Farming in the Uplands - ARCHIVE: Defra

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Ev 42 Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee: Evidence 17 November 2010 James Paice MP, Jeremy Eppel and Dan Osgood that. We are looking at all Stewardship schemes—and, indeed, other things—to see how to improve the costeffectiveness for the taxpayer and value for money through introducing an element of output-related funding; in other words, what you’re actually achieving in improving biodiversity, water retention or whatever the objective may be. In doing that, we are expecting Natural England to work much more closely than they have in the past with all the NGOs, the voluntary bodies, such as FWAG, such as the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust, maybe the Wildlife Trust, etc, which we believe have credibility on the ground generally with farmers; they have a huge volunteer force as well as paid advisers. We think, if you like, it is part of the Big Society; it’s involving the whole of the NGO sector much more in achieving outcomes for the taxpayer. Q194 Neil Parish: If I can press you a bit further on that outcome-based approach for delivering agrienvironment schemes, how would this work in practice, especially when it comes to stocking rates? Who are you going to take advice from on the level of stocking rates—the commoners, the environmentalists, who? As you probably know, up on Dartmoor and other places, there is a huge issue on who is right about the stocking levels and what they should be. Mr Paice: The one person who won’t be making that decision is me, because I don’t pretend to have that detailed knowledge. Neil Parish: Very wise, Minister. Mr Paice: It’s back to the earlier question about localism. It has to be a matter of local knowledge. It’s why we need to move away from national prescription, from the idea that the stocking rate for the Durham Moorlands is the same as for Bodmin or wherever. There has to be much more local decisionmaking. What we’re trying to work towards, and we’re not there yet—I’m not going to pretend we are—is the idea that your local NGOs, working with the conservation bodies I’ve talked about, working with the local farmers or commoners, whoever they may be, and of course Natural England—they can’t be removed from the equation—will come to an agreement about the appropriate one for that area. If I may come at it from a slightly different way, it’s a very clear example of where we need to move away from prescription to outcome. A lot of HLS agreements, and I speak as somebody who is actually an owner of or signatory to an HLS agreement, specify grazing dates: “You can’t start grazing land before x and you have to stop by y.” First, those dates should vary depending on what part of the country you’re in. Actually, it’s the wrong approach anyway, because in different years the season’s different. Also, usually in the agreements, it has to maintain a minimum of 4cm of sward length, for example. Actually, that’s the outcome. If that’s the figure, 4cm of sward length, you, the farmer, the grazier, the commoner, should be trusted to put on whatever stock is necessary to have a constant sward length of 4cm, if that’s the figure. That’s what I mean by much more outcome, because that’s what you want. For whatever reason, it has been decided 4cm is the right length, and that’s what you want. You don’t need to go into the whole prescription that you have to have your stock off on 1 November, or whatever it may be. In some years that would be too late; in some, it would be too soon. Q195 Neil Parish: How are you going to stop your overzealous Defra officials and Natural England marching in and telling the farmers and commoners they have to do x, y and z? Mr Paice: Part of the challenge I have given Richard Macdonald is to change this whole culture. Obviously, restrictions on resources are going to influence that as well, but I’m absolutely determined to drive this culture change through, because it’s so pervasive in agriculture and probably other sectors as well. We have to stop treating farmers and graziers as potential criminals, and assume that the vast majority will do the right thing and want to do the right thing. We have to be much tougher on the tiny minority who let the rest down. Q196 Richard Drax: Can I just also ask about the environment lobby? While it should be respected, do you feel it has a very powerful voice, to the point now that farmers, many of them are feeling completely hidebound by all the regulations that you want to get rid of? Mr Paice: That’s very true and it’s why I referred earlier to the need to involve the voluntary sector, because I think generally organisations like FWAG have far greater credibility on the ground with the farming community than state bodies like Natural England. That’s a big step forward. I have to emphasise I’m not advocating that we stop looking after the environment; it is hugely, hugely important. We just have to find the right balance, and we have to find that in a way that involves those who are managing the land in that decision, rather than it being done to them, which is often the impression that’s given at the moment. EMBARGOED ADVANCE COPY: Not to be published in full, or part, in any form before 00.01am GMT Wednesday 16 February 2011 Q197 Chair: You yourself have said, Minister, that the Government needs to do more to monitor whether environmental benefits under a UELS scheme have been delivered. Mr Paice: Any Stewardship, yes. Chair: You mentioned just now voluntary bodies. Which ones—Natural England, FWAG? Mr Paice: Natural England isn’t a voluntary body; it’s a state body. Chair: Which are the others? Mr Paice: I mentioned FWAG, the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust, maybe the RSPB, the British Trust for Ornithology, Buglife. There are many, many voluntary bodies in the conservation field, often with employees—I’m not saying they’re all unpaid, but they’re in the NGO/voluntary sector—who have a lot of particular expertise that may be relevant to a particular site. Q198 Chair: How will you measure the environmental benefit and whether it’s produced value for money? Have you set a baseline?
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee: Evidence Ev 43 17 November 2010 James Paice MP, Jeremy Eppel and Dan Osgood Mr Paice: We can’t set a baseline from here. The baseline would have to be set in the area where the scheme was going to operate, and it would depend entirely on the farmer or farmers agreeing with Natural England, ultimately, but also through the others, what we are trying to achieve. Is the objective of this scheme to improve water retention? Is it to increase the population of a particular bird or a plant? At the end of the programme, have we achieved it? That’s at its simplest. Q199 Neil Parish: The proposals on CAP reform are widely expected to move LFA payments into Pillar 1. If this does go though the final legislation, do you see the need to maintain the Uplands Entry Level Stewardship scheme? Mr Paice: I don’t think I’m in a position, to be honest, to forecast what view we will take of a possible decision in three or four years’ time. We will find out tomorrow, when the Commission publishes its proposals for the CAP, whether they are sticking by this idea of moving LFA payments into Pillar 1. Our view is probably that that’s not the right approach, because Single Farm Payment is complicated enough without adding any more bells and whistles to it. We will obviously consider whatever proposition comes forward. I’m afraid I’m not going to be drawn into speculation about what we may decide in three or four years’ time, based on an unknown result. Q200 Neil Parish: I can understand that, but we want to press you—because we all agree that we need to get more money into the uplands—on whether you see the Uplands Entry Level Stewardship scheme as very much part of keeping that money in the uplands. Mr Paice: It’s certainly part of it, yes. Whether it’s the sole solution I’m not yet certain, but it’s certainly part of it, because it is doing what certainly the Government believes is right, which is targeting payment for public goods—all the things related to managing the uplands, for which there is no direct market. Therefore, the taxpayer, through UELS, is actually funding that market. Q201 Neil Parish: I think it could be argued quite clearly that the CAP reform, especially in England under the Defra proposals for spreading the payments, has actually meant that hill farmers have lost significant payments, because their payments were on cattle and sheep. They’ve lost a lot through payments being spread across the rest of England. I know you can’t cure all those problems in one go, but I think that needs to be looked at. Mr Paice: It certainly does need to be looked at. I’m absolutely convinced that the direct payment will continue post 2013 and, as you know, in England it will be entirely based on area by then. As at the present time, I suspect there will be probably two or three different levels of payment depending on land type, maybe more. These are areas we need to look at. It’s what the Scots have been looking at quite carefully. There may well be scope within that to shift some balance of payments but, again, we’re into the realms of speculation at the moment. Q202 George Eustice: In the evidence we had from the Tenant Farmers Association, they were very clear that what they really wanted was a return to some sort of headage payment, and they stressed that they felt concerns about overgrazing in the past had been overstated—it wasn’t as serious as some said—and that actually we were maybe ducking the issue here, because returning to a headage payment was the single most important thing that would improve the viability of these farms. Do you think that that’s something that we could return to despite the trend away from decoupling? Around about half of member states do still have some payments, under Article 68, which are coupled to production in vulnerable sectors. Is that something that you’d be willing to consider here? Mr Paice: Not in the short term, no. I think it would be a retrograde step, and I’m afraid I don’t entirely go along with the view that the problems of overgrazing have been overrepresented. I think they were quite serious in some areas but, nevertheless, they are largely behind us and it’s historical now. No, we as a Government don’t support a return to any productionlinked subsidy. That’s the direction we should be negotiating through the next few years, for the future of the CAP to do away with Article 68 or whatever might come forward as an alternative option. We want to see an end to the current level of coupling, rather than start turning the clock back. Q203 George Eustice: You talked at quite a bit of length earlier about income forgone payments, and this principle that you can compensate only for income lost or additional costs. I wonder if you could just explain what the barriers are to changing that. Clearly, you want to. Are other member states standing in the way? Also, is it purely an EU issue or is it a WTO issue that is monitored by the EU? Mr Paice: I’m pretty sure it’s purely EU, but I’m going to ask Dan. Dan Osgood: It’s both—it’s EU and backed up by the WTO rules. George Eustice: What would have to happen? If you have a consensus within the European Union, because other countries thought this was reasonable, is that something that can just be changed? Dan Osgood: I would imagine you would have to secure change at the WTO level. If, at EU level, we were to adopt something that other countries felt was not compliant with WTO rules, they would take necessary action. George Eustice: Which member states wouldn’t want this to happen, either of the WTO or the EU? Mr Paice: In the WTO, it’s not so much the member states, but the risk is that America or Australia or any of the other countries in the WTO might challenge Europe if we adopted it. That’s the point. The challenge on WTO would be outside Europe. Neil Parish: It’s trade distortion. Mr Paice: It’s trade distortion, yes. It’s which box the payments or system is put into, the blue, amber or the green box. At the moment, Stewardship is all clearly in the green box. EMBARGOED ADVANCE COPY: Not to be published in full, or part, in any form before 00.01am GMT Wednesday 16 February 2011
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5 Upland communities EMBARGOED ADVA
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