Examination of Witnesses (Questions 80
- 99)
TUESDAY 23 OCTOBER 2007
RT HON
HILARY BENN
MP
Q80 Mr Williams: Can you tell us
why Defra are not introducing a welfare scheme for the light lambs
that would normally be exported to southern Europe when the devolved
administrations are introducing that scheme?
Hilary Benn: First, because I
have not, with my responsibility for England, received the same
level of representations in favour of doing that. Secondly, I
think welfare disposal schemes have difficulties involved in them
but I recognise that the position of the devolved administrations
and farmers there is different, and I think it is right that each
of the administrations should respond to the circumstances as
they find them. It is not something, for example, that the NFU
have pressed upon me, but that recognises the different circumstances
in England as opposed to Scotland and Wales.
Q81 Mr Williams: Can you perhaps
then help us with the mystery of the draft of your statement that
you made to the house on 8 October, which Richard Lochhead, Cabinet
Secretary for Rural Affairs in the Scottish Office, says had indicated
that £8 million was going to be provided for the Scottish
Parliament and £6 million for the Assembly to help pay compensation
to farmers in those devolved nations, but which never saw the
light of day on 8 October?
Hilary Benn: Mr Williams, as I
think I have told the House, I am not going to comment, for reasons
the Committee will understand even if it does not like, on discussions
that take place between colleagues, or indeed on options that
Government looks at. Government does that all of the time. The
position is the one that I announced to the House of Commons when
I made that oral statement on the first day back. That is the
Government's view and that includes each of us picking up the
cost of the things that we think it is right to pick up. That
includes the Scottish Executive in relation to their light lamb
scheme and I think they are looking at a further package of support,
judging by what is in the newspapers, and that is certainly true
of the Welsh Assembly Government in relation to their light lamb
scheme and the decisions I have taken about the money that I am
going to expend, and that has come from each of our budgets.
Q82 Patrick Hall: I was fascinated
to read of Defra's contingency fund for exotic animal diseases
because not only does it refer to Bluetongue, which I have never
heard of in my life; it also lists fascinating things like African
swine fever and West Nile virus as possible visitors to these
shores, so we face a very different situation in the future. It
is in the context of the risks and uncertainties and costs and
difficulties associated with all of that that you are raising
the issue of sharing costs and responsibility, which we have already
had some discussion on; you raised it earlier on this afternoon.
Mr Gray described it as the Government abdicating its responsibility.
I will put another point of view. Perhaps what it could be, in
the face of these great challenges, is a greater recognition of
the need for Government and industry to work together. Secretary
of State, you are going to consult industry and also the devolved
administrations. Would you feel able to elaborate a little bit
on what you have said about what the new landscape might look
like in terms of these shared costs, responsibilities and the
development and implementation of policy? What might the new situation
look like over the next couple of years and what do you think
the key differences might be from the current situation that we
have been used to?
Hilary Benn: They are all yet
to be resolved. Of the two key differences one would be that the
authority making decisions about movement restrictions that we
have just been discussing would look different from what it is
now, ie, the holder of this office. The second thing that would
look different is how the cost of handling animal disease is shared
between the taxpayer, Defra and farmers. I think the one issue
that we will have to address is that if you think of the Veterinary
Service and you think of animal health, in relation to some diseases,
including the zoonotic ones, the Government obviously has to have
a capacity, expert advice, people capable of doing things. How
do you maintain that and who then provides and pays for the kind
of very intense activity that we have seen in Surrey and elsewhere
in handling Foot and Mouth? Anyone who has been to the local disease
control centre in Guildford will have seen the very large numbers
of people who have been going out doing the blood testing and
the inspection and so on. I do not know the answer to it yet,
but, question: how should that be paid for? That is what the purpose
of the consultation is about. I really do look forward to sitting
down with the industry to have that conversation. I know it is
a different way of doing things. Mr Gray shakes his head.
Q83 Mr Gray: Simply because what
you are saying is that the industry is going to pay loads of money
for something which it does not want. I would like to be party
to your consultations with them because you are going to get a
thick ear, are you not?
Hilary Benn: I do not know whether
we are going to get a thick ear but the industry—
Q84 Mr Gray: You are. I am not daft.
Hilary Benn: If one looks at any
other area of activity, those who are producing take responsibility
for managing the risks associated with the economic activity they
are engaged in. One can look at bits of the farming industry,
the pig sector, for example, where different arrangements apply,
and there is a very high level of biosecurity. I think if you
were starting again the truth is you would not start with the
system we have got; let us be frank with each other. I do not
think that you would. The question is, when you are talking about
change how do you move from something that people know and may
be comfortable with bits they do not like? I think the deal is
that insofar as the industry says, "You are taking these
decisions about movement restrictions and so on. We would like
to do that", I think that is the gain, Mr Hall, for the industry,
in relation to these changes. Question: if you are taking those
decisions to what extent is it fair and reasonable to say that
you should be covering the cost of taking those decisions? That
is the fundamental argument. I do not think it is unreasonable.
It represents change. I can understand why some people would say,
"I do not fancy the change, including picking up the cost",
but I think it would be a better way of doing things (my view).
The consultation is going to have to show how we try and get from
where we are now to where I think quite a lot of people would
recognise we ought to be in future, but I grant you, Mr Gray,
that that might not be everybody in the farming industry.
Q85 Patrick Hall: Are we talking
about the possibility of setting up another interim bureaucracy,
because if there are costs there, and Mr Drew asked earlier about
whatever money is going should we not be investing in long term
research and that sort of thing, unless the industry is very much
plugged into that mechanism which shares direct responsibility
are there not risks of being criticised for diverting resources
to just another layer of bureaucracy?
Hilary Benn: I can assure the
Committee that I am not interested in another layer of bureaucracy
coming out of this process. Clearly, one issue is what would this
new authority that takes the decisions look like? How would it
be made up? Who would be on it? How would it reach its decisions?
However, I am clear that that would replace the functions that
the holder of this office undertakes under the current arrangements,
and you would have to decide where you drew the line because there
would be decisions, again, if one is talking about zoonotic diseases,
about restriction on animal movements if it had an impact on human
health. Obviously, the Government has got a real and continuing
interest in this, but in relation to diseases where there are
no human health implications you can envisage a different system
operating. I just hope that the industry will embrace, I was going
to say, the opportunity that this provides. Not everybody may
be totally keen on doing so.
Q86 Mr Gray: Er, no.
Hilary Benn: I know, and I understand
that point, but I think it is the right direction in which to
go because one good way of looking at it is to ask the question,
if you were designing it from scratch would you design it this
way, and the answer is you would not.
Mr Gray: Chairman, on this particular
subject, it is huge and it would be a very fundamental change,
and I think we ought to have a separate session on it.
Q87 Chairman: I am sure that that
will occur in the fullness of time when the Secretary of State
is able to make a little more clear to us exactly what he has
in mind. I would be interested to know whether the thought of
burden-sharing goes beyond the direct costs of handling the animal
disease, because one of the lines of questioning that was being
pursued earlier was, if you like, the consequences of movement
restrictions in the uplands. In other words, is there going to
be a collective share of that? I just wonder, and in fact this
is something you might like to come back to us on, how much work
you have undertaken on the economic potential of the livestock
industry under different scenarios of prices received for product
to take on board the financial burden. There might be intuitively
a nice idea of sharing decision-making if prices for the livestock
industry's output are high, but if they are low there may be difficulty
in them bearing the burden on a continuing basis. I presume all
of that is going to be looked at.
Hilary Benn: Indeed, and I was
discussing that very issue just before I came to the Committee
this afternoon with Sir Don Curry, because I do think that that
has got to be part of the conversation that we have because in
the end people will have to look and ask is this workable? It
comes back to the point about practicality. I would be very happy
to discuss that with the Committee further when we have got our
thinking a bit more developed and when we have had the chance
of doing the consultation which we want to get on with.
Chairman: Good. We have got 12 more of
your valuable minutes and I want to move to David Drew who is
going to talk about the Common Agricultural Policy health check.
Q88 Mr Drew: It is a very minor topic!
Is it frustrating for you to come into Defra and then to realise
that you do not have control over food policy inasmuch as the
key agency, the Food Standards Agency, still reports to the Department
of Health and that if you want to have some impact in terms of
some of the issues to do with the chain that food needs to pass
along that must limit your room for manoeuvre?
Hilary Benn: The honest answer
is that that is not something that I have been worrying about
in the last three and a bit months. I have got more than enough
to be getting on with without getting on with anything else. Thank
you for the offer.
Q89 Mr Drew: I will give you something
to worry about then, which is the debate going on about food security
at the moment. The Government has had, I would say, a pretty laissez-faire
approach: "The food is there, wherever it comes from is not
our problem", and yet we have seen with climate change, we
have seen with the impact of flooding, certainly we have seen
with the steady rise in prices, that that does have a wider impact
on the Treasury, if not Defra alone. To what extent do you think
you ought to re-think the laissez-faire approach and be
much more interventionist to make sure that we grow enough of
our own food and the right sort of food?
Hilary Benn: I think it is an
issue we need to think about. It is when you got on to the word
"interventionist" that I began to pause because it depends
what you have got in mind.
Q90 Mr Drew: You know what I have
got in mind but it may not be what the Government has got in mind.
Hilary Benn: With a changing climate
out there a policy which is based on, "We can get the food
from somewhere in addition to the food that we grow ourselves",
we do need to ask ourselves the question is it going to be available
in the same way because, yes, food security we should be concerned
about in the same way that we are concerned about energy security.
I do not know what conclusions you would draw but I am open for
a debate on the subject is the first point I would make.
Q91 Chairman: The first thing I want
to say is that when the current crisis is out of the way will
you undertake to re-read the Treasury/Defra Vision document,
which is now your current starting point on food security and
is somewhat dismissive of the line of argument that you have rather
adventurously now put forward?
Hilary Benn: I thought the purpose
of coming before the Select Committee was to say what you think.
Q92 Chairman: No, we are delighted
because I think you very kindly admitted that there is an issue
to be addressed.
Hilary Benn: It is a horrible
word, but there is a debate and people have written to me and
raised it and so on. It is always wise to check the approach that
you are taking against circumstances that change. I suppose my
second answer in relation to CAP reform is that we did set out
in that document, which I have read but I will happily re-read,
particularly that section—now I have been given homework
by the Committee!—sets out pretty clearly what it is that
we are seeking to achieve but I do not underestimate the difficulties
of doing that because, notwithstanding what we have just spent
the last whatever talking about, I spent the whole of yesterday
at the Agriculture Council, two and a half hours on wine reform,
where reform is definitely needed but it is quite a difficult
process to achieve it.
Q93 Chairman: Did you do anything
about consumption?
Hilary Benn: Did I do anything
about consumption? As a teetotaller I have already made my own
contribution.
Chairman: Oh, well, it was worth a try.
Q94 Mr Drew: Just in terms of the
idea of the health check, one of the dilemmas I have is that in
terms of agriculture we are now such a diverse community is it
not about time that we recognised, considering it still is 50
per cent of the budget, that it is very difficult to have a transnational
agriculture policy? There are so many variations between different
countries that really this is something that we could let go of.
I am not normally one who talks about flexibility but if you wanted
an area where there could be flexibility with a greater degree
of popular support, this is one of them.
Hilary Benn: I do not think that
is where we are at or Europe is at and we want some things out
of the Common Agricultural Policy, as set out in the Vision
statement, not least expenditure on the public goods that we want
out of farming and agri-environment schemes and moving away from
the support of the past. We cannot ignore the history. The Common
Agriculture Policy and free movement in industrial goods were
the two bits of glue, if you can have two bits of glue, that came
together and stuck to the political vision that created the European
Union in the first place, and it has worked very well as a way
of avoiding wars, but that is another issue. It is an evolutionary
change and the health check is a really important opportunity
to build on changes that have been hard fought for, including
By Britain. I pay tribute to my predecessors for the efforts they
have made, in particular my predecessor but one and what happened
in I think 2003. We want to see some very clear changes. We have
set them out in the Vision document and we look forward
with great interest to what Mariann Fischer Boel produces shortly.
Q95 Chairman: You have set them out
in the Vision document but you are now going to be confronted
with the reality of what Commissioner Fischer Boel trots forward,
so that is her vision, not your vision. If we take the Rural Development
Policy, one of the main areas of criticism has been that the current
allocation arrangements of those monies do not favour the United
Kingdom but the challenges in terms of environmental policies,
rural economic development policies and other policies associated
with the regeneration of rural economy still leave us in a situation
where we are short of funds, if you like, from within the European
Union's allocative mechanism and therefore we obviously have to
pursue from the United Kingdom standpoint higher levels of modulation.
Our farmers disagree with that. Mrs Fischer Boel's leaked statement
looks as if she is moving towards us but not all of our way. Do
you think you will be pursuing vigorously and opening up the mechanism
for the allocation of money for rural redevelopment?
Hilary Benn: I will be pursuing
a number of things when I know what her proposals are. I know
that there have been versions of it appearing but it would not
be appropriate for me to comment on those.
Q96 Chairman: I do not expect you
to, but as a point of principle the old mechanism, the existing
mechanism, does not favour the United Kingdom because at one time
the United Kingdom did not want to make claims on it, and if you
are looking at allocations on a historic basis we do not start
off from a very good position, but the world has moved on in terms
of rural regeneration, so, without commenting on a specific, as
a general point do you think Europe as a whole needs to re-examine
the rural redevelopment aspect of the Common Agricultural Policy,
because in this Committee's last report on the CAP we said, "Scrap
the CAP but replace it by a rural policy for Europe", which
was a much more all-embracing view of what should be happening
about rural life, rural economy than simply focusing solely on
farming.
Hilary Benn: I am aware that that
is what the Committee argued for and that is not where the health
check is going to be, but certainly one of the things that we
want to try and get out of this, as we know, is a movement from
Pillar 1 and Pillar 2, but there is a range of things that we
want to make progress on in relation to the health check and,
as is often the case in Europe, in the end countries may not get
all the things they would like to get out of it but I have no
doubt in my mind that this is a really important opportunity for
Europe to build on the reform process. I know that Mariann Fischer
Boel, from my discussions with her, is committed to this, but
you have 27 Member States that you have to deal with, all of which
have very different interests, as yesterday's debate about wine
reform demonstrated very clearly.
Q97 David Lepper: France takes over
the Presidency of the EU, I think, in just under a year's time.
In view of some of the things that President Sarkozy has been
saying recently are you preparing for a new vision of the CAP
to be part of his programme for the six months that will begin
next summer?
Hilary Benn: It is a very interesting
question because we all read what he said with great interest.
I discussed it with my French opposite number yesterday. I think
in truth we are all waiting to see what exactly it means in practice.
I presume at some point that the French Government will set out
exactly what it has in mind and no doubt this will have an impact
on their Presidency, but I do not think we know anything more
in truth than what we read in the speech, the extracts that we
have seen.
Q98 Chairman: Secretary of State,
it is 18.29. There is lots more we could ask you about. We have
been terribly self-restrained, but thank you very much indeed
for answering questions on a very wide range of issues. It has
been a good exchange for your first encounter with the Committee.
I get the impression that you would be happy to come back and
see us on some of the more specific issues, particularly in the
case of the CAP health check, and indeed your proposals on the
livestock industry when those programmes are more clearly defined,
and indeed there are others that my colleagues are adding in as
well. We will look forward to booking you again for another very
interesting exchange.
Hilary Benn: I shall look forward
to it, Chairman. Thank you very much. Can I just make an offer,
if it is all right, which is that in addition to the formal sessions,
if—and it is entirely a matter for you—as the Committee
you would find it helpful to come and have an informal conversation
at any time about things that are going on, I would be delighted
to see you.
Q99 Chairman: I have to say that
the department has always been very courteous in that respect,
for which we are very grateful, and I would just like personally
to close by putting on record my appreciation for the high level
of communication between the Committee and ministers over the
recent animal disease outbreaks. It is very much appreciated.
Thank you very much indeed.
Hilary Benn: I am very lucky to
work with a lot of very good civil servants, so thank you.
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