.........
The
proceedings are reported in the language in which they were spoken
in the committee. In addition, a transcription of the simultaneous
interpretation is included. Where contributors have supplied
corrections to their evidence, these are noted in the
transcript.
Dechreuodd y cyfarfod am 09:47.
The meeting began at 09:47.
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Ymchwiliad i Ddyfodol Polisïau Amaethyddol a
Datblygu Gwledig yng Nghymru—Cyllid, Rheoleiddio a
Masnach
Inquiry into the Future of Agricultural and Rural Development
Policies in Wales—Funding, Regulation and Trade
|
[1]
Mark Reckless: Bore da. Welcome to our committee for our
evidence-gathering session for our post-Brexit agriculture and
rural development inquiry. The first panel—we were keen to
focus on issues of funding subsidy, regulation and the trade
outlet, post Brexit, both within the European Union and with third
markets. I wonder if I could commence by asking, gentlemen, in
broad terms about the current basic payment scheme, whether that is
a scheme that you consider offers value for money or not and
whether you think direct payments should feature in future policy
and, if so, to what extent. Shall I start with you, Stephen?
|
[2]
Mr James: Well, thanks for the opportunity, first of all,
Chairman, to give evidence here this morning. We appreciate it. We
feel agriculture is an important part of the Welsh economy. It
underpins the £7 billion-worth of the food and drink
industry, so it’s a critical part, and that’s why we
most certainly welcome the opportunity. Farmers also manage 80 per
cent of the land, so in terms of environmental payments or
whatever, it’s a route through the farm—
|
[3]
Mark Reckless: Sorry, can I just clarify for the record, was
that eight, 18—
|
[4]
Mr James: Eighty per cent.
|
[5]
Mark Reckless: Eight zero.
|
[6]
Mr James: Yes, 80 per cent of the landmass of Wales is
managed by farmers—
|
[7]
Mark Reckless: I heard eight, which struck me as being
rather lower than I’d understood, so thank you for that
clarification.
|
[8]
Mr James: On the subject of direct payments, I think
it’s an opportunity. I think the great thing about
this—the opportunities of this Brexit are that we can now
have a domestic agriculture policy that’s fit for purpose.
There may be questions as to how direct payments—and I know
we’ve challenged Government on the methods of paying out.
We’re going to a flat rate across the whole of Wales at the
moment. We feel that, as farmers, it should be for supporting food
production. I’m a dairy farmer and my job is producing food
to grow the economy of Wales, to feed the nation, and feed the
wider world. We feel that that’s the essence of these support
payments.
|
[9]
Food has always, in our view, been kept cheap by various
Governments because it’s a good message to the consumer that
food is cheap, and that, I think, is the support—. We want to
talk about it as a support payment as opposed to a subsidy, because
it doesn’t only just supports us as farmers, it also supports
a wider rural economy. We most definitely emphasised that over the
last year, by inviting onto farms businesses that those particular
farmers dealt with. In one case, we had over 60 businesses on the
farm, and in another one, with Abi Reader, near Wenvoe, on the
outskirts of Cardiff, we had over 100 different businesses, showing
how important the wider economy is to that. So, those support
payments—. I think we’ve got an opportunity of
directing—you know, I mean, different sectors will have
different reasons for them. For example, as a dairy farmer, what I
want—what we want in the industry—is to be able to live
with volatility, and getting us through volatile times. The red
meat sector—and I’m sure Dai will cover that
one—is a different one because there are the challenges of
cheaper imports from other parts of the world.
|
[10]
Environmental payments—I think lots of us are involved in
environmental payments, but that can be targeted more. So, those
are the opportunities, I think. We welcome the fact that
we’ve got a clean sheet of paper, really, now to not be
dictated to by Brussels or wherever. This can be a Welsh
agricultural policy. But I do think it’s important also to
have maybe a UK framework—an agreed framework amongst the
devolved administrations as to how that should be delivered. A lot
of our goods cross the border. You know, there’s not a hard
border between Wales and England, or equally the other devolved
nations. So, we need a framework that doesn’t distort the
market as well. Of course, things like animal health would come
under that as well. We don’t want too much distortion, but we
accept, just as it is now, that there will be detail delivered. For
example, the Glastir programme is purely a Welsh programme, and the
method of payment is a Welsh programme as well. But, you know, we
still feel that agriculture—. And we will have to compete
with other countries—Ireland to the west, and European
countries, which may well be having support payments going forward.
We’ll be competing with South America, who can use
genetically modified products and growth hormones to promote their
beef, and produce it a lot cheaper than us. We still envisage
having the environmental standards, the TB regulations and all
those regulations that we have to live with that the New Zealanders
don’t have to live with, or the South Americans.
|
[11]
Mark Reckless: To confirm, are you comfortable with a shift
away from pillar 1-type payments towards a greater degree of
emphasis on broadly pillar 2 objectives, but defined and developed
within a Welsh context?
|
[12]
Mr James: I would like to move away from pillars completely
and call it one payment, which supports agriculture to become a
world-leading producer of food and environmental goods, and
access—you know, £2.5 billion tourism industry relies
quite heavily on agriculture as well, because it allows access to
the countryside. One of the things that we have done—and I
trust that you’ve had these papers that we’ve all
submitted—
|
[13]
Mark Reckless: Thank you.
|
[14]
Mr James: —is to match what agriculture can do to the
seven pillars of the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act
2015. I think that’s a critical bit as well, because
we’ve heard in the last couple of days about the problems in
the English NHS, and the Red Cross and their view on it. We feel
that, in stopping people going into hospital in the first place in
terms of obesity—access to the countryside and good wholesome
food can help reduce NHS bills in different ways.
|
[15]
Mark Reckless: Good. Arfon, can I go to you next? Broadly,
on the basic payment scheme and shifts within that, as Stephen has
described, is that also your broad position?
|
[16]
Mr Williams: I think, before I respond to the question,
again, I’d like to welcome the opportunity to present
evidence here and be a part of this inquiry on behalf of RSPB and
Wales Environment Link. I think it’s worth remembering that
the network has a broad membership and we’ve hundreds and
thousands of members across Wales. As a network we are concerned
about ongoing biodiversity declines and the degraded state of the
environment. We see this inquiry and the resulting decisions as an
important opportunity within Wales to come up with a new policy, a
fit-for-use sustainable land-use policy that will secure
environmental enhancements for all in Wales, contribute towards
halting declines of biodiversity, and also be fair to farmers and
benefit all society. I think in order to do that the value for
money question is a critical question and using public money in a
way that secures public benefit will be essential in going
forward.
|
[17]
In response to current pillar 1, and despite having things like
cross-compliance there as a safety net, really, there’s quite
a lot of evidence to show that—. I don’t think it does
deliver value for money. There are water framework directive issues
associated with agriculture, and if I can refer to a couple of
things we’ve got here: diffuse pollution is significant and
contributes to more than one third of water framework directive
water body failures from agriculture, and that’s NRW’s
figure. The state of natural resources report indicates that the
risk of agricultural diffuse pollution is in fact increasing. The
‘State of Nature 2016’ report demonstrates that
intensive farming and farming intensification is contributing
towards ongoing biodiversity declines. This must be recognised, and
I think these issues were recognised in the last reform of the
common agricultural policy, and there were moves to improve the
environmental credentials of the CAP through introducing greening.
Unfortunately, within Wales—or across Europe—the
reality was that those greening measures were watered down so much
that the vast majority of farmers would qualify based on current
practices. So, I think, over 90 per cent of farming qualified for
greening straight away and, therefore, satisfied those conditions,
and that was without changing farming practices, which is required
in order to drive positive land management that will lead to
changes.
|
[18]
Picking up the points you made about moving towards a pillar 2-type
approach, I’m not sure what we would call it, but
that’s certainly the approach that we would advocate. In that
way you can use public money in a much more focused, much more
targeted fashion, in the way you can link payment to actual
outcomes and objectives, which currently, at the moment, we
can’t do through pillar 1.
|
[19]
Mark Reckless: Thank you. We will have several questions,
Dai, on trade and food promotion later. But if I may, for now,
I’ll go to Vicky to ask about the regulatory context?
|
[20]
Vikki Howells: Thank you, Chair. Yes, I’d like to ask
you all about the regulatory context. If I can start with you,
Stephen, please? I know that the NFU has said that its members
expect now some rolling back of regulations, and we certainly
understand here at the Assembly that that was part of the reason
for a lot of farmers voting to leave the EU. You’ve spoken
about some of the regulations already that you feel would be
important to keep—environmental regulations—and I
wonder if you could expand for us, perhaps, about what your members
expectations are about the kind of regulations that they expect to
see that rolling back of?
|
[21]
Mr James: I guess all regulations might be the answer for
some farmers, but we accept that maybe burial of livestock and all
that sort of stuff is highly unlikely to change from an animal
health point of view. Some of the issues are about reporting. For
example, last week—we’re under TB restrictions at the
moment and we’re allowed to sell direct to slaughter and
Friesian bull calves are sold at about three weeks old direct to
slaughter—I forgot to inform the British Cattle Movement
Service that they’d left the farm—you know,
they’d gone to slaughter; they hadn’t gone anywhere
else. Within three days, in fact, I did it—I was away for a
couple of days and I didn’t do it until Sunday. I
should’ve done it at least on Saturday and that’s a
tick in the box of bad practice. It’s those sorts of
regulations that annoy us, really. They’re so heavy-handed
on—. And it’s a minor point. If we have a
cross-compliance issue—. Well, it maybe tags
missing—all our animals have a tag in each ear and if
they’re missing from one—. They’re far from
perfect—. In terms of broken tags—they’re only
made of plastic. Cows and sheep stick their heads through barbed
wire and they lose these tags. Again, that can be a 3 per cent
deduction on a payment, the first time, on an inspection. And they
are minor things. If you’re a large farm, you may be farming
1,000 acres and your payment is quite high, 3 per cent of that
payment is a massive fine—and it’s a fine, isn’t
it? And if you appeared in the local paper having paid a
£3,000 or a £4,000 fine, people would think that
you’d done something very drastic, whereas, in fact,
it’s just a couple of ear tags—not both ear tags
missing, but a single tag missing. And it’s those simple
things, in that sense.
|
10:00
|
[22]
Environmental regulations: obviously, Arfon mentioned diffuse
pollution; we don’t want farmers to have—. And farmers
end up in court—sometimes they’re accidents, and
they’re very rarely deliberate—well, they’re not
deliberate, but accidents do happen and you can apply slurry to
some land and then you get very heavy rain following it. So, there
are some of those sorts of challenges, but we most certainly
don’t condone that.
|
[23]
Our target is a clean environment, and we most certainly would want
that, but some of the regulations on capital and—. What you
also have is a 1m strip at the moment; if a farmer ploughs a field
and they plough within 1m of the hedge, they’re deemed again
as cross-compliance, and you can have that. And arable farms tend
to be larger as well. Arfon mentioned the SoNaRR report, and in the
SoNaRR report it says that 75 per cent of hedgerows in Wales are in
a poor condition. I drive the length and breadth of Wales, and I
drive around some of these back roads as well, and I don’t
see that. I’m not sure how that’s judged—is it
judged that a hedge should be 4m wide, or whatever? To me, a hedge
is there for keeping cattle separate, or keeping cattle and sheep
within the area that they should be. On the ploughing of a hedge,
my father used to have, well, my grandfather would have a plough
that actually ploughed out the base of the hedge, because
that’s where all your weeds come from—couch and all
that sort of stuff start there and actually grow out. So, they used
to plough tight to the hedge as weed control, before the times of
herbicides or whatever. And I don’t see that what happened in
those days has affected hedges today, because most of the hedges
that I see—poorly fenced hedges tend to be because cattle or
sheep are actually walking back and through them; if they’re
well-fenced, hedges are kept in a good condition.
|
[24]
Mark Reckless: It’s very useful to have
[Inaudible.] Vikki, do you want to follow up with other
members of the panel?
|
[25]
Vikki Howells: Yes, please. I think the—
|
[26]
Jenny Rathbone:
Can I just follow up on that one
point?
|
[27]
Mark Reckless: Specifically to Stephen?
|
[28]
Jenny Rathbone:
Yes.
|
[29]
Mark Reckless: Yes, and very quickly.
|
[30]
Jenny Rathbone:
Really just to say that the reason why
there are strong controls on cattle is because we’re trying
to eradicate TB. So, I appreciate you had an oversight before
sending your—
|
[31]
Mr James: On the third day—on the fourth day,
yes.
|
[32]
Jenny Rathbone:
But that’s why we have to have
tough regulations, because we’re trying to control
the—
|
[33]
Mr James: With respect, five or three-week-old calves going
direct to slaughter has no impact on TB. But I appreciate the
point. But it’s the three-day rule—three days is a
tight window. Three days—most people work Monday to Friday,
don’t they? Three days includes Saturday and Sunday as well,
okay? So, if I’ve moved them on a—. It’s the
three days. We do work seven days a week, just for that
understanding. And fair enough to report the movement, but to have
this sort of—. During harvest time, for example, farms are
busy and your mind isn’t always focused on that thing,
so—
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[34]
Jenny Rathbone:
But at the same time, we’re trying
to control—
|
[35]
Mr James: Not to be so heavy-handed. We accept the rule;
it’s the heavy-handedness that we challenge.
|
[36]
Mark Reckless: Thank you. Vikki.
|
[37]
Vikki Howells: Thanks. Just to conclude my questioning with you,
Stephen, I’d like to say that the issue with tags in
particular has been one that local farmers have raised with me, and
the bureaucracy around that. So, I think that’s a very good
example for us to hear here today. But I wonder if I could ask you,
Dai, and Arfon also, what your views are on what Stephen has said
now and what your organisations would class as being an acceptable way forward in terms
of striking a balance between removing some of the more onerous
regulations and look after the best interests of the Welsh
countryside and Welsh agriculture.
|
[38]
Mr D. Davies: Can I thank the committee in a similar manner to
Arfon and Stephen for inviting me to give you some evidence? As far
as Hybu Cig Cymru, which is the red meat marketing organisation for
Wales, is concerned, we certainly wouldn’t want to see a
bonfire of rules and regulations, especially if want to maintain
access to the single market in Europe. But, of course, we could be
more pragmatic, as Stephen perhaps has suggested, in that we should
be basing some of these regulations on risk rather than the
heavy-handedness at present.
|
[39]
From time to time, I support my wife by
going to shop in Tesco’s and we go through the hand-held
scanners, and you end up checking out and sometimes you’re a
bit apprehensive about whether you’re going to be tapped on
the shoulder and they’ll want to examine your bag. My wife
said the other day, ‘Well, I haven’t been checked for
the last year or so’, and we had a chat, and of course they
base their checking on risk. If somebody hasn’t toed the
line, or, how shall I say, has diverted off the path that they
expect, they check them regularly. I think that’s perhaps the
way that Welsh Government should consider the agricultural industry
as well.
|
[40]
Also, you could use modern technology,
perhaps, to help us out as far as the inspections are concerned,
such as photography and any other development for the future. I
think, as Welsh producers, we need to be banging our drums about
our standards and the regulations that we have got in Wales, and to
use these high standards of animal welfare, husbandry and the steps
we are trying to take as far as mitigating climate change is
concerned—banging the drums and using these as a marketing
tool for us, especially after Brexit.
|
[41]
Mr Williams: I won’t repeat what Stephen said. I’ll
focus on—I recognise those issues, and certainly some of
those issues are things that I come across when I’m talking
to farmers. But I think, on the subject of regulation, the points I
made about water quality earlier on highlight the need for robust
regulation, but also the robust implementation of regulation as
well. I think the ongoing decline of water quality is a serious
consideration, and there’s also some talk, in a recent
payment for ecosystems meeting, about possibly the need for
regulation around sediment loss—not just chemical input, but
actual sediment loss. Sediment loss is a key consideration.
Something like 30 per cent of UK topsoil has been lost in the last
40 years, and loss has increased by 300 per cent in the last 30
years. So, loss of topsoil is a massive concern.
|
[42]
Certainly, the RSPB and other
conservation NGOs welcomed the conclusion of the refit process in
Europe around the directives—the regulations surrounding the
nature directives. I think there—again, I’d welcome
Stephen’s comments about not wanting to water down
environmental regulation, and certainly the nature directives are
key bits of nature regulation—the findings were that the
directives were fit for purpose, and the regulations were fit for
purpose, and again, it was more about implementation and more
effective implementation. I think it’s probably something
about better advice and guidance across the board here to follow up
with the farming community at some point. If we don’t pick it
up here, then a lot of the regulation is—there needs to be
better explanation of what the requirement is.
|
[43]
Thinking about the future, the direction
that Wales is travelling in, and about regulation and standards, I
think as we move towards a country that’s going to be
boasting its sustainable credentials, I think our regulation and
our standards have to reflect that kind of aspiration. So, I think
we need to probably look at that, and look at the Well-being of
Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 and the seven goals there, and
start thinking, ‘Well, can actually back this up now with
what we’ve got in place?’
|
[44]
Vikki Howells: Thank you.
|
[45]
Mark Reckless: Huw, did you want to come in?
|
[46]
Huw Irranca-Davies:
No, it’s been covered, thank
you.
|
[47]
Mark Reckless: Jenny, I think, on horticulture.
|
[48]
Jenny Rathbone:
Thinking about the future and the seven
pillars of sustainability in the future generations Act,
we’ve had several previous witnesses argue the case for
diversification, particularly around vegetables and fruit.
There’s nothing more depressing than going to a village shop
and there’s nothing local to buy, even in the middle of the
harvest season. We have huge needs for fruit and vegetables and, at
the moment, nearly all of it’s imported, and that price is
going to go up massively as a result of the drop in the pound. So,
I wonder if I can get your views on that.
|
[49]
Mr James: Yes, we’d encourage that. They’re
talking about a food hub, actually, in Withybush, on the outskirts
of Haverfordwest. Puffin Produce—I’m sure you’re
aware of—are talking about a food hub. For example,
there’s waste with potatoes. Consumers today apparently want
things to be equal-sized, whether they’re carrots or
whatever. That’s a challenge for growers—to get those
crops there. I know farmers—Guy Poskitt, based in Yorkshire,
actually produces most of Asda’s carrots, but they have to be
produced to a specification, and that’s quite a challenge to
do on some of the land we’ve got in Wales because of
challenged soils.
|
[50]
Jenny Rathbone: I think the mood music is changing,
don’t you?
|
[51]
Mr James: Yes, all right. And, of course, it’s
specialist as well, because labour isn’t cheap these days. If
you’re using people to pick potatoes and to pull carrots up,
there’s a cost to that, and, again, consumers expect carrots
to be cheap. So, those are the challenges that we’ve got.
But, for example, I did say about the Puffin potatoes.
They’ve got ambition, for example, to use the waste potatoes
and produce mashed potatoes because the consumer now is—.
We’ve got statistics that say that most food is prepared
within 20 minutes. The old days of producing food, or preparing
food, for an hour and a half have gone. These are the figures that
we’re given on a regular basis—that the consumer
isn’t prepared to spend an hour and a half preparing food.
I’m not sure what your experience is, but that’s what
we’re told by the various bodies, like Kantar and all those
sorts of bodies. Therefore, there’s an opportunity, I think.
And you’re right—we can now prepare some of these
prepared foods. Marks and Spencer is a good example of these
prepared foods. It’s literally, stick it in the microwave and
it’s ready within 10 minutes or whatever.
|
[52]
Jenny Rathbone: The schools want to be able to source food
locally, and they simply aren’t able to. So, at the moment,
we have a mismatch between what organisations and society needs,
and what we’re actually producing. We’re producing
layers of monoculture, which is good quality in the main, but we
have to diversify, don’t we?
|
[53]
Mr James: In terms of specialist foods, for example, like
carrots and those things, it’s the high inputs of them
that’s the problem. Potatoes are grown quite extensively in
Pembrokeshire, and one of the issues we have on protected
geographical indication status and some of the issues around the
nitrate vulnerable zone rules coming forward is the way
they’re prepared. It’s all about efficiencies. There
are stones with potatoes. You’ve got to remove stones from
the ground, and all this sort of business. The consumer
wants—at least, this is what we’re told—that
consistency. Yes, I admit that there is the farmers’ market,
but the majority of people still are going down that route of
consistency and whatever. To satisfy that market, with retailers,
they expect us to do it in a certain fashion. So, you can have the
niche products and boxed vegetables. Farmers can do that, but
you’ve got to pay a little bit more for those, and whether
the general consumer is prepared to do that is the question.
|
[54]
Jenny Rathbone: Many people argue that food is too
cheap—
|
[55]
Mr James: I would agree with you. I would agree with
you.
|
[56]
Jenny Rathbone:—which is why one third of all food
never reaches the table. So, if we paid a bit more for food, and
paid our labour more, would that make a difference in terms of
whether farmers would produce fruit and vegetables?
|
[57]
Mr D. Davies: I’ll have a stab at that one because,
historically, we remember that Pembrokeshire was a vital area for
growing early potatoes—15,000 acres of early potatoes were
grown in Pembrokeshire, historically, when I was a lad. These days,
about 400 acres are actually grown there because of the fact, of
course, there’s competition from growing early potatoes in
sand in Egypt. They can bring them here all year round. Other parts
of the world, and other parts of Europe, have sort of taken over
that market. Sadly, of course, we all remember the golden days of
the Gower peninsula, when we used to see horticulture feeding the
market in Swansea. That whole industry was destroyed by the large
multiple retailers, where they needed certain standards of
vegetable of a certain gauge, a certain size and similarity. They
wanted people to be able to produce on a large scale. Therefore,
the Gower growers just couldn’t compete.
|
[58]
Jenny Rathbone: Okay. So, it’s the multiple retailers
that we’ve got to challenge, then. It’s the
distribution networks that—.
|
[59]
Mr D. Davies: The funny thing now, of course, is that many
of these multiple retailers want local produce. Morrisons is
one that has been chasing people in Wales for quite some time to
try and get some contracts with them. But, of course, I think Wales
is coming back into the framework as it were. Stephen’s
mentioned the hub, the Puffin organisation in Haverfordwest.
We’ve seen the tremendous development of that organisation
and it could be an example for other organisations in Wales as
well.
|
10:15
|
[60]
Mark Reckless: I think the committee is particularly
interested in areas where there may be opportunities in a
post-Brexit environment, and how might we do things differently
with the policy freedom, rather than necessarily a justification of
current positions.
|
[61]
Mr James: I can give you the example of cauliflowers:
cauliflowers used to be picked and they’d be taken to a
farmers’ market and if they weren’t all sold
they’d be wasted, so there was a lot of waste in that. But in
Puffin now they actually keep them. You can cut cauliflowers at any
time and they keep them in this sort of damp—. They spray
water on them. I’m not quite sure what the process is, but
that means they keep them fresh longer. So, it’s more
efficient. So, there are techniques and ways of doing that more en
masse. I think, to be fair, that’s what this food hub is
about: it’s developing what Jenny’s been talking about
really. The opportunity’s there. For certain parts of Wales
the soils are a bit thin, especially in mid Wales and parts of
Pembrokeshire where I live. Some of the soil we’ve got is
only about three or four inches and that’s not because
it’s washed away because, always in my lifetime, it’s
grass that’s been growing on it, so it’s not washing
away.
|
[62]
Jenny Rathbone:
So, in the context of the possible threat
to the current markets that farmers sell to as a result of Brexit,
at the moment you can’t perceive any particular appetite or
interest in diversifying.
|
[63]
Mr James: The lamb market—.
|
[64]
Mr D. Davies: As far as Brexit is concerned, it’s a
well-known fact that we export 30 per cent of our red meat from the
UK to Europe. But, of course, we import about 30 per cent of our
vegetables and flowers and whatever from Europe. If we are not
going to get access to the single market, my pitch would be: if
they’re going to set up tariffs against us, then we should be
setting tariffs up against them. So, it might give us a greater
opportunity to be able to produce some of these on home turf,
rather than bringing them in from Europe, as we have done
historically. But, of course, as far as trying to market red meat
in Europe is concerned, we hope we won’t have to face these
tariffs and that a reasonable settlement will be put in
place.
|
[65]
Mark Reckless: I think that one certainly leads us to trade, where
David was going to lead with a few questions.
|
[66]
David Melding: Thank you, Chair. I wonder what your reaction is to
the growing realisation that we won’t be a member of the
single market. I know the farming unions and most organisations, I
think, involved in agriculture have said either membership of the
single market or tariff-free access, which in essence is still
membership, perhaps without some of the obligations, I guess. Is
that still a possibility? You may also be in contact with your
colleagues in Europe and what are they going to think of that type
of arrangement? Because that scenario one, clearly, would be the
best for us, but we need to know how realistic that is now and
where we then shift our attention if that’s not going to be
achievable. So, reaction to the last few weeks when it’s been
made pretty clear that we will not be members of a single
market.
|
[67]
Mr D. Davies: Well, we’re still in a bit of a vacuum as far
as that’s concerned.
|
[68]
David Melding: Well, I think it’s pretty clear
that—.
|
[69]
Mr D. Davies: We don’t really know. Nobody seems to be
showing their cards. There’s a possibility we might not be
and it might have strengthened over the last three weeks, but we
hope that common sense kicks in at some stage or other. But,
obviously, it isn’t there at the moment. As a marketing
organisation, I can’t over-emphasise the importance of the
European market to us as far as the red meat sector is concerned,
especially Welsh lamb. As the majority of you will know, one third
of the Welsh lamb production from Wales, which is about 1.3 million
lambs, actually ends up being consumed in Europe, tariff-free of
any restrictions. Of course, it’s an ideal market for us
because it’s fairly close to where we produce the product and
also it fits in with the fact that we’ve only got a 21-day
shelf life for Welsh lamb at the moment. Of course, having the
markets on our doorstep enables us to tackle this. As I said, 1.3
million of our lambs actually leave Wales. Probably as far as a UK
basis is concerned about 6 million lambs from the UK end up in
Europe and about 6 million lambs from New Zealand and
Australia actually come into the UK. So, if I was the Prime
Minister, looking after the interests of the red meat sector, I
would say, if we lose the single market, we get rid of the cheap
imports from Australia and New Zealand in order for us to sell the
lambs that we actually sell to Europe now, because there would be a
demand for them at home. But that’s a bit of a pipe dream,
really.
|
[70]
As far as Wales is concerned, we have to remember that we have
about 63 abattoirs and cutting plants that actually qualify for PGI
status—some of them are in Wales and some of them are based
outside Wales—but only about three major abattoirs are based
in Wales. They export about 80 per cent of the Welsh lamb into
Europe. So, as far as Wales is concerned—and they also employ
between 500 and 1,000 people, those three abattoirs—it would
be a major problem for them. We’ve seen in the press recently
figures quoted that only 5 per cent of businesses actually trade
with Europe. Yes, but I have mentioned those three abattoirs and,
of course, there would be about 4,000 or 5,000 smaller businesses
actually supplying those abattoirs. They would only be the funnel
in getting those 5,000 or 6,000 businesses’ produce out to
Europe.
|
[71]
As far as scenarios of having to leave the market are concerned,
and if we ended up with a World Trade Organization scenario with
Europe, as far as cattle carcasses are concerned, we would have to
face a tariff rate based on 2015 figures of 12.8 per cent plus
€176.8 per 100 kg, which puts a tariff of 84 per cent against
carcasses of cattle. As far as cuts from cattle would be concerned,
there would be 12 per cent and €303 per 100 kg. More
importantly for us, as far as lamb in concerned, if we were sending
carcasses out to Europe, we would face a 12.8 per cent tariff plus
€171.3 per 100 kg against them, which would equate to 46 per
cent. If we were sending cuts out to Europe, it would be 12.8 per
cent plus €222.7 per 100 kg, which would be a 61 per cent
tariff against us—something we couldn’t live with.
|
[72]
David Melding: Could I just come back? I campaigned
vigorously for us to stay in the European Union, and some of these
arguments were used then, but the vote went against us. So, I
don’t think it’s productive to talk about how useful
the single market has been at this stage, because we’ve got
to fact that fact that we are going to—. I’d say
there’s a 95 per cent probability we’ll be outside the
single market. So, let me try to put the question in a different
way: is there any precedent out there for nations to have
tariff-free access on agricultural products, particularly
livestock, to the single market? I want to know how feasible it is
for us to try and push this as an achievable aim.
|
[73]
Mr D. Davies: Well, we wouldn’t be able to trade with
any country within the European Union on a tariff-free basis
because we are trading with about eight countries at the moment,
but of course those have to live within the standards and the
tariff rates of the European Union. So, you could have your talks
with France or whatever and they could say, ‘Yes, we welcome
Welsh lamb’, but then they would have to live by the European
rules of imposing this tariff on Welsh lamb. So, the only countries
we could feasibly trade with would have to be outside Europe.
|
[74]
David Melding: So, there isn’t a possibility—.
We do hear this actually from some people who were very firmly in
favour of Brexit—that we could still achieve a trading
agreement with the European Union that doesn’t have tariffs
on either side. I’m trying to test the feasibility of
that.
|
[75]
Mr D. Davies: You couldn’t trade with individual
countries within the European Union. You either trade with the
European Union or you don’t trade with them, or face the WTO
tariffs.
|
[76]
David Melding: I realise that and presumably individual
countries don’t negotiate within the EU—that’s
the whole point of having a single market. I understand that. But,
is there any other country that has access without having to pay
tariffs?
|
[77]
Mr James: There are some with quotas. Iceland, I know, have
put some lamb into it, but that’s quota based. New Zealand
are doing it. New Zealand put lamb into it; it’s a
quota-based volume, again. So, that’s an example.
|
[78]
David Melding: Okay. So, it seems to me that we will face
some form of tariff for our goods.
|
[79]
Mr D. Davies: Switzerland and Norway actually trade with
Europe on what we call a free trade agreement, but, of course,
agriculture isn’t part of that trade agreement.
|
[80]
David Melding: No, I understand that; we need to focus on
agricultural products.
|
[81]
The second thing, and I infer from your responses that we’ve
not heard very practical propositions, then, from those who have
been looking at this, that the outcome may end up with a continued
access on a tariff-free basis to the single market even if
we’re not members of it. That brings me to the second point.
If we are going to leave the single market, what sort of transition
arrangements do you think would be plausible? Because, again, if we
need to focus on that for the time being, then we need, obviously,
to get the best deal over this difficult transition period. So, you
know, what are you hearing? What do you think might happen?
|
[82]
Mr D. Davies: Well, it’s not a matter of what
we’re hearing; it’s what we need in order to succeed.
Otherwise, we’re going to face the cliff edge when we come to
March 2019. That is not the time to prepare and put a strategy or
transitional strategy in place; we should be sort of examining
potential strategies at this moment in time. Hopefully, we
won’t have to use them, but we should be well aware of the
fact that we’ve got them in the back pocket, sort of ready to
bring forward if we need to.
|
[83]
We shouldn’t look at this challenge too negatively. Long
term, we may be as well off, or we may be even better off, than we
are today. It’s just this way of how we get from point A to
point B, and then I stress the importance of interim and
transitional measures that need to be put in place on day one, but
which can be phased out over a period of, say, up to 10 years.
Because we are working at the moment with potential
markets—potential markets in Kuwait; we’ve actually
started the ball rolling there, and I have some information as far
as that is concerned. I think, from what I understand, if I could
have found the page, or could have prepared the page, we’ve
actually been involved with the embassy in Kuwait. That’s
right, yes, the questionnaire has been submitted to the British
embassy in Riyadh, but it’s still working out the best way,
diplomatically, to deliver this to the authorities in Kuwait.
|
[84]
As far as China is concerned, we had a visit from the Chinese
authorities in October and we can see that there will be an
agreement made on beef by 2021. Of course, once we can get that
agreement in place, we can sort of come on to lamb. But I could
point out what we’ve lost out on as far as lamb is concerned:
there’ve been a lot of agreements on an EU basis on red meat,
but lamb hasn’t been included; it’s been an
afterthought, because lamb, as far as the EU is concerned, is a
very, very minor part of the red meat sector, and they seem to
introduce it at a later stage. What we in Wales need to do is to
make sure that if we have discussions with any other country on red
meat, lamb is included in that one.
|
[85]
As far as the USA is concerned, the process of gaining access to
the US is still ongoing, despite worries following the recent US
election results. We hope to hear in early 2017 the outcomes of
their assessment, so we can move on to inviting them to audit our
beef and lamb and our premises and our paper trail. We are still
positive and moving forward with a plan, although no definite
timeline has been drawn up.
|
[86]
As far as Japan is concerned, good progress is being made, again,
on beef, but we hope that once we get beef in there, we’ll be
able to get lamb as well. Additional answers and supplementary
questions were responded to in November. There is a feeling that
although negotiations are going on well, there will be political
issues as we sort of move on to the final stage on that one.
|
[87]
As far as Canada is concerned, we’ve been in Canada for three
or four years—coming back to the Icelandic lamb—because
Icelandic lamb used to go into Canada at one time, but the problems
with the volcanoes and things mean that the number of sheep in
Iceland has diminished, and, of course, Welsh lamb seems to have
capitalised on that sort of vacuum that was left as far as
Icelandic lamb was concerned. But, this year is the first time
we’ve been able to break out into retailers. We’re
hoping that we can use Canada as a springboard to get into the USA,
because a lot of the agents who are actually dealing in Canada also
deal in the USA. So, if we can build up a good relationship with
them, we’ll be ready for sort of moving on in that
direction.
|
[88]
As far as Switzerland is concerned, that has developed, really,
because our agent in Italy has actually moved to live in
Switzerland—I haven’t asked him, but there are
obviously some tax advantages to living in Switzerland rather than
living in Italy at the moment—and he’s developed a
rapport with some of the importing companies there, so we’re
building up that market as well.
|
10:30
|
[89]
Mark Reckless: Thank you for that—[Inaudible.]
David.
|
[90]
David Melding: That does bring me on to this issue of
alternative markets, but first of all, I infer—and a few
other witnesses, I’m sure, will agree, please tell me if you
don’t—there now needs to be very, very concentrated
attention on the transition arrangements, because whatever happens,
we’re still going to have to trade an awful lot with the
European Union. You mentioned alternative markets, and nearly all
of them, unless we negotiate something very quickly, will apply
tariffs or quotas. So I could ask the same questions in relation to
those markets as I did about if tariffs are applied within the
European market. Let me ask a macro question: in all you’ve
talked about, certainly in terms of lamb, but beef is a ferociously
competitive market as well in terms of international providers out
there, we’re going to be against some premier-league players,
aren’t we, like New Zealand, for instance. They will be in
the markets we’re now identifying, or won’t they? Is
there a genuine lack of provision in some of these markets and gaps
that we could fill, or are we trying to diversify our export
potential, but amongst many other competitors? I’d like to
know where we are and the scale of what we are facing.
|
[91]
Mr James: Obviously, accessing our own market has got to be
a priority as well. Public procurement, for example—
|
[92]
David Melding: I think someone may ask about the UK
market.
|
[93]
Mr James: Yes, all right. So that’s an option,
obviously, to displace imports, isn’t it? It’s about
displacing imports as well.
|
[94]
David Melding: I suspect the committee will move on to
that.
|
[95]
Mr James: Yes, I’m sure.
|
[96]
David Melding: I’m focusing on international trade at
the moment.
|
[97]
Mr James: Obviously, you’re right, Argentinian beef,
or South American beef, is a challenge for us, but of course
it’s about standards. Going back to what we were talking
about on environmental standards, they don’t have the
environmental standards that we—. We had James Parsons, who
heads up—he’s Dai’s equivalent from New
Zealand—showing us the land he farms. It’s as steep as
anywhere in north Wales. You couldn’t take a quad bike on it.
They sow the grass seed and lime it with aeroplanes and
helicopters, and we wouldn’t be allowed to do that, because
of environmental impact assessments, and all that. So, those
regulations confine us. If you take all those regulations away, we
then can compete with the New Zealanders, and maybe only have three
breeds. That’s what they do and that’s what
they’ve done. They’ve gone through some painful times
to achieve that. So, that’s the competition we’re up
against, and equally so with South America. Dame Helen Ghosh in
Oxford last week talked about this: we shouldn’t be exporting
or importing environmental damage. That’s what she talked
about. So it’s those things that we’ve got to address.
The retailers have a responsibility to acknowledge that as well.
And those are the sorts of pressures that we’ve got to put on
those import markets.
|
[98]
David Melding: They’re also very vast questions, and
we just can’t do it ourselves, can we? We’ve got to do
it via international partnerships and the World Trade Organization,
or whatever.
|
[99]
Mr James: If Brexit told us anything, it was about
Britishness. If Donald Trump tells you anything, it’s about
American—. So therefore, let’s concentrate on our own
markets.
|
[100] Jenny
Rathbone: Can I come in?
|
[101] Mark
Reckless: Sian indicated first. Can I stick with Sian, then Huw
then Jenny?
|
[102] Mr D.
Davies: Could I just say on that issue that beef isn’t
such a major problem for us as lamb? Because we only export about
15 per cent of the lamb. Seventy per cent of our imports actually,
as far as beef is concerned, on day one, come from Ireland. So if
we leave the EU, I would very much hope that Irish beef won’t
be flowing into the UK as much as it has done in the past and that
we will be able to accommodate the extra 15 per cent in the home
market.
|
[103] Mark
Reckless: Sian.
|
[104]
Sian Gwenllian:
Roeddech chi’n cyflwyno darlun
du iawn ynglŷn â’r sefyllfa petaem ni yn gadael y
farchnad sengl. Ac er fy mod i’n rhannu rhywfaint o
besimistiaeth David, rwy’n dal i feddwl ei bod hi’n
bwysig ofnadwy ein bod ni’n dal i roi’r dadleuon yna
ymlaen ac yn dal i feddwl mewn termau ei bod hi’n bwysig inni
ddadlau achos Cymru a bod Cymru yn llawer iawn cryfach
o aros o fewn marchnad sengl. Achos
mae’r tirlun yn newid drwy’r amser yn wleidyddol, felly
nid ydw i’n meddwl bod angen inni anobeithio yn llwyr, ond,
wrth symud ymlaen o fanna, rydych chi wedi bod yn rhoi’r
pwyslais ar y rhwystrau, y tariffau, ac yn y blaen. Rydych chi wedi
sôn rhyw ychydig ynglŷn â’r ffordd arall o
sbïo ar y broblem, mewn ffordd, felly—yn hytrach na
meddwl mewn termau’r rhwystrau a’r tariffau sy’n
mynd i fod, beth fedrwn ni ei wneud i atal y mewnforion rhad rhag
dod i mewn yn y lle cyntaf. Felly, mae hwn yn agwedd arall
o’r un broblem, onid ydy? Os medrwn ni ganolbwyntio ar hynny,
a pha fesurau y byddai’n bosibl i ni ddefnyddio, ac a oes yna
rywbeth penodol yng Nghymru y byddem ni’n gallu bod yn
canolbwyntio arno fo fel mesurau i ddiogelu’r farchnad a
chryfhau’r farchnad yn lleol.
|
Sian Gwenllian: You were presenting a
rather grim picture there in relation to the situation if we did
leave the single market. And although I do share some of
David’s pessimism, I do think it’s very important that
we still put those arguments forward and we continue to think in
terms of how important it is for us to put Wales’s case
forward in saying that we’re
much stronger staying within a single market. Because the
political landscape changes all the time and I don’t think we
need to be too pessimistic, but in moving forward from that, you
have been putting an emphasis on the problems caused by the
tariffs, for example. You also mentioned a little about the other
way of looking at the problem—rather than looking at it in
terms of the restrictions regarding the tariffs, looking at what we
can do to stop the cheap imports coming in in the first place. So,
that’s another view of the same problem, isn’t it?
Perhaps if we could concentrate on that, and what measures it might
be possible for us to use, and whether there’s anything
specific in Wales that we could be concentrating on in relation to
measures to protect and strengthen our market locally.
|
[105]
Mr D.
Davies: Wel, mae’r lliw du rydw i’n lliwio ar y diwrnod
cyntaf, pan fyddwn ni’n gorffen gyda’r farchnad sengl,
os ydym yn gorffen yn y farchnad sengl, a pha strwythur sydd gyda
ni mewn lle wedyn i fynd ymlaen am y flwyddyn neu ddwy nesaf. O ran
y ffaith yr ydym ni’n siarad am Seland Newydd, neu siarad am
Awstralia; wrth gwrs, nid ydym ni’n glir eto p’un ai
cwota efo Ewrop ydy e neu gwota efo Prydain. Byddai Ewrop yn dweud,
‘Wel, cwota Prydain oedd e, ac aethoch chi mewn ag e
i’r farchnad sengl pan ddaethoch chi’n aelod o’r
farchnad sengl, ac wedyn chi sy’n gyfrifol am y cwota yna.
Pan fyddwch chi’n gadael y farchnad sengl, bydd y cwota yna
yn dod gyda chi nôl i’r wlad hon.’
|
Mr D. Davies: Well, the picture I’m painting is on the first
day when we finish with the single market, if we do that, and what
structures we have in place to carry on for the next couple of
years. The fact that we’re talking about New Zealand or about
Australia; of course, it’s not clear yet whether it’s
going to be a quota with Europe or a quota with Britain. Europe
would say, ‘Well, it was a British quota, and then you took
it into the single market when you became a member of the single
market, and therefore you’re responsible for that quota. When
you leave the single market, that quota will return with you to
this country.’
|
[106]
Os bydd
hynny’n digwydd, wrth gwrs, bydd dwywaith gymaint o ŵyn
Seland Newydd yn dod mewn yma ar y diwrnod cyntaf na sydd wedi bod
yn dod mewn yma yn hanesyddol, ac mae hynny’n broblem enfawr
i ni. Beth byddem ni’n dweud, wrth gwrs, yw pan maen
nhw’n trafod y pethau yma, gadewch y cwota yn Ewrop, ac os
ydych chi eisiau trafod ŵyn o Seland Newydd yn dod mewn, ie,
gallwch ei drafod e, ond peidiwch â gadael iddo ddod mewn ar
y diwrnod cyntaf, fel bod lle i ni werthu rhai o’n hŵyn
sydd wedi dod nôl o’r farchnad Ewropeaidd ym Mhrydain.
Byddwn ni hefyd yn dweud, ar y diwrnod cyntaf, os oes yna dariffau
a lefi yn erbyn ein cynnyrch ni yn Ewrop, mae’n rhaid
i’r un tariffau a lefi fod mewn lle ym Mhrydain er mwyn
sicrhau nad oes yna ddim cynnyrch yn dod i mewn o dde Iwerddon, fel
ein bod ni’n gallu gwerthu ein cig eidion a’n
bîff ni gartref.
|
If that does happen, of course, then twice as much of
New Zealand lamb will come in on the first day as has been coming
in here historically, and that is a huge problem for us. What I
would say is, when they discuss these issues, leave the quota in
Europe, and if you need to discuss New Zealand lamb coming in then,
yes, discuss it, but don’t leave it to come in on the first
day, so that we can sell some of our lamb that has come back from
the European market back in Britain. I would also say, on the first
day, that if there are tariffs and levies against our products in
Europe then the same tariffs have to be in place in Britain in
order to ensure that produce doesn’t come in from southern
Ireland, so that we can sell our beef at home.
|
[107] Mark
Reckless: Thank you. Huw.
|
[108] Huw
Irranca-Davies: Thank you. Stephen, can I just take you back to
your comment a moment ago where you talked about other
countries’ approach to the environmental agenda, and what
they do, and the lower standards and so on? Just to
clarify—and I’m sure you’re
not—you’re not suggesting we should chase them.
|
[109] Mr James:
Well, to compete with them, we’d have to chase them.
|
[110] Huw
Irranca-Davies: Are you suggesting we should chase them, and we
should lime the uplands?
|
[111] Mr James:
No. I’ve said that farmers are—. You know, Tir Gofal
was oversubscribed. The previous scheme, Glastir, was as well. So
farmers want to be involved in the environment. Guto Davies farms
on the edge of Snowdonia and he’s got cattle and sheep
mixing, and they’ve increased their lapwing numbers up there.
He’s very proud of that. He farms a National Trust farm.
|
[112] Huw
Irranca-Davies: So that’s the approach you’d prefer
to see, rather than chasing a diminution of the landscape, the
environmental qualities and the ecosystems. You want to maintain
what we’ve got, and perhaps do even better.
|
[113] Mr James:
We maintain it, but we target it as well. I’ve not been
involved in Glastir myself because I objected to fencing off good
grassland to have habitat and nettles. I can grow nettles no
problem at all, but I don’t need—. We want to maximise
what we can farm, because going forward, with the increased world
population, it may be a challenge for us in the UK—
|
[114] Huw
Irranca-Davies: But I’m not clear, Stephen, on what
you’re saying here, because—
|
[115] Mr James:
There are targeted areas for environment. Those farmers that want
to earn their income from environmental—you know, from income
forgone—that’s what Glastir and Tir Gofal have done
over the years. We did get involved in Tir Cynnal. We’ve got
about 30 to 40 acres of woodland that we don’t infect. I
believe that habitat—. In fact, the Farming and Wildlife
Advisory Group did a report for me about 10 years ago, and if you
read that report you’d think I was very much into the
environment, because the hedges we’ve got are in a good
condition, and we do it without any payments.
|
[116] Huw
Irranca-Davies: So in a post-Brexit environment, let alone the
transition, how do the uplands in Wales look?
|
[117]
Mr James: Well, if we lose that lamb market and there are no
support payments, it will be wilderness, I would suggest, as
communities will disappear.
|
[118] Huw
Irranca-Davies: Okay, so lamb is important. I was just curious
about the other things, because you mentioned that they’re
quite radical departures there, such as changing the soil basis of
the uplands, and so on. Let me park that for a moment. Could I,
Arfon, ask you: what is your view post Brexit on public money for
public goods?
|
[119] Mr
Williams: I’m going to try and answer a number of
questions there, because of the points that Stephen’s made. I
think the whole conversation there was about commodities and
marketing, and marketing a very narrow group of commodities;
we’re talking about red meat here. There are lots of figures
given for the food industry and the red meat industry. I’ve
looked into this, and going back to the national ecosystem
assessment, there were a few figures there that jumped out at me
from the national ecosystem assessment. They’re a bit old
now—they’re going back to 2010—but the assessment
gave the value for food from Welsh agriculture as £240
million. So, that was the value of food from Welsh agriculture. The
same assessment gives the value of wildlife-related activities in
Wales as £1.9 billion. It gives the value of the environment
as £9 billion, and that’s degraded environment.
|
[120] So,
there’s a real risk here that we maintain a very narrow focus
on what the value is and what we should be doing with Wales going
forward. And if it’s presented as being about economics,
I’m afraid the economics would kind of favour not this side
of the table, but the side of the table that’s more about the
environment and sustainability, and managing Wales in a wholly
different way—
|
[121] Huw
Irranca-Davies: Arfon, listen, I’m definitely going to
come straight back to you, with the leeway of the chairman, but the
advantage of having you all here at the same time is: what is your
response, Dai or Stephen, to that—the value of wildlife and
the value of ecosystems as a trump card, if you like, in terms of
food production?
|
[122] Mr James:
I’m not quite sure. I’ve asked Arfon this before. He
did point me to a website, but I’ve never actually gone on to
it to see how that value was—. I assume that it was in
tourism, or—. It’s not all in benefits, because what
we’re talking about is—you know, I said to you about
cattle farming in Snowdonia. Therefore, you’re getting food
to it, and you’re also getting environmental benefits.
I’ve been there, so I know it’s happening. But
I’m not quite sure how you do the calculation, Arfon;
I’m not sure if we’ve got long
enough—[Inaudible.] But I still think it’s a
mix; that we want food and environment to go together.
|
[123] Huw
Irranca-Davies: Let me come back to Arfon, because one of the
key things that I’ve picked up from this whole discussion
right up to this point is there is a sort of overlap of objectives,
as we look at what the environmental imperatives might be and what
the food production might be, and, actually, both of them are
important. I’m not clear from this morning what direction you
would want to go in on this post Brexit—whether it is more
deregulatory, more stripping out, more focused on the food
production, as we were talking about pillar 1, pillar 2 or pillar
nothing. So, I’m going to come back to Arfon: what’s
your idea post Brexit of how—? And I want to come to wilding
in a moment, which is a controversial issue—
|
[124] Mark
Reckless: Huw, if we may, if we can integrate the rewilding
into this question, please.
|
[125] Huw
Irranca-Davies: Well, perhaps if you could do that as well.
What’s your vision post Brexit of the way that we should
focus the scarce public resource that goes into environment,
agriculture, food production, farming and landscape?
|
[126] Mr
Williams: A nice simple one to end up on, then. I think what
we’re looking for post Brexit is a Wales that has recovered
functioning ecosystems and ecology. So, we’re looking to
repair environmental damage. We’re looking to get those
ecosystems functioning again. We’re looking to maintain
sustainable land management. Sustainable land management can be
farming—it can be sustainable farming—and I think when
we hark back to the visit we had up in north Wales, what
we’re talking about there are extensive farming systems that,
through the use of farming practices, are creating ecosystems and
landscapes that are full of life, and that manage natural resources
in a way that benefits society. So, this is a kind of circular
economy, with public money being used to support land management in
a way that benefits society, but it just so happens in there that
the tools of the trade are farming, and that therefore then creates
a saleable commodity. That then should be—we should be using
the credentials of sustainability to market that, but we’ve
also got other markets that we need to develop as well. In
doing that, we then should be looking at markets for landscape, for
water and for carbon. We should be looking at bundles of economies,
and I think the all-the-eggs-in-one-basket approach here leaves
that approach hugely vulnerable, especially when it comes to
competitive—and what we’re talking about here are, kind
of, domestic markets in lots of ways: domestic markets for water,
domestic markets for landscapes.
|
10:45
|
[127] On the rewilding
thing, I could probably answer this question very shortly or I
could spend all day doing it, so I’ll do the short thing.
|
[128] Mark
Reckless: Thank you.
|
[129] Mr
Williams: I think it’s something that’s emotive and
it’s poorly understood. We’re now starting to define
what ‘rewilding’ means. There’s a danger that
rewilding is seen as abandonment, but I think, basically, rewilding
is putting back that ecosystem functionality into the landscape.
It’ll probably have to operate on quite a large landscape if
we want it to benefit wildlife and for it to benefit natural
resources. In some cases, it may be appropriate to move to passive
management systems, where you let that then develop. Typically, I
think it’ll probably involve people and I think there will be
places where it’s not appropriate and when you’re
looking to support high nature value farming, for all the wider
benefits it secures, you don’t want that then going down a
rewilding process, you want to support high nature value farming or
sustainable farming.
|
[130] Huw
Irranca-Davies: So, Stephen, wilding—it’s a
complete waste of time for farming.
|
[131] Mr James:
Well, yesterday, I was in a meeting talking about beavers, and
beavers are—I understand that they’ve been given a
protection, because they’ve been accepted in Scotland. This
was the discussion that we had yesterday—because
they’ve now been protected in Scotland, that means
they’re protected across the whole of the UK. This is what
we’re told. They can have an effect, through building their
own dams and all that sort of stuff, so that’s an issue
we’ve talked about.
|
[132] I think George
Monbiot talked about wolves, and I’m sure that will have an
impact on access to the countryside, and I’m sure in
Machynlleth—I think, George Monbiot lives not far from there.
I’m pretty sure that the wolves, because we can’t leave
fallen stock out there to feed them, would either go for the live
ones, or they’d be going for the bins in the streets of
Machynlleth. So, I have an issue with wolves. I think he talked
about Romania and those sorts of countries. There’s a vast
area—you know, Romania is a lot bigger than Wales.
|
[133] But I
don’t disagree with some of it—you know, carbon trading
and all that sort of stuff—but I think there’s got to
be a mix. There’s got to be a mix of environment and food,
because food, back to the seven pillars, delivers not just for us
as farmers, it delivers for a wider economy. It delivers in St
Merryn. The plant that they’ve got there employs 3,000
people. That delivers for the economy of Merthyr Tydfil as well as
the countryside. So, we mustn’t forget that as well—the
whole process, the food and drink industry, and that’s what
agriculture is a part of.
|
[134] Mark
Reckless: Thank you. Could I go to Jenny for a question, and
I’ll go to Jayne to wind up the panel?
|
[135] Jenny
Rathbone: Okay, finally—[Inaudible.]—of
antibiotic resistance, which is a major public health issue, what
conversations have you been having with the UK Government to
prevent our market being flooded with GM growth hormones meat that
is also going to be doused in a load of antibiotics? I mean, there
needs—. You know, in terms of ensuring that—
|
[136] Mr D.
Davies: Could I wear two hats here, one about marketing red
meat and the other as a member of the animal health and welfare
framework group as well? As far as the antibiotics are concerned,
what we need to do is to scrutinise the use of antibiotics and to
target it at specific needs for animals that actually produce red
meat. I think the only danger is, of course, that we get dragged
into intensive farming, and the level of antibiotics that have
traditionally been used as far as poultry is concerned and as far
as pigs are concerned, where you have the blanket use of
antibiotics to suppress certain diseases. Admittedly, as far as
some of the management practices in Wales are concerned, and I hope
that people have seen the likes of them—when you actually
housed ewes in the autumn, quite a lot of farmers would use
antibiotics at one stage to try and suppress pneumonias and certain
other diseases, but, hopefully, we have moved away from there.
Because, if we’re going to use our credentials in Wales as
the green grass and the extensive system that we have in Wales for
marketing our products abroad, it’s so important that we
address the issues as far as antibiotics are concerned.
|
[137] Jenny
Rathbone: So, what conversations have you had with the UK
Government around ensuring that the UK market isn’t flooded
with cheap meat that doesn’t meet our requirements, both in
terms of animal welfare and in terms of the quality of the meat for
human consumption?
|
[138] Mr D.
Davies: Well, hence, I said at the start, we cannot have a
bonfire of the rules and regulations, and the regulations from
Europe would suppress the majority of those that you’ve
already mentioned, provided we implement them as far as the UK is
concerned. But of course, those rules could be eroded as time goes
on, as we implement our own and change things, allowing GM to be
grown more freely in the UK, allowing growth hormones to come in
from the States. At the moment, imports of beef from the States are
allowed, provided growth hormone hasn’t been used. One of the
issues that I have as far as shelf life is concerned—the
States have managed to extend their shelf life by, of course,
washing their meat in citric acid. Do we want to go down that route
as far as Wales is concerned?
|
[139] Jenny
Rathbone: So, is this a conversation you’ve had with the
UK Government, because this is a really important issue for the
consumer?
|
[140] Mr James:
Absolutely. We’re having that conversation and that’s
why we’re saying that imports must be to the same standards,
whether they’re environmental or animal health. That’s
a conversation we’re having.
|
[141] Mark
Reckless: Thank you. Finally, can I bring in Jayne Bryant?
|
[142] Jayne
Bryant: Thank you, Chair. Apologies, Chair, and to the panel,
for not being here at the start, but I’d just like to go back
to David’s line of questioning earlier on around trade. The
EU protected food names scheme I think has been a fantastic
success, such as Halen Môn, Pembrokeshire early potatoes,
Welsh beef and Welsh lamb. What are your views on the implications
and the potential to lose those protections?
|
[143] Mr D.
Davies: As far as protected geographical indication is
concerned, it’s been a major part of the Welsh lamb and Welsh
beef brands, and it’s made sure that, unless you reach
certain standards and you operate within certain restrictions,
you’re not allowed to use the brand of ‘Welsh
lamb’ or ‘Welsh beef’. As far as the PGI is
concerned, which I know more about than protected designation of
origin and so forth, I don’t think we would have had the
success of exporting into Europe if we didn’t have the use of
the PGI.
|
[144] Looking to the
future, hopefully we might be able to hang on to our PGI, but we
need clarification. I know in countries such as Colombia, where the
import or export of coffee into the EU is concerned, they’re
allowed to use the PGI. I remember when I was sitting in a
committee in Brussels some time ago, there were other third member
countries that were seeking to use PGIs and PDOs. So, there’s
no reason, with goodwill, that we can’t maintain it. If Welsh
Government—and the UK Government for that matter—see
that there is no way forward, they need to be developing a similar
brand or a similar standard for us to use sooner rather than later.
Because if that is the case, we need to be giving this new logo or
new brand publicity now, so that when we leave the European market,
people will be familiar with it.
|
[145] As far as the
PGI is concerned, Welsh lamb, Welsh beef and Hybu Cig Cymru in
particular have benefitted tremendously, because over the last six
years, we’ve had £0.5 million from the EU to help
promote PGI, because they saw PGI Welsh lamb and Welsh beef as a
flagship for PGI in Europe, so they were willing and prepared to
give us this money to promote PGI further. In countries such as
Italy, especially, PGI is vital if you want to get into that
market.
|
[146] Jayne
Bryant: I appreciate you clarifying that. It’s really
put—
|
[147] Mr James:
They voted Welsh lamb product of the year last year, so that was an
interesting one.
|
[148] Jayne
Bryant: Just coming quickly on to Welsh lamb, actually, the
committee has heard evidence from the Elan Valley Tenants
Association and Fairness for the Uplands, who said that there
should be better promotion of smaller mountain lambs. What are your
views on that?
|
[149] Mr D.
Davies: Yes, light lambs have become a problem. Light lambs are
what we classify, as far as carcass weight is concerned, as
anything below 14 kg. Ideally, the carcass weight for lamb is
between 18 and 21 kg. So, that’s the window, and as far as
multiple retailers are concerned, they insist that that’s the
window, whether it’s New Zealand lamb, Welsh lamb or lamb
from anywhere else—that’s the carcass weight they
demand.
|
[150] Historically, we
were able to sell light lambs to the Mediterranean areas in carcass
form, but, of course, I don’t have to tell you that, as far
as the recession is concerned, it seems to have hit those countries
worse than any other. I mean, Greece is out of the picture
altogether, southern Italy doesn’t buy as much, and Portugal
and parts of Spain as well.
|
[151] Also, things
have changed in the fact that Romania and Bulgaria have joined the
single market and, of course, they produce light lambs. For
example, back in July, you could buy lambs in southern Italy from
Bulgaria for £2.80 a kilo, whereas our exporters, to get lamb
out there, they needed £4 per kilo. Of course, after the
referendum now we’ve seen a bit of a lowering of the valuing
of the pound, our processors are now able to get lamb out there for
£3.20 or £3.30. So we’re back in that market,
we’re competitive again and the PGI status that we have got
is helping us into the market, and I think it’s taken a
little bit of pressure off the light lambs.
|
[152] As far as the
issues that we have to remember—of course, with light lambs,
it costs just as much to process a light lamb as a standard lamb.
Historically, we could get probably £8 or £9 for the
skin of a standard lamb, and you’d get £5 for a small
skin. These days you’ll only get £2 or £3 for the
skin of a large lamb, whereas you’d get nothing for the skin
of a small lamb; you have to actually pay for disposing it. We are
setting up a task and finish group this spring, chaired by HCC.
There will be stakeholders from across industry as well as Welsh
Government to look at ways and means of working with Welsh lamb
producers—and about 15 per cent of Welsh lamb is classified
as Welsh lamb—to see if we can use genetics to grow bigger
lambs, if we can see ways of perhaps changing the management of
some of these hill farms, because some of the management of the
hill farms is a roll-over from the headage payments, where the more
sheep you kept, the greater your single payment would have been.
But, of course, we’ve moved away from there and we need to be
adapting management to reflect that.
|
[153] We’re also
working to see if we can use small Welsh lambs for ready meals. The
problem with trying to retail very small lambs is, if you have a
packet in a multiple retailer, it looks very, very small; two small
chops don’t look very impressive, whereas with a 22 kg lamb
they look far, far more impressive. So, this group is going to work
to see if we can work with farmers producing Welsh lamb to see if
we can improve the situation.
|
[154] Mark
Reckless: Jenny, very quickly.
|
[155]
Jenny Rathbone:
All this is based on the assumption that
bigger is better, when, actually, what the consumer wants is,
‘Does it taste good?’ And it seems to me that the
smaller ones, as in many species, are the better, tastier
ones.
|
[156]
Mr D. Davies: Consumer is always king.
|
[157]
Jenny Rathbone:
Well, is the consumer going to be
represented in your inquiry?
|
[158]
Mr D. Davies: Well, the multiple retailers demand what the consumer
wants—
|
[159]
Jenny Rathbone:
Forget the multiple retailers,
they’ve led us down very false paths.
|
[160]
Mr D. Davies: Yes, but in reality, I go on holiday
sometimes—when people persuade me to, or I get my arm
twisted—and I go to places such as Spain, and you end up with
a chop and, really, you haven’t got any meat on it at all,
apart from the bone. As far as a consumer going into a retailer is
concerned, if you can see a juicy chop with a nice eye muscle, it
draws the consumer to it and, you know—
|
[161]
Jenny Rathbone:
Okay. There’s obviously a massive
education task here.
|
[162]
Mark Reckless: Certainly, on our visit to the uplands we met many
farmers who believe that the quality of those smaller upland lambs
and the taste of them was better. We heard great arguments from
them as to why they should better marketed, and perhaps the
committee can just ask you to work with them and to see what
further scope there may be for seeking, perhaps, to market on a
premium basis.
|
[163]
In terms of the time we’ve had,
I’m very grateful for everyone’s input. I’m sorry
we haven’t had time to delve deeper, but we appreciate very
much the written evidence and previous interaction we’ve had
with you. Thank you all very much. We’ll have a very, very
short break until 11:05. Thank you.
|
[164]
Mr James: We appreciate the opportunity.
|
[165]
Mr D. Davies: Yes, thank you very much indeed.
|
Gohiriwyd y cyfarfod rhwng 10:59 a 11:07.
The meeting adjourned between 10:59 and 11:07.
|
Ymchwiliad i Ddyfodol Polisïau Amaethyddol a Datblygu
Gwledig yng Nghymru—Twristiaeth a Hygyrchedd
Inquiry into the Future of Agricultural and Rural Development
Policies in Wales—Tourism and Access
|
[166] Mark
Reckless: Bore da—good morning. Welcome to our second
panel of the day. Should it be needed, translation’s
available on channel 1. I’m very grateful for your coming. I
have been told that our predecessor committee hadn’t had the
degree of interaction with the Ramblers, so we’re very, very
pleased now to have that. I wondered whether I could start from the
different perspectives of your—[Interruption.] Ah,
sorry, if I could just go to Huw for a declaration of interest.
|
[167] Huw
Irranca-Davies: Sorry, Chair, just to remind the committee of
my register of interests as vice-president and long history with
Ramblers Cymru—current vice-president, but, of course, that
doesn’t interfere with my exemplary unbiased interrogation as
part of this inquiry overall. Just so that it’s on
record.
|
[168] Mark
Reckless: Thank you. If I could commence by asking you: the
European agricultural regime and the degree of subsidy, or the
suggested support payments payable, have had a very, very
significant impact on the Welsh rural landscape. I just wondered,
from the perspective of those you represent, or seek to promote
Wales to, what sort of landscape do tourists and ramblers want to
see? What attracts them to Wales, or might attract them more in the
future? Who would like to start?
|
[169] Ms
Charlton: I think one of the most important things is that,
obviously, we do have a beautiful landscape and environment, but we
need to be able to get around it fairly easily. People need to be
signposted and directed through the landscape. They need to be made
aware of what makes and constitutes the landscape that
they’re walking through. So, certainly for walkers, that ease
of travel and the knowledge of being able to know where they can
go, and also what their rights and responsibilities might be whilst
en route, is quite important to those who wish to enjoy Wales.
|
[170] Mr
Barsby: Obviously, I’d reiterate that. I guess in
addition to that are a range of services, different types of
accommodation, different types of villages, a living countryside
where culture, the farming, the industries that support the farms,
agriculture—so, proper dry-stone walling, the cheeses, the
foods, the arts and culture. As I say, it’s living, so
it’s different from other areas of the United Kingdom and
other areas of the world. The key thing is making sure that
there’s accessibility. I think that’s probably where we
have some weaknesses that need to be overcome. We’ve got
great culture, we’ve got great, unique countryside and
peoples and culture but sometimes it’s difficult to get
there. It’s difficult for the people who live there to go to
and from their work as well. So, I think the infrastructure and
linkage is crucial.
|
[171] Ms
Charlton: I would totally agree with that.
|
[172] Mark
Reckless: Taking the uplands specifically, the sheep and lamb
farming that we have, some of the particular projects and grants
that, say, would pay for the stone walls and the maintenance and
development of those, if that money were to not be available or to
be available to a lesser extent, and if we were to see some of that
landscape become commercial forestry, if we were to see other parts
of that landscape revert to wilderness in some concept, what
impact, positive or negative, do you think that would have on
tourists and ramblers and their desire to visit?
|
[173] Mr
Barsby: I suppose the model that I would ask you to consider is
something called Cittaslow, which
you may or may not have heard of. Cittaslow doesn’t just look at saying,
‘Let’s have organic foods’, it looks at the whole
infrastructure. So, if a particular area has been celebrating in
arable lands then there will be all kinds of associated industries
that have built up around that, all kinds of different ways of
cultures and festivals that are used to celebrate that. So, it
looks at the broader—. So, going back to your point regarding
dry-stone walls, if the dry-stone walls disappeared, it
wouldn’t just be the walls that disappeared, it would be, if
you like, the very heart of what is different and unique and it
would take away several layers of why people would want to live
there, why people would want to visit.
|
[174] Ms
Charlton: I think by having the variety of landscape that you
have it’s always interesting for walkers and it all tells the
story. Whether it tells the story about our wood production, there
is still room for people to be able to move about freely because
that’s what people want to do and they want to experience our
heritage, nobody else’s heritage. They want to experience the
Welsh local heritage and if that’s dry-stone walling,
different types of stiles that are relevant to that county,
they’re the kinds of things they’d like to see. Also, I
think what’s important when we talk about dry-stone walling
and other features is that there’s a great skills opportunity
there that volunteers who walk and also do a lot of volunteering on
the networks would have the opportunity to engage in.
|
[175] Mark
Reckless: You referred to variety: would some shift away from
sheep farming towards a greater degree of, say, forestation, while
keeping a substantial part of sheep farming and dry-stone
walls—would that change be something that would put off
ramblers, or is it a question of degree?
|
[176] Ms
Charlton: I think it would be degree and the size of Wales and
the size of the forest that’s actually there. So, if you look
at Grizedale, for example, that’s one of the biggest man-made
forests in England and actually has developed sculpture trails, et
cetera. The balance is between the landscape that you have and the
wildlife that you might have lost because of that. This whole thing
is all about balance and patchwork. We are a very small country and
that needs always to be minded but also bearing in mind that there
are economics to be considered: economics of people who visit the
area. If they visit because the sheep are of value to them, the
farming landscape is of value because it has that Welsh heritage,
then actually there’s a financial benefit to going down that
route. With forestry, we know that with outdoor recreation there
are opportunities there as well so I think all that would need to
be considered.
|
[177] Mark
Reckless: Thank you. Can I bring in Sian?
|
[178]
Sian Gwenllian:
Diolch yn fawr iawn. Mae yna gyfle,
wrth gwrs, i greu polisïau—. Mae yna gyfle newydd yn
sgil gadael yr Undeb Ewropeaidd i greu polisïau rheoli tir
newydd ar gyfer Cymru a Phrydain. Beth ydych chi’n ei weld
fel yr heriau yn sgil hynny a beth ydy’r cyfleon ar gyfer
twristiaeth? A oes yna enghreifftiau lle mae yna gydweithio
llwyddiannus wedi bod ar lefel ryngwladol o ran yr amgylchedd,
twristiaeth ac amaeth yn dod at ei gilydd?
|
Sian
Gwenllian: Thank you very much. There is an opportunity, of
course, to create policies—. There is a new opportunity as a
result of leaving the European Union to create new land management
policies for Wales and for Britain. What do you see as being the
challenges in relation to that and what are the opportunities for
tourism? Are there any examples of where collaboration has taken
place successfully on an international level in terms of the
environment, tourism and agriculture coming together?
|
11:15
|
[179] Mr
Barsby: I think the best example I could ask you to look at is
something called IQM, integrated quality management. It’s a
series of three documents—rural tourism, coastal tourism and
urban tourism. Each document has 18 case studies along the lines
you’re talking about. So, you have got, in Scotland, the
Trossachs, and, all throughout Denmark and other European
countries, looking at what is unique about a particular area and
making sure that all sectors aren’t just looking at it from a
tourism perspective, but look at it from education, look at it from
the industrial elements and farming as well. So, there’s a
whole body of work in and around IQM.
|
[180] Sian
Gwenllian: And does the need for Wales to have a new policy
around land management, does it offer opportunities for us to be
developing along those lines, do you think?
|
[181] Mr
Barsby: Absolutely. I think there is some work already in situ.
So, we’ve got in Wales 22 destination partnerships,
replicating the local authority areas. There’s a question
maybe as to whether they are funded well enough to actually impact
on the destination, and the impact of how to manage the visitor.
But, I think, as a template, it is probably okay. It would probably
need to be funded a lot more than it is at the moment.
|
[182] Sian
Gwenllian: Is there room within a new payment system for
payments to farmers to allow access on to land, and those sorts of
examples?
|
[183] Ms
Charlton: So, the current situation is that, unlike England, we
don’t have cross-compliance in Wales. We have the opportunity
through Glastir for farmers to take up permissive paths. These
permissive paths are supported, but actually may often be erected
without any connection to community need or use or tourism use.
They could be a path that actually is not making quite that much
sense. So, what we would like to see is going down the route more
of England, which is more of the cross-compliance to help us
actually deal with the network that we currently have, which
isn’t being as supported as it should be, and that’s
across all areas. So, that is an opportunity that we see that Wales
has to actually improve on that. As I mentioned earlier, the reason
that we’d want to see that is also that promotion of the
paths and the network is something that would actually be really,
really key. It has come out through our 2015 Big Pathwatch survey
that we did recently. We sometimes get told, ‘Well, people
don’t use that path.’ Well, people don’t know
about the path. It’s not been promoted and it’s not
being cared for. So, those things need to be considered.
|
[184] Sian
Gwenllian: So, your emphasis would be on promoting the rights
that are there already rather than expanding.
|
[185] Ms
Charlton: Absolutely. Yes, because we’re already not
supporting—. We’re under 50 per cent supporting what we
currently have, and there are some great heritage routes out there
that tell the story of Wales, whether they’re drovers’
routes or others, that are being left to disappear.
|
[186] Mr
Barsby: I think continuity of funding as well—so, once
the path’s been created, there’s funding to maintain
it.
|
[187] Mark
Reckless: I’ll bring in Jenny and then Simon.
|
[188] Jenny
Rathbone: Could you explain why we didn’t implement
cross-compliance in the last round? It seems to me to be such a
crucial issue. How did you enable the Government to get away with
that?
|
[189] Ms
Charlton: We probably weren’t strong enough at the time.
The reason that Wales chose not to was because they said that the
online mapping across the whole of Wales wasn’t consistent or
strong enough. That was the reason that they were given. It’s
not in England either, but England have still gone with
cross-compliance.
|
[190] Jenny
Rathbone: Okay, so, what was it that meant that you had such an
outstanding defeat on this matter, which is absolutely
essential?
|
[191] Ms
Charlton: I wouldn’t be able to say, but I could
certainly refer back to you, going back to my colleagues.
|
[192] Jenny
Rathbone: Okay. So, have you had conversations at all with
Welsh Government about ensuring that, whatever conditions we put on
support for agriculture, we ensure that this is embedded?
|
[193] Ms
Charlton: Yes. So, we did launch our manifesto here in the
Senedd, in which that is one of our asks to Welsh Government, and
we have as many conversations as we can to reiterate, as do our
members locally with their local representatives from Welsh
Government. We keep asking for it.
|
[194]
Jenny Rathbone:
Okay. So, if we implemented the right to
roam, would that be sufficient? You’re saying that’s
not sufficient to enable people to
enjoy historic routes. You’ve also got to incentivise people
to maintain these paths.
|
[195]
Ms Charlton: Yes.
|
[196]
Mark Reckless: I’ll bring in Simon now. Thank you.
|
[197]
Simon
Thomas: Diolch. Rwy’n credu ein bod ni efallai mewn trafferth o
fynd oddi ar y llwybr ac i mewn i’r gors yn fan hyn. I
ganolbwyntio ar beth allwn ni wneud o hyn ymlaen, mae’n wir i
ddweud nad oes cross-compliance wedi bod yng Nghymru. Ond,
fel rydych chi newydd grybwyll, mae Glastir wedi cael ei ddefnyddio
yng Nghymru er mwyn hyrwyddo llwybrau. Beth bynnag, mae’r
taliad fferm sengl yn mynd. Rydym ni’n gadael yr Undeb
Ewropeaidd. Anghofiwch am hynny—nid ydym ni’n mynd i
gael hynny bellach. Bydd system newydd yn gorfod cael ei datblygu
yng Nghymru a fydd yn cydnabod amaeth a’r
amgylchedd.
|
Simon Thomas: Thank you. I think maybe we’re in danger of
straying from the path here. To focus on what we can do in the
future, it is true to say that there hasn’t been
cross-compliance in Wales. But, as you’ve just mentioned,
Glastir has been used in Wales to promote pathways. In any case,
the single farm payment is going. We are leaving the European
Union. Forget about that—we are not going to get that any
more. A new system will have to be developed in Wales that
recognises agriculture and the environment.
|
[198]
Felly, yn y
cyd-destun hwnnw, beth sydd gyda ni yng Nghymru, sydd ddim yn
Lloegr, ydy’r Ddeddf llesiant cenedlaethau’r dyfodol
a’r Ddeddf trafnidiaeth gynaliadwy, sydd yn mapio llwybrau ar
gyfer cymunedau lleol ac mae’r awdurdodau lleol fod yn
adeiladu ar sail hynny. Felly, y cwestiwn yw: beth allwn ni ei
wneud nawr gyda’r ddeddfwriaeth sydd gyda ni eisoes yn ei lle
a’r posibiliad o gydweithio gyda chymunedau ffermio drwy
systemau cefnogi newydd i sicrhau bod y llwybrau yno yn agored i
dwristiaid hefyd, ac yn agored i’r bobl leol eu defnyddio,
achos yn aml iawn maen nhw’n ffyrdd amgen o fynd o gwmpas ac
yn ffyrdd mwy diogel o fynd o gwmpas y gymuned?
|
In that context, what we have in Wales, and they
don’t have in England, is the well-being of future
generations Act and the active travel Act, which maps pathways for
local communities and local authorities are supposed to be building
on that basis. So, the question is: what can we do now with the
legislation that we have in place and the possibility of
collaboration with farming communities through new support systems
to ensure that the pathways are open to tourists but are also open
to local people to enjoy, because very often they are alternative
ways of travelling around and safer ways of travelling around the
community?
|
[199] Ms
Charlton: I think what’s happening in Wales is that
things, from our point of view, are not joined up. So, we have the
rights-of-way implementation plans, we have local access forums, we
have Glastir, and none of these are talking to each other. So, I
think what we need to do is find a way of actually pulling it all
together. You’re quite right about the future generations
Act. We have a great resource in the community councils, which
Ramblers Cymru are doing a lot of work with currently, because they
actually have powers as well to engage. I think we need all parties
around the table looking at the best way of actually delivering the
best access infrastructure for Wales through those systems.
|
[200]
Simon Thomas: Can I just specifically ask about tourism, related to
that? Do you think tourism businesses in Wales also do enough to
promote access in terms of making that information available to
people who visit Wales?
|
[201]
Mr Barsby: I guess any business can always improve, but, broadly
speaking, the reason—. Tourism businesses promote everything
there is to do in a particular area, small or large. So, yes, I
think that they do. I think where they’re disadvantaged is
that—. Predominantly, in Wales, it’s
microbusinesses—it’s two or three people in a business.
Their ability to work as a cluster to market directly to their
chosen segment is somewhat inhibited. I think, again, it’s
why—. On a broader issue, perhaps if Visit Wales was funded
with greater funds, it could overcome that, particularly when you
see that Scotland gets around £40 million per year, Ireland
gets around £25 million a year and Visit England has just had
another £40 million on top of everything else. So, we do
need, in Wales, to have more resources so that we can compete for
our fair share.
|
[202]
Simon Thomas: There is a little bit extra in the budget this year,
I’ve got to just say. There is a little bit this year,
isn’t there? I just wondered if that went some way
along.
|
[203]
Mr Barsby: All donations are gratefully received. However, I
think we need to keep it in context and say that it’s not
just asking for it for the sake of it, but it is the dynamics.
It’s difficult to get to and they’re very small
businesses in the first place. So, even if they do come together,
their ability to have the resources to make a difference to the
target markets is somewhat restricted.
|
[204]
Mark Reckless: In that context, can you just give us a number,
compared to those £20 million and £40 million
comparisons you have given?
|
[205]
Mr Barsby: In 2014, Visit Wales’s spend was around
£7 million. So, it’s considerably less.
|
[206]
Mark Reckless: Do you have anything further, Simon?
|
[207]
Simon Thomas: No.
|
[208]
Mark Reckless: Huw.
|
[209]
Huw Irranca-Davies:
A very small follow-up: what are your
thoughts, going forward, on the obligations on landowners to
maintain their own paths?
|
[210] Ms Charlton: It
is a statutory requirement that these paths need to be maintained,
and we have given many reasons why that doesn’t happen. I do
think it is their obligation to make sure that those pathways are
maintained. The benefit that, quite often, landowners get from
people actually passing through their land, and the local
economy benefiting from the ability of people to pass
through and see and experience, is a beneficial one.
|
[211] Huw
Irranca-Davies: So, in a post-Brexit landscape, because,
clearly, the implication of what you’ve been saying up to
this point is that we’re not maintaining the whole pathway,
whether its local authority issues on resourcing, or whether its
landowners, or whatever—so, in a post-Brexit landscape, are
you happy it carries on as it is, or would you prefer to see more
stringent enforcement of maintaining access?
|
[212] Ms
Charlton: More stringent.
|
[213] Huw
Irranca-Davies: In what ways?
|
[214] Ms
Charlton: Well, at the moment, it’s very difficult
because we don’t even know, particularly within Glastir,
where these routes are, because the mapping is so ineffective and
it’s not out there, that we can’t actually—. I do
know some of our members have, in fact, been able to enforce
through Glastir—so, if you are receiving payments to maintain
paths. So, if we had cross-compliance, we would then be able to
help reinforce that, which is the sort of route we’re
suggesting that we go down—if that helps.
|
[215] Huw
Irranca-Davies: Okay.
|
[216] Jenny
Rathbone: But how dependent is freedom to roam, to make this a
reality? Because there’s no point in paying somebody to
maintain a path if nobody can then get onto it.
|
[217] Ms
Charlton: So, with regard to the freedom to roam, we’re
talking about the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 and
we’re talking about the open access that currently exists,
and not about the potential future for a wider freedom to
roam—or are we talking about the wider potential?
|
[218]
Jenny Rathbone:
Well, we’re trying to find out what
your view is as to what should be in any conditions attached to any
future payments to farmers.
|
[219]
Ms Charlton: So, I think it would be the open access that is, that
that is sort of statutory—it is out there. It is actually the
networks that we are most concerned about. It’s actually the
ability to move around those networks, to have those maintained and
open, and signposted and promoted, and I think that needs to be
part of any payments that go out, that need to be
delivered.
|
[220]
Jenny Rathbone:
Okay, so, do you think we need the
Scottish law that enforces the freedom to roam?
|
[221]
Ms Charlton: So, that’s the next phase. So, if we go down
the Scottish route, we still need to have those networks
maintained, and they still need to be supported. And I think there
may even be a third way, where, actually, we have the local
authorities, the landowners and third sector or business sectors
all pulling together, because the benefit is to such a wide
audience that we should all be working on those networks together.
If we move to a sort of Scottish-style approach, we still need
those routes, although, if we’re looking at farmland, the
ability not to have to walk across a ploughed field, but to be able
to walk round the edge will be there, which would benefit
everybody.
|
[222]
Jenny Rathbone:
So, are you advocating that we adopt the
Scottish freedom to roam or not?
|
[223]
Ms Charlton: Yes. Ramblers Cymru are calling for the freedom to
roam—a Scottish-style access. We think it’s very
complicated for us to be able to reach that, but we think the
benefits certainly that Scotland is receiving are wide-reaching. It
would help us within our communities. So, if we look at our
community’s ability to move around, our needs change.
We’re losing our social cohesion. If we had the ability to
develop routes, which is what happens—it certainly happens
where I live—Scottish-style access would allow us to do that,
to move more freely and to create networks and paths that suit
those people and those communities at that point in time.
That’s not to say that we should lose the current networks,
because the current networks are there and they tell a story,
particularly those historic routes—those routes that we
actually could be losing.
|
[224]
So, I think there’s a lot of work
to be done at a number of different levels. With Scottish-style
access, I think the ability to link up communities—another
example would be in the Neath valley, for example; if you looked at
Ynysarwed up to Resolven, you can no longer walk along the side of
that river, because it isn’t a public footpath, which means
it’s just broken up two communities. If we had Scottish-style
access, the ability to walk along the river would be there. The
ability to be able to walk into woodland would be there, which, in
some instances, you can’t do. So, our young people, our
children, aren’t accessing, sometimes, the environment and
the countryside they have a right to. Will they ever see an otter,
for example, if they can’t access rivers? So, it would give
us all of the ability to do that.
|
[225]
Simon Thomas: Can I just—? Sorry, I’m slightly
confused.
|
[226]
Ms Charlton: Oh, right, sorry.
|
[227] Simon Thomas: I’m just trying to get some sense of priorities
here. You’ve talked a lot about the current network, and
you’ve talked a lot about them in terms of the historic, and,
you know, from the footpaths that I walk and I know, I know that
many of them are just a footpath that goes to what was a chapel and
is no longer—. That path is no longer community-used. The
chapel’s closed; it’s no longer used. Just an
example.
|
11:30
|
[228] So, we need to
be able to look at footpaths in today’s world, for community
links and then we need to look at them in terms of longer distance
and rambling, and building up that sense of an integrated
landscape. That I get, but if you then just say that all we do is
have a right to roam and then create your own footpaths, those two
are contradictory. How do we get to—? It seems to me that we
do have the tools already in Wales to do what you want us to
do—we just need to do them be better, and it does turn around
the Acts that we’ve already passed around safe routes and
around the future generations. I just wondered whether we
shouldn’t be better in focusing on making our current network
really work for us, both for tourists and for our local
populations, and have a coherent way of creating new routes so that
when people agree, as in the example you gave where the two
villages agreed that they should link up together, that
that’s easily done and there is no opposition and no easy way
to thwart that for many years. Isn’t that a better way
forward than trying to—
|
[229] Ms
Charlton: Yes. I guess I think what I was trying to say, but
not very well at all, was that the routes that we’d be loath
to—. For an example, we used to have miners tracks. We would
have miners tracks in the Valleys. Mining has stopped. Those routes
started to disappear, but they’ve come back again into
another use, so we would not want to lose existing routes because
they can come back again. Clearly, one that goes to a middle of a
field and has no intention to go anywhere else is a different
matter, and I do know that there are fields in north Wales, for
example, where you have a number of short routes that go into a
field. And my members would say, ‘Actually, that
doesn’t makes sense’. As an organisation, you know, we
are very keen on protecting as many routes as we possibly can.
|
[230] Mark
Reckless: Okay. Can I focus both of you on the post-Brexit
agricultural rural development landscape for our inquiry? And we
have the potential possibly to be paying landowners for
environmental landscape management, and other objectives we may
want to link to any payment. If one of those objectives were to be
access to land, including footpaths that are there where
there’s a statutory right but actually that may not be
applicable or happening—there are a couple of examples in
Glastir where your members enforced through that
mechanism—what type of regime do we have? What is it about
the contractual or other arrangement with a landowner that would
actually ensure access to these footpaths and credible
enforceability where that doesn’t happen? How should we do
it?
|
[231] Ms
Charlton: Good question.
|
[232] Mark
Reckless: You know, if you want to reflect and perhaps consult
in your organisation and write to us, that would also be
valuable.
|
[233] Ms
Charlton: Yes. We’ll certainly come back to you with some
more detail on that point.
|
[234] Mark
Reckless: Do you have any thoughts on that, Adrian, while
Angela’s considering?
|
[235] Mr
Barsby: I guess, when tourists are surveyed, one of the key
reasons they’re coming to Wales is because of the landscape
in the first place. When they come here, they expect to be able to
engage with it. Now, there are all kinds of research that would
also suggest that the average length of the walk is just under a
mile. That has implications in terms of how you’re going to
distribute those, and that’s because of the average. If
you’re looking at over 30 million people, or
whatever—
|
[236] Simon
Thomas: That’s not a walk.
|
[237] Mark
Reckless: Simon is a serious walker.
|
[238] Simon
Thomas: I don’t know about serious, but not a mine.
[Laughter.]
|
[239] Mr
Barsby: I guess that that links back to the reason that paths
are about linkage—aren’t they? In a post-Brexit
environment, perhaps we need to look at how we’re going to
get people to and from these pathways, and the reasons that
they’re doing it. So, there are things like tourist
information centres, things like lavatories and car parking, all of
which at the moment are disappearing or are under lock and key and
not available, not just to visitors but to the host communities as
well. I guess that’s really where we need to be looking,
because the people that we want to attract as visitors are used to
being able to enjoy those facilities. And if we want to encourage
people to spend perhaps a little bit more than a mile as an average
meander, then I guess it is important that people have got the
signage in place, that the paths are well maintained and, if you
like, there’s a sense of purpose in that—that
you’re going to experience the culture or a view that can
only be enjoyed from a particular point having made the effort to
do so. And all of that is part of what, to be fair to Visit Wales,
they’ve been trying to package over the last few years,
alongside businesses. So, the visitors are telling us already what
they want to do when they come here. They’re drawn by what is
natural to Wales in addition to the unique culture.
|
[240]
Mark Reckless: Anything you want to add, Angela?
|
[241]
Ms Charlton: I just want to say that, sometimes, I get the sense
that it feels like it’s us and them, and that is absolutely
what it shouldn’t be; we should all be working together. And
I think sometimes, where Glastir has not done so well, if we are
going to talk to farmers about access and what’s appropriate
and will help, we should put people in place who can give them that
advice and support, which we don’t currently do, which is why
we have permissive paths popping up here and there that
aren’t making sense, because they’re not liaising or
linking to either people like ramblers or local access forums or
rights of way improvement plans, and I think it’s all about
giving support both ways, which certainly doesn’t feel like
it’s happening currently.
|
[242] Mark Reckless: Good. If I could suggest
this, as Chairman, with your organisation, perhaps the clerks may
liaise in terms of any timing or deadlines we have, but if you are
able to give thought to rather than having an EU arrangement, if we
are ourselves deciding under what terms we are going to pay
landowners for doing various things with their land, if one of
those is appropriate access, how do we set that? What sort of
enforcement would actually be practicable and would work? I think
input from your organisation on that could be helpful. So, if you
are able, do consider that.
|
[243]
Ms Charlton: We certainly will.
|
[244]
Mark Reckless: Can I go to Vikki and then to Jenny?
|
[245]
Vikki Howells: Thank you, Chair. I’d like to focus on the
question of labour supply, so, if I can, I’ll direct my
question to the Wales Tourism Alliance, based on that. I know that
your organisation has said that tourism in Wales suffers from a
shortage of labour with the necessary skills, and that that’s
the reason why we have a large number of EU nationals attracted to
work in the industry. My first question to you is: is that really
an issue about a lack of skills or is it actually about the quality
of jobs on offer in terms of the seasonality and the level of
pay?
|
[246]
Mr Barsby: I think that, historically, tourism has suffered, if
you like, with the perception that it’s a low-pay, long
hours, unforgiving environment. And the flipside of that is that
there’s an opportunity for anybody with low skills, or no
skills in some cases, to actually have their first experience of
work. So, I think that’s the first thing I would like to say.
Then employers would, naturally, always want to engage with a
person who lives as close to their place of work as possible. And
we’ve all been working with something called ‘sense of
place’. The visitor wants to engage primarily with a local
person, or as many local people as possible and, as employers, we
would initially want to do that. If, having put the application
out, there aren’t any local people coming through or the
people you’re having to choose from, based on their skills
and experience, happen to be from overseas, then that’s what
you will do. So, I think that, if you like, our preferred option is
to employ locals, but then really it’s about the people with
the appropriate skills. So, I think it’s not unreasonable to
make the leap that the reason that it is 15 to 20 per cent of
overseas employees being engaged is because of the skills
gap.
|
[247]
Vikki Howells: So, my follow-up question to that is: how do we
tackle that issue, moving forward? To my mind, there could possibly
be a two-pronged approach, which I’d welcome your comments
on. So, prior to this role, I was a teacher, a secondary school
teacher. I know that leisure and tourism is a very popular GCSE
subject in Wales, and it’s also a popular course for pupils
to follow on with in college when they’ve left school. Is it
about better connecting qualifications like that to the more
practical skills that are necessary in the tourism industry? Is
there some way in which there can be further engagement there? And
then, secondly, how does it all link in to what your views would be
about the ideal scenario with freedom of movement for labour post
Brexit in Wales?
|
[248]
Mr Barsby: On the initial point, in terms of engagement, I think
it’s unfortunate that Visit Wales, for instance, has no
influence over education. So, it’s difficult. As a sector, we
have to go individually to individual colleges or directly to the
educators. So there
isn’t, if you like, a joined-up approach. Visit Wales
cannot influence what the curriculum is in FE in particular.
Businesses do try and engage with schools and try to get an early
presence to talk about the career opportunities that exist. In my
own case, I started off as a porter and I’ve ended up owning
hotels because of the opportunities that the companies I’ve
worked for have given me. So, I think the sector in general wants
to see a closer alignment with the colleges and at the moment finds
it difficult to do so. So, that could be a major change that would
have some benefit.
|
[249]
When it comes to overseas employees,
it’s twofold, particularly on Brexit. First, I guess, we want
to make sure that the people who are already employed don’t
feel as if they’re going to be packaged off and made
unwelcome. That has an impact on the countries from which these
people have originated. They are our target market, in effect. They
are people that we want to come and visit us. So, if there are 27
countries at the moment that feel that perhaps they’re not
going to get a warm welcome if they come to the United Kingdom, or
to Wales in particular, then that’s potentially going to have
a harmful effect on the very customers who have the biggest impact
on us. Overseas visitors spend three or four times as much as UK
visitors. They spend longer here. They go away and they act as
ambassadors for us. So, we are concerned, in the tourism sector,
that Wales presents itself as a vibrant and open country, which is
why Wales Tourism Week this year, which is run by the Wales Tourism
Alliance, is running from 15 May to 21 May and the theme is
internationalism, so that we are addressing that. Wales is open for
business, we’re friendly, but we need more resources to
promote that not just externally, but internally as
well.
|
[250]
Again, if you go back to the fact that
18,000 businesses in Wales operate in the tourism sector, I
reiterate the point that most of those are very small businesses.
How do FE and higher education in general engage with those small
businesses? How do you make sure that you can give them the skills
that they need to make their business more efficient while
they’re still working? It’s all very well for further
education colleges to say, ‘Well, we’ve got this
course, and you’ve got to come for three days a week’,
or whatever. That is just not going to happen for these guys. They
just haven’t got the time to give to do that.
|
[251]
Mark Reckless: I’ll bring in Jayne.
|
[252]
Jayne Bryant: Thank you, Chair. Just on the back of the question
that Vikki’s asked, I was just wondering whether we are doing
enough to engage older people in the tourism industry? Because you
were saying that lots of people—you are looking for people
who are living close to those areas, and there might be a number of
people who are living in those communities who perhaps are nearer
retirement age or perhaps wanting to travel not so far for a job.
Are we doing enough to encourage those people to be involved,
because they’ll have the experience? They’ll know the
area. They might have lived away and come back.
|
[253]
Mr Barsby: Absolutely. I think that most sensible
employers—picking up on the point you make, they’ve got
experience of life, they’ve probably got a lot more
experience of the local area, and again, more importantly for the
sector in general, they have perhaps packages of time to give. They
don’t necessarily want to work a full eight-hour day, nine to
five. They might want to do three hours first thing in the morning
and three hours later in the evening because it suits their
lifestyle, because they’ve got other things to do. So, yes,
they’re very much a good source of employment and knowledge.
I think that, again, because the tourism sector is such an open
sector, we wouldn’t be turning anybody away.
|
[254]
Jayne Bryant: Are we doing enough, though, to—
|
[255]
Mr Barsby: No, I think we could always be doing more,
definitely.
|
[256]
Jayne Bryant: Okay.
|
[257]
Mark Reckless: Huw, I think you have a concluding
question.
|
[258]
Huw Irranca-Davies:
Yes, indeed. It’s on a slightly
unusual topic, perhaps, but it’s the issue of wilding, or
rewilding. One of the places we go as a family regularly when
we’re on the way to north-west Wales is through the whole red
kite area, and it’s fantastic to see them being fed at 3
o’clock, and so on. It’s a draw for tourists. Now,
short of reintroducing wolves or bears—beavers, habitat,
rewilding: is that a good or a bad thing? Are there aspects of
this—I mean, it’s linked to the inquiry on this
post-Brexit scenario. What should we be encouraging? Should part of
what we’re encouraging post Brexit actually be elements of
wilding or rewilding?
|
11:45
|
[259]
Ms Charlton: If it adds to the visitor experience of Wales,
it’s relevant to Wales as a nation and it’s safe to do
so—. I don’t know enough about beavers, although I have
seen signs of beavers in the Ogmore valley when we used to have
them here in Wales, funnily enough, when I was with the Forestry
Commission. I’m not sure that, as an organisation, we have a
view on particular species being reintroduced to the nation,
but—
|
[260]
Huw Irranca-Davies:
But you don’t have a position on
wilding, per se, either.
|
[261]
Ms Charlton: Not per se, no.
|
[262]
Huw Irranca-Davies:
What about the tourism
perspective?
|
[263]
Mr Barsby: There’s been a little bit of negative publicity
about it, hasn’t there, with wild boar in certain parts. I
guess one of the key things with tourism and, again, where Wales
scores so highly, is on authenticity. So, if we’re doing it
just for the sake of it, I guess it’d be a bad thing to do,
but if those animals can be re-assimilated back into a natural
environment, I guess that’s only going to further enrich the
overall offer. But there are some caveats there. As with Angela,
other than that being an instinctive answer, I can’t claim to
have any knowledge to back that up.
|
[264]
Huw Irranca-Davies:
It’s just interesting that you drew
our attention earlier to the IQM approach, the quality rural
tourism approach, which, curiously, is a European initiative as
well as a UK initiative, but that focuses very much on people,
place, uniqueness and specialism—that it feels different, it
tastes different and it smells different, you get a different
experience where you go. So, I would imagine some of your operators
would be saying, ‘Well, in the same way that the red kite
experience brings us into that area, or this whatever, done in the
right way, in the right place, in the right community, with sign-up
by a community, wilding shouldn’t be
dismissed’.
|
[265]
Mr Barsby: I agree with you. I didn’t say hat it should be
dismissed. I—
|
[266]
Huw Irranca-Davies:
No, no.
|
[267]
Mr Barsby: So, yes, I agree.
|
[268]
Mark Reckless: And Simon to conclude.
|
[269]
Simon Thomas: Just on the wilding point, I sort of declare an
interest as the species champion for the pine marten in mid Wales,
then. Obviously, it has to be appropriate to the environment that
we have, the attraction—not reintroduction as such, but the
attraction of the Dyfi ospreys project, for example, is a very good
example, I think, of where environment, tourism and everything else
go hand in hand.
|
[270]
But I did want to, if I may, return to a
slightly earlier point that Vikki Howells was asking about, because
the tourism industry—certainly, post Brexit, one of the first
conversations I had was with a major tourism hotel owner in mid
Wales who expressed a great deal of concern that he would not be
able to maintain his services because he was reliant on people from
the European Union. Two things are being suggested around Brexit,
around European nationals coming to work here after we leave the
European Union, and one is that there’ll be a seasonal scheme
for farm workers, and I wanted to ask you whether you thought there
should be a seasonal scheme for tourism workers, or whether that
wouldn’t be helpful at all. The second suggestion, which was
floated yesterday, was of a £1,000 levy on all EU workers, a
skills levy as it was called, which was thought of as a way of
putting off people from employing European nationals and, rather,
investing in skills for local people, if you put it in a very crude
way. Is either of those, in your view, beneficial to Welsh
tourism?
|
[271] Mr Barsby: I guess if we start from
the premise that somewhere around 20 per cent of employees are in
this category, then it’s going to be impossible to replace
all of those with indigenous employees. So, I guess that
frames—
|
[272] Simon Thomas: Because your point would be that if those indigenous
and local people were available, then they would get the jobs
anyway—not in every case, but in most cases. Because
SMEs, small businesses, are going to employ local people,
aren’t they, if they can.
|
[273] Mr Barsby: They are, just because
they live around the corner. You can phone them up and say,
‘We’ve got a few extra people in tonight, can you come
and help us out?’ So, it’s practical from that point of
view. I think businesses will instantly be nervous about accepting
a levy, for obvious reasons, although, that said, I am a personal
beneficiary of the old training levy as it was—that was on
different hotels and businesses at the time. We’ve got the
apprenticeship levy and that coming through as well. In terms of
seasonality, one of the success stories of Wales’s tourism
has been how it’s been extending the season and, particularly
as we’re concentrating on the great outdoors, that is
actually all year round, isn’t it? People aren’t coming
here to get a sun tan; they’re coming here to enjoy the
outdoors, regardless of what the weather does. So, off the top of
my head, I’m not really sure that that would be the kind of
solution that we would be 100 per cent behind.
|
[274] Simon
Thomas: So, would you want to maintain—let’s not
use the words, ‘freedom of movement’, because
that’s a particular context—the ability of Welsh
tourism businesses to employ people from elsewhere within the
current European Union without a levy or a particular seasonal time
restriction? That would be your preferred option.
|
[275] Mr
Barsby: Yes.
|
[276] Mark
Reckless: One quick question from Jenny before we close.
|
[277] Jenny
Rathbone: Given the upheaval that Brexit is bound to cause the
farming industry, what conversations have you had with
representatives of farmers on how they might be able to diversify
by collaborating with tourism, either on their farms, or growing
more food to sell in your hotels or whatever it might be?
|
[278] Mr
Barsby: I do have some experience of this. I’m on the
Flintshire local action group, so I’ve run a number of rural
development programmes— mentoring, particularly, to tourism
businesses. So, I can’t say that we’ve actually had
that specific conversation, but everybody is diversifying. Tourism
businesses are diversifying. Tourism businesses that make jam are
now specialising in making jams and pickles, and farmers are
specialising in accommodation provision, but also doing guided
tours and all the rest of it. So, I guess we are all in this
together. I think it’s interesting that the ramblers are
here, because the pathway is all about the linkages and the
linkages are across all sectors, whether it’s education,
whether it’s manufacturing, or whatever. We are all linked
and I guess that anything we can do to help broaden that and make
those links stronger, so that we can all benefit and diversify, is
going to be better.
|
[279] Mark
Reckless: Thank you, both, very much, for joining us. We really
have appreciated your evidence.
|
11:52
|
Cynnig o dan
Reol Sefydlog 17.42 i Benderfynu Gwahardd y Cyhoedd o’r
Cyfarfod
Motion under Standing Order 17.42 to Resolve to Exclude the Public
from the Meeting
|
Cynnig:
|
Motion:
|
bod y pwyllgor yn penderfynu gwahardd y cyhoedd o’r
cyfarfod yn unol â Rheol Sefydlog 17.42(vi).
|
that the committee resolves
to exclude the public from the meeting in accordance with Standing
Order 17.42(vi).
|
Cynigiwyd y cynnig. Motion moved.
|
[280] Mark
Reckless: Can I now move a motion to move into private session
under Standing Order 17.42?
|
[281] Mr
Barsby: Thank you for the opportunity.
|
[282] Ms
Charlton: Thank you very much.
|
[283] Mark
Reckless: Agreed. Thank you.
|
Derbyniwyd y cynnig. Motion
agreed.
|
Daeth rhan gyhoeddus y cyfarfod i ben am
11:52. The public part of the meeting ended at
11:52.
|
Ailymgynullodd y pwyllgor yn gyhoeddus am
12:49. The committee reconvened in public at
12:49.
|
Ymchwiliad
i Ddyfodol Polisïau Amaethyddol a Datblygu Gwledig yng
Nghymru—Coedwigaeth a’r Ucheldiroedd
Inquiry into the Future of Agricultural and Rural Development
Policies in Wales—Forestry and the Uplands
|
[284] Mark
Reckless: Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us for what
is our third panel today for our inquiry on post-Brexit agriculture
and rural development. Can I welcome you and, let’s
check—? Can I commence just by asking a general
question—there may be a range of views on the panel on
this—as to what you see as the desirable and, perhaps, likely
scope of forestry and woodland for the upland areas, in particular,
of Wales in the post-Brexit environment? Perhaps I could start with
Nick Fenwick.
|
[285] Dr
Fenwick: Certainly, I think that we need to strike a fair
balance between all of these incredibly important interests,
whether it’s the economic interest in terms of forestry or
agriculture and, indeed, the environmental interest that comes with
both of those industries and are inherent to them. We hear many
extreme views about doing away with farming, be it sort of
replacing farming with wilding or blanket conifer, for example; and
then there are some farmers who believe that everything should be
intensified to the nth degree. It’s absolutely about having a
balance. One of the things that has caused some of the
environmental degradation over the years has actually been the loss
of diverse habitats. Farmers are more than willing and have
restored or re-created that diversity in many places. I think some
of the barriers to doing so are actually administrative and created
by Government very, very often.
|
[286] Mark
Reckless: Tony, from the upland perspective, again, and a
farming background, do you share Nick’s view? What’s
the appropriate role for forestry and woodland?
|
[287] Mr T.
Davies: Well, as upland farmers, we’ve sort of found it a
little bit frustrating in the past that we can’t plant as
much as we’d like to. On a lot of areas on farms you get the
steep, rocky areas not suitable for sheep, or even difficult to get
sheep off. We would like to fence them off and plant them, but we
haven’t been able to because of the CAP system and the
regulations—quite often, SSSI regulations. So, this is
actually an opportunity for us to be able to plant, not whole farms
but areas, which would actually create wildlife corridors as well
to join up other pieces of woodland.
|
[288] Mark
Reckless: When you say that you haven’t been able to
plant, is that generally regulation prohibiting planting or the
loss of pillar 1 support or subsidy if you do have forestation?
|
[289] Mr T.
Davies: To start off with, regulatory. I personally have
planted a few hectares on our farm into little areas, but every one
has been very, very difficult to get the regulation through to be
allowed to. But, secondarily, I lost the payments for the last
couple of years on that land as well. It’s basically stopped
it since the last CAP reform, when you couldn’t get paid
because you couldn’t graze it with sheep.
|
[290] Mark
Reckless: Martin, what’s the future for forestry in
Wales?
|
[291] Mr
Bishop: As you might expect, I should come out well in favour
of expanding forestry. When I talk about forestry, I want to talk
about all types of forestry—commercial, non-commercial,
biodiverse forests and all sorts. We do have to operate at scale a
little bit. That’s the thing that we do need to do with
forestry. If we can operate at scale, forestry will give a decent
return to landowners, and it would be self-funding to manage. It
would provide lots of other areas, when they’re managed
properly, for the biodiversity and water flood management, and
cleaning the air that we breathe—all of those sorts of
things. But we do need to operate at scale. Sadly, much of the
planting that we have done in the last 20 years isn’t going
to be very productive, partly because it’s just not done at
large enough a scale. It’s not self-funding, and I think
that’s the criteria: that we need to look at blocks that can
be self-funding. It will be a co-operation, I think, between lots
of different farmers to bring that land together. There are plenty
of opportunities. Forestry investment companies have plenty of
schemes about now that typically pay between 3 per cent and 7 per
cent return on capital. So, the funds are there to do it.
Regulation is going to be a key issue for change. We have to accept
the change of land use and be willing to accept the change of land
use.
|
[292] Mark
Reckless: And Frances, the Woodlands Trust perspective.
|
[293] Ms
Winder: Can I start by thanking the committee for inviting us
to contribute? One of the major problems has been that the EU had
competency for agriculture, but didn’t have competency for
woodland or forestry. So, we’ve always had this sort of
artificial separation of woodland on the one hand and agriculture
on the other hand. I think one of the key things that I would like
to see achieved out of this is a sustainable land use policy for
all land uses, so that we can fully integrate woodland and trees
back into the landscape. We know that there are benefits for
livestock; we can see the benefits for soil, water quality and
water quantity, but we can only enable that by making it a fully
integrated use. So, I’d rather we progressed towards seeing
land use as a whole rather than this completely artificial thing
where, on the one hand, we talk about agriculture or sheep grazing,
and on the other hand we talk about forestry. Forestry and
woodlands go from the individual tree in your hedge all the way to
large-scale planting. There’s no such thing in my view. It
should be an integrated land use.
|
[294] Mark
Reckless: And would all members of the panel accept what I
think was Tony’s suggestion, or at least implication, that
it’s as much a question of allowing farmers to plant woodland
and forest as it is a divide between forestry and farmers as
necessarily competing?
|
[295] Mr T.
Davies: Can I just add in? As a farmer, I’m a businessman
and if, for example, tariffs came in on the export of lamb and
sheep production wasn’t paying very well, I would be looking
at commercial forestry as another enterprise on the farm. So, yes,
we are all open to any ideas.
|
[296] Mr
Bishop: And that’s the stepping stone that we need to get
to. We recognise that forestry is capital intensive in the first
years and doesn’t provide income for 10 to 15 years. We need
to bridge that gap and I think that once it gets to that stage,
then it can be self-funding and farmers can start having an income
for it. But it’s that gap, as I indicated in my
submission.
|
[297] Mark
Reckless: Do you expect FUW members to plant more forests in a
post-Brexit environment?
|
[298] Dr
Fenwick: Indeed, they have. If you compare the data from the
tithe maps of the 1840s, you’ll see that upland areas
actually have more woodland than they did even back then.
Certainly, there have been those efforts. It certainly is about
balance. We do have to respect the fact that grazed upland areas
are incredibly important for certain species and habitats, and
without farming and grazing, indeed, by definition, those species
wouldn’t exist because they are moorland species. So,
afforestation is not appropriate everywhere, but we certainly need
to remove the barriers to afforestation, be it commercial or other
types of forestation in many, many areas. I would reiterate what
Tony has said: those barriers are set very much too high. Some
people have spent many years trying to plant woodland and have
failed. We do need to be very careful as well, though, that we do
not return to the sort of destruction, be it destruction of
environment and, indeed, of communities, that we saw in the
post-war period and the period between the wars, because we saw
vast areas where there were scores and scores of huge estates sold
and planted, and effectively we had displacement of entire
communities and habitats.
|
[299] Mark
Reckless: Vikki.
|
[300] Vikki
Howells: Thank you. I’d like to focus particularly on
commercial forestry and really drill down with each of you
regarding that. So, if I could start with Martin Bishop, first of
all, from Confor. Martin, I know that your organisation has said
recently that farmers, land managers and the public purse could
benefit from a change in land use towards more commercial forestry,
and I wondered if you’d be able to expand on that for us,
please.
|
[301] Mr
Bishop: Certainly. Yes, commercial forestry can make a profit.
We have a thing called UK forestry policy, a UK forestry standard,
which looks at how big a commercial forestry is compared with
a—. You can’t plant 100 per cent spruce like we did
back in those days, Nick. We have to have a more diverse structure.
But it’s very much aimed towards the 75 per cent of the
commercial forest paying for the benefits in the other 25 per cent,
and that’s a well-known practice now. If forestry can provide
landowners with an income, albeit in the long term, then I think
that’s got to be a benefit. The forestry sector would benefit
because we would have lots more jobs and would be able to provide
many more jobs. The forestry processing, the wood processing sector
is quite a big sector in Wales. Just surveying about eight
companies I’ve come up with about £46 million that they
have actually invested in wood processing in the last eight years.
They could double or treble that if the resource was there to do
it. So, we do think that it could be a much bigger gain then to the
public purse because you would have no long-term funding issues
with farming. You wouldn’t have to fund land management for
forestry. So, that’s the thinking on it.
|
[302] Vikki
Howells: Yes, certainly. I was reading a few days ago about the
opening of Pentre Solar and the local wood that had been used for
the creation of that sustainable housing. So, there’s
certainly a lot that can be done in the future.
|
[303] Mr
Bishop: The UK is the third largest wood importer in the
world.
|
[304] Vikki
Howells: That was going to be my next question, actually.
|
[305] Mr
Bishop: There are huge, huge amounts of imports of wood.
Brexit, arguably, has done us a bit of good. Wood prices have gone
up because the strength of the pound has changed. So, my landowners
are telling me that they’re actually getting a little more
for their wood than they were. We have a large market that we can
go at, certainly. Every processor tells me they could double or
treble production fairly easily, if the resource was there to fund
it properly.
|
13:00
|
[306] Vikki
Howells: Thank you, and I wonder if I could just ask each of
the other panellists, in turn, for your views on the potential for
the growth of commercial forestry and how it might affect your
sector areas, both positively and negatively.
|
[307] Mr T.
Davies: If I could start, the challenge is that a lot
of—. I’m speaking on behalf of upland farmers, really,
and a lot of the upland farmers are tenant farmers. So, it
isn’t even really on the table—the idea of planting
commercial forestry—because a lot of them are on short-term
tenancies. Even if you are on a lifelong tenancy, which my main
holding is, my landlords don’t actually agree to that sort of
thing. If you plant a tree, they own it anyway. So, I am just going
to point out that one of the challenges for upland farming
is—.
|
[308] Mr
Bishop: It is a big issue, yes. Land tenancy would be a big
issue.
|
[309] Mr T.
Davies: Yes.
|
[310] Vikki
Howells: Right.
|
[311] Ms
Winder: If I can say that, when we talk about commercial
planting, we are not talking about 100 per cent Sitka spruce. The
world has changed since then, and we need to accept that.
Commercial planting is important, but I think we need to also look
at what we are delivering with that, so it’s not just for
pulp. I think there are some amazing specialist companies in Wales
that produce green oak for housing and other timber products for
housing, and we need to be able to differentiate that market. But I
think we also need to be very clear that if commercial planting is
to receive support, it has to be more diverse; it genuinely has to
contribute to other objectives; it needs to look at its history of
potentially discounting its costs and its impacts off to other
stakeholders—it has to take responsibility for that; and it
needs to be sustainable in the long term. All of this is
achievable, absolutely achievable, but we need to set in place the
opportunity for that to happen.
|
[312] Dr
Fenwick: I will just add that we absolutely need to find
commercial uses for what might be termed as ‘less commercial
forestry’. There’s a great deal of that that has been
planted, and there needs to be more investment in finding those
uses, even if it is simply for biomass, which is incredibly
important given where we are with carbon. There are certainly
opportunities for farmers to invest in order to increase our
forestry stock, absolutely, and there are barriers that need to be
removed. But we do need to be a little bit careful that we
don’t return to the problems that I described before.
|
[313] There have been
some quite extreme studies. There is one on Eskdale moor—or
muir—in Scotland, which is a 20,000-hectare estate, which can
be compared or held up against upland farming in commercial terms.
But when you look at that sort of area, you are looking at
what—compared with upland farm sizes—would sustain
about 200 family farms. Those 200 farms are incredibly important
commercially for a whole host of other reasons—or other
businesses, rather—as well as being incredibly important
socially. So, it’s about striking that balance, and I
don’t think that we would disagree too much. It is about
where the boundary lies between forestry and the scale of
forestry.
|
[314] Vikki
Howells: Thank you.
|
[315] Mark
Reckless: Can I bring in David Melding?
|
[316] David
Melding: I would just like to talk about direct payments, upon
which much of agriculture depends at the moment. I wonder what each
panellist thinks about the future of direct payments. We are having
a big shift towards area payments, and I wonder if that is going to
be feasible post 2020 if, for instance, our export markets come
under severe pressure. Won’t there then be pressure to go
much towards production just to keep farms going, rather than the
shift that, I think, has been generally accepted, towards
area-based payments and looking at the wider environment, which has
been welcomed? How is that all going to survive, if you want direct
payments in the first place, post 2020?
|
[317] Dr
Fenwick: If I could start, Chair, by saying that there seem to
be some great aspirations out there. We certainly have aspirations
in terms of, ideally, replacing direct payments with income from
agriculture. I don’t know any farmers who wouldn’t want
to make more money from the produce that they produce. But,
unfortunately, the economic realities do not tally with those
visions at the moment, and we have to appreciate the complexity and
the intricacy of our rural economies and all the businesses that
rely on them. For example, some work that was done recently looking
at farm business income statistics has shown that the amount of
money that those farms pass on is around £1 billion. Even
though those businesses on average—well, in
total—receive probably about £200 million through the
CAP, which is a great amount of money, they nevertheless generate
five or sixfold as much for other businesses, including employment,
et cetera. So, we have to appreciate the very delicate balance that
is there and if we remove that money at the moment, in the current
financial and economic climate, then we risk far, far more than
just losing 80 per cent or 90 per cent of our farm businesses. We
risk losing many, many fold other jobs and businesses.
|
[318] Ms
Winder: As an organisation, as an environmental NGO, we have
never supported single farm payments. We do not believe that
cross-compliance actually works. Also, as a woodland organisation,
it has always been a slight anomaly that, as a farmer, you get
paid, as a woodland owner, you don’t. Why? You’re still
managing land, you’re still achieving something for the
countryside. It therefore would suggest that we would need to go
into another route. I think, if we follow hard Brexit, there are
bound to be countries that will challenge single farm payments
because you cannot claim that it’s not market distorting. We
know that the US will definitely challenge it. So, we have to think
about how we move things forward. We need to look at what do we
actually want for our land and what are we paying for. Why are we
just paying for somebody because historically they’ve had
that land so we give them some money? It doesn’t make a lot
of sense in the twenty-first century. We need to look at what
we’re trying to achieve with that land for the broader good
and we’re back to this statement, which says, ‘Public
money for public goods’, but it’s how you define those
public goods and what we’re actually seeking to achieve.
That’s obviously what we need to look at in a very Welsh
context, I feel.
|
[319] Mr
Bishop: In the forestry context, the CAP payments have
artificially kept land prices high, which has been one of the main
reasons why I’m told we can’t get enough land to put
under trees, because the actual value of it is too great. So, we
wouldn’t particularly support further CAP payments, but, if
we want to shift those payments or shift any payments towards
forestry, we have to bear in mind that we need to keep these people
on the land and they need an income in the short term. So, maybe
CAP payments are a way of doing that, but they have to have an end
date, I think.
|
[320] Mr T.
Davies: As upland farmers, to be blunt, they can’t
survive without Government support as it is. I agree with what Nick
has been saying, but you did mention production support. I
don’t think that would be the route forward either because
we’ve been here, we’ve done that and—
|
[321] David
Melding: We have heard evidence that that’s what should
happen and you should allow farmers to be much more intensive in
applying lime fertiliser or whatever it is to agricultural land and
getting the maximum efficiency out of it. I’m not saying
that’s my view, necessarily, but it’s evidence
we’ve heard.
|
[322] Mr
Bishop: I think it will have the effect that it would drive
production onto the better quality land and you can’t make a
purse out of a sow’s ear—if they haven’t got the
grass on the uplands, they can’t produce that sort of stuff
and nothing’s going to help them do it.
|
[323] Ms
Winder: If we’re talking about the New Zealand experience
of sending the helicopter up the hill to—
|
[324] David
Melding: I don’t particularly want to get bogged down in
this.
|
[325] Ms
Winder: No, but the problem with that is that the bathing water
quality in New Zealand is not suitable for you to go swimming.
Therefore, that’s affecting their tourist industry and they
are now having to go back and think about the consequences of how
they build that back up.
|
[326] David
Melding: I think those arguments are very strongly made, but,
for the farmers, you have to face the fact that your main markets
could well become much, much less conducive to supporting your
income. Then, is there going to be more pressure to say that the
environmental and wider social goods are something you get when
there’s already stability in the agricultural system,
we’re going through a very unstable system, will we have to
retrench and look much more at direct payments relating to,
basically, compensating for the lower prices of lamb or
whatever?
|
[327] Mr T.
Davies: It depends on budget. It’s how much money you
have to actually spend. As upland farmers, we do deliver through
environmental schemes already public money for public goods—I
think we do. There is a lot more that could be done. A lot of peat
bogs aren’t in a great situation. They could be improved.
There’s more carbon stored in peat bogs in the UK than there
is in woodland. So—yes?
|
[328] Mr
Bishop: Go on. [Laughter.] I’ll not challenge you
here, but, you know.
|
[329] Mr T.
Davies: So, there is a lot more to be done environmentally that
would deliver other targets besides food production: the
environmental work, obviously; carbon sequestration; and the
tourism industry. Obviously, there’s the coast, but, you
know, where do walkers run and cyclists go? They are in the
mountains. Most brochures for tourism show the mountains.
|
[330] Mark
Reckless: If I could bring in Nick Fenwick, please. Thank you,
Tony.
|
[331] Dr
Fenwick: Okay, so, let’s not pretend that the current
system is anywhere near perfect: it is full of flaws and problems,
and those are amongst the reasons that some farmers voted to leave
Europe—absolutely. But there is a real danger here—and
we certainly look to our rulers and politicians and governments,
and the current Welsh Government and successive Welsh Governments,
to address this issue—that we will throw the baby out with
the bathwater by considering aspirations without facts and figures
in front of us. It is absolutely critical that the Welsh Government
and the UK Government do proper assessments of the economic impacts
and wider cultural and environmental impacts, so that, for example,
if the Welsh Government or the UK Government decide that
they’re going to implement a policy that destroys rural
Wales, then at least they’ll be doing it with their eyes open
and with the facts and figures in front of them. Certainly,
that’s not what we want. At the moment, there are aspirations
that we would agree with, but whether they are attainable, and
whether a proper analysis would support them being attainable, is a
different issue, and I suspect it absolutely wouldn’t.
|
[332] One of the
problems with payments for environmental goods, as the committee is
no doubt aware, is the World Trade Organization’s rules on
doing that, and compensating people for income forgone, if their
income is already very low, cannot replace some form of support
system. So, under the current economic climate, we need some form
of support system, or we will see an absolute catastrophe hitting
upland farms and lowland farms. I would emphasise that we’re
not just talking about upland farms; the average farm incomes for
lowland livestock farms are around £4,000 or £5,000
below those for upland farms, both of which are extremely low and
falling.
|
[333] Mark
Reckless: I saw the data that you published on that. I was very
surprised, actually, to see the lowland farmers being £4,000
to £5,000 less than the upland farmers. Are you sure that
those numbers are robust?
|
[334] Dr
Fenwick: Those are the Welsh Government statistics, and they
are collected by—
|
[335] Mark
Reckless: It’s not quite the same point.
|
[336] Dr
Fenwick: Okay. They’re collected by the Welsh farm
business survey, which is now in its eightieth year. So, the
methodology has been used for 80 years, give or take some changes,
and they are the most robust figures we have. There are years in
which the lowland farmers have been better off, marginally, and
they’re always in a very similar—or, rather, lowland
livestock producers had been better off—but they are
generally in similar ballparks, and that’s the important
thing to remember, especially when it comes to payments for
environmental goods. It’s important to remember that, for
those lowland farmers, it is not as easy to access that form of
payment. If it was a genuine payment, you know, for example, from
the public sector, it certainly wouldn’t be as easy to
access, and we know from our experience with agri-environment
schemes that it’s certainly not as easy to access for lowland
farmers or, indeed, intermediate farmers. Bear in mind that not
every upland farm is a farm with some low-lying land, some frith
land, and then a sheep walk. Most of our upland farms are modestly
sized single units that are above a certain altitude, but they are
not necessarily extensive farms. The average hill farm size for the
farm business survey data is 100 ha, which is 300 acres.
|
[337] Mark
Reckless: Martin, you wanted to contribute and comment on the
tail end of this.
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[338] Mr
Bishop: I would probably say that I would rather think about,
rather than destroying rural Wales, I would say we need to change
rural Wales, and there has been a process of change for centuries;
it has to keep evolving. We do need support in the short term to
manage that change. Payments for ecosystem services may help, but
before any payment for ecosystem services comes into force, there
has to be a regulatory baseline to enforce; otherwise, you’re
paying somebody to pollute, and we don’t accept that
principle.
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[339] David
Melding: I’ll just say that I’m ashamed to say that
I don’t know what the current forestry cover is in Wales, but
obviously, before the Neolithic revolution nearly all of Wales was
temperate rainforest. What, eventually, say by the end of the
twenty-first century, should we—? Because, basically, your
transformation would mean that there would be much, more woodland,
wouldn’t there? How much should we be looking, end of
century?
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13:15
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[340] Mr
Bishop: That’s aspirational. There are 306,000 hectares
of forest at the moment; about 50:50 conifer and broadleaves.
We’ve actually lost about 18,000 hectares of commercial
conifer in the last nine years, partially through restructuring,
which we fully support. That’s changing from 100 per cent
Sitka spruce blocks to blocks that are far more broken up and have
more biodiversity blocks in them. Where do you want to compare it
to? Most of central Europe’s got 30 to 40 per cent forestry;
Scandinavia has got 70 per cent forestry. Frankly, if we had 100
per cent forestry, we wouldn’t supply all the timber and the
goods that we require. I’d like to see 50 per cent, but
that’s just me.
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[341] David
Melding: And what sort of population is sustainable on, say,
the Scandinavian model of forestry cover, compared to what we have
here?
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[342] Mr
Bishop: I wouldn’t have that information at my
fingertips.
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[343] David
Melding: Because that’s what we need to look at,
isn’t it?
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[344] Mr
Bishop: Yes.
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[345] Dr
Fenwick: Having looked at the Eskdalemuir study, if
that’s how you pronounce it—I’m not
Scottish—
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[346] Mr
Bishop: Just to butt in, Nick, you’d better look at the
Welsh one rather than the Eskdalemuir one. That’s why we did
the Welsh one.
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[347] Mark
Reckless: Could I actually—do you mind if I move things
on here, because Jenny was—
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[348] Dr
Fenwick: Okay, so it relates to this 200 farms figure. Based on
those figures, I think that area, on average, would have sustained
about 80 jobs—or does currently sustain, on average, over a
40-year period, 80 jobs. And if you compare that with Welsh average
upland farm sizes, you’d be looking at 200 farming families
plus employees and contractors and all those others on that same
area of land. I don’t want to be seen to be arguing against
forestry, but it’s about getting that clear balance about the
risks.
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[349] Mark
Reckless: Good. Martin, you gave me at the Royal Welsh Show, I
think, a document about employment through forestry and how that
compared to farming. Could you ensure that’s put in
as—could we have that as—?
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[350] Mr
Bishop: That’s the Welsh version, yes.
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[351] Mark
Reckless: If you perhaps leave it, and we can have that as
evidence, we can then compare. Jenny.
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[352]
Jenny Rathbone:
Given that our aspiration has to be
evolution rather than revolution, what form do you think the new
public investment for public good should take, both in the uplands
and in lowland farms, where a considerable proportion of their
income is currently derived from basic payments? Because,
obviously, there are very strong reasons—environmental
reasons, the tourism industry and the well-being of rural areas
generally. So, bearing in mind the point that you made earlier
about how most upland farmers are tenants, how could we shape a
system that would incentivise improving environment and income
without it being a disincentive to evict people?
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[353]
Mr T. Davies: Back to the tenancy thing, historically,
environmental schemes in Wales—Tir Gofal and
Glastir—have been five-year contracts, and that fits in with
most tenancies. So, that’s probably not such a problem. But
on the money to be delivered, you mentioned the rural areas. Well,
if it goes to agriculture, it does go to the rural communities. It
works that way. But on overall for public services, I think
it’s got to be based on environmental schemes. If you talk to
the public, that’s a high priority—the countryside as
they know it now, rightly or wrongly, and that’s how they
like it. That’s the countryside that tourists come to see.
They also do like the Welsh mountain sheep on the mountains, and
the Welsh lamb is quite a good brand. I think that can be improved
a lot more, as probably the best mountain lamb actually is going
abroad as a cheap commodity. That’s an area that could be
improved, if money could go into actually getting that pasture-fed
lamb eaten in Wales or in the UK, instead of abroad.
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[354] But back to the lowland/upland thing, the
environmental schemes are actually open to lowland farmers as well,
and if they make a choice to go with market forces and produce
commodities instead of taking the environmental payments, well,
that’s choice. We all want choice, and it will be the upland
farmers who won’t take environmental payments because they
think they can make a better profit ou
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