Farming in the Uplands - ARCHIVE: Defra

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Ev 8 Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee: Evidence 27 October 2010 Dr Stuart Burgess and Professor Mark Shucksmith Q25 Chair: Could you provide that written evidence for us to incorporate, please? Stuart Burgess: Certainly, no problem. We can certainly do that. 1 Q26 Dan Rogerson: A couple of issues: I want to follow up on the discussion about broadband and a couple of things just rounding off the discussion about leadership, which you’ve touched on in your reply to Thomas already. First of all on broadband, have you looked into the schemes that are being proposed? Where it isn’t possible to get fibre to places and the schemes will look at satellite and other technologies, I have a concern that, given that those technologies are higher cost in terms of their operation once they’re in, that will be passed on through the ISPs to customers, and therefore building in a disadvantage again for those very rural consumers. Is that something that you have a view on or have looked at, at all? Stuart Burgess: I’ve picked that up, especially travelling down to the South West, with the difficulty there and the different ratio of costings. I absolutely agree with you there. Let’s be honest: there is no easy answer to this, is there? You can argue on one hand and the other hand. I was asked in a meeting, if I had a pot of money, where would I put it? I would put it, if I was in Government and had a pot of money to give away, in broadband, because the knock-on effect is that the rural economy can grow tremendously. This is the spin-off and the knock-on. I can give you evidence around it. To answer your question, I think it’s an incredibly difficult one. Do you have any reflection on this one? I have picked it up and resonate with exactly what you’re saying. Q27 Dan Rogerson: It is a slightly leading question, but it’s leading into where there is to be some sort of public involvement and public money in doing these things, all through various schemes. The cost to the end user, regardless of where you are, in terms of the tariffs, is the same, even if the technology used is slightly different. Would you see a potential problem for people in these areas again being disadvantaged if there’s a high cost? Professor Shucksmith: Indeed, it would be a problem if that’s how it worked, yes. Stuart Burgess: I remember going to a village near Helston, where this particular point was made in a village hall. You’re just echoing what I heard there. Q28 Dan Rogerson: Coming back to the leadership issues, you’ve talked about how perhaps the vision that you had to pursue a national strategy would have been that a Minister would take ownership of it and do that. Other people have come up with other possibilities. The NFU has talked about problems with different circumstances in different areas and, therefore, that a forum approach might be better; some form of national forum that took over the implementation of this. What would your view be on that? Stuart Burgess: We talked about a number of these issues, but we came down to, as Mark has rightly said, 1 Ev 94 our preferred option being a Minister in the Cabinet Office, because we came to believe that would give the upland communities the support and, if you like, the clout for the report to make a difference, but we talked about what the NFU has said as well. Q29 Chair: Can I just interrupt and ask why the Cabinet Office and not Defra? Professor Shucksmith: The argument and our thinking was that we need to have something that will be able to get action in all the other government departments as well as in Defra. So many of these issues are issues for other Departments. Now, it may well be that Defra will be able to influence planning and housing and other spending decisions, and CLG and decisions in BIS and so on. Often, where there are cross-cutting issues of this sort of importance, it’s a Minister in the Cabinet Office, as I understand it. That’s only one model and I’m sure there are people who know more about that than we do. Stuart Burgess: It was the cross-cutting issues that we felt were pretty fundamental to all this, although a Minister in Defra could actually do it. We came to the conclusion that, if we wanted our ideal, we would go for a person in the Cabinet Office, because of the cross-cutting issues. Q30 Thomas Docherty: For clarification on the role of this Minister, to what extent is it a full-time role or do you see it simply as embellishing another bit of the job description Ministers have? How much time do you see the Minister for uplands spending on the issue? Stuart Burgess: I would go for 50% if you pushed me. Professor Shucksmith: I don’t know what the figure would be, but the important thing is that they are able to provide the advocacy and the point of responsibility for the uplands policy being generated, so that people in other Departments do actually work and are led. That’s the important thing. EMBARGOED ADVANCE COPY: Not to be published in full, or part, in any form before 00.01am GMT Wednesday 16 February 2011 Q31 Neil Parish: The Hill Farm Allowance has gone basically, and we’ve moved on to the Uplands Entry Level Stewardship schemes. Are you in a position yet to really tell us what you think the effects are going to be of that? The next question is very much a backup on that. Professor Shucksmith: No, we’re not. That’s why we’ve called in one of our recommendations for a review at the earliest possible stage and, at the latest, by 2012, because it’s clearly very important that it works, and it is a time of transition. Stuart Burgess: It’s a very important question and, indeed, we spent a lot of time talking about this, but, in the end, we realise that this is a time that a review is being sought, and we must go for it and stick with it. Q32 Neil Parish: That leads me on to the next question really and that is that, moving from the Hill Farm Allowance, it looks like the money may go towards the landowner and not necessarily the tenant and the commoners. Of course, the commoners are very important in getting stock out on to the hill. What are your views on that, because that’s so important?
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee: Evidence Ev 9 27 October 2010 Dr Stuart Burgess and Professor Mark Shucksmith Professor Shucksmith: That’s one of our worries and that point needs to be addressed. It’s clearly not going to work if the money goes to the landlord rather than the tenant. I believe you’ll be getting evidence from the Tenant Farmers Association on that very point. We would agree that that needs to be addressed. Q33 Neil Parish: What would be your solution? Professor Shucksmith: I think you’d get a better view from the Tenant Farmers Association on the detail of that. We are just aware of the problem, and whatever the appropriate solution is depends to some extent on the reforms that come through in the Common Agricultural Policy, and the ways in which money is going to be directed in the future. This is one of the areas where we tried to set out principles, rather than the precise mechanisms, I think. Stuart Burgess: I’ve spent a lot of time with tenant farmers, and appreciate that, in many ways, they have particular issues and particular problems, some of which you’ve alluded to really. They put a lot of their hope in CAP reform, and what’s going to happen over the future of CAP, because they realise they are in an incredibly difficult situation, which they are in many places, certainly up in the upland areas. That’s their hope at the moment but, I guess, as Mark has rightly said, you are hearing from them first hand. Q34 Chair: Could I just intervene and ask a general question and then a specific question? On the CAP, I understand that we are unique in having difficulties in the monies percolating down to the tenant farmers. Is that a correct understanding? Stuart Burgess: That’s my understanding. Professor Shucksmith: That’s my understanding. Q35 Chair: We really need to make representations in the reform to make sure that that is impressed upon them? Stuart Burgess: Yes. Q36 Chair: I know you took evidence in Cumbria, and I think you’ll be familiar with the situation in North Yorkshire. There’s a rather alarming development developing among the commoners, between certain landlords and certain of the commoners. It’s causing real concern. I have to say that some Upland Entry Level Stewardship schemes are still not in place, because they’ve not reached an agreement. I know the work of the Tenant Farmers Association and I applaud the work, but who should be intervening to support the tenant? I know in North Yorkshire we have a Court Leet, which is a rather splendid— Stuart Burgess: A splendid title. Chair: A splendid person as well. Who do you believe should be representing the rights of tenants in these negotiations that, in the two areas I’m aware of, are not reaching a conclusion? You can confer among yourselves. Professor Shucksmith: I don’t think we know. We spoke to commoners and we heard a lot of very effective and convincing evidence from commoners and from tenant farmers, and we were very sympathetic to their point of view. The question that you’ve asked as to who should be representing them in this point, I don’t think we have a view on. Chair: I’m happy to represent mine. Stuart Burgess: Sorry about that. Chair: That’s very kind of you. Q37 Neil Parish: This question is very much linked in a way, and that is about stocking rates and local stocking rates. I represent Devon and part of the West Country, where you can argue that the stocking rates perhaps need to be higher because of the mild climate. How do you get a non-bureaucratic system that deals with this? If we don’t get the right stocking rates, you don’t get the land looked after properly from an environmental point of view. You don’t, in the long run, possibly get access to your countryside either. If you go to some parts of Dartmoor and Exmoor, you see it’s so overgrown. What would be your idea there? Professor Shucksmith: This came up at every regional meeting, the issue of stocking rates and the de-stocking of the hills to levels that farmers told us were below the optimal level. They were looking forward confidently to being able to prove the Natural England experts wrong in the future. Now, of course we weren’t going out to look at the hills. We’re not environmental experts. We couldn’t say that one is right or one is wrong. All we can say is that we were continually told, everywhere we went, that expert knowledge was applied in the face of local knowledge, and that this was a cause of resentment. We were also given lots of stories of how this then did lead to “what we told you all along”, sort of thing. Now, it seemed to us that we’re not the people to say the stocking rate should be this or that. What we would advocate is that there should be greater recognition of local knowledge, bringing together and recognising the mutual value of expert knowledge and local knowledge. One of the quotations that stuck in our mind was somebody said, “These people, they come out here fresh out of university”—speaking as somebody who works in the university teaching students—“and they’re extremely educated and knowledgeable about everything, except experience.” This did seem to us to resonate. Our view is that what you need to try to achieve is, first of all, a cultural change on the part of the organisations that make these decisions, so that they admit the value of local knowledge and experience. Secondly, perhaps move towards more participative approaches in general. There were a number of experiments that we had presented to us. For example, farmers in the catchment area around Loweswater— and there were other catchment-area-based approaches—worked together with officials from the relevant Government agencies on what would be a good way of approaching the management of the resources. Stocking rate was one of the elements in that. We would like to see more examples, more trialling of that sort of approach, and more support for that sort of approach. Stuart Burgess: It’s interesting that down in Devon this is a particular issue. Neil Parish: It is, for the commoners as well as the farmers. 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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