Rural and Environment

Coverage on UK Agriculture Bill

November 13, 2018 by Fergus Ewing MSP No Comments | Category Uncategorized

Today, various media outlets are running a piece calling on the Scottish and UK Government’s to break the “current political log-jam” on how to agree future policy, financial frameworks and repatriation of agriculture powers.

The pieces call for “meaningful progress” to be made on the legal mechanisms required to make agricultural payments in the immediate aftermath of Brexit, and follows a letter published by NFUS Scotland president Andrew McCornick to Rural Economy Secretary Fergus Ewing and DEFRA Secretary of State Michael Gove.

Our response to these claims are as follows.

Rural Economy Secretary Fergus Ewing said:

“For the whole of the Scottish Parliament’s lifetime, farm policy and support in Scotland has been determined by membership of the EU, and more specifically CAP. The Agriculture Bill, as currently drafted, gives the Secretary of State wide powers to decide how farm support payments everywhere in the UK will be classified in relation to international trade rules, and to set limits on how much can be paid out by each administration. These are unilateral powers for the UK Government despite agriculture being a devolved area. This is unacceptable.”

Tags: Agriculture, Agriculture Bill, CAP, Scottish Government, UK Government

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