Farm Support

Lord Whitty Excerpts

Thursday 16th November 2017 Grand Committee

[Lord Whitty (Lab)]

My Lords, I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, for initiating this debate. I have five minutes in which to make five points. Contrary to the noble Earl, my first point is: do not rush this. Broadly speaking, the Government have already committed themselves to paying under the present system until 2020, although I think that we should take a little longer going into the transition period. That is because it takes time for farmers to adjust and we can phase it in over a longer period once we know what we are doing.

Secondly, let us remember the inexorable relationship between the nature of our agricultural industry, trade and the pattern of support which is desirable. As has been said, 70% of our trade is with the EU, so we need a new relationship with the Union. If it works, that is fine, but if it does not, we will have a different form of agriculture in this country. If there are barriers between ourselves and the EU, substantial parts of our upland livestock will disappear because the EU is the main market. On the other hand, if we have, as some advocate, a global free trade area with virtually no barriers to the world, we will have very cheap and less-well-regulated imports from Brazil, the US and Australia. Again, significant parts of our agricultural sector would be eliminated and much of our consumer protection would be challenged, to say the least. We could opt for an autarkic “Fortress Britain” structure, which Mr Chris Grayling MP seems to think will lead to quadrupling our agricultural output. It certainly would do wonders for self-sufficiency, but unfortunately it would also increase costs and ensure that consumers have less choice. It would almost certainly drive lower regulatory standards and would probably stop us doing any deals whatever with anyone else in the world. So a support system that is appropriate will depend on the trade system that we have adopted.

Thirdly, we should remember that there were originally multiple objectives in the CAP which we are attempting to replace. The original treaty of Rome effectively saw protection and uprating the productivity of agriculture plus increasing the income of farming communities as its objectives. Added to those over time have been environmental objectives, although quite often they are seen as constraints rather than objectives. I will applaud Michael Gove for trying to ensure that whatever form of agricultural support eventually comes out of all this will in effect be a greener Brexit. We need more detail about the objectives in order to be clear.

The key inputs to agricultural production are the quality of the land, particularly of the soil, as the noble Earl said, and the quality of the labour applied. Unfortunately, the quality of both have rather suffered over the 50 years of the common agricultural policy in one way or another. Yes, productivity has increased through better breeding and more science being applied, but it has also led to the over-application of chemically based fertilisers and pesticides, and of course we have suffered the effects of development and therefore our soil has been degraded over time. It has also polluted our rivers and threatened our biodiversity, some of which the industry itself is dependent on, most obviously the bee population.

We also need to look at the quality of labour. The system needs a modernised, land-based workforce. We need to change from the overdependence of some our agricultural sectors on migrant labour and, at its most extreme, seriously exploited labour in a way that gives the whole of the industry a bad name. We need to eliminate extreme exploitation and control and reduce the dependence on gangmasters. Where imported seasonal labour is still needed, we need a properly regulated replacement for what was once the SAWS system.

I believe that most of our labour could be recruited from the settled population here, but we need to ensure that those workers are better paid and better trained. On the latter, it is unfortunate that agriculture spends less money on training than any other sector in the economy. On the pay and conditions side, since the abolition of the Agricultural Wages Board, wages in agriculture have fallen relative to average wages in the economy, even in a period of low or negative growth in real wages generally.

On the management of land, we need to develop a holistic system of managing land, soil, water, wildlife and forestry. I think that is the way Michael Gove is moving but we need to be clearer about it. This cannot simply apply at the individual holding area level. We need co-operation between landowners and land managers. I see that the CLA is proposing a new land contract, but that has to be mandatory in form and not voluntary, although it may have voluntary elements. It needs also to be less bureaucratic, not more, than the worst features of the CAP.

We need to have clear sight of our objectives and to determine the quantum and not be dominated by the Treasury. We need to allow for a period of engagement, not only of farmers and the rural community but of the whole of the food chain and the rest of us. We have an opportunity, but let us get it right.