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Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

I am delighted to follow my fellow members of the Select Committee, who are clearly dominating the debate so far. That is understandable, in as much as we have not had many opportunities to debate agriculture in recent times. It is interesting to note that two reports are coming along at the same time. I cannot do justice to both reports, which are detailed and critical, but I hope that the Government will reflect on them carefully. If they do not respond in print, I hope that they will do so in other ways and thereby try to point us in the right direction. I do not want to go over the same ground as my colleagues, so I shall try to keep my remarks brief and slightly different from those previously expressed in our interesting discussion. I hope that there will be plenty of time for reflection on the debate itself and on subsequent developments. I would like to start with the report on the Rural Payments Agency. The words ““disaster””, ““debacle”” or even worse could be applied. I believe that the fundamental mistake was trying to bolt together the dynamic hybrid. Discussing the scheme with my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Leicestershire (David Taylor), I described it as a camel sent into the desert with no sign of an oasis. It was a difficult concept and, notwithstanding all that has been said by those on the official side, no one has yet identified its genesis to my satisfaction. There was no consultation on it and certainly no consensus behind it, and not surprisingly it bombed. It is of course possible that in due course it will be seen to possess some logic, and that other nations will follow us. In fact the Germans did adopt a similar route, but as was pointed out by the Chairman of the Committee, the right hon. Member for Fylde (Mr. Jack), they were better able to deal with the practicalities than we were, and we failed to learn from their example. It was a mistake to move to an area-based payment system while also trying, for a number of years, to retain an historic system. It was inevitable that that would raise questions about what could be described as the wedding-cake principle. If more people demanded slices from the wedding cake, the slices were bound to be thinner, and some would not be given even a crumb of comfort. That returns me to the fundamental criticism that I have advanced throughout our debates in the Chamber and the Select Committee. I believe that it should have been established at the outset which people were farmers and would be entitled to participate in the single payment scheme. That was never clearly spelled out, and the Government appeared somewhat taken aback when 50 per cent. more people than they had accounted for claimed entitlement. Five per cent., 10 per cent. or even 20 per cent. would have been understandable. I still begrudge, and will continue to begrudge, the money that should be going to farmers and is going to others who are not farmers, do not need it, but are able to draw it because of the crackpot way in which we introduced the system. That has made the position even more complex and has prevented genuine farmers from receiving money, which is unacceptable. I hope that the Government will consider a de minimis, because the very small sums that have been received have snarled up the system. I will not say much about the management of the agency and the IT systems, because Members on both sides of the House have already made plain that both were deficient. However, as the right hon. Member for Fylde pointed out, it would have been helpful if the Government had listened to the points that we made during the run-up to the agency’s establishment. They were not criticisms at that stage—they were useful points—but they were ignored, and the Government paid the price. Many of us spent a great deal of time trying to bring about a sensible, positive understanding of what was happening, but Ministers pushed our suggestions aside and pooh-poohed our competence to make them.