Agricultural Transition Plan

Lord Deben Excerpts

Wednesday 1st February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

There are two reasons for that. First, we have a programme of tailing out the basic payment scheme and replacing it with ELMS. That requires us to manage the public money properly. Secondly, we want this to be an iterative—a wonderful Civil Service word—process that responds to our understanding of real life. We have had our tests, trials and pilots and have learned from them. In the autumn we had a serious tyre-kicking session on this, which drew some criticism. I can understand why; people were very nervous that we were going to do a screeching U-turn, but we have not. Out of that has now come the announcement of six, as opposed to three, new standards—because farmers wanted to know precisely what the noble Lord said.

It takes time to get this right because, as he says, it is about people’s livelihoods and businesses, and they want to be able to plan for the future. I think farmers much prefer that—or will in hindsight, when they look back on this era—to some big bang moment where we stop one scheme on 31 December and go into another on 1 January. By and large, when Governments have tried that across a whole range of different reforms in different departments, it has been a disaster. We have tried to do this over many years, and in time farmers will understand that they have been able to migrate from one system to another. As a farmer, that is certainly what I want; I understand if other farmers have different views. I want a Government who listen to farmers and change accordingly, and that is what we have tried to do.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as laid out in the declaration of interests. How will the Government make farmers confident in this excellent report when they are signing contracts with other countries that will allow people to export into this country and compete with our farmers when they do not have to meet the same high standards we are asking? It is impossible to ask for their confidence unless we stop this activity.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I am grateful to my noble friend for reminding me that I should have drawn noble Lords’ attention to my entry in the register as a farmer. As he knows, and as I have said frequently from this Dispatch Box, it is the Government’s policy that all trade deals should reflect our own high standards in environment and animal welfare, and that remains the policy of the Government.