Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witnesses (Questions 712-719)

LORD WHITTY AND LORD BACH

23 OCTOBER 2006

  Q712 Chairman: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to this further evidence session on the EFRA Sub-Committee's inquiry into the Rural Payments Agency. Can I say at the outset there is always the possibility that our proceedings might be disrupted by votes so if you hear any bells, do not worry. You will see us run, and we will get back as quickly as we can. Can I particularly welcome our two witnesses this afternoon, Lord Whitty of Camberwell and Lord Bach of Lutterworth, both former Under-Secretaries in the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. I am most grateful to you, gentlemen, for agreeing to come before the Committee, although you no longer hold ministerial responsibility. I am pleased that you understood the Committee's wish to learn more about the decision-making processes that led up to some of the problems which the Rural Payments Agency had. I think it would be quite helpful for the Committee if we could start, Lord Whitty, with you, to sketch in so that we can understand with absolute accuracy, in the process of introducing the Single Farm Payment and perhaps the departmental change programme which was an integral part of some of the work which the Rural Payments Agency was doing, what specific responsibilities you had. When you have been kind enough to respond to that question, Lord Bach might make certain that we have also understood what his role in this matter was.

  Lord Whitty: I was responsible to the Secretary of State for all matters relating to CAP policy, including the EU negotiations and policy decisions and, with the Secretary of State, took the key decisions, although other Ministers were also involved, on the option that we adopted in relation to moving to an area payment. Obviously, the Secretary of State took some such decisions but I was very much involved in those decisions. As far as oversight of the RPA is concerned, however, although I did briefly in 2001 have direct responsibility for the RPA, at no point during this process was I responsible for the overall programme for the RPA or for the IT programme, which was the responsibility of one of my colleagues.

  Q713  Chairman: Just for the record, who was that?

  Lord Whitty: At the risk of extending your witness list, Mr Alun Michael. Having said that, I do take responsibility for looking at the implications of any decisions on the CAP policy for the RPA itself.

  Q714  Chairman: Just before we move on to Lord Bach, you said that you had been involved in CAP, CAP reform policy. Were you directly involved in the negotiations that led up to the adoption of the Council decision to move to a Single Farm Payment?

  Lord Whitty: I was present at some of those negotiations. There were several such negotiations over the year or 18 months beforehand. I was present at some of them on my own, sometimes with the Secretary of State, but the final negotiations were actually conducted by the Secretary of State herself.

  Q715  Chairman: Did you, when you were dealing with the evolution of that policy, recognising that the Council regulation opened the potential for more than the then existing group of recipients of CAP reform to make claims, get any indication at that stage about the volume of farmers who might be able to claim under the revised arrangements?

  Lord Whitty: At that stage, it would be wrong to say, because the discussion which at a relatively late stage of the negotiations opened up the possibility of area payments then led to us considering that option and then consulting on that option. At a fairly early stage in that process, which was after the political agreement in June 2003, we looked at what the effect of going for an area payment would have been and sought advice from the Department as to how much additional land would be brought in as a result of that.

  Q716  Chairman: Did that advice contain any details, not so much of the hectarage but of the number of holdings that might be involved?

  Lord Whitty: I am clearer on the recollection of the estimated increase in hectarage, which throughout was put at 9%. I will qualify that by saying that was almost entirely based on new applicants and probably did not take full account of people having infill in their existing registered land. On the number of new applicants, the figure of 26,000 was one which was mentioned at the time, which I think related largely to horticulture and potato growers of any size coming into the scheme. So we were thinking there might be 26,000 more than were currently in the pre-existing schemes, though obviously it turned out to be somewhat more than that but not dramatically more.

  Q717  Chairman: Would I be right in saying that that would take the number of holdings, on that analysis, to just over 100,000?

  Lord Whitty: Yes.

  Q718  Chairman: Lord Bach, could you just give us an answer to the same question: what were you responsible for?

  Lord Bach: I was responsible under the Secretary of State for the Common Agricultural Policy and also for the Rural Payments Agency, among numerous other parts of what was a very extensive portfolio.

  Q719  Chairman: When you took over, when you came into your post, was Alun Michael the Minister who handed you the poison chalice of the RPA?

  Lord Bach: If Alun Michael was running the RPA before the election of 2005 and I was running the RPA after the election of 2005, the answer is yes.


 
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