Broad welcome for cross-party proposals on EU subsidy reform

Keep it simple and ensure that UK farmers do what they do best is the key message from the House of Commons environment, food and rural affairs committee report published today on the reform of the EU Common Agricultural Policy.

Recognising the high standards of British farming and letting farmers produce food competitively were given as priorities in the report. That quickly earned the support of both the Scottish and English National Farmers Unions, with Scottish vice-president Allan Bowie saying the report echoed the priorities of NFUS, and English NFU president Peter Kendall describing the findings as an accurate assessment of the shortfalls within the European Commission's plans for reform.

Kendall said: "Its recommendations are to be welcomed and I hope taken on board by the government when it negotiates on behalf of the UK in Brussels.

"We see a real risk that our government will marginalise itself if it maintains an extreme position on the future CAP."

Influenced by the continuing administrative problems in England with the Rural Payments Agency, the Commons report comprehensively rejects current proposals by the European Commission, which it claims would see the current complex and bureaucratic system of direct payments replaced by one that could be even worse.

The report is also extremely critical of proposals for "green conditions" on support payments, with penalties for farm businesses that do not comply. "A future CAP should place greater emphasis on sustainable farming, but it should do so through a system of incentives and not through additional regulation. The EU proposal for more mandatory environmental measures will make the CAP more complex without delivering tangible benefits," the report says.

The committee rejected EU proposals intended to withdraw support from so-called "slipper farmers" who receive subsidies but have stopped producing. The committee says such a policy would in reality be very difficult to define and police.

Anne McIntosh, Conservative MP for Thirsk and Malton and the chair of the Commons committee, also had some strong words for her UK government colleagues, who propose to end subsidy payments altogether over coming years. She said: "While we broadly support the government's desire to reduce reliance on subsidies, we do not believe that cuts to direct payments are the best way to achieve this.

"Ministers need to set out exactly how UK farmers will become self-supporting, against a backdrop of rising fuel, fertiliser and feed prices and in the face of greater competition from third countries that do not operate to EU standards of environmental protection or animal welfare."

She also claimed that neither the EU nor the UK government had faced up to the challenge of farmers seeing their incomes fall even though families were facing rising food prices.

Throughout the document, the stress is on the competitive production of food. "The first objective of the CAP should be to maintain and enhance the EU's capacity to produce food with a significant degree of self-sufficiency and, in the long term, less reliance on income support from the taxpayer," the report says.

The committee, with only one Scottish and one Welsh MP in its ranks, wants the UK government to fight for the devolved parts of the UK to be able to decide how to implement the CAP reforms in their own areas.

But the report admits this will not be easy "Discussions with the devolved administrations have been dogged by disagreements so we remain less than convinced Defra will succeed in establishing a united UK position. Were it to fail to adequately represent the diversity of UK agriculture, this would weaken both the credibility and effectiveness of our negotiating position."