Examination of Witness (Questions 100
- 119)
TUESDAY 29 FEBRUARY 2000 (Afternoon Sitting)
RT HON
NICHOLAS BROWN
100. I accept that point. Let's just talk for
a moment on Countryside Stewardship and similar schemes. What
kind of projects are you trying to encourage particularly or is
it a general uptake?
(Mr Brown) There is a series of environmental tests
that are set and the purpose of the payment is to compensate the
farmer for the loss of the productive capacity because the land,
the hedgerow, the margin, is being set aside on specific environmental
tests.
101. Have you got any overall targets, for example
the preservation of farm buildings, landscape, historical interests,
enlarged field margins?
(Mr Brown) Wildlife, birds, the existence of particular
species. All of these could be appropriate tests and we are looking
at this now. It is our intention to set targets.
102. It is?
(Mr Brown) To try to find some objective way of measuring
the success of these schemes, that is our intention. You have
just run through a number of methods that you might use and you
can see what the problems are associated with each of them if
you take some species of wildlife that might have some catastrophe
happen to it that was a countervailing factor to our countryside
stewardship. There are not always absolute certainties in all
of this.
103. No. Could you tell us when you may be publishing
information about the targeting aspects of this?
(Mr Brown) Work is going on about all of this now
and it is our hope to have something into the public domain soon.
104. Soon?
(Mr Brown) Soon.
105. Will that form part of some relaunch of
the various agri-environment schemes you have mentioned to try
to, if you like, stoke up more interest to get these 3,000 aspirant
farmers to come along?
(Mr Brown) Honestly, I see the point you are trying
to make but there is no lack of enthusiasm for going into these
schemes.
106. It is not my point, I am merely quoting
the words of your colleague Minister. He seems to think that you
have got to go out and do this recruiting job and you are saying
they are queuing up at the door.
(Mr Brown) They are, and that is presumably because
the recruiting has been so successful so far.
107. There is a difference between recruiting
and queues for different reasons.
(Mr Brown) Yes, but remember although those schemes
that are currently agreed continue to be paid, the old measures
under which we made the payments come to an end and are all consolidated
in the new Rural Development Regulation, so there will be a short
gap with the old schemes being closed to new applicants and the
new schemes coming on stream.
108. This Committee has previously criticised
your Ministry on the question of bureaucracy of the Countryside
Stewardship Scheme. Can you tell us whether all of the extra money
that is going to go into this scheme is actually going to go to
farmers and not be syphoned off?
(Mr Brown) All of the money contained in this graph,
all the sums that I have announced, are spent on the schemes.
Separately we have to find extra resources to administer the expansion
of the schemes. The Countryside Stewardship Scheme is probably
the best example of this. We need more people to administer the
schemes and the wages of all those people are not contained in
the monies that have been announced, that money is to go entirely
to farmers through the different schemes that are under the Regulation.
So you are right, there is a further cost to public administration
not shown in these monies to administer the schemes, that is correct.
109. Are you going to tell us how you are going
to find this extra money to pay this enhanced bill?
(Mr Brown) I am rather hoping that the Chief Secretary
will be able to tell you.
110. So that is an item to be negotiated?
(Mr Brown) All of this is under discussion in Government
now and I can tell the Committee that the discussions are going
very well.
111. What happens if the Chief Secretary says
"well, I am awfully sorry, you are giving away all this extra
money under these other heads, I am not going to increase your
MAFF administration to pay for all of this, you do it out of your
existing funds", how are you going to cope?
(Mr Brown) It could be worse than that. What if he
said that about the new compulsory elements of the Common Agricultural
Policy, the slaughter premium which has to be administered or
the extensification premium on the suckler cows?
112. It sounds like the Minister is casting
some doubt on to the certainty which he exhibited earlier in our
discussions on the funding and there are now some serious potential
question marks about whether you are going to get the money or
not for these and other schemes.
(Mr Brown) You do not seriously think I would trawl
through all of these issues and not have an answer to it? Of course
we intend to administer the schemes, we are legally obliged to.
113. I am just a little bit concerned that you
put us into doubting it. Do you plan any changes to the Countryside
Stewardship Scheme?
(Mr Brown) Can I say I do not want to frighten the
Committee but calm down, it will be all right. It has to take
its place in the spending round.
Chairman
114. You must remember that Mr Jack worked in
the Treasury as a Treasury Minister.
(Mr Brown) Every now and then it seems to show through.
I am confident that there will be a rational settlement and this
will not lead to the Government's policies suddenly not being
implemented and will not lead to us not complying with our legal
obligations under the First Pillar of the Common Agricultural
Policy.
Mr Jack
115. The Committee will breath a sigh of relief.
(Mr Brown) I never suggested that they had any reason
to worry.
116. Are you planning to simplify any of the
arrangements for the Countryside Stewardship Scheme or other environmental
schemes bearing in mind the extra costs you are now going to incur?
(Mr Brown) I am vigilant about all of this. Nobody
wants the administrative burden to be disproportionate. It is
not in anybody's interests, not the farmer's, not the Ministry's,
not the public purse's. Because of the nature of these schemes
it is not the same as administering the scheme under the First
Pillar to the CAP and, frankly, they are labour intensive. I do
not think there is going to be any escape from that fundamental
point but, of course, a countervailing factor is that we do now
have experience of administering the current schemes that we have
under way and we are learning by experience, so hopefully we can
get efficiencies from that. I do not want to conceal from the
Committee the fact that this whole area is labour intensive.
117. Can I just ask one final question because
we have been doing another inquiry, as you know, Minister, into
the Integrated Pollution and Prevention Control measure. There
are obvious concerns there about expenditure in that field to
meet new and demanding requirements as there continue to be in
the livestock sector, which is not covered by that. Are some of
these agri-environment monies going to be available in any way,
shape or form for grants to deal with things like slurry disposal
and other agri-environment threats as opposed to positive schemes?
(Mr Brown) I think the general answer to that is no,
but I would not put it beyond the ingenuity of applicants to devise
something that might at least in part be able to make use of these
measures. The answer in general is no. Incidentally, if I have
got that wrong somebody behind me will correct me but I think
that is the broad thrust of the way the schemes are structured.
Mr Todd
118. Just to clarify, the focus of the questioning
we have had on agri-environment schemes has focused on potential
payment to farmers. As I understand it the schemes are actually
available to landowners who may not be farmers, is that correct?
(Mr Brown) That is true but most of the land is farmed.
The idea is to have the person working the land as a partner in
the arrangements.
119. I suppose it depends what you describe
as "farming". Large amounts of land nowadays are turned
over to paddocks for horses and various other things.
(Mr Brown) It is the land and the devising of the
schemes which are the tests of eligibility.
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