Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Question, That the proposed words be there added , put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 31 (Questions on amendments):
Mr. Deputy Speaker forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to.
That this House notes that political funding reform is essential to the future health of democracy in the UK and that Her Majestys Gracious Speech said that the Government would bring forward proposals on the regulation of party finance and expenditure; regrets that a comprehensive reform package was not achieved by the inter-party talks owing to the unilateral decision of the Conservative Party to walk away from a draft agreement put to the parties by Sir Hayden Phillips, despite the fact that the draft agreement faithfully reflected recommendations in Sir Haydens 15th March 2007 Report, which they had earlier welcomed; and urges all parties to engage constructively in order to achieve lasting reform in the public interest.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Michael Lord): I inform the House that Mr. Speaker has selected the amendment standing in the name of the Prime Minister. I remind the Members that there will be a 10-minute limit on Back-Bench speeches.
Mr. Peter Ainsworth (East Surrey) (Con): I beg to move,
That this House deplores the performance of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; regrets that it has been responsible for huge and avoidable costs to farmers and taxpayers; notes with concern the significant cost overruns in the Departments programme and administration budgets; and believes that planned budget cuts of £270 million will further undermine efforts to deliver policies which tackle climate change, promote the farming industry and enhance the natural environment.
Recent weeks have witnessed a series of events that have raised fundamental questions about the competence of the present Governmentthe handling of the Northern Rock crisis, the loss by Her Majestys Revenue and Customs of the personal details of millions of families, and now allegations of illegal fundraising. All those seem to be stark evidence that Labour has lost the plot. As anyone who has had half an eye open to issues affecting rural areas, farming and the environment will tell you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, one Government Department has for several years jostled with the Home Office for the honour of setting the pace in the incompetence stakes. The fact that others are catching up is no reason to let the present Secretary of State off the hook.
Throughout its relatively short and undistinguished life, the performance of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has been, frankly, abysmal. In fact, the list of DEFRA failures is so extensive that this could end up being a very long speech. However, I am aware that a large number of hon. Members wish to contribute, so I will restrain myself.
DEFRA was cobbled together following the terrible mismanagement of the foot and mouth crisis in 2001. It was rumoured at the time that, as well as the political necessity of culling the old Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, one of the reasons for setting up the new Department was to give the right hon. Member for Derby, South (Margaret Beckett) a job that met her aspirations. Almost immediately, it acquired two alternative nicknamesDeafear and Deathrow, both of which turned out to be strangely appropriate!
Since its early days, beset by a catalogue of failures, the Department has lurched from one crisis to the next. At the heart of our agricultural industry and as custodians of our landscape, farmers should feel that DEFRA is fighting their corner, not letting them down. The Departments initial response to a growing awareness that something was wrong with the Rural Payments Agency was characteristic: it denied that there was a problem at all. I say it was characteristic because this is a Department that lives in a permanent state of denial about its own inadequacies.
Let us take todays amendment by the Prime Minister to our motion. It
commends the Government on its swift and effective action to deal with...disease outbreaks...in 2007,
without, of course, mentioning that the foot and mouth outbreak was started because of faulty drains at a laboratory site licensed by DEFRA. It also omits to mention that the foot and mouth outbreak was declared over before it was. As we shall no doubt hear later in the debate, there were plenty of individual occasions when the Governments response to animal diseases this year was neither swift nor effective.
Mr. Eric Martlew (Carlisle) (Lab): Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Ainsworth: I will, but not very often, as time is short.
Mr. Martlew: I am grateful. The hon. Gentleman refers to animal diseases, so may I take him back to mad cow disease and BSE and ask him how many humans died because of the incompetence of the Conservative Government?
Mr. Ainsworth: You may well decide, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that that has very little to do with DEFRA [Interruption.]
The Governments amendment even congratulates the Government on setting up the Department in the first place. I rather doubt that many who have had to contend with DEFRA over the years will share in the general air of back-slappingcertainly not the one third of farmers who live in poverty; certainly not those affected by movement restrictions and export bans during the recent foot and mouth outbreak; certainly not those who were driven to the brink of financial ruin as a result of DEFRAs bungled implementation of the single farm payment; and certainly not the insurance industry, which this week called for improved national leadership on flood defences.
It would be good to be able to say that the hardship caused by the incompetent handling of farm payments was now behind us, but it is not. Apart from the fact that the whole fiasco could end up with the taxpayer having to foot a bill for hundreds of millions of pounds in European Union fines, nearly £75,000 is still owed to farmers from 2005, and £1.7 million remains outstanding from last year.
It was the mess at the Rural Payments Agency that substantially kick-started the financial problems that have dogged the Department ever since. Last year DEFRA Ministers were forced to cut budgets by over £200 million, and this year we learn that further cuts of around £270 million are needed to balance the books. Of course Conservative Members are always keen to find sustainable ways of reducing unnecessary expenditure, but forced cuts brought about by financial mismanagement are a different matter altogether.
Let us take the impact on Natural England, which is being asked to cut its budget for next year by £12.5 million. Today it published a board paper that sets out the likely consequences and presents options that will impinge on measures to promote biodiversity, wildlife enhancement and nature reserves. The paper states:
We are therefore once again
that once again is quite telling, for this is not an isolated instance
fire fighting to secure a budget in the short term that allows Natural England to operate.
An organisation that is, I believe, less than two years old is already fighting a battle for its survival, and not for the first time.
Then there is the issue of bovine tuberculosis. We are still without an adequate policy to tackle bovine TB, which has so far cost the taxpayer more than £500 million. There is also the seemingly relentless rise in regulation. There is much talk of light-touch regulation, but the cost to business of DEFRA regulations is now put at about £530 million a year.
Mr. Martlew: It is interesting that the hon. Gentleman should raise that point. A significant number of regulatory reform orders with which my Select Committee has dealt in recent years have come from DEFRA. Can the hon. Gentleman explain why the Conservative party does not turn up at the Select Committees meetings?
Mr. Ainsworth: I think that that is a rather pathetic question. The hon. Gentleman might like to tell us whether DEFRA is on target to fulfil its promise, set out in Maximising outcomes, minimising burdens, which commits it to delivering a £158.8 million annual reduction in administrative burdens by 2010. Are the Government on target for that? I wonder. I think not.
This is not how it should be. Farmers should feel that the Government are there to serve them, not the other way round. Basic competence on the part of Government is an essential prerequisite for the important task of rebuilding trust. There should be a positive relationship between the farming industry and DEFRAs policy process.
More broadly, the rural community as a whole has been neglected. Those living in rural areas know only too well the problems that they face with declining services, problems over accommodation and a huge programme of post office closures. Without its own house being in order, it is small wonder that people have lost faith in DEFRAs ability to handle the big issues. It seems caught in a downward spiral, with high staff turnover, hundreds seeking early retirement, and rock-bottom morale. The fact that the Department has a part-time permanent secretary may or may not impinge on its performance; all I can say is that if I were the permanent secretary at DEFRA, I would probably want to be part-time as well.
To add insult to injury, we discovered recently that over the last five years DEFRA had spent more than £1 billion on consultancy fees. That is a staggering sum, and what is there to show for it? Does dependence on outside consultants reflect, in some way, a sense of insecurity within the Department itself?
Next Section | Index | Home Page |