S5M-06186 Agriculture

The Deputy Presiding Officer (Christine Grahame): The next item of business is a debate on motion S5M-06186, in the name of Peter Chapman, on agriculture.

15:53

16:20

Stewart Stevenson (Banffshire and Buchan Coast) (SNP):

I start by declaring a relevant interest. NFU Scotland provides me with its magazine, Scottish Farming Leader, at no cost. The cover price is £3.50. I thank the NFUS for that, which helps me to stay in touch, and I will come back to that. I also declare that I have a registered agricultural holding of less than two hectares from which I derive no income.

The Leader helps us all to stay in touch. A different publication, Farmers Weekly, caught the situation in which farming finds itself in relation to farm payments in its 10 February edition. It said:

“The department’s record of failure when developing systems to support subsidy payments to farmers does not inspire confidence in its ability to cope with the challenges with Brexit that lie ahead ... At the same time taxpayers continue to be hit in the pocket by financial penalties arising from the government’s failure to deliver the scheme properly.”

The penalties to which it refers are of £0.5 billion. The failures that it describes are, of course, the Tory failures in supporting the CAP payments system in England.

That those in England are also in difficulties does not let us in Scotland off the hook—far from it—but it allows us to compare the Tories’ rhetoric here with their record south of the border, which does not much favour my colleagues on the benches to my left. Westminster’s Public Accounts Committee is chaired by a Labour MP, and Tory MP Richard Bacon has been its deputy chairman. He was withering on the Tories’ record; in fact, he has even written a book called “Conundrum” on the nature and causes of overspending, delays and failures in his Government’s schemes and the failures of other Governments.

In contrast, our Government has fessed up and acted on legitimate concerns. A loan scheme has been introduced to protect the cash flows for farmers. In England, there has been no comparable action.

The motion asks us to note Audit Scotland’s June findings. Let us do that. The report says that

“significant changes to leadership ... brought renewed effort to ... respond to the risks.”

Thank you, cabinet secretary. The report continues:

“Online applications for 2017 opened on time on 15 March, and no major system problems were noted over the application period.”

Thank you, cabinet secretary, and thank you to all the hard-working staff at the agriculture and rural economy directorate.

None of that should be news to Mr Chapman or to me. We were both present at a parliamentarians’ meeting with NFUS members that took place at Thainstone mart on 28 April, when we both heard confirmation from active farmers that the application system was working and usable. That does not mean that the whole system is working, but the bit with which farmers interact was working.

We also heard that farm incomes had declined; we know of the serious pressures that there are. I welcome the assurance from the UK Government that funding for CAP will continue into 2020 but, in the light of the withholding of more than £100 million of convergence funding, I am a bit sceptical about the outcome.

Today’s Queen’s speech at Westminster said that the Government hopes to

“maintain the scope of devolved decision-making powers immediately after exit”

and refers to

“discussion and consultation with the devolved administrations on where lasting common frameworks are needed.”

An agriculture bill has been proposed, and I am going to be quite radical. Why not have a joint committee between this Parliament and the Westminster Parliament to look at that bill?

As a computer person, I will make an important point on back-up systems, on which Peter Chapman is entirely wrong. It is only the heritage or legacy systems that are not backed up, not the new CAP system and all the data, which confirms that it will be okay.

I end with July’s edition of Scottish Farming Leader, which I have here. It has 66 pages and not a single word on CAP information technology systems or any of the failures. Farmers have moved on and the Government is moving on with them.

The Tories are out of touch again. Thank you, Presiding Officer.

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