Select Committee on Agriculture Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witness (Questions 160 - 179)

TUESDAY 23 MAY 2000

RT HON NICHOLAS BROWN, MP

  160. You asked for it. This is the May, Donaldson, Krebs body. What does it constitute and when is it expected to do something?
  (Mr Brown) The lead minister is the Secretary of State for Health. The non ministerial government department which has policy responsibility in this area is the new Food Standards Agency. The professional advice that comes to the Agency, frankly it is up to them to determine but clearly SEAC have an important part to play in this. It is my hope that they will report by the autumn.

  161. As far as farmers are concerned, as inevitably is the case, they will believe it is a further case when the alarm bells should be ringing because the worry will always be that there will be a case for perhaps stronger regulation if risk-based assessment shows that there may be dangers in one way or another. How do we, if you like, make compatible the desire to reduce charging costs of regulation and yet at the same time, given that it is not in your departmental control, persuade others that there is a balance to be struck?
  (Mr Brown) This is a very important point and when the Food Standards Agency was being set up specific provision was made within the founding legislation for the Agency to advise in a proportionate way, in other words that is a statutory obligation on the Agency. I have no power to direct the Agency, indeed it would be absolutely wrong if I did have such a power. The Agency is the Government's independent adviser and the whole purpose of setting it up as an independent agency is to make sure it is the public interest, the interest of the consumers, that the state collectively in its decision making is putting first.

  162. So your answer would be that they have to come up with their own findings independently?
  (Mr Brown) Exactly so.

  163. Then you will have to look at what the repercussions of that are in terms of charges, about whether charges may be increased, passed on or whatever?
  (Mr Brown) If there are public protection burdens, cost burdens, arising out of recommendations of those who have responsibility for protecting the public, there is a further perfectly legitimate debate about who should carry the costs, whether they should be borne by the industry or by the taxpayer.

  164. Or the consumer?
  (Mr Brown) Or possibly the consumer. Because of the range of things that I have done since becoming a Minister, it is clear where my view lies. If it is necessary to regulate in the public interest, then there is clearly a very strong case—not in all circumstances, but clearly a very strong case—for considering whether the public purse should in fact carry the burden.

  Chairman: Mr Todd on competitiveness.

Mr Todd

  165. On the Agricultural Development Scheme, you are putting £1 million into a scheme which will be similar to that?
  (Mr Brown) Yes.

  166. How well has that scheme worked? Has it been over-subscribed?
  (Mr Brown) There are a range of bids. They are assessed by officials within the Department on merit. Also on the earlier schemes there were some very good schemes that had to be excluded because there was not sufficient money. So yes, it is over-subscribed.

  167. By how much? Is £1 million going to make a lot of odds or not?
  (Mr Brown) I do not have the figure, and I have to tell you in any event that that would not be quite the right way of looking at it, because the schemes are of variable quality.

  168. That is a fair point. Taking the statement that the Government will "encourage collaborative marketing through their joint Building Business Advantage initiative", what did that mean?
  (Mr Brown) Exactly what it says.

  169. Yes, but what? How?
  (Mr Brown) In other words, we would use the scheme to encourage the projects. I do not quite see what you mean.

  170. To go back to the concrete example I gave earlier of a group of farmers who wanted to establish a joint enterprise to process and market local food, how would they best approach the use of this?
  (Mr Brown) The measure is targeted at supply chain initiatives, groups working amongst farmers maybe to join a retailers' supply chain club, for example. It is there to help with that sort of initiative.

  171. So it is an encouragement process rather than direct aid and support?
  (Mr Brown) And an advisory one.

  172. One of the key issues in competitiveness is business inputs in farming, costs such as fertilisers, pesticides, chemicals and other kinds of things like that. I regularly get approached by farmers claiming that they can buy far cheaper materials overseas than are available in the British market place. Does that concern you?
  (Mr Brown) It concerns me enormously. The point is regularly made about veterinary interventions, for example, but also in the horticultural sector, in horticultural imports, it is regularly put to me that they are more expensive here than they are in individual countries on the Continent. I would like to see the establishment of common product descriptions and common marketing across the European Union.

  173. How are we going to address that?
  (Mr Brown) There are discussions that take place on these trade issues at official level.

  174. One of the claims is that the British approach to licensing of some of these products is restrictive.
  (Mr Brown) There are also issues about which licences are applied for by the manufacturers. In other words, it is quite a complex question, it is not straightforward.

  175. Turning to the financing of the Action Plan, how does this fit with the Comprehensive Spending Review? All right.
  (Mr Brown) There have been a series of frank exchanges.

  176. Does that imply that you have already got whatever you might have got out of the Comprehensive Spending Review now, and that some have claimed that you have taken it early?
  (Mr Brown) Regrettably, no. I continue to fight my corner as do other Ministers, but the truth is that I am competing in the way that the Agriculture Department competes with other claims on the public purse.

  177. The support for research and development has been a subject which has been raised by the Committee previously. What prospects are there of at least maintaining the R and D budget that the Ministry currently supports?
  (Mr Brown) The departmental bid is under consideration in the spending round. I attach enormous importance to the science base of the Department and to our research and development endeavours and being as protective of it as I can. I will not make a forecast, because these discussions are continuing.

  178. The Committee is currently looking at one aspect of the administration costs of administering this. Is it effective? One of the difficulties is that out of this Action Plan you have got quite a lot more to do, have you not?
  (Mr Brown) Yes, and one of the things I am putting to the Chancellor is that I need the money to do it.

  179. Is it effectively conditional on the delivery of those resources, that you drive through the efficiency changes that, amongst others, are being proposed by the changes to the regional centres?
  (Mr Brown) I am taking a hard look at what is proposed for regional centres. There are a range of issues involved in that, if I can, for a minute, take the Committee through them. Firstly, there is a very good case anyway for examining the future of the Intervention Board, should it continue as a stand-alone agency given the direction in which the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy is going, or should we integrate its work into the paying work that is currently carried out across the MAFF regional offices? That is the first question. There is secondly a question of how we administer the Rural Development Regulation. The Committee will be aware that I set great store by this, I see it as a growing instrument of the Common Agricultural Policy. I am very keen for that to be administered as closely to our partners in these arrangements—meaning the farmers—as it can. Thirdly, there is a question of my Department's involvement with the government offices of the regions. As you know, historically, for perfectly good reasons—I am not making a political point out of this—the focus of the Ministry of Agriculture was wholly rural, because client groups are in rural communities not urban communities, but with the expanded role at regional level for Government in general, should not MAFF be involved in that? I believe we should. Then fourthly there are the considerations that arise out of the two reports—the independent consultants' report and the Red Tape Review Group report—about whether we should move to electronic transfer and revise the way in which we administer the Common Agricultural Policy schemes, in order, at least in part, to achieve efficiency savings and also to enhance the service we provide to farmers. So that is a range of considerations. These are not simple. I think it is right to consider all four issues together, and clearly, even having accepted in principle the Red Tape Review report—which I do accept in principle—there are huge questions about how exactly to go about implementing it. That is not something we are going to rush at, I have to tell you. I would rather get it right than get it early.


 
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