Hung parliament can be good news for agriculture, says NFUS

WHILE the financial markets have not reacted well to a hung Westminster parliament, NFU Scotland was quick off the mark yesterday in pointing out it that presents opportunities for the good of the food and farming industries and also consumers.

And to emphasise its point, the union listed its priorities, headed by the need for a strong defence of the European Union's common agricultural policy and its budget by the UK government. The union also reiterated its demand for the devolution of the animal health budget.

Support for a supermarket ombudsman to oversee the running of the strengthened Grocery Supply Chain Code was also important to Scottish farmers as were policies on climate change, which the union said had to be backed by sound science.

The union has experience in working with the Scottish Parliament over the past decade where there have been three successive "hung parliaments" resulting in two coalitions involving Labour and Liberal Democrats and recently an SNP minority government.

Union president Jim McLaren believed the opportunities that a hung parliament presented to a sector such as agriculture and to an organisation such as NFUS "must be neither underestimated nor missed. With agriculture as a devolved issue … NFUS has enjoyed close working relationships with all political parties in Scotland."

McLaren dismissed fears about governments having no overall control, saying the experience in Scotland in the past decade has been such that there is good reason to believe that any minority government or coalition relying on political consensus can deliver the stability that is necessary.

"The prospect of a hung parliament holds little fear for Scottish agriculture," he said. "Since devolution, agriculture has been governed in Scotland by a mixture of coalitions and minority administrations, arguably with a fair deal of success.

"The current minority administration has performed well for farmers and the rural community as a whole, with consensus politics ensuring that decisions are, for the most part, sensible."

McLaren admitted that despite agriculture being a devolved issue, the UK parliament still had a large amount of control over the future for Scotland's farmers. Not least because the UK is the member state in Europe through which official CAP negotiations must take place.

"This does not stop Scotland holding discussions in Brussels which we do almost constantly, but does present challenges when the UK default position of late has been to scrap the CAP," he said.