Examination of Witnesses(Questions 457-459)
MR MICHAEL
PASKE, DR
ANDREW CLARK
AND MR
MICHAEL PAYNE
WEDNESDAY 4 DECEMBER 2002
Chairman
457. Good morning. For the record, we have from
the NFU Mr Michael Paske, the Vice President, Mr Andrew Clark,
the Chief Rural Development and Countryside Adviser, and Mr Michael
Payne is the Environmental Consultant to the NFU. What do you
think this Directive is actually going to require of farmers?
Would you start by taking three typical sorts of farms, lowland
and upland, arable and a mixed farm or an urban-fringe farm and
say what you think the farmer is going to have to do once he has
digested this? What is it actually going to mean in practical
terms?
(Mr Paske) Well, Chairman, speaking on
behalf of most farmers, I think they will be absolutely petrified
when they start to read the details of the European Water Framework
Directive because, quite honestly, it is such a massive tome that
they will have to wade through and I do not think that they have
fully grasped the implications of what is actually going to be
affecting them. Certainly our experience thus far is that we are
very heavily involved in all the discussions and I would say negotiations
already in trying to get clarity because the one thing which is
frightening us all at the present moment is the potential cost
of the implementation of these regulations. I can happily let
my colleagues go through the actual question you asked me in terms
of each kind of farm.
458. Well, let me rephrase the question. The
President of the NFU says, "We've got our AGM coming up in
February. I have got to be able to say a few words on this and
I would like you to give me three or four bullet points about
what this means which I can distribute to farmers attending that,
so at least they have got some inkling of what it is all about",
so what would you put as your bullet points?
(Mr Paske) Well, the first thing I would put as a
bullet point is this whole question of cost. We are still not
in the situation where we know the true cost of the implementation
of this Directive, so that is the first thing that I would be
saying to farmers, that there is going to be a cost. The other
thing that I think the NFU President will be saying is that he
will be supportive of the broad aims of the EU Water Framework
Directive in that it would provide, as we all want to see, clean
UK water in that sense, so that would be another thing. The other
thing that I think he would also be concerned about are the actual
standards which are going to be set, to make sure that they are
practical standards. I would like to ask my colleague, Dr Clark,
if he could, just to answer that part of the question.
(Dr Clark) I think if I was going to be writing the
briefing for the President, the first thing I would be saying
is that we are not clear yet what good ecological status is, we
are not clear which waters are going to apply to that and we do
not know what the standard is, so there is a big question mark
there. It is, therefore, very difficult to be able to say to farmers
with any accuracy, and this is what they need to know as soon
as possible, how it would apply to the upland farm, the arable
farm and the mixed farm. We do not know how it is going to be
achieved, whether it will be regulation or good practice, whether
we are going to be made to pay for it or whether somebody else
will pay for it. However, what is clear is that there is going
to have to be some sort of a step change in agricultural practice.
That is the inkling we have got so far and certainly that is what
we are being told by civil servants in DEFRA and the sort of indication
we are getting from the European Commission officials in the discussions
we are having there. The step changes, the two we are going to
be looking at are soil management, the impact on water, and pesticide
management and stewardship, so for farmers which are impacting
on and using those types of resources around their farm, they
are going to have to look very carefully at how that is managed.
The third point I would say to the President would be the question
in all of this who sets the agenda, who is actually establishing
the parameters under each of these issues, and the concern we
have, and we would have to express this, is the issue about transparency.
It is not clear yet who is setting that agenda. We tried to get
involved ourselves, as NFU staff and members, but I think it is
probably something you have picked up from a number of different
people giving evidence to you, that we are not clear about those
obligations and how they are being set. This is not just a technical
issue, but it is a political issue.
459. The Government has now designated the areas
where it is going to do a trial for the so-called entry-level
scheme under the present proposals and the trial is going to last
for two years. Quite what you learn in two years, I am not very
clear. Have you had any discussions with DEFRA about how the roll-out
of these programmes and the environmental schemes which flow from
modulation might be bent or engineered to deliver some of the
objectives of the Water Framework Directive? Are you conscious
that DEFRA is thinking along these lines?
(Mr Paske) Yes, we have.
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