Extracts from Agriculture Bill: Public Bill committee - Nov 1

Friday, 2 November 2018 07:31

Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op):...The NFU in particular wants to test that to ensure that farmers are not subjected to additional requirements and are assured that, if and when they partake in the schemes the Minister wants them to partake in, they will have additional protection in terms of the general data principles... The Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (George Eustice):...The inclusion of these powers gives us the ability to switch off the greening provisions....Request free trial

Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op):...The NFU in particular wants to test that to ensure that farmers are not subjected to additional requirements and are assured that, if and when they partake in the schemes the Minister wants them to partake in, they will have additional protection in terms of the general data principles...

The Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (George Eustice):...The inclusion of these powers gives us the ability to switch off the greening provisions. As things stand, 30% of the single farm payment is linked to the greening conditions. One of the National Farmers Union’s concerns is that we have a secret plan to remove the greening conditions and take 30% of the single farm payment at the same time. I reassure the NFU that that will not happen, because the way the wiring of the scheme’s funding works means that if we remove the greening requirements, the payments linked to them automatically go back into what is called the national ceiling—the budget allocation—and are reflected in the remainder of the basic payment scheme payments. This will not affect farmers’ payments, but it will enable us to remove a lot of the unnecessary administration and checking around the greening requirements, which have achieved very little...

...I hope I have been able to reassure the hon. Gentleman about the intention and purpose, and the need for us to be able to do this and to have this power. I hope I can also reassure stakeholders such as the NFU, which is concerned about whether it would have a knock-on impact on its members’ payments. It will not...

...My hon. Friend and my right hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby raised a concern, which the NFU and the Tenant Farmers Association have also raised, about tenants. There are sometimes agreements—somewhat extraordinarily—that require the tenant to pay their BPS payment direct to the landlord as a condition of their tenancy. One concern is this: if somebody were to take either a lump sum payment or a de-linked payment, would it have to go to the landlord? Under subsection 3(c), we will be able to specify who is entitled to the de-linked payment, and we can specify that it would be a tenant. In so far as there are some tenancy agreements that require the BPS payment to go to the landlord, they would not apply in these situations, since the payments would be in lieu of the BPS payment; they would not be the BPS payment. Therefore, we can design the regulations in such a way as to ensure that the payment goes to the intended recipient...