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Meeting of the Parliament 03 October 2013

03 Oct 2013 · S4 · Meeting of the Parliament

Item of business

Common Agricultural Policy

MacDonald, Angus SNP Falkirk East Watch on SPTV

Sorry. I have a lot to get into my six minutes.

Ireland gets €70 per hectare, Finland gets €138 and the Czech Republic gets €83.

With friends like the UK Government negotiating for us at the top table, members would be forgiven for wondering who needs enemies.

Of course, it gets worse. As we heard from UK environment secretary Owen Paterson when he appeared before our RACCE committee before the summer recess, there is little chance of our getting the full £60 million that the UK Government will receive as a result of CAP convergence, because of Scotland’s figures in relation to the uplift in CAP funds. Of course, the UK Government will receive the money only because Scotland remains, for now, part of the UK.

Perhaps the cabinet secretary can give us good news on that front in his closing speech. However, given Owen Paterson’s pronouncements in recent days, which ranged from welcoming the benefits of global warming to talking about ending direct support completely, I do not hold out much hope of that.

The UK Government is not only representing us poorly in Brussels but withholding funding that is rightly Scotland’s. It has a track record on that, given its point-blank refusal to return the £1.4 million red meat levy that Scottish livestock producers pay annually in relation to stock that are killed south of the border.

It is clear that Scotland’s priorities are not Westminster’s. However, Westminster ministers negotiate on our behalf and have singularly failed to fight for a better allocation of funding in pillar 1 and pillar 2.

I do not want my speech to be a moanfest. On a more positive note, I was pleased to hear my colleague and RACCE committee convener, Rob Gibson, mention crofting. We must ensure that crofters’ voices are heard when the finer details of support in Scotland are being decided. It is important that crofters are fully consulted on the detailed plans for pillars 1 and 2 when consultations with stakeholders take place later in the year.

In my speech in last year’s debate on the CAP, I warned that Scotland’s beef farmers were facing a challenge that could lead to a beef exodus. According to the most recent figures from Quality Meat Scotland, every suckler cow loses £130 per year before support payments are accounted for. If that continues, we will reach a stage at which no cows graze the hills and uplands and no calves come forward to supply lowland beef finishers. That will cut the supply of Scotch beef to consumers.

It is clear that the best way to ensure a viable future for suckler beef production is to channel support into production of beef calves. That, with proper stocking rates, will maintain the upland environment and rural communities.

The problem is not just with suckler herds. If members travel around the outer Hebrides, they will see common grazings that are bereft of sheep, on hills where flocks of sheep would have been grazing 20 years ago. Tavish Scott talked about that.

The Scottish Crofting Federation, at its recent conference in Stornoway, considered how the CAP, including the SRDP, and developments such as community renewable energy projects, could help to revive the use of common grazings and realise their huge potential for crofting communities. Common grazings make up nearly 600,000 hectares of land under crofting tenure, but they have been underused and even abandoned in some areas.

That trend must be reversed. Grazing such land in a controlled way protects the land, increases biodiversity and keeps the land accessible. There is an opportunity to reverse the retreat from the hills through imaginative initiatives, and I look forward to the crofting communities and organisations putting forward ideas in the coming months.

I had other comments to make, but time is running out. The Scottish Government is doing what it can do, but it is clear that the Westminster Government could not care less about Scotland’s farmers. Only with independence will Scotland have the powers that it needs to secure a fair deal for our Scottish farmers.

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Meeting of the Parliament 03 October 2013

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