| Summary
The objectives of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) have remained unchanged for the last 50 years and are now an anachronism. For all its revolutionary rhetoric, the UK Government's "Vision for the Common Agricultural Policy" was ultimately a disappointing lost opportunity as it merely described an evolution of the existing policy, primarily motivated by budget savings, rather than presenting a truly revolutionary vision. The Government's own policies have also moved on, with an increased emphasis on addressing climate change and environmental protection. The Government should grasp the fresh opportunity presented by the CAP 'health checks' and make it the time for the UK to direct the debate towards scrapping the existing CAP and replacing it with a 'Rural Policy for the European Union'. If the UK decides that CAP reform is a prize worth having, it may have to accept in return an erosion of the British budget rebate.
The Government must take a lead by deciding what a policy for a rural Europe should be, taking account of all relevant factors. Some of the key issues the UK Government must address in devising and pursuing such an approach for the EU are listed in this Report. We believe that the Government should publish, as soon as possible, a Vision 'mark 2' to address the deficiencies in the original document and to redirect the debate towards a truly visionary replacement for the existing, outdated policy. Given the advantages of providing farmers with advance warning of future agricultural policy changes, we see no reason why decisions could not be made in 2008, during the process of the CAP 'health checks', and then implemented in 2014, on the basis of a financial agreement reached in the budget review.
The Government showed a naivety in believing that its Vision document could be its catalyst to a reform agenda when it was introduced so near to the end of its Presidency and without any programme in place to gain support for the British position. For British ideas to succeed, it is important that the UK adopts a more sophisticated approach to its agenda than when it launched its Vision document on an unsuspecting audience and without prior effort to prepare other farm ministers for its arrival. This approach was counterproductive and caused a negative reaction. The UK will need allies if the British reform agenda is to be secured in the future.
The future credibility of the Vision document depends on the Government now committing itself to providing a full and detailed evaluation of the impact of these proposals on biodiversity, the environment, the markets for agricultural goods and individual farm enterprises. We call upon the Government to publish this by the middle of 2008. The Government must also provide an analysis outlining the effects on UK and EU agriculture of the elimination of Pillar 1. Without this, its assertions as to the value of removing Pillar 1 support will have little credibility amongst our EU partners.
The only long-term justification for future expenditure of taxpayers' money in the agricultural sector is the provision of public benefits. Payments should represent the most efficient means by which society can purchase the public 'goods'—environmental, rural, social—it wishes to enjoy. For these payments to remain publicly acceptable, it is essential that they relate directly to the public goods provided and that, in turn, these public goods are measurable and capable of evaluation.
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