David Drew's debates with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Agriculture Bill (Eighth sitting)
David Drew Excerpts(5 years, 6 months ago)
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George Eustice
That is absolutely the case, as my right hon. Friend points out. We have scrutiny by the National Audit Office, the Environmental Audit Committee and the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, for example, and I always enjoy the many parliamentary questions I receive on every piece of detail about DEFRA’s spending priorities.
A statutory requirement to do annual reporting on DEFRA is in place already. However, this is an important point, so at a later stage of the Bill—perhaps on Report—I might be willing to explain to the House in a bit more detail what information we would envisage publishing as part of our requirements under the Government Resources and Accounts Act. In a world in which we want transparency about how we spend money in this area and what it is delivering, it may well be possible for us to decide to adopt a convention on the particular format of these annual accounts. I am more than happy to return to the House on Report to say a little more about that. On that basis, I hope the hon. Gentleman will not press new clause 10.
Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)
That is all very interesting, and I largely concur with what the Minister says. The academic Steven Lukes, in his wonderful little book “Power”, always draws a distinction between the “power to” and “power over”. The problem with Government and that piece of legislation in 2000 is that it was all about how Government decide to report and to defray their financial considerations. To me, this is “power to”; it is a more consultative arrangement—there is a need to have a reporting mechanism whereby the Government say what they intend to spend.
That is nothing new, and it is exactly what happens every year under the CAP, which has a mechanism whereby the Council of Ministers signs off the budget, which is then reported to not only Parliament but all the farming organisations. The reality of that is that the farmers are either well pleased or start burning their tyres. That is where we are with agricultural politics, which is big on the continent, if not so big here, because our farmer organisations tend to work through the system. That, however, is the point: they are asking for a system to be put in place.
Farmers are very worried that if such a mechanism is not in place, a future Government of whatever colour or persuasion could, in effect, just say, “Well, there isn’t enough money, so we’re making large cuts, including to all these wonderful schemes that we’ve talked about.” The Minister is very lucid about how all these different organisations could be brought in, but it will not make a jot of difference if there is not any money to run the schemes.
In a sense, the new clause would protect any organisation or any person who clearly wants to obtain funding through the system available. It would give them some security, and all people are asking for is security and certainty. Although we shall not have a vote on the new clause at this stage, I hope that the Minister will reflect on it. It will come back in the Lords, but it is always nice if we can do things in the Commons.
There needs to be some mechanism to say not what the money is but how it will be defrayed. That is important under the CAP, where we had not just pillar 1 but pillar 2. For some of us in rural areas, that pillar 2 money was very important. There is security in knowing in what ways we can go on to make future plans. Otherwise we are subject to the whim of the Government. As has been pointed out before, an urban-centred Government might decide they did not want to farm the country, but wanted to use it for all sorts of other things. I would not want that, and neither, I am sure, would anyone on the Committee. However, it is the danger.
At least there could be a requirement to go on the record and state what was to be spent and how it was intended to keep the different provisions going. We shall not press the matter to a vote at this stage, but we shall keep the right to return to the matter for a vote at an appropriate time.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 2 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
The Chair
I suspect that most Members understand the process, but to refresh memories, if anyone is thinking, “Hang on, why are we not voting on new clause 10,” the answer is that we vote on all new clauses right at the end of the Committee’s proceedings. That is where new clauses are taken. Where amendments are grouped—I should like to be able to say, “By the skill of the Chairman,” but actually it is through the skill of the Clerks—some of them, which occur later in the Bill, are taken at that point in the Bill. The fact that something is not voted on now does not necessarily mean it will not be voted on at all. That is not in my gift. It is in the gift of those on the two Front Benches.
Clause 3
Financial assistance: checking, enforcing and monitoring
Dr Drew
I beg to move amendment 101, in clause 3, page 3, line 25, leave out subsection (h).
It is disproportionate to create criminal offences for failing to meet the rules of a financial assistance scheme. There are no specific offences for breach of the current CAP scheme rules. Breaches could be sanctioned through the application of penalties without the need for new criminal offences.
I hope that we shall begin to speed up now, Sir Roger. The amendment relates to the fact that there are certain offences in connection with the Bill. It is more of a probing amendment than one that we intend to press to a vote, and its purpose is to consider the mechanism and methodology by which the Government, through their Ministers, will decide whether funding has been used inappropriately. There is a question as to whether it is proportionate for Ministers to have the power to create a criminal offence for breaching a financial assistance scheme. That is quite an onerous responsibility on the Government.
Under the common agricultural policy there are currently regulations about obstruction of people who come to do inspections, and failure to give appropriate information. Is it intended that the Bill should include such provisions, or are the Government approaching the matter differently? As the Minister said in a previous debate, the Rural Payments Agency and, indeed, trading standards can operate in a quite draconian way when they feel there has been malpractice. Will the powers in question continue? In tabling an amendment that enables us to debate omitting the creation of offences, we are trying to identify the answers to those questions.
Obstruction might also happen in the case of someone from the Environment Agency, for example, who wanted to go on to a farm or holding, and who was prevented from carrying out their work. A number of us in the Committee will have had experiences of that happening—landowners barring the Environment Agency in the belief that it intended to do inappropriate work. We want clarity as to whether the approach under the Bill will be the existing one or a different one.
Clause 3(2)(h) gives the Secretary of State the power to create offences in relation to breach of the rules of the financial assistance scheme. There is a view that that may be disproportionate. As always, the matter is subject to interpretation, and one person’s breach is another’s poor practice, and not necessarily deliberate. Will the Minister give some clarity on paragraph (h) and on some of the repercussions if it goes through as it is?
George Eustice
I very much look forward to discussing the issue further on Report. As I said, in considering the mood and sentiment of the Committee, I undertake further to discuss the issue with Government colleagues and to report back to the House on Report. I hope that, on that basis, the hon. Member for Stroud will agree to withdraw his amendment and keep his powder dry for another day.
Dr Drew
I certainly agree. A report by the House of Lords Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee identified some concerning inconsistency between clause 16, which contains an extended treatment in respect of monetary penalties, and clause 3, which does not. However, so long as the Minister looks at that, I will withdraw the amendment without further ado. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 3 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 4 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 104, in clause 7, page 5, line 18, at end insert—
“(c) increasing or varying direct payments in relation to England over the whole or part of the agricultural transition period for England.”.
This amendment would ensure that the Secretary of State is empowered to increase payments during the transition period if that is necessary in the circumstances, for example to utilise any unspent monies or to protect the industry from harm.
Dr Drew
Again, I do not intend to delay the Committee for long. There are some concerns—dare I say, on both sides—about whether this is the appropriate way to look at the powers. Greener UK feels that there are some issues with what the provision might mean for the direct payment system. The amendment in effect looks at the ability of the Minister to pause or delay the scheme, as operated. The question is, what happens after the agricultural transition period, because it relates to the end of one scheme—the direct payment one—and the introduction of another, the environmental payment?
Amendment 104 is about how to manage the agricultural transition. If things are not working as we want them to, what do the Government do? Do they pause, extend or even reverse the reduction in the direct payments? We know what the Government intend, which is, come 2021, the percentage reduction in the direct payment. That sounds straightforward, but such things are never as straightforward as they sound. Will the Minister tell us exactly how the scheme will come into operation? It needs to be about certainty and fairness.
The danger of uncertainty for, or the potential removal of important sums of money from, farms that are already struggling could have a very deleterious effect on their ability to continue. That matters because we are, potentially, changing the landscape dramatically. If certain small farms go out of business, tenant farms in particular, that will have a major impact on what our landscape looks like.
I accept that the amendment is probing, but were it adopted some people might worry that we could say, “Okay, let’s just go back to direct payments, delay it a few more years.” On the one hand, we need to know for those who are losing payments what happens if the system does not quite work out, and, on the other hand, we need to see for those who are very inclined to see the changes what confidence they can have in the Government that those changes will happen as they should. There is concern on both sides: one wants the certainty that some payment system will be in place while the other believes that this is the wrong system, which is the reason for supporting the move towards environmental payments. I am interested to hear the Minister’s thoughts.
We are discussing everything to do with delinking the payments, moving from a system in which, in effect, we pay farmers to do what they have done to a system in which we pay farmers and others to do things that we want them to do. It is important for the Minister to identify how that is going to work.
George Eustice
I oppose this probing amendment for reasons that I shall set out. The shadow Minister made the good point that people want certainty. In the Bill, we have tried to give a clear direction of travel—that is to say, we believe that the end state should be a system in which we reward farmers based on the delivery of public goods, be that animal welfare or higher environmental outcomes, and in which we tackle the causes of low profitability in farming by improving transparency and fairness in the supply chain and making grant support available to farmers to invest in the future.
The difficulty I have with this amendment is that it would largely undermine the purpose of a transition, if the idea is that we would increase direct payments during the transition. If there were a particular problem that meant that a future Government decided they had to pause the transition, it would be open to them under clause 5(2) to extend the transition period. Provided that they brought those regulations in during the transition period, they could extend it for as many years as they liked, and if a future Government so decided, they would have the ability to say that they would not pursue what we have outlined, which is a phasing down of direct payments. It would be open to a future Government, if they deemed it the right thing, to pause that process, extend the transition and slow or halt the rate of decline. That option and that power are already in the Bill.
The issue I have with saying that a future Government could also increase direct payments during that time is that that would effectively undermine the direction of travel we have set out. It would mean that there was less money—potentially no money—to do the pilots we talked about earlier for the new environmental land management scheme that we want to roll out. It would mean that there could be less money, or no money, to make available to support new entrants to the industry or to help farm enterprises to invest for the future.
Of course, in addition to having the power already to pause and slow the taper on the single farm payment and to extend the transition period, later parts of the Bill, which we will come to at a future date, also contain intervention powers. Those are powers, in a severe market disruption, for the Secretary of State to declare exceptional circumstances in the market and intervene directly at that point to provide income support or market stabilisation measures. I believe the Bill strikes the right balance and sets a clear direction of travel, and my objection to this amendment is that it would largely undermine the purpose of the transition period.
If people want certainty, they need the certainty of a seven-year transition, but also an understanding that in all normal circumstances it is the Government’s intention to reach an end state at the end of those seven years. If we introduced the uncertainty that it might all be changed and that we might pay even more via direct payments, people frankly would not know where they stood, and I think that would send a mixed message. I hope that, on that basis, the hon. Member for Stroud will withdraw amendment 102 and not press amendment 104.
Dr Drew
I am happy to do so. Again, these amendments are just teasing out how the process will work in practice. It will be a difficult process; we are, in effect, asking people to change their business orientation completely in a relatively short time. They will have to learn to do very different things. That is why it is important to know, if those things do not work out, what the Government’s response will be. I think the Minister has said what the Government’s intention is. Only time will tell whether it works in practice. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 5 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 6
Power to modify legislation governing the basic payment scheme
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 106, in clause 7, page 6, line 13, leave out subsection (8).
This is unnecessary as it can be done as part of the phasing out under Clause 7, the greening rules can be simplified but the payment itself can continue. If this clause remains then there is nothing to prevent the ceasing of greening payments altogether, even though the explanatory notes suggest that the intention is to remove greening requirements but pay the greening monies as part of the direct payment.
Dr Drew
I should say in passing that there was a Henry VIII power in clause 5 that we allowed to slip through. It is one of the powers that no doubt the House of Lords will have great joy in pointing out to the Government, when and if the Bill gets there.
We are now considering clause 6 and two straightforward amendments, looking at the powers to modify from one system to another. The question is what the clause really adds to the Bill, given that clause 7 tells us that it will phase out direct payments and de-linked payments. One wonders why this power is in there at all and what the Government are doing by keeping the clause there. We would question why clause 6(2) and clause 7(8) are there and whether they are necessary. As the Minister has just said, either we have the strength of our convictions and we are going towards the greening of the farm, food and environmental system, or we will always be thinking that we could go back to a basic payment arrangement if all else fails.
Will the Minister explain what the clause does? The reality is that, if it remains, in extremis there is nothing to stop the Government going away from a greening payments system altogether and looking at other arrangements, as the explanatory notes highlight. Although we question whether the clause adds anything, if it was used inappropriately it could be quite dangerous.
George Eustice
I am grateful for the opportunity to address why there is a need for this subsection of clause 6. The greening provisions in the CAP, by the admission of the European Commission and the EU auditors, have achieved next to nothing in environmental outcomes.
The genesis of the subsection was the fact that in the last CAP reform voices in the European Parliament pressed for a move away from pillar 1 direct payments and for greater emphasis to be placed on pillar 2 agri-environmental schemes, while the Council of Ministers and member states resisted that and clung to the idea of direct payments. The outcome was a classic EU fudge, which attempted to put greening conditions on to the direct payments in a way that has not been effective.
We have ended up with rather ludicrous rules, such as there being one window in which land must be made fallow for the purposes of the ecological focus area rule and a separate window for the purposes of the three-crop rule. There is all sorts of confusion because people have fallow land and they have to work out whether it is fallow for the purposes of the EFA rule or for the purposes of the three-crop rule.
There are also lots of unintended consequences of the three-crop rule and problems with different species being treated as the same. I remember having a long argument with our officials some years ago about whether a cabbage and a cauliflower were the same or a different species, whether a winter cauliflower was different from a summer cauliflower, and whether spring wheat was different from winter wheat. Our contention is that introducing rules of that sort to the direct payment scheme has ultimately failed, as even the EU admits.
The inclusion of these powers gives us the ability to switch off the greening provisions. As things stand, 30% of the single farm payment is linked to the greening conditions. One of the National Farmers Union’s concerns is that we have a secret plan to remove the greening conditions and take 30% of the single farm payment at the same time. I reassure the NFU that that will not happen, because the way the wiring of the scheme’s funding works means that if we remove the greening requirements, the payments linked to them automatically go back into what is called the national ceiling—the budget allocation—and are reflected in the remainder of the basic payment scheme payments. This will not affect farmers’ payments, but it will enable us to remove a lot of the unnecessary administration and checking around the greening requirements, which have achieved very little.
Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)
I beg to move amendment 76, in clause 6, page 5, line 9, leave out “negative” and insert “affirmative”.
Jenny Chapman
Absolutely; I completely agree. I have sat through some of these so-called line-by-line considerations, and that can be a very underwhelming experience. The feeling is that the scrutiny of the legislation is—well, where is it? It is just a to-and-fro across the room. But if I may say so, I think that this Committee is doing a reasonable job. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”]
Jenny Chapman
We are excellent, aren’t we? We seem to have a Minister who is willing to accept that there are problems with his Bill, and we do not always get that. I hope that this will be a rather better experience than the one that the hon. Member for Mid Worcestershire and I had previously.
In reply to the hon. Gentleman’s point about balancing speed with being thorough, I would say that the Government have had quite a long time to come up with something fuller than this. The Bill is rather empty, and there is lots of detail that could have been included. The Government have had sufficient time to do that, so to turn up and say, “Actually, we just want some powers and we’ll decide what to do with them at a later date,” is not good enough. We will continue to make that point.
Some people get very anxious about the overuse of delegated legislation. I have never been a Minister, and probably never will be, but I understand the attraction of it.
Dr Drew
We all make slight errors from time to time.
I have some questions for the Minister. I agree that the new clauses look like technical amendments, but I do not quite understand how new clause 2 relates to the Government’s policy document “Health and Harmony”, which sets out very different percentages for the gradual reduction of the basic payment. I presume that the new clause supersedes that document—or does it?
The policy document gives very clear figures for the direct payment bands: a 5% reduction for up to £30,000, a 10% reduction between £30,000 and £50,000, a 20% reduction between £50,000 and £150,000, and a 25% reduction for more than £150,000. That clearly implies that larger holdings would have more than 15%, so I do not understand how that relates to the figure of “up to 15%” in new clause 2. Does the new clause supersede the policy document? If not, what is the status of the policy document? Perhaps the Minister might like to start by answering that point.
George Eustice
May I intervene to point out the policy context? The UK Government took a decision in 2014, under the powers available to us under EU law, to modulate up to 12%—in other words, to take 12% out of the pillar 1 budget, reducing farmers’ overall BPS payment, and move it into the pillar 2 budget to support agro-environment schemes or the rural development programme. All we seek to achieve with this power is the roll-over of the legal underpinning that supported that modulation rate. Our proposed taper on the basic payment scheme will be on the existing payment; it is a taper on the payment after 12% has been modulated to pillar 2.
Dr Drew
I think I understand that, but I will clearly have to read it back quite carefully, because I am not sure that I totally understand it. I will see if I can get this right: we have taken 12.5% out, which might well have been the pillar 2 moneys, and we are now looking at a scheme, for what remains, that moves from the basic payment, through a de-linked mechanism, to some environmental payments. Is that largely right?
George Eustice
That is broadly right. Farmers currently receive a BPS payment, which is an allocation from the pillar 1 budget minus the 12% that was moved across in 2014. We reviewed that decision in 2016 and said that we would keep it the same until 2019. All we want is continuity for 2020, and this gives us the legal underpinning that we need to maintain the modulation decision taken in 2014. Any future taper and phasing down of the single farm payment, as outlined here, will be based on the BPS payment that farmers have become accustomed to receiving since 2014.
Dr Drew
I will read this interchange back very carefully to see whether it has been about what I think or whether I have misunderstood. This matters because, at the end of the day, farmers need to plan ahead, and 2021 is not that far in the future. Some farmers will lose a considerable amount of money, which they will have to replenish by moving into the new scheme, which we do not quite have yet.
Mr Goodwill
The hon. Gentleman will be aware that many farmers have already entered into multi-annual environmental schemes. They need the security that the support will be there for them to deliver the plans they already have.
Dr Drew
That is very helpful. A lot of farmers have obviously entered the countryside stewardship scheme, but a lot of farmers have chosen to come out of it because they are very unhappy with it. We have to put that right very quickly, because if farmers are to have any certainty in the payment system, they have to know that the scheme to which they are applying exists, is capable of doing what they think and rewards them appropriately, otherwise they will feel short-changed.
I see this as largely technical, but again, it is very complicated. We are moving from a scheme that pays farmers for being farmers to not paying them at all. We will pay people—they may not be farmers—to do things with the land. We therefore have to be very clear that they will not be paid anymore for being farmers; the basic payment is going. Yes, there is a taper, as the Minister says, but it rolls through quite quickly. People need to understand that they will no longer be able to do what they were used to doing and be paid for.
We will not vote against this measure, because it is a technical change. However, I ask the Minister to communicate what is involved to as many people as possible. There will be a modulation, and it was never going to be a straightforward process—when I was on the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, we struggled to understand exactly how it worked in practice. The Minister will need a proper communication strategy, so people know that, when their money goes, on the one hand, they will have other ways in which to earn it, on the other.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 6, as amended, accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 7
Power to provide for phasing out direct payments and delinked payments
Dr Drew
Again, this is fairly technical stuff, but there will be some genuine repercussions if we do not get it right. I spoke previously, and I might say more about it when we get to the next group, about this relationship between the current system and what we are moving towards. It makes eminent sense that the de-linking happens pretty speedily through the transition process. Again, it has to happen in an ordered manner, with the regulations that the Secretary of State may make—we want that to be as clear as possible—fully understood by those upon whom the new system will be imposed.
Our amendment, which would clarify things by leaving out “either or both of”, is probing. The Minister has his own amendment, which will rephrase paragraph (b), but will he explain clearly how he understands the de-linked payments will be introduced in place of the direct payments? How will things operate over time?
The worry is that the new scheme will not necessarily be as accessible as the basic payments scheme. There will understandably be some losers, and the earlier they know that they will have to try to save some of the money, the better. The Government have made a big play of the advice that will be made available, but we still question who that advice will come from and who will pay for it. The more the situation is clarified at this stage, the better it will be for those who are being asked to pay an enormous amount.
The Minister has made a point about lots of people already having environmental schemes, but many do not. Those who have not got those schemes will have to quickly get someone to advise them on how they can fundamentally change their business operation. That is going to test smaller and tenant farmers.
George Eustice
Broadly speaking, although, as I said, one of our key thoughts behind the concept of de-linking is that it will be a tool to assist people with retirement. Because we do not want multiple systems—a new system emerging, a legacy system and a de-linked system—we have drafted this in such a way that, once someone takes the decision to de-link, it will apply to everyone and we will not have that problem. It will be a bold policy to help to support structural change and give farmers the freedom to invest that money as they deem right.
Government amendment 91 is another technical amendment that simply reflects the way the current direct payment regulations operate. There has been no change to our policy of trying to de-link payments, but the current direct payment regulation only contains financial provisions known as “ceilings” until the end of the 2020 scheme year. Introducing de-linking in 2021 means that ceilings under the direct payments will not be set for 2021. The existing basic payments will therefore automatically end in 2020 and we will not need to terminate such payments. The amendment reflects that. Other than that, the intent is exactly the same as originally drafted, but the amendment makes it clear, crucially, that de-linked payments cannot be made alongside the direct payments under the basic payment scheme, in line with clause 7(3)(b).
This is a technical amendment simply to deal with a similar point to the one I addressed with respect to one of the new clauses, which is that the ceilings expire and we might want to be able to make those de-linked payments based on a direct payment and not necessarily on the old BPS payment. Again, this is a technical issue that has its genesis in the way that EU payment ceilings and budgets are wired. I hope I have given the Committee a good explanation of what we seek to achieve through the amendment.
Dr Drew
I do not think farmers need agronomists; they need lawyers to go through some of this and work out whether they are entitled to various payments. It is a wee bit complicated, but maybe it will all be clearer when it comes out in the wash. As I have said to the Minister, I have always supported a retirement scheme for farmers. For too long, too many people have tried to stay farming when it is really not good for them or for their holdings. I welcome the fact that there is now a mechanism by which they can leave the land, by managing to take the payments over time.
Sandy Martin
The mechanism might exist for farmers who have been in farming for a long time and own their own land and want to come out of it, but how will that operate for tenant farmers? Will there be any complications for the relationship between the tenant farmer and landowner?
Dr Drew
That is a very pertinent point. In a sense, we are talking about trying to balance what the state might provide in support payments against the farm business tenancy. For a lot of farmers, trying to make that judgment is going to be quite difficult. One wants people to go out with dignity, and that means that we want them to go out with a sum that they can invest, which may be in other uses of the land or may be to buy themselves a cottage, or more probably, to rent a cottage in view of their impecunious state. These are real personal stories and we have to be careful that we are not just rushing through and making things unduly complicated, so that people do not really understand what they are entitled to.
I understand where the Minister is trying to get to, but I think this will have to be explained in a much more simplistic way, so that people can take advantage of it. There is no point having a de-linking scheme to enable people to leave the land and get new entrants if people do not see that it is appropriate for them, or do not understand it or think that they will lose out financially. My hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich is absolutely right about the farm business tenancies. We need to look at the links and we have to have a debate on some of the Tenant Reform Industry Group recommendations, which sadly do not feature in this legislation. We very strongly think that they should, given that a third of our farms are tenant farms. It is an important part of our farm economy, yet it does not feature in the Bill, which we think is a lacuna.
I worry that there is potential for policy drift here. We start with the de-linking process for one reason, but it ends up doing something that is not intended—it is the law of unintended consequences. I can see people wanting to access the money without necessarily pursuing what we want them to do, which is to improve their land; the danger is that they will take the money and then new entrants will not be able to take over the holding because it is in a poor state.
These are real-life questions, and I worry about some of my tenant farmers. The quality of the farms they are holding is not good due to generations of underinvestment. This is all well and good, and we are potentially paying less money to do the things that we used to pay out to do, yet farmers are expected to make good with other environmental schemes, which is obviously going to be difficult given that they have limited time, and we are expecting them to improve the quality of the land. There is a bit of a question mark against that.
This is a probing amendment. I am sure will we have more definitive things to say in the next stage. The Minister needs to be aware that this debate is fine at one level, but when the schemes get out there and are interpreted by people, there could be some difficulties. I put him on notice that we will look at this again, and I hope he will reflect on some of the things that have been said. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Amendment made: 91, in clause 7, page 5, line 16, leave out paragraph (b) and insert—
“(b) making delinked payments in relation to England with respect to the whole or part of that period (in place of direct payments under the basic payment scheme in relation to England).”—(George Eustice.)
Clause 7(1)(b) enables regulations to introduce delinked payments in place of direct payments under the basic payment scheme for the whole or part of the agricultural transition period for England. This drafting amendment ensures that clause 7(1)(b) works as intended even if those direct payments have terminated otherwise than by virtue of the regulations introducing delinked payments. In that case the regulations would not need to make provision for the termination of those direct payments, as suggested by the current text. They would however be able to revoke the spent legislation about the basic payment scheme.
Dr Drew
I beg to move amendment 107, in clause 7, page 5, line 36, at end insert—
“(e) make provision setting out rules for determining the status in relation to those persons who have received delinked payments where the agricultural transition period has been extended in accordance with section 5(2).”.
This amendment would clarify the status of claimants (in terms of whether they would be entitled to return to receiving direct payment) if the direct payments scheme is extended and therefore creating the possibility (under such regulation) to enable those who have opted to take de/inked payments to return, or otherwise.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 108, in clause 7, page 6, line 16, at end insert—
“(8A) Regulations under this section must set out explicit timescales for the payment of the direct payments or delinked payments that are due to entitled persons.”.
This amendment would ensure that those entitled to payments received those payments within guaranteed timescales to help ensure certainty of cash flow.
Dr Drew
The amendment is really a probing amendment, to consider where we are in relation to setting rules for the de-linking process. The Minister has already talked about that. I have just asked how this will work in practice. It is unclear, at least in my mind; maybe people are ahead of me on that. However, I think there is a need for further work in that regard.
What would happen if the Minister introduced a de-linked payment, but then made use of the powers to extend the transition period in accordance with clause 5(2)? The status of the farmer who has taken a de-linked payment is uncertain—we have identified that. He may be locked out of the system for longer than envisaged. This is really contingent on our previous debate. So, in taking the money—what? They then can use their opportunity on the land? The status of the person will be defined in law, but again it is a matter of how the process works in practice.
Under the CAP, there are payment windows, and—dare I say it?—this is all laid down for those who receive payments for work they have done. So things are not as clear in this new proposal. All of us who have rural constituencies know that the Rural Payments Agency is not very good at making the payments on time, for the right reasons or in the right amounts. So there are some question marks about the extant process and where we are now going to. If anything, it is going to be quite a complicated change. So it is really about whether farmers will be entitled to payments on guaranteed timescales, because again—dare I say it?—we do not have a good history.
Mr Goodwill
It strikes me as well, of course, that the farmer could take the payment but then his wife could establish a new business, in which case perhaps there would not really be a fundamental change; it was just a mechanism. I wonder if the hon. Gentleman shares my concerns and whether the Minister could comment on that situation.
Dr Drew
This did come up quite a lot on Second Reading. I think my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East had something to say on it, or somebody else referred to succession planning. Farmers could take the money and then another member of the family could decide to carry on with the holding.
Jenny Chapman
It is an irritant for me that every time farmers have been referred to in this Committee so far—I have not mentioned this so far—they have been referred to as “he”. But the right hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby went an extra stage and said, “The farmer and his wife”—[Laughter.] There is a line. I just think we can do a little bit better than that.
Mr Goodwill
It is particularly difficult, because as I am down here doing this job, my wife is minding the farm, although I am the one who signs the forms when I make claims, so it is often difficult to distinguish the person who is farming from the person who signs the form—[Interruption.]
Dr Drew
I am not sure whether that helped or hindered. [Laughter.] We will move on.
Amendments 107 and 108 really try to tease out how this process is going to work in practice. I do want to say some things that are effectively for the stand part debate, but they link in directly with the clause. The issue is the way in which this phasing-out of direct payments and the de-linked payments will work. This is the clause that, if you like, executes that, so we need to look at it quite carefully.
A number of important issues arise, some of which have already been identified through the EFRA Committee, where I gather the Minister had quite a difficult time in answering questions about exactly how this process was going to work. It is important that he puts on the record again how he thinks it is going to work.
We are talking about considerable sums of money. If three years’ worth of payments for a reasonably sized holding are wrapped up into one, we are talking about tens of thousands of pounds, so we have to get the accountability of the process right. The average direct payment in 2016 was £20,000, but 10% of recipients received something in the order of £6.5 billion. The bigger landholders have traditionally received quite large sums of money through the single area payment scheme, so the mechanism through which we make that change is very important. Multiplying that over seven years, which is what the transition period will be, we are talking about large sums of money. It would be useful to know that in accepting this use of public money, the Minister can justify the larger sums involved.
As I referred to, the policy statement explains how the tapering down will operate. It would be good to know that there will be some further explanation of what that means for particular holdings. Let us look at some figures from real holdings, rather than the rather abstract figure that we have at the moment. What can those lump sum payments be used for? One can understand a tenant needing to acquire property, or to have sufficient money to pay the rent. Will recipients be limited to some use or reuse of the land, or will they basically have a free choice about what they do with that money? My notes refer to Lib Dem pensions Ministers and Maseratis; I think Steve Webb will always regret having made that point.
I have quite a lot of interesting evidence from the Landworkers Alliance and from the Tenant Farmers Association. Those are the people who represent smaller farmers and new entrants. The Landworkers Alliance is keen to know what that lump sum can be used for, how much flexibility there will be in the purposes outlined in clause 1(1), and whether—dare I say it?—the payments will be linked to the productivity of the farm or farmland. Could farmers, for example, put that money into a community land trust and collectivise those payments? That is an interesting point, because there are those who do not want to farm a holding in isolation, but want to do so on a more collective basis. Is the scheme flexible enough to allow that to take place?
The Tenant Farmers Association has written to me to support the concept of de-linking, because it thinks that farmers should be able to retire. However, although the money is of significant assistance to farmers who wish to retire, the question of what subsequently happens to that money, and any bar on what they can do if they have taken the money, are of keen interest. Those farmers might want to re-invest that money in another holding, or enable another member of the family to take that money and start a new holding. These things matter, because people have to start planning their businesses now. I know that I have stretched the Chair’s patience by moving away from the amendments, but my comments are part of our stand part contribution. We are asking the Minister to spell out in a little more detail what, in practice, these de-linked payments are and are not available for, because people are going to have to plan for that.
The Chair
Before we continue, let me make it clear that I am very relaxed about the manner in which stand part debates are conducted. They can be contained within the debate, or they can take place at the end of the debate. I am also clear that Members cannot have both.
George Eustice
We have had a comprehensive debate, and I want to pick up on some of the points that were made.
The Opposition’s amendment 107 is about making provisions for determining the status of those persons who have received de-linked payments where the agricultural transition period has been extended. That links to the point that I addressed earlier. We are setting a clear course here, and if a decision is made under clause 7 to de-link all payments, as far as we are concerned there will be no turning back at that point. It will be possible, under subsection (1)(a), to continue with the basic payment scheme and make a decision to extend, but if at a later stage of the transition period a decision is taken to de-link all payments, from our point of view it is not possible at that point to turn back, nor would we want to do so. If at that point we decided that we still wanted an old-style subsidy system, the right thing to do would be to pass new primary legislation because that would be a major departure from what we envisage in the Bill.
I was asked about de-linking and about what will happen at the end and whether we will put conditions on what people can spend the payment on. During the transition, we envisage there being a progressive, year-on-year phasing down of the BPS payment. Alongside that, we will roll out new grants for such things as productivity, and we will roll out the new environmental land management scheme.
There is already a huge amount of bureaucracy, inspection and tedious form filling behind the BPS payment. If in year three, four or five the BPS payment is considerably smaller than it is now, farmers will rightly say, “Isn’t this a sledgehammer to crack a nut? Our BPS payment is much smaller, yet we still have this extraordinary inspection regime, we still have to employ agents to fill out all the forms, and we still have to have someone from the Rural Payments Agency come to walk our fields and inspect everything.” At that point, people will rightly ask whether the enforcement architecture surrounding the BPS payment fits the size of the payment, given that it is necessarily being phased out.
That is why our view is that if we de-link the payment we will not attempt to put conditions on that, because it will be a diminishing sum of money anyway towards the latter part of transition. We have not decided when to de-link. That might come later; it could be at the beginning—that is provided for. We would consult on that, but my expectation is that for a period we would phase down the existing BPS payment. A point would then come when, frankly, having all the architecture that we have now to enforce it would cease to be justifiable, and simply de-linking to get the system closed down would be the right thing to do.
The answer to the Landworkers Alliance, the members of which generally complain to me that they are ineligible for the BPS payment at the moment anyway, is that in so far as some of them might be eligible, if they took a de-linked payment they would be able to spend it on anything they wanted, as would any other farm.
A slightly separate provision—although it is linked, and they overlap in some respects—is clause 7(7), which creates a parallel power for us effectively to do what I described earlier: make a rolled-up payment of several years to a farmer who might be deciding to leave the land. We may exercise that whether or not we had de-linked. It will be open to us to run a scheme basically to make an exit payment to farmers, with several years rolled up in one, even if we are proceeding on the basis of clause 7(1)(a)—that is the phase-down. It will also be open to us to do it under subsection (1)(b), but if we were using subsection (1)(b) towards the end of the process to free everyone from the need to have their payment linked to the land, it might be less attractive at that point as an exit package.
Dr Drew
I have some fairly basic questions. Who makes the decision, and is it capped? Lots of farmers might say, “Great—we’ll take the money now. We’ve always wanted to retire.” The average age is somewhere between 60 and 65. Is the figure capped or could, effectively, thousands of farmers decide that now is the time to go?
George Eustice
Any regulations will be under the affirmative resolution procedure. We will work with industry and others on the precise scheme designs. We will not do it in a hurry. We think there is a great logic to de-linking payments towards the end of the scheme. We also think that having a scheme that supports retirement with dignity and voluntary exit is useful. That is why we have provided for that to be done under subsection 7(7).
Dr Drew
I think the Minister has answered the hon. Member for Ludlow well, but the trouble is that that is just the theory. My tenant may suddenly get tens of thousands of pounds. If he has left the farm in a very poor state, he may leave the holding. That is a potential legal minefield, which the Government need to look at. The general view is that rents will decrease after the area payments scheme goes. I was at a farm on Friday, however, and the farmer I spoke to was very clear that once the area payments scheme goes, the landowner will want to put the rents up because they will believe that they are losing out and the tenant could pay more. There are some complications here.
George Eustice
I would almost say the opposite. If the market is such that a number of people choose to retire and there is no longer the inflationary pressure of a BPS payment driving up rents, rents might decline in some areas. That is not necessarily a bad thing. If rents go down, it is not great for landlords, but it creates opportunities for new entrants to come in with lower overheads and produce food for the country. There is a problem with the BPS scheme, which has inflated rents and made it difficult for entrepreneurs to get on to the land and make a sensible living.
Amendment 108, which was also tabled by the shadow Minister, puts explicit timescales on payments. I understand the frustration of many hon. Members who have had farmers coming to them in recent years and complaining that they have been unable to get the payment. We address the issue in a number of ways. First, under retained EU law, the existing timescales already set out in EU law would come across. I know that farmers will generally take the view that unless they are paid in December their BPS payment is late. In fact, the payment window opens at the beginning of December and closes in June, so there is quite a wide payment window under EU law. That will come across through retained EU law, but we have made some improvements in recent years in terms of getting money to farmers as quickly as possible. Last year more than 90% got to farmers by the end of December.
George Eustice
That is absolutely correct, but the scrutiny of Parliament will demand action. I was going to say that one of the strong features of the Bill is the fact that it gives the Government the power to act to sort out the dysfunctional EU auditing processes that create late payments.
Clause 9 gives us powers to sort out what is called the horizontal regulation. That is the regulation that sets out all the conditions on payment and the plethora of audit requirements, which often duplicate one another and are unnecessary. The primary cause of the problem we had last year in the BPS system was that under EU law we were forced to remap 2 million fields in one go, to try to get their area accurate to four decimal places. If we had not done, that we would have had a fine from the European Commission of more than £100 million, so we had to attempt the exercise. However, it inevitably caused problems on some farms. Many hon. Members will have had farmers reporting to them that fields had disappeared, or, in some cases, their neighbour’s fields had ended up on their holding. That is what happens when we try to remap 2 million fields. We would not have had to do that, had we had the powers to strike down those requirements.
Secondly, the issues we have at the moment with the countryside stewardship scheme are largely due to the fact that the EU, under horizontal regulation, introduced a new requirement that every single agreement must commence on the same date; so whereas we used to spread the burden of administration across the year, with people able to start in any month, everyone had to start in January. That meant a huge pile of application forms coming in at the same time. Our agencies had to employ lots of temps to try to process the work; and we all know what happens if there is a surge of temporary agency workers to process work. There were inevitably errors and problems. Again, we could remove those rather ludicrous requirements that the European Union imposes on us—in that case under clause 11.
I hope that I have been able to provide some further information about how we would intend to use the clause 7 powers, both to de-link and to make lump sum payments available. I hope I have also reassured hon. Members that the answer to the problem of late payments lies in clauses 9 and 11, not in an amendment to clause 7.
Chris Davies
As the Minister has had a very busy day and has overlooked answering my question, I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman—whose constituency is, of course, not far from the border—shares my concerns about cross-border land ownership, and areas where there are devolved Governments, where decoupling could cause a problem.
George Eustice
I must apologise for missing my hon. Friend’s important point, which links to a number of others that have been made about how we treat cross-border applications. In effect, what we will be doing is putting in place administrative agreements with Wales and the other devolved Administrations to ensure that where we have cross-border farms—we have similar arrangements in place now—we will have an agreement about how to approach these things to make sense of them and to ensure that things are done in a joined-up way.
Dr Drew
Whatever is happening with England and Wales, we have Scotland and Northern Ireland. This is going to be quite a complicated issue. There will be farmers in Northern Ireland who farm on both sides of the border; they will have whatever the common agricultural policy is and whatever the Northern Ireland policy is within the framework of the United Kingdom policy. That will greatly determine what they intend to farm, how they intend to farm and whether they wish to stay in farming.
Martin Whitfield
Obviously, in the schedule for Wales, de-linking is discussed, but we do not have a schedule for Scotland.
Deidre Brock
I am sure the hon. Gentleman will be aware of the fact that different schemes already operate across the UK in the different jurisdictions, so I am sure that dealing with this is not beyond the wit of man or woman. I am assured by the Minister’s reference to administrative agreements. I am sure that something could be found along those lines to help to sort out the whole issue.
Mr Goodwill
As a member of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, I can say that this is not just a problem in agriculture. There is no devolved Government there and it is very difficult for civil servants to second-guess what might be done, because it has been a long time since decisions were made on which they could base their activities. For those in Scotland, the policy seems to be to stick their fingers in their ears, sing “la la la la” and pretend that it is not going to happen.
Dr Drew
I will not go down that line. The Chairman will be relieved to hear that I am not going to get involved in devolved politics. I think this has been a very useful debate that has been far and wide in scope. It has not really been about the amendments, but the stand part has allowed us to look at some of the possibilities of what will happen—2021 is not very far in the future. People will be doing their planning now, particularly if they have it in mind to leave their holding, and they will need security, certainty and some very good advice on whether that is the right thing to do. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment, but I am grateful for the discretion of the Chair, which has allowed us to get through this issue.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 7, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 8 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 9
General provision connected with payments to farmers and other beneficiaries
Jenny Chapman
I beg to move amendment 77, in clause 9, page 7, line 10, leave out “negative” and insert “affirmative”.
Jenny Chapman
I hope that the Minister can name at least 70 of them, because the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has launched 70 consultations in 2018 so far. They are all on really important things, of course, but I would say that this measure, in clause 9, is as important as some of the things.