Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Written Evidence


Memorandum submitted by the Milk Development Council (Appendix 21)

  1.  The Milk Development Council (MDC) wishes to offer the following written evidence to the Environmental, Food and Rural Affairs Committee for its discussions regarding the draft Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill.

THE REVIEW OF LEVY BODIES

  2.  The Milk Development Council (MDC) welcomes the review of Agricultural and Horticultural Levy Boards recently announced by DEFRA in response to the recommendations of the Haskins Report. We believe that the review will ensure that the support provided to industry sectors by levy bodies will match the on-going and future requirements of those sectors. Such a review is entirely appropriate during and following a period of intense change. We believe also that the review should go some way to clarifying DEFRA's role and functions as industry `sponsor' of the food producing industries.

  3.  Because of the progress that the MDC has made in recent years in delivering genuine benefits to dairy farmers, we look forward to the opportunity to extend and share our insights and the skills. For this reason the MDC is confident as the outcome of its Quinquennial Review in 2003 showed that dairy farmers and the wider industry sector value the work of the Council and that this work will need to continue post the review being carried out during 2005.

THE DRAFT BILL

  4.  The Bill provides ministers with widespread powers for the enactment of any changes recommended by the review of levy bodies. While a designated body, listed under Schedule 5 of the Bill, may have accountability to ministers and to parliament, in the case of levy bodies there is also accountability to its levy payers and industry stakeholders who currently fund the activities undertaken by these bodies. We would suggest that there needs to be more clarity concerning the terms of any agreements between ministers and designated bodies and how such agreements would be reached including the level of consultation required with funders.

  5.  Where, as in the case of MDC, the sponsored industry does not segregate activities according to the borders between devolved administrations, we are concerned that there remains flexibility within the drafting of the bill to reach a practical approach for supplying the functions required across borders which does not require duplication of effort by the commercial, and other, organisations involved.

  6.  We believe that, in order to maintain the confidence of stake holders the Bill should ensure transparency between the sources of funding, both government and non government, and the function being provided by bodies. In the case of industry funding there should be clarity between source of funds and the interests of primary producers and other sections of the supply chain in application of those funds.

Milk Development Council

February 2005





 
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