§ Mr. HoyleTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what plans she has to reduce the administrative burden on farmers. [98227]
§ Mr. Morley[holding answer 24 February 2003]: The Government's Regulatory Reform Action Plan issued in February 2002 included 59 entries covering all aspects of Defra's responsibility. Many of these will be implemented over the next two years; others will be more long term. They involve changes to EC legislation, major reviews of whole areas of enforcement, inspection and information handling to ease the burden on farmers. We have already had some success, for example from April 2002 inspectors have been carrying out combined bovine risk analysis inspections required by the four IACS cattle schemes. We have introduced simpler rules for sheep producer groups making them easier to understand.
Some regulation of agriculture is unavoidable if Defra is to safeguard the environment, public and animal health and public funds. However, our goal is to keep regulation to the minimum and find ways of streamlining the bureaucratic burden that regulation often imposes. We have a long-term strategy (2007) to introduce risk-based environment regulation across all sectors including agriculture. New risk- assessments, standardised permits better reporting arrangements will keep charges down and reduce the bureaucracy of regulation.
We are working towards an integrated solution to the problems of regulation and agriculture by developing a whole farm approach. This is a strategy that will be developed in close consultation with industry and other stakeholders and will maximise the benefits of major investments in new IT systems, by bringing together all information held by Defra and other agencies. This will be available to farmers and growers for business 670W planning, and to government to streamline enforcement and tailor advice and guidance to farmers' individual circumstances.