3. Does the First Minister expect all current CAP payments made in Wales to be added permanently and unconditionally to the HM Treasury block grant to the Welsh Government? OAQ(5)0175(FM)

All current payments, I would expect, yes. What I would not be supportive of is that if those payments happen to be Barnettised because that would mean that we’d be worse off.

Of course, I applaud and share the First Minister’s ambition in this field. Many farmers have said to me that they would like to see Welsh Government spending on agriculture and rural development ring-fenced. Is that a commitment the First Minister would consider giving, perhaps in the context of UK Government guarantees of future funding and policy autonomy for Wales?

I think it’s possible to do so until 2020. That’s what we’re aiming to do. Beyond that, there is no money at all to pay farming subsidies unless the UK Government gets its act together and tells us exactly what it plans to do. So, yes, we would look to support farming as if we’d still been members of the European Union whilst the funds are available. If there are no funds beyond 2020, it stands to reason that we will not be able to do so.

It was fascinating the other day, First Minister, to see a representation made by 35 Conservative MPs saying we should seize this opportunity to look anew, post 2020, at how we actually use what they termed ‘public funds’ for public gains as well, such as environmental gains, flood alleviation, and so on.

The immediate issue is Brexit and making sure we work with farmers to get what’s right for Wales and Welsh farmers. Post 2020, is he looking forward, is he scanning what the opportunities might be there to make sure that we realise the widespread benefits of good landscape management as well as food production, and is he doing that in concert with the UK Government? Are they on the same hymn sheet?

‘No’ is the answer to that, but I can say that the Minister has already been holding meetings, looking to develop what future rural policy, including agriculture, of course, might look like. It’s true to say that we will have greater flexibility and greater power; what we don’t know is whether we’ll have any money in order to implement these things. So, the UK Government does have to declare, in line with the promise that not a penny would be lost to Wales, that in fact agricultural payments will be maintained, not just for Wales but Scotland and Northern Ireland as well, to provide certainty for farmers, because, at the moment, after 2020, farming is staring at a future without any public subsidy. It is not ready for that, if we’re honest. I’m somebody who knows full well the value of farming payments, not just to farms, but to rural communities and to the Welsh language, for example. Beyond 2020, we have no certainty at all whether there’ll be a brass farthing available to pay for these things, and we need that certainty.

What are the opportunities now to put the situation right in terms of payments to farmers and payments that are seen as environmental payments to create one national scheme for Wales that is agri-environmental as a whole? Within that context, isn’t it also true that producing food that is nutritious, healthy, local and environmentally sustainable also provides public benefit?

It is. It doesn’t mean to say that we can feed ourselves, because 54 per cent of the food eaten in the UK is actually produced in the UK. That is the nature of where we live, because of where we live in the world. Having said that, of course, we wish to ensure that producers can be sustainable, that they can produce saleable food, and food that people wish to buy. That’s all-important. There is an opportunity to reconsider pillar 1 and pillar 2, and that, of course, comes under the CAP. If the CAP no longer exists, there will be opportunities to see whether we want to put that line there in the future. So, there are opportunities in the future, and there is an opportunity for farmers to help us to shape the policies for the future, but we have to have the funding to ensure that that can happen.

First Minister, I completely agree with you that the last thing we need is for the current CAP payments to be squeezed through what you can only term ‘the Barnett mangle’. This risks the future underfunding of Wales more than that which we’ve seen. What discussions have you had with the UK Government regarding creating a system of farm support that isn’t subject to the Barnett formula and supports farmers on the basis of need, and perhaps even factors in a greater degree of production, which farmers themselves have been calling for?

Production subsidies are very much a two-edged sword. I remember when we had production subsidies and we produced probably 25 per cent too much in terms of sheep meat particularly, and the price was depressed as a result. We have to produce what the market will bear and not what we think people need to buy, because the reality is we’ll over produce and we’ll see the price drop. So, that has to be managed very carefully.

I know that Lesley Griffiths has had meetings on this very issue. I think it’s fair to say that the UK Government has no idea what farming policy should look like in the future. It’s also true to say that it has no real idea of the nature of devolution, when it comes to farming policy. From our perspective, what we want to see is autonomy for Wales in terms of farming policy, amongst others, together, of course, with a fair share of the money that we are told will be made available as a result of Brexit.