Examination of witnesses (Questions 300
- 314)
WEDNESDAY 15 DECEMBER 1999
BARONESS YOUNG
OF OLD
SCONE and DR
DEREK LANGSLOW
300. What does it mean, this statement, in pounds
and pence?
(Baroness Young of Old Scone) If you look at the announcement,
it was a very small amount of mainstream agricultural subsidy
but it was a very large—
301. What was the amount?
(Baroness Young of Old Scone) The proposal is that
there is going to be a top slice of 2.5 per cent off mainstream
agricultural subsidy, rising to 4.5 per cent over the next seven
years, and that that sum would go into a range of measures in
the agri-environment and rural development regulations. And one
of the discussions we want to have now is what the priorities
within the spend should be, with, we believe, there needing to
be a range of priorities for that spend across the board but with
a big focus on countryside stewardship, because that is a very
flexible way of offering options to farmers for the environmental
management of their land in ways that are most acceptable to them.
But also there would be money for organic schemes, for farm woodland
schemes and for rural development, market-related rural development
proposals, in agricultural businesses, basically. So it is a range
of options for farmers.
302. So you would not agree then with what Friends
of the Earth said, that the figure for the next 20 years for organic
farming was "peanuts"?
(Baroness Young of Old Scone) I think we take a slightly
different view from Friends of the Earth. We very much support
the growth of organic farming, because clearly there is a market
demand for it and it does have some biodiversity benefits; but
it does not deliver everything that is needed for biodiversity,
we need a range of measures that produce other biodiversity benefits,
other than those delivered by the organic regime. So we would
not want to see the totality of money funnelled into organic agriculture,
we want to see this range of options, through the stewardship
mechanism, being available to farmers, because that is how we
think we can maximise the benefits to biodiversity.
(Dr Langslow) Our estimate of the total figure, based
on the published numbers and what the Treasury will provide in
addition, was about £600 million over the next five to six
years. If most of that goes into Countryside Stewardship, that
will have a marked difference on the Government's delivery of
the UK biodiversity plan, as well as providing funds to those
who look after the countryside, because it will provide, effectively,
a payment for environmental goods, which we believe is the future
direction, rather than paying for production subsidies.
303. What is your vision as to what the CAP
will be, say, over the next 20 years?
(Baroness Young of Old Scone) I think there are a
number of medium-term things we would like to see happen, that
could now happen here within the UK rather than in terms of CAP
reform. The 95 per cent of the agricultural budget still has no
environmental conditions attached to it, and we would like to
see a basic minimum of environmental conditions attached to that
95 per cent.
Chairman
304. Cross-compliance?
(Baroness Young of Old Scone) Cross-compliance; that
would mean all farmers have got to deliver a little bit for the
environment. There are a number of other provisions around, about
which decisions have got to be made in the next few months, as
well, in terms of the less-favoured areas and moving away from
headage payments to area payments, and so that we do not have
the problems of overgrazing in the uplands that we have. But,
in terms of long-term CAP reform, we very much want to see an
increase in the transfer of funds from mainstream subsidies and
compensation payments into agri-environment and rural development
budgets. Now, at the moment, we seem to be in a plan that takes
money by way of top-slicing and puts it into the agri-environment
budget, as indeed the Minister announced, but, if you recall,
when the original discussions in Europe took place about Agenda
2000 the proposal there was a much more radical one, which was
to reduce over time the mainstream agricultural budget and give
a reduction in the total cost of the CAP, as well as moving some
money into agri-environmental and rural development funds.
Chairman: I think we need to move on.
Mr Gray
305. In your evidence, in this context of CAP
reform, you call for a "cross-Departmental strategy"
committee; is that call fulfilled by the establishment of the
Cabinet Sub-Committee?
(Baroness Young of Old Scone) It is early days. We
like the idea, but it remains to be seen how it will develop.
306. Alright; well, if you like the idea, how
about developing it into a Department of Rural Affairs?
(Baroness Young of Old Scone) We are not keen on a
Department of Rural Affairs. I think, a number of issues. One
is, the expectations that a single Department can deliver right
across all the issues that are clearly needing to be fixed in
the countryside, they are not capable of being fixed by a Department
of Rural Affairs, that would be primarily, for example, some of
the functions of MAFF and some of the functions of DETR, there
will be housing, transport, planning, health, rural services,
development issues, that would be completely outside that Department.
We think that the impression given by creating a Department of
Rural Affairs would be that it would be there to solve all the
rural problems; we do not think that is possible. We are also
worried about putting in a combination of MAFF and DETR rural
responsibilities, putting both the regulated and the regulators
in the same Department. One of the problems that has arisen with
food safety, I think, is that both the production and the food
safety elements were both the responsibility of the same Government
Department; if we had that in the countryside, with farming and
agricultural production and the regulators, like English Nature
and the Countryside Agency, all in the same Department, I think
that is an unhealthy situation.
307. Just leaving that second point on one side
for a moment, you might be right about that, although that is
a bigger issue; on the first point, you are right in saying that
health, crime, unemployment, and all those things, would be outside
the Department of Rural Affairs, but then of course they are,
and we have a Department of Urban Affairs within the DETR at the
moment, so why should we not have one Department shouting the
corner for the countryside, in farming, your sorts of issues,
biodiversity, and all that, and other rural issues?
(Baroness Young of Old Scone) I think, the point you
have made about DETR becoming a Department for Urban Affairs encapsulates
that. For us, many of the issues that have got to be solved from
the countryside are related to issues that have got to be solved
in the towns, and, in fact, there is a benefit from having the
planning system spanning both the countryside and the rural areas,
housing policy, transport policy, all of those things have got
to be resolved across the piece. So our proposition to improve
the situation in terms of the countryside, in fact, would be to
reinvigorate MAFF with a set of very clear objectives, based on
the Rural White Paper, and based on economic, social and environmental
objectives, and give a strong leadership role to MAFF in terms
of many of the issues that you have talked about, but not give
the wrong impression by calling it a Department of Rural Affairs.
308. Yes, except that you have totally and utterly
changed what you have said. MAFF, at the moment, has no responsibility
for almost anything in the Rural White Paper, because most of
the Rural White Paper is DETR staff, or Home Office staff, or
elsewhere, and there is a tiny little bit in the Rural White Paper
about farming, but almost nothing. So now what you are saying
is that MAFF should be the lead Department in delivering the Rural
White Paper, is that right?
(Baroness Young of Old Scone) No; no, I am not saying
that. I am saying that MAFF should draw some new economic, social
and environmental objectives, which it does not have clearly enunciated
at the moment, from the Rural White Paper, but so should many
other Departments. If you look at the role of MAFF, it is already
moving, the simple decision that the Minister made about modulation,
about taking money from the mainstream budgets and putting it
into rural development, has already shifted the balance of MAFF's
activity into rural development, more than has ever been the case
before. It is quite a seminal decision, that one.
309. It sounds to me that what you are describing
is the creation of a Department of Rural Affairs but just you
do not like the name, by the sound of it?
(Dr Langslow) No. I think what you are talking about
there, I suggest, is more a Department of Land Use and Management.
And, I think, where we see this difference is, a reinvigorated
MAFF could be about land use and land management and it would
not then be encumbered by the issues of health, and so forth,
which are absolutely vital in the rural areas. In our view, any
credible rural affairs operation would have to accommodate all
those interests to make it a credible focus for rurality, not
just one about land use. The other issue, if I could just add,
is on English Nature itself. We are, of course, not a rural agency,
we are about wildlife and natural features, and, of course, they
occur in the town, in the countryside, in the coastal areas and
in the marine environment. And we have a statutory responsibility
up to the 200-mile limit.
310. Finally, on machinery of Government. RDAs,
broadly speaking, they are going to be helpful, but they did not
consult you when they were drawing up their strategies; what happened?
(Dr Langslow) Yes, they did consult us. I do not think
we had as much impact on them as we would have wished, but I think
that was true of other environmental groups, and I know the Environment
Agency also were disappointed, with that. We certainly feel that
the second drafts of the economic strategies are much better than
the first ones, but are still poor on sustainable development
and poor on the environmental side. And, in our view at least,
the strategies which have gone into Government do not fulfil the
DETR guidance on sustainable development.
311. Because they are primarily urban in their
outlook?
(Dr Langslow) Not so much because they are primarily
urban but because they focus excessively on the economic side,
they do not take due account of the environment, they do not give
enough on their environmental assets, except insofar as there
may be a purely economic benefit from them; and we do not feel
that environment is integrated. It comes back to the point where
we started from, that, on the rural side, we want environment
to be a part of the different aspects, not a separate chapter,
and the same goes with the economic strategies which the RDAs
produce.
Mr Brake
312. Are the sustainability indicators in here
the right ones?
(Dr Langslow) Yes, I think, basically, they are. The
core indicators, I think, are good, and they certainly focus down
interest on a number of key areas, and I think the Government
has done a good job in broadening out the indicators from what
tended to be just environmental ones to ones which try to represent
across the whole board. And certainly it has pointed up, with
the farmland bird indicator, which has been going from most people's
point of view in the wrong direction, just how difficult it is
and that you do need specific strategies to address those. So
I think the indicators are a good set.
313. The Government, I understand, have something
of the order of a thousand targets that they are monitoring across
all Government Departments. How realistic do you think it is for
them to monitor successfully the 150 sustainability development
indicators in here?
(Dr Langslow) Yes, it can be done, but 150 is far
too much for anybody to concentrate on, even something as big
as Government. But I think each individual Department and sector
will focus on those ones and build them up, and, as I said earlier,
it does provide an opportunity to focus and point at areas, very
clearly, where things are not well and the indicators are going
in the wrong direction, so that gives you a chance to re-examine
the policies and activities of Government in those areas, to see
how you could improve performance there.
314. Will you be making any proposals, or suggestions,
to Government as to which indicators you think it should drop,
if it is not going to be able to monitor the 150?
(Dr Langslow) I do not think we have any particular
suggestions for what they should drop. We are concerned to improve
the biodiversity indicators a bit further in the long list, and
to help organise, in fact, from an English perspective, the measurement
of those indicators, where they refer to biodiversity.
Chairman: On that note, can I thank you very
much for your evidence.
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