Select Committee on Agriculture Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witness (Questions 140 - 159)

TUESDAY 23 MAY 2000

RT HON NICHOLAS BROWN, MP

  140. I accept that point. I was not going to complain about it.
  (Mr Brown) Sorry. Pre-emptive strike.

  141. I was going to say given that basically they provide free advice for new ways of farming becoming viable, do you see them as a set of organisations which could be tied into the kind of advice we are talking about?
  (Mr Brown) I am open to receiving representations from anybody who has the best interests of British farmers and British agriculture, British horticulture, at heart. Now, there are environmental groups, the organic farming is an obvious example, who have developed their own method of production stemming from their own philosophy and won a place for that method of agricultural production in the market place.

Mr Todd

  142. Just a couple of quick things. How are you going to market the scheme?
  (Mr Brown) The advice scheme?

  143. Yes?
  (Mr Brown) We intend to inform every farmer.

  144. Direct mail?
  (Mr Brown) Remember we are in contact with them.

  145. Indeed.
  (Mr Brown) If you think about it.

  146. Most of them.
  (Mr Brown) I accept that. Yes, we intend to tell people directly but also through their unions and their representatives and, indeed, we will put articles explaining it in the trade press.

  147. Most business people listen best to advice from other business people who have done it and succeeded.
  (Mr Brown) Yes.

  148. Do you feel that most farmers, therefore, would welcome advice from a farmer who had actually succeeded in doing some of the things that might be commended?
  (Mr Brown) Frankly it depends on the individual cases. Circumstances are going to be different but once the farmer has had the initial advice from somebody who has taken a hard look at the income streams there may be different avenues that they want to explore. There it is very important that they are able to draw on authoritative special advice.

  149. I am meaning more that they should be able to draw on contact with people who have actually achieved something already.
  (Mr Brown) I do not want to be too prescriptive about what I mean by authoritative. Special advice will vary case by case.

  150. To what extent have you already engaged people who have succeeded in diversifying successfully in the input you are making to the SBS? There are a number of farmers in my area who have been very successful in diversifying, I am sure they would be delighted to share their success with other people. Are those the sort of people you are talking about?
  (Mr Brown) Work on all of this is under way now. As I said before, when we have got the details finalised I am quite happy to share it with the Committee. Yes, the sort of thing you are describing is the sort of thing which has a useful part to play.

  151. Turning to bureaucracy, the Red Tape Review Groups which reported at the end of last year, it has been said that of the 98 recommendations 17 have already been implemented, 23 have been raised in Brussels and 23 more will have been completed by the summer recess.
  (Mr Brown) Yes.

  152. Who says?
  (Mr Brown) In as much as it is a matter for us, I say.

  153. Yes. Right. Do the Review Groups continue in being to monitor the effectiveness of their recommendations?
  (Mr Brown) The answer to that is not formally, no, but if you are suggesting that after one of my stocktaking exercises I get the Chairman and the members back in to say how we have proceeded, I think that is a useful suggestion. I am happy to take that up. The direct answer is it was tasked and finished but I think that is a useful suggestion and I am going to pursue it.

  154. Good. One of the problems with asking regulators to deregulate is their perception of having completed the task may not necessarily be shared by those on the receiving end.
  (Mr Brown) I think that is fair comment and I think it is a good suggestion.

  155. Okay. Good. Do I take it, also, that there is now going to be a culture of competitive analysis in regulation in which we look carefully at what other countries are doing to implement the same regulations as we have?
  (Mr Brown) I want what we do to be balanced and proportionate but I am interested in what our partners in the European Union are doing, particularly where the regulatory regime is clearly in common. We have been asking questions about the dairy hygiene service for example, about the meat hygiene service charges, for example, to take two topical and controversial areas. I did ask the attachés in the embassies in other countries to let me know what other Member States did and certainly that advice informs the view that I took.

  156. Is that going to be an ongoing process? You will recall that certainly I raised both of those particular issues in questions outside this Committee. What I am keen to see is that we continue to focus as a regular activity of our embassy that they monitor what other countries are doing in the regulatory burdens that are constantly being reviewed and imposed and changed around Europe.
  (Mr Brown) I think that is right. All Agriculture Ministers are faced with questions from their own farmers about the way in which the European Union legislation is applied domestically and then the way in which it is applied in other countries. Everybody assumes everybody else has a lighter regime than their domestic market which is not always true, frankly.

  157. Yes, although in the two examples you gave, which were Meat Hygiene Service charges and dairy hygiene service, I think our study did show that sadly was true.
  (Mr Brown) It certainly did and that is why I took the lead in trying to get the situation changed here. Remember I got the meat hygiene service charges at the end of what I can describe as a real discussion amongst colleagues frozen for this year and confined to the rate of inflation next year and the case on the dairy inspection charges I have to say, in fairness, was well made by the NFU.

  158. To prevent a repetition of that experience in which we discovered that we were imposing uncompetitive burdens, there should be a clear formal framework for reporting variances with other countries practices?
  (Mr Brown) Of course I was not imposing these burdens, I inherited them when I became the Minister and did my best to get rid of them.

  Chairman: Now, I am conscious that colleagues have got Standing Committees to go to and that includes your Chairman. I think it is about time we finished the introduction and got into the more difficult questions.

Mr Drew

  159. If I can move on to food safety and meat hygiene, we are going to have a conversation on GM at the end. I will pass quickly on from that topic. You set up a review of risk assessment and we are not unique in that in the sense that everywhere we have been every country seems to have its own view of risk assessment.
  (Mr Brown) I did not set it up, I asked for it.


 
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