Examination of Witnesses (Questions 213-219)
LORD WHITTY
AND MR
DAVID HUNTER
11 FEBRUARY 2004
Q213 Chairman: Lord Whitty, the chair
beckons! This is a bit like Mastermind; answering questions
on the new CAP, Lord Whitty, ably assisted by the Director of
European Union and International Policy from the Environment,
Food and Rural Affairs Department, David Hunter. The witnesses
may confer in coming forward with their answers! Can I welcome
you both to this area. Lord Whitty, as you can gather, we have
been trying very hard to understand the complexity of this in
a fairly forensic way in going through our evidence and we could
proceed in the same direction with you, but, on the other hand,
if you were minded to assist the Committee we could, I suspect,
focus our attention on the central issue if you are able to answer
a very simple question at the outset. As far as England is concerned—bearing
in mind that Northern Ireland and in fact Wales have now announced
how they are going to introduce the new Single Farm Payment—have
you and the Secretary of State come to a conclusion on this matter?
Lord Whitty: Well, we—
Q214 Chairman: Could it be a yes or no?
Lord Whitty: We have come very
close to a conclusion.
Q215 Chairman: If we were looking on
a percentage scale up to 100%, how close have you come because,
as I understand it, you have had a meeting with your stakeholder
group on this and so I suspect you have probably given a fairly
good indication, going perhaps beyond your Oxford Farming Conference
speech which certainly whet everybody's appetite as to what your
thinking was. Where on the scale of 0 to 100 is "close"?
Lord Whitty: It is more than 50%
and we do intend to make an announcement very shortly. The final
detail of that announcement, however, is yet to be determined.
We hope it will be determined very shortly.
Q216 Chairman: Why is it that you are
effectively coming towards the end of the announcement chain and
why has it been possible, as I learnt on Farming Today,
for the Northern Ireland Agriculture Department to carry out an
analysis of 30 different models before coming to their intriguing
and complex hybrid model? If they can do that, and they are much
smaller and not as well-resourced as your gigantic department,
why have they been able to make this announcement? You are telling
us it is only over 50%. If it is only 50% then you have a long
way to go in a short time.
Lord Whitty: Over 50% covers everything
from 50 to 99.9 of course.
Q217 Chairman: I suspect you are nearer
the 99.9.
Lord Whitty: You can draw that
inference, Mr Chairman. But—
Q218 Chairman: So why are you behind
the game?
Lord Whitty: We are not behind
the game, we are in the same timescale as our other colleagues
and ahead of most other European Member States. I suspect we will
have made an announcement before most other Member States have
given the details of how they intend to implement this. It has
taken a lot of time, a substantial period of consultation, looking
at various different models and discussions with the stakeholders
and I do not regret that time and, strictly speaking of course,
under European law we have until August 1 to make up our minds,
not that we intend to take that amount of time I can assure you.
Q219 Chairman: Can you answer this simple
question: when are you going to make this announcement?
Lord Whitty: Very shortly, Mr
Chairman.
Chairman: "Very shortly" is
not good enough because "very shortly" in ministerial
terms has that wonderful characteristic of elasticity. Are you
going to make the announcement within the next 24 hours?
Mr Wiggin: The next 10 minutes?
Chairman: We could invite you to do it
now. I am trying to be helpful to you.
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