Examination of Witnesses (Questions 160
- 177)
WEDNESDAY 14 JUNE 2000
MR BEN
GILL AND
MR IAN
GARDINER
Mr Todd
160. One of the most frequent users of e-mail
in my constituency is a leading farmer, with whom you are well
familiar.
(Mr Gill) Yes, he e-mails me regularly as well.
161. I expect he does! So I can vouch for the
fact that certainly some farmers are equipped to tackle this task
but there is obviously no data, at the moment, to indicate how
prepared people are. Do you feel that there is sufficient assistance
available to train farmers in the use of IT?
(Mr Gill) No, there is not. We think that is a major
point which we need to look at. We think there is a lot to be
said for looking at a programme, where computers will be available
to all farmers who want to take up the offer, and have the training
package to go with it.
162. Presumably, the current provision of training
support to farmers, either through colleges or through other organisations,
is not targeted to this particular need?
(Mr Gill) I do not think there is sufficient specific
targeting that I have come across. There will be courses but what
we need to look at is what the farmer will want. There is a need
to organise that in a very clear way. One of the problems will
arise that if you put together 20 or 30 farmers in a room, there
would be an enormous range of difference in what they would feel
they could start with.
163. Could one difficulty about spreading the
use of electronic communication to farmers be the resilience of
the network on which such communications should operate? In other
words, the hardware they have to use in their homes depends on
the quality of the telephone line they have to link up to. Is
there a difficulty there?
(Mr Gill) Not that I am aware of. On the basis of
the use of computers at the moment on farms, I have not come across
that problem. If farmers were having to put in ISDN lines that
would be a ridiculous cost.
164. You do not have to do that for the normal
electronic communication.
(Mr Gill) My computers work off a normal phone line
and we have no problems.
165. But obviously in isolated farms one of
the difficulties is often the telephone line.
(Mr Gill) Mobile technology. You can use the mobile
phone. Do it that way.
166. As someone who occasionally gets their
line blown down, I can vouch for the fact that it is not quite
as solid a means of communication in more isolated areas.
(Mr Gill) But we do need to have the residual ability
for anybody who does not want to, to be able to submit their forms
in paper. That should go on, as far as I can see, for the foreseeable
future.
167. Are you suggesting Government funding for
computers for farmers?
(Mr Gill) I think that would be something that we
ought to look at very seriously. It is being looked at very seriously
at the moment. How we can best get this across. There are existing
Government commitments from the Prime Minister, for quite a short
time span, for the whole of the country to become IT literate.
This would be beneficial, not just in connection with submission
of claim forms, but on the broader front of communications to
farmers generally about a variety of fact.
Mr Öpik
168. You called for local consultation on the
local implications of the changes. You criticised the "very
substantial lack of information" available to farmers at
the moment. I can guess the answer to this but I will ask the
question anyway for the record. Has consultation improved or got
worse since regional panels were replaced by ministerial visits?
(Mr Gill) I regretted the termination of the regional
panels. They were a way that local feelings could be communicated
to a ministerial team in a co-ordinated manner that gave a representative
view. This has not helped matters at all. It is to the detriment
of dialogue between the two parties.
169. Is there regional variability in the ways
those views are put forward?
(Mr Gill) The variability depends upon the ministerial
team of the day. The current Minister and his team has spent a
lot of time on farm visits. He has been widely recognised as doing
that.
170. What things are discussed in the regional
fora? What are the main areas?
(Mr Gill) Just about anything that is topical of the
day. It could be as far sighted as where agriculture may be in
20 years' time, down to detailed problems of administration of
IACS forms and bureaucracy.
171. Do you feel that those debates and those
views are genuinely fed back into Whitehall? Is that the perception?
(Mr Gill) It is difficult to tell, in the mix of everything,
what exactly happens. You never know between cause and effect.
172. So could you not point at something and
say, "Thanks to the regional fora, this has changed definitely"?
(Mr Gill) No. At least, I have not come across anything.
173. What changes would you like to see in terms
of the process of the consultation, if you could define it? If
you could design a system what would you do?
(Mr Gill) I think in terms of the local consultation,
I would like to go back to look at the old regional panels system
and try to update that in a considered way. I am not in a position
today to give you detailed evidence of what that might be: but
to have a clear feeling of intimacy between the Minister, who
is responsible for that region, talking to the regional panel,
as and when he visited it, under an independent chairman; who
would then come into London for the Minister's Panel in London.
174. I understand that what you think about
that will probably be personal, but if you do have any more thoughts
on that it might be interesting, Chairman, if Mr Gill were to
send a note to the Committee. I think that would be useful.
(Mr Gill) Thank you. We will do that.
Chairman
175. May I ask you a final question. One of
the recommendations of Pricewaterhouse. To be fair, we found a
broad acceptance of this. Now that farm policy is becoming a more
complex business, and we are getting into rural policy in which
farmers can subscribe to (although may not specifically design)
farming needs, it is important that MAFF's contribution to that
debate should be effective. It will be more effective if those
parts of the structure, which are really talking about the rural
economy and the regional economy, should be more effectively integrated
into the other structures which are there to do that job. In other
words, so that the Government Regional Office—which is,
of course, working alongside the Development Agency, which is
very similar—in a sense, there needs to be a new geometry
to reflect new directions in policy. Would you accept that one
needs to make a distinction between the various functions of MAFF's
presence in the regions and describe them in functional terms;
and that there are some functions from which farmers would benefit
if a MAFF voice and weight in those regional matters were more
substantial than it is at the moment? Previously, they have not
tended to contribute anything.
(Mr Gill) We have expressed concern for some considerable
time at the lack of a cohesive approach between MAFF and other
Government Departments, particularly on such issues as Structural
Funds. As you correctly point out, Chairman, as time evolves with
the Rural Development Regulation coming into play very shortly,
there is going to be a greater focus on attracting money on particular
schemes. At the moment, farmers feel that far too much of that
money goes into consultants' fees, who are drafting up report
after report. We highlighted that point at the Downing Street
Summit of March 30. Indeed, we have given commitments to try and
effect a change so that we can be efficient. What it does show
is the need to have individuals who can go and exchange thinking;
give an outside view off the farm. That does not necessarily need
to be the MAFF Regional Office. Indeed, in many cases it would
not be. The concept of bank bench marking is within the 30 March
summit, as indeed is the ability to have independent farm audits,
free farm audits or not, to give that outside view. That is outwith
MAFF's remit. What needs to be clearly laid out is that the applicant
to any of these funds from the rural development rate does not
feel he is being stretched with differing perspectives from DETR,
DTI and MAFF on the other hand. I think it is this focus, this
welding together with a cohesive approach for the regions, particularly
for the rural areas within the regions, that is very, very poor
at the moment and needs a major effort on the government's part
to bring it all together if the rural development rate is to achieve
even a fraction of what we are hoping for.
Mr Marsden
176. Taking the logic of your argument and bearing
in mind that MAFF is undergoing change because of the Food Standards
Agency being created and so forth, is it not logical that we need
a new Ministry of Rural Development that takes elements of DETR,
DTI and MAFF and starts to take them forward in a far more cohesive
manner than at present, in order to deliver right down to the
ground to farmers exactly what you have just described?
(Mr Gill) If you are suggesting that MAFF should take
over the function of DETR and other government departments—
177. No. I am saying there are elements within,
for instance, DETR, such as the Countryside Agency.
(Mr Gill) There are concerns about farmers—and
very substantial concerns—that they are being told what
to do by people in government departments who understand very
little about country affairs. They seem to have in their feelings
perceptions of hidden agendas. That is a major issue with rural
people, country dwellers. There is very clear argument for better
coordination. If it were brought within one government department,
if MAFF became the department, that would address a lot of those
concerns for rural people. If it went another way, that would
be to the detriment of rural areas.
Chairman: Thank you very much indeed. I have
no doubt we shall see you again before long. Thank you for your
evidence. If there is anything you wish you had said which you
have not, bung it along quite quickly. If there is anything you
have said that you wish you had not, hard luck. If there are any
questions which suddenly come to mind which we wish we had asked,
we will be in touch with you to ask them, but thank you very much
indeed for your attendance.
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