Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Seventh Report


Summary


In October 2003 we announced that we would undertake an inquiry into the implementation of the reforms to the Common Agricultural Policy agreed in June. Our inquiry focussed on the basis on which the decoupled single farm payment would be made.

On 12 February 2004 the Government announced its decision to adopt a 'dynamic hybrid' model of single farm payment. We do not, in this report, seek to second-guess the Government's decision. Instead our objective is twofold: to publish the evidence we received, in order to inform discussion of the matter, and to raise a number of questions and concerns which flow from the decision taken.

In particular we are concerned about the economic and environmental impacts of adopting the model chosen. Further research about such matters is needed, and the policy may need to be altered if potential and actual distortions are considered sufficiently serious. We are also concerned about the capacity of the Rural Payments Agency to deliver the new Single Payment Scheme.

Our inquiry has brought to the surface a number of questions - which we set out in the report - which must be addressed by Defra as it develops the detail of the implementation of the reforms to the CAP. This, then, is only the first part of our inquiry: we will return



 
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