Hansard

I draw members’ attention to my declaration of interests.

I spent last Saturday—as many of us do at this time of the year—at my local mart, in Lerwick. I heard two clear messages there. There was a third, but it is not important for this debate. The first message was about prices. The cabinet secretary is all too well aware that there is concern, especially in the sheep sector, about what is happening to livestock prices.

The second message, which is more important in the context of today’s debate, was that the Government of the day, and politicians, not see the debate about the future of the CAP through the prism of independence, but through the prism of needs of Scotland’s farmers and crofters. I make that point in the reasonable tone that the cabinet secretary adopted in his opening remarks.

It is surely in all our interests to follow that approach. I say so because since 2001 Scotland’s sheep numbers have fallen by the thick end of 1 million. In 2012, 495 producers across Scotland came out of beef production—there are nearly 500 fewer beef herds in Scotland, out of some 7,000. For any of us, that is surely a worrying and significant trend, so the Government’s admirable food and drink strategy—which I support and which I believe is a genuinely positive aspect of Government activity—is being undermined because the building bricks of food production are being eroded.

That is what the new CAP should be about. Do we want active, financially viable farmers, crofters and growers throughout Scotland? Most of us would answer that in the positive.

As other colleagues have done, I suggest that the Scottish Government needs to take action in some areas. I acknowledge that the cabinet secretary set out some of those in his opening speech. The first is that the consultation that we understand is to be published in December should acknowledge the timescale to which the minister is operating. If, as is usual Government practice, he adopts a three-month consultation period, it will not finish until March. However, as he said in his speech, the timescale for approval of the implementation regulations by the European Commission puts an immense amount of pressure on the Government to have everything in place for 1 January 2015.

As far as I can see, and as a lot of farmers have said to me, if the Government rightly consults on many of the issues, we will not necessarily need to spend as long as we normally do on everything else, especially as the cabinet secretary set out in his opening speech a clear direction of travel on some issues. However, he needs to consult on ensuring that all the options are available to the Government in making the right judgments about how the new area payments system will work.

Coupled beef support to assist suckler cow herds is certainly one of those options, but I do not share Claire Baker’s concerns about the so-called Irish tunnel. The cabinet secretary should consult on that mechanism because of the really strong views about the transition that will take place over the coming six years from the current system to the new one.

For some, a fast drop into a new world will, without a shadow of a doubt, mean 25 per cent to 50 per cent cuts in single farm payments. Therefore, a system that clearly has some favour in Europe and that understands the length of transition that is needed in order for farmers and crofters to adapt to the new system must have some merit in it. I hope and ask that, in his closing speech, the cabinet secretary will acknowledge that that is an option that Scottish agriculture might wish to follow and that, therefore, he will include it in his consultation when it is published later in the year.

The cabinet secretary also acknowledged that moving towards an average payment system based on area might hit some producers—notably, intensive livestock farmers—very hard indeed, and I agree with him. That supports the contention about the Irish tunnel model.

Another area that the consultation that the cabinet secretary is about to publish must surely consider is areas of natural constraint. He mentioned that in his opening speech and I hope that he will clarify the situation for us in his closing speech. My understanding is that the ANC model can be used to help areas such as agriculturally productive islands that face real pressure because of the changes. Orkney, Islay and Tiree are all obvious examples. It would be helpful for the agriculture industry if the cabinet secretary could clarify whether he envisages ANCs being part of the system and, therefore, whether he will ensure that that is in his consultation.

The third aspect concerns the level of the area payments per hectare. I highlighted the decline in livestock numbers throughout Scotland. Many farmers and crofters, including in my Shetland constituency, want a high rate per hectare. As the cabinet secretary pointed out, that has significant issues for others and it is understandable that that would be so.

How the cabinet secretary’s two or three payment areas model fits into the assessment of how individual farmers and crofters will be affected is important. I encourage him—as we did in a debate some months ago—to publish modelling on that. I do not know where the Scottish Government’s modelling has got to, but it would be helpful to the industry to understand what modelling has been done and whether, at this stage, it is able to identify the differences that must already be becoming apparent, were a two or three payment areas system to be followed.

I want to make two other points. First, I very much agree with Alex Fergusson’s point on the balance between pillar 1 and pillar 2 spending. I hope that the cabinet secretary will clarify that in his closing remarks. I share the concern that were the heap of money to be moved across to pillar 2, then the budgetary pressures in pillar 1 in relation to what that would mean for farmers and crofters would be even more significant than they are already likely to be. I know that doing what Alex Fergusson suggested will not make the cabinet secretary any friends in the green non-governmental organisations, but that is the kind of horrible balance that any minister must strike.

My final point is on the mapping penalty regime for individual farms, which I have of course mentioned many times to the cabinet secretary. He has reassured me in the past that the new CAP system will be fairer in that regard. I simply hope that that is the case. I encourage him to keep making the argument on that and to ensure that the Scottish Government, as the responsible Administration for the new CAP, insists to Brussels that we must have a fairer and more proportionate system that will help—or at least not be so unfair to—crofters and farmers, not just in my Shetland constituency but right across the country.