Farming in the Uplands - ARCHIVE: Defra

Ev 44 Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee: Evidence
17 November 2010 James Paice MP, Jeremy Eppel and Dan Osgood
George Eustice: Would I be right in saying that,
realistically, there’s just not much hope of changing
that rule?
Mr Paice: There isn’t much hope of changing it in
the very short term, no. When we get to the 2013
discussions, it’s one of the numerous things in our
portfolio that we will want to pursue. Clearly, it’s—I
hate to use the phrase again—a matter of balance. If
you were to dramatically increase it, clearly you are
running into the WTO problems. If you were to be
sensible about it, then maybe we can finesse it to a
level that is still acceptable within the green box, but
does make it more advantageous to the uplands.
Q204 Chair: You alluded earlier, Minister, to the
adverse weather conditions. Obviously, in the north of
England, my old constituency of the Vale of York
seemed to appear in more news bulletins than any
other constituency in the country. Are you confident
that, in the Commission’s redrafting of Less Favoured
Areas, we will not lose out in terms of weather
conditions being reflected in the EU negotiations?
Mr Paice: I’m not sure I can really respond to that
constructively. I’m never confident of anything that’s
being considered by the EU until it’s been finally
decided and we know what it looks like. I’m confident
in our ability to do our best to ensure it doesn’t, that
Britain is not disadvantaged by it. Are you able to add
anything to this, Jeremy?
Jeremy Eppel: Not really. Certainly it’s an ongoing
discussion that we’re obviously keeping an eye on,
but I don’t think there’s anything I can add at this
moment.
Q205 Chair: Historically I remember that there’s a
small pocket of hill farms that used to benefit from
Objective 5a, and then I think that changed under the
redrafting of the rules. I understand that Luxembourg
is about 98% designated Less Favoured Area, which,
in the definition I referred to earlier, wouldn’t come
under our definition of uplands or Less Favoured
Area. Are you internally looking at how we would
plead the case to the Commission, in terms of your
Department’s negotiations with the Commission in
this regard?
Mr Paice: I think I’d like to, if I may, write to the
Committee when we’ve had a chance to think about
this a bit more. 6 As I understand it, the reason why
the Commission entered into a review of LFAs was
the sort of Luxembourg absurdity that you spoke
about, with a view that it should really apply only to
the really remote upland areas. We would have lost
out, because they were looking much more at the high
Alpine areas than perhaps Dartmoor or some of the
moors that may not be actually very, very high in that
respect, but we know are remote and difficult. If I
may, I’ll write to you.
Q206 Chair: In the CRC’s definitions, they put, in
percentage terms, Halifax, High Peak and Calder
Valley as the three most—94%, 93% and 91%—
uplands constituencies. The lawyer in me feels that, if
we had a definition in this country, it would help our
negotiations within the EU that we knew what we
6 Ev 83
were talking about, either in terms of uplands or Less
Favoured Areas.
Mr Paice: I would be quite worried if we did it all on
the basis of height, because we all know that there are
some areas that we classify as uplands, hill farms,
LFA, which are not that high up.
Chair: I think height, remoteness, rural deprivation—
Mr Paice: That’s the trouble. Once you start moving
away from a single point, and I don’t think height
would be the right one, you are into all sorts of other
qualifiers. It’s a bit like an elephant; it’s difficult to
describe but you know it when you see it. That’s
probably the best way of describing them.
Q207 Chair: Returning for a moment to the issue of
tenanted land and looking at the EU definition, how
do you hope to protect the interests of tenants and
commons in this country, in the context of the CAP
reforms? I’m mindful of the fact we won’t know until
tomorrow what the final version of the CAP reforms
will be. It’s just to come back to that fact that, at the
moment, we seem to be disadvantaging our tenants in
this country in comparison with tenant farmers in
others.
Mr Paice: I have to come back at you: we will not
know the final form of the CAP tomorrow; we’ll know
the first shy by the Commission as to what they think.
I suspect the final result may be extremely different
from that. In terms of looking after the interests of our
commons and our tenants and everybody else, I can
only give the Committee the assurance that both the
Secretary of State and I are totally committed to our
agricultural industry, and to achieving the very best
outcome that fits all parts of it, whether you are a
commoner, a milk producer, a grain farmer or
anything else. We will be looking to achieve the best
outcome for the UK, and I’m afraid that’s the best
assurance I can provide to you. I can’t be more
specific, because we don’t know what the issues are
going to be.
Chair: We stand adjourned, but we’ll reconvene at
16.14.
Sitting suspended for a Division in the House.
On resuming—
Chair: Minister, welcome back. We’re going to turn
to a different issue.
EMBARGOED ADVANCE COPY:
Not to be published in full, or part, in any form before
00.01am GMT Wednesday 16 February 2011
Q208 Tom Blenkinsop: Good afternoon, Minister.
The issue is rural development funding. Vince Cable
said on 28 October, when he announced the LEP
structure, that it would include investment priorities
for transport infrastructure, coordinating project
delivery, coordinating proposals on bidding directly
for the Regional Growth Fund, high-growth business,
new growth hubs, strategic planning applications. He
didn’t actually mention RDPE, but I know you’ve
recently said that the LEPs would be coordinating
RDPE bids. Is that the case?
Mr Paice: No, that’s not the case and I’m not aware
that I’ve said anything to imply it. There are two
aspects to the RDPE. We have the remains of the
current programme, the last three years. This is the
money that’s currently being spent. Axes 1 and 3, and
what some people call Leader Axis 4—I call it part
of Axis 3, but it’s the non-environmental stuff—are