Thoughts on the #AgricultureBill, and 5 key areas for MPs to focus on in today's Second Reading debate...
#1 – it needs to be much more clearly an “Agriculture” Bill. Michael Gove has said the Bill will introduce changes that will transform the agriculture sector. We hope so - for the better!
However, at present the provisions in the Bill are very broad, and financial assistance can be provided for all sorts of things unrelated to agriculture. That's not to say they may be commendable and desirable aims, but they are diversions from the task in hand
If the government is to realise its vision of using the Bill to transform UK agriculture, then its provisions – whether around public goods, productivity or volatilty - must be focused on farming, farmland and farm businesses. Otherwise it will be an opportunity missed
#2 - the Bill is very thin on food production. Food security should be a strategic priority for the government. For the first time in over 40 years our Secretary of State will be directly responsible for ensuring the British people have a safe and affordable supply of food
A sufficient proportion of domestically produced, high quality food is central to this. But the Bill doesn’t allow ministers to support our farmers if our food security is under threat, or if our self-sufficiency continues to fall.
So food security must be included as a “public good”, and therefore a purpose for which minsters can provide financial assistance if necessary.
#3 – the budget. While we have some welcome guarantees around the farm budget in the short/medium term, there is nothing beyond 2022. Farming is a long-term game. E.g. crops currently in the ground won’t be harvested until after Brexit, and many won’t be marketed until 2020.
Farmers/ growers need budgetary certainty to help plan and invest in their businesses – so they can provide both the food and the public goods expected of them.
So the Bill must include a mechanism to establish a multi-annual budget for payments made under the Bill, which avoids the vagaries of annual spending reviews or changes in government.
#4 – maintaining high standards of production. This means both our own and those used to produce food we import. It would be pointless for government to set out its ambition to transform UK agriculture, if at the same time farmers are undermined by cheaper, lower-standard imports
The government must clearly set out how it intends to stick to its word – that is to ensure that food imported into the UK is produced to the same high standards of food safety, animal welfare and environmental protection as is required of our own farmers. This is non-negotiable!
#5 – supporting stability and managing volatility. If farmers are to step up to the challenge of “transforming the agricultural sector”, they need to be running profitable enterprises. But farming is marked by volatility (both in markets and externally – e.g. weather).
The Bill must ensure that farmers can be supported through difficult times – and that includes the forthcoming agricultural transition where direct payments are phased out. If this process proves damaging, it must be paused and even reversed.
And more generally the Bill must provide clear powers to ministers to provide financial assistance if market conditions are damaging our capacity to produce food on these shores (see food security point above). At the moment the Bill needs significant strengthening on this front.
Further to these 5, there are a number of other, more technical, bits of the Bill we think can be improved. And many of the challenges ahead fall outside the Bill – depending on how ministers use the powers provided, rather than the powers themselves.
And this last point is important - the Bill itself is only part of the challenge. We will have an ongoing task, working with policymakers and stakeholders from the food and farming industry to environmental and civil society organisations...
... a task for months and years to come; to build an agricultural policy that results in profitable farm businesses, delivering safe and affordable food to the public – here and abroad – and produced in a sustainable way alongside the public goods that currently go unrewarded.
Postscript: it’s worth noting that opposition parties have tabled reasoned amendments today, which would stop the Bill in its tracks. We’re not supporting them at Second Reading, as we think there’s good in the Bill that can be retained, and other bits that need improvements
...nevertheless, many of the points made in those amendments are very strong, and chime with much of what I’ve said above. I look forward to hearing the government’s response to them… /end
