§ Mr. McQuarrieasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will now give details of the arrangements which are being made for farmers to make representations against exclusion from the less-favoured areas.
§ Mr. JoplingMy right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales and I shall, with effect from 1 August, be introducing a representations procedure for farmers in England and Wales whose land lies outside the less-favoured areas.
180WAny farmer with land near to or contiguous with but outside the designated LFAs who considers it to be eligible for LFA status may write to his local divisional office of either the Ministry or the Welsh Office Agriculture Department requesting its re-assessment. In support of his case he will need to supply information, such as a map, grid references or field numbers, about the location of the land in question.
Only areas meeting all the criteria for designation as less-favoured will be included in any application which we may make to the European Commission to adjust the LFA boundaries. Consequently, before making representations farmers should consider whether the land is likely to meet the criteria. To do so it must be infertile, unsuitable for cultivation and with limited potential. In addition, areas must produce economic returns below average, and the population in the locality must be low or dwindling and predominantly dependent on agriculture. LFAs must be homogeneous, which rules out the designation of small areas detached from the main LFAs. Such island sites will be considered only if they are of 1,200 hectares or more. For this reason we expect most representations to be in respect of land adjoining the present LFA line.
We recognise that the assessment of land quality may give rise to disagreements between farmers and our officials and we shall therefore be allowing farmers whose representations are rejected on land quality grounds to make a further representation to the local regional panel. This recourse will not be offered where rejection is based on failure to meet the economic or demographic criteria, since these are matters of fact rather than opinion.
Twelve months will be allowed in which farmers may make their representations, after which time no further representations will be accented. Once all representations have been considered we shall decide whether to make a further application to the European Commission.