Leaving the EU: the Rural Economy

Mike Weir Excerpts

Tuesday 17th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Calum Kerr]

The right hon. Gentleman, who is highly respected, usually makes excellent contributions, but I am afraid that that was a poor one. There are many ways in which we would be delighted to improve agricultural policy, so long as his Government do not make a power grab as powers are returned from Brussels.

[Mike Weir (Angus) (SNP)]

Does my hon. Friend also agree that something like 70% of farmers’ incomes comes through the common agricultural policy, which is not subject to the Barnett formula, but it may be if it all comes back to the UK, which would lead to a significant reduction in funds available to rural Scotland?

[Calum Kerr]

I thank my hon. Friend for that excellent contribution, which brings me on to one of the first areas that I want to look at. Nowhere is the policy vacuum more apparent than on the issue of farm payments. Whatever its flaws—

--- Later in debate ---

[Calum Kerr]

My hon. Friend’s point is well made.

Agriculture is already a devolved area. As powers are repatriated from Brussels, it is essential that they go directly to the Scottish Government. Any power grab from a Westminster Government would be totally unacceptable. We absolutely understand the need for levels of commonality, but that is not a justification for a power grab by Westminster.

We need a commitment from this Government that the existing allocation of funds will not be tampered with. The starting point for funds to be delivered to Scotland is once the convergence uplift is added to the 16.5%. Throughout last year’s referendum campaign, the Secretary of State and her farming Minister, the hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice), who is, I understand, in Scotland, argued for Brexit and it is now incumbent on them to take responsibility for the commitments made during that campaign. Last March, the farming Minister said:

“The UK government will continue to give farmers and the environment as much support—or perhaps even more—as they get now”.

Yet this commitment appears already to have been abandoned.

Earlier this month, the Secretary of State, the farming Minister and I were all at the Oxford conference, and both the Secretary of State and the farming Minister refused to confirm that funding would at least match current levels beyond 2020. Will the Secretary of State take the opportunity today to make a clear commitment that, as the farming Minister promised, Brexit will not result in a reduction in the level of funding available for farmers? Or is this another Brexit broken promise?

We acknowledge that the CAP is far from perfect and we recognise that we now have an opportunity to design a new and better system, but we also recognise that there must be a route to sustainable farming without direct income support because there must be an evolution that takes great care over the fragility of the rural economy. It is also important to note that the CAP is about much more than farming. In Scotland, EU funding has helped to support the roll-out of superfast broadband, business development, housing investment and measures to address rural fuel poverty, in addition to improvements in infrastructure and transport through pillar two regional development funds. We need the Government to explain whether they will match the funding for such programmes and, if they will, the more detail we can have from the Secretary of State, the better.

Another area in which the rural economy has benefited massively from EU membership is freedom of movement. For significant portions of the Scottish rural economy, access to a seasonal workforce is a vital factor in keeping their operations sustainable. At any one time, between 5,000 and 15,000 non-UK EU workers are employed in Scottish agriculture alone. We support continued freedom of movement because it is a system that works not just for farming and food production but for a range of sectors in rural Scotland, especially in fragile and often ageing populations.

[Mike Weir]

I represent Angus, which, along with the constituencies of my hon. Friends who represent Perthshire, has the highest number of economic migrants into Scotland, because they work in the horticultural industry. Many industries could not survive without that labour. Members talk about the unemployed taking the jobs, but there are more migrant workers working in that industry than there are unemployed people in our areas, even if all those unemployed people could take up the jobs. We need these people and the Government must take that into account. At the recent Oxford conference, the Secretary of State hinted that there might be some relaxation in that regard and I would be grateful if she gave more detail when she speaks.