Set-aside Scheme (Hansard, 4 February 1988)

§ 11. Mr. Ron Davies
To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make a statement on the outcome of his discussions in the Agriculture Council on the European Community's proposed set-aside scheme.

§ Mr. MacGregor
The Council has recently considered proposals for an enlarged set-aside scheme for arable land. Certain issues remain to be settled, but the German presidency has now accepted, as we insisted, that a set-aside scheme should be complementary to stabilisers, and not a substitute for them.

§ Mr. Davies
What arguments will the Minister use to the Prime Minister to endorse the Commission's proposals to pay farmers to do nothing?

§ Mr. MacGregor
I must repeat what was said to the hon. Gentleman by my right hon. Friend earlier. The hon. Gentleman is doing the interest of the countryside no good by pursuing this line. It is not a question of paying farmers for doing nothing. In set-aside proposals there will be arrangements, through codes of practice with the Countryside Commission and others, particularly in the wider set-aside which we are discussing in the Community, for considering the conservation and environmental aspects of any set-aside proposal. It is important that everyone should recognise that there is a cost to a farmer for managing his land, even if it is not growing crops. The set-aside payments acknowledge that.

§ Mr. Curry
Will my right hon. Friend accept that it is important to resist the pressure to weaken the set-aside programme by allowing what is known as green fallowing, because if that happens on an extensive scale and without the strictest controls we shall simply be transferring the problem from one sector to another and building up even greater problems in the livestock sector?

§ Mr. MacGregor
There are mixed views about green fallowing. Obviously it has environmental benefits but equally, as my hon. Friend has pointed out, unless we get the system right there will be serious implications for, and effects on, livestock producers in other areas, and for overproduction. I have pressed those points during our discussions on green fallowing in the European Community. If that is accepted as part of set-aside, it should be optional on member states, which must be able to make up their own minds. I know that the National Farmers Union is worried about green fallowing, for precisely the reasons that my hon. Friend has given.

§ Mr. Cryer
Is not the equivalent of the set-aside scheme paying workers to watch lathes, brush them down and oil them? When one puts aside all the jargon, is not the effect of the scheme that we are paying farmers £150 per acre to watch grass grow?

§ Mr. MacGregor
The hon. Gentleman has completely misunderstood the point. As I think he accepts, we first need to deal with the surplus production in the Community. That means that more land must come out of agricultural production. That land is visited by millions of our fellow citizens who want to see an attractive countryside, and not one set down to scrub, bracken and defoliation. There is an important environmental aspect in the set-aside scheme. It is of interest to us all that the land should look attractive.