House of Commons
Thursday 20 November 2003
The House met at half-past Eleven o'clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. Speaker in the Chair]
Oral Answers to Questions
ENVIRONMENT, FOOD AND RURAL AFFAIRS
The Secretary of State was asked—
Rural Public Bodies
1. Mr. Jim Cunningham (Coventry, South): What estimate she has made of the staff cost of the merger of English Nature, the Countryside Agency and the Rural Development Service as proposed by the rural delivery review; and if she will make a statement. [139828]
The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Margaret Beckett): In my statement on 11 November, I announced my intention to create an integrated agency that would incorporate elements of the work of English Nature, the Countryside Agency and the Rural Development Service where those functions would most enable the agency to reflect its new remit. Plans for setting up the agency, including arrangements for transferring staff, are now being developed. I hope to give more details in the spring.
Mr. Cunningham : I thank my right hon. Friend for her reply, but has she received any extra moneys for the agency, given its new functions?
Margaret Beckett: Sadly, no. As my hon. Friend will appreciate, the functions are not new. We are considering ideas about a different method of organising the way in which we carry out the functions that the Department and its different agencies exercise.
Mr. Ian Liddell-Grainger (Bridgwater): Given the importance of the organisations in an area such as Somerset where we have a national park, areas of outstanding natural beauty and a coastline that is second to none, does the Secretary of State believe that amalgamating them into a bureaucratic machine of such size and complexity will maintain the parts of Britain that matter most? Will not a muddle of interference from Government and bureaucrats ensue?
Margaret Beckett: We are anxious to ensure that we reduce the current bureaucracy and complexity. The House will appreciate that we have an arrangement of agencies and responsibilities that DEFRA inherited
from the Departments from which it was created. It is our goal—I have made it the Department's top priority—to reduce, for example, the complexity of schemes, forms, bureaucracies and inspections to which Lord Haskins rightly drew attention in his report.
Tom Levitt (High Peak): A couple of weeks ago, I visited Cressbrookdale in my constituency with officers from English Nature. It is an isolated valley that is home to a unique combination of flora as well as 250,000 visitors every year. I witnessed English Nature's work on the ground. It has a varied and wide function and I should like—I am sure that my right hon. Friend agrees—all its functions in rural and urban areas to be maintained. May I put in a word for the maintenance of all its functions and for the leadership of English Nature to play a main role in future operations?
Margaret Beckett: I am grateful for my hon. Friend's question, not least because it enables me to put on the record how highly the Department values the work and reputation of English Nature. He is right to urge his case, which falls on willing ears. We want to preserve all that is best and valued that has been built up in English Nature and ascertain how best that expertise and experience can be used to maintain a truly independent voice on behalf of those interests.
Mr. James Clappison (Hertsmere): Does the Secretary of State appreciate that English Nature is widely admired for its high quality and especially for its independent advice not only in the Department but many other quarters? Independence is a good thing, is it not?
Margaret Beckett: It certainly is. We did not accept 100 per cent. of Lord Haskins's recommendations, which included the abolition of the Countryside Agency, because we believed that there was merit in preserving that independent voice on behalf of rural interests. We strongly value the independence of the bodies and wish to maintain it.
Mr. Michael Meacher (Oldham, West and Royton): I am glad to hear my right hon. Friend say that. As she said, it is essential to maintain an independent voice on behalf of wildlife and the natural environment because both remain under intense pressure from road building, ports development, house building and chemical agriculture. Does she also accept that making environmental protection subordinate to farming and rural development is contrary to the Curry commission's recommendations, which the Government accepted, and to DEFRA's advocacy of sustainable agriculture?
Margaret Beckett: Fortunately, there is no intention of doing any such thing. I emphasise to my right hon. Friend that we value the interests and concerns that he mentioned. I hope that he and others who have great experience and expertise will continue to scrutinise and comment and pass on the benefits of their experience as we develop the new agency. I am mindful that although there is great regard for English Nature, when it was set up after its predecessors were abolished there was great public anxiety, which it has managed to come through
to establish a powerful reputation. There is no reason why we cannot build on that expertise, create bodies and a pattern of agencies that work with the Department and preserve the independence and value that exist in the current structures, but without some of the duplication and bureaucracy.
Mrs. Caroline Spelman (Meriden): Tom Burke, a council member of English Nature and a former adviser to the Prime Minister, called Lord Haskins's proposals to subsume English Nature into a single huge rural agency "an act of barbarism" amounting to
- "selling the biodiversity police to the agricultural mafia".
Margaret Beckett: The hon. Lady should look more carefully at what I said when the Haskins report was published. I remind her that we intend to produce a much more detailed response than that preliminary, interim response to the arrival of the document in the public domain. We will do that in the spring.
I am familiar with the comments quoted by the hon. Lady. I had the impression that the Conservatives held the agricultural mafia in high regard, but never mind. Of course, her remarks come from someone who regrets the Department's creation, and clearly prefers the isolationism of a purely environmental role. I do not share that view, but I respect and understand the fears that have been expressed and we shall do all that we can to ensure that they are not realised.
Rural Payments Agency
2. Mr. Gordon Prentice (Pendle): What steps she is taking to reduce the time taken by the Rural Payments Agency to make payments. [139829]
The Minister for Rural Affairs and Local Environmental Quality (Alun Michael): The RPA is undertaking a change programme due to deliver in 2005–06. The programme is the cornerstone of DEFRA's strategy for achieving 95 per cent. electronic service delivery capability for common agricultural policy schemes. It will reduce the average time taken by a claimant to complete a CAP claim. All valid claims submitted electronically will be paid within two weeks of the start of the payment window, or three weeks from receipt where no payment window exists.
Mr. Prentice : It is reassuring to hear about the change programme, and I wish the Minister well, but some claims are taking for ever to process. The Rural Payments Agency compensates food manufacturers for the difference between European Union and world sugar prices. That may be all very well for manufacturers making a million Mars bars a day, but for specialists making assorted biscuits, with a wide product range that is constantly changing, the complexities of the system are truly daunting. Is the
Minister aware of the problem, and would he be willing to meet me along with representatives of the interests that are being crushed by this bureaucracy?
Alun Michael: I shall be happy to meet my hon. Friend. I am aware of the complexities of the programme, but it is worth mentioning that £750 million has been paid to farmers in the last month under livestock and arable schemes, at the opening of the relevant payment windows. We are significantly improving performance in a number of ways. I know that there were some teething problems when the RPA's new integrated system "Oregon Live" went live on 25 October, but I think that that too will help to improve the agency's record.
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield): The Minister has not really answered his hon. Friend's question. He rightly encourages diversity in farming. The biscuit manufacturer mentioned by the hon. Member for Pendle (Mr. Prentice) is typical of those in many small industries: he used to be a farmer, and his biscuits are home-baked. He has a wide range of not only biscuits, but sweets and chocolates. The trouble is that a lot of forms must be filled in, one for each line. That may be easy enough when 10 million Mars bars are involved, as the hon. Gentleman said, but those who make products in small numbers must fill in a different form for each one. How can the Minister aggregate the system to encourage the diversity in farming that both he and Conservative Members want?
Alun Michael: We are enthusiastic about simplifying everything that can be simplified, but we must meet the requirement under European legislation to account for public money going to those producers. We are always happy to look at industry's suggestions on ways in which things can be simplified, but we must meet those requirements.
Mr. Owen Paterson (North Shropshire): IACS—integrated administration and control scheme—forms have to be submitted in April and May, but the RPA's customers sometimes find that there are serious payment problems many months later, after evidence may have been harvested. Can the Minister guarantee that all IACS forms will be validated by late summer so that farmers are not hit by unexpected cash-flow problems later in the year?
Alun Michael: I welcome the hon. Gentleman to his new responsibilities. As he knows, giving a guarantee is always unwise in this business, so I urge him to seek guarantees only when they can realistically be given.
In 2003–04, the Rural Payments Agency has a target to pay 80 per cent. of all valid non-IACS claims within 28 days of the claim becoming processable, and all claims within EU deadlines or, in their absence, 60 days. I appreciate the hon. Gentleman's point about complexities and timing, and we are always willing to look at specific problems that arise as part of the change programme that I referred to earlier. I am happy to look at his specific points but we must achieve the work output within the requirements of the common agricultural policy systems.
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