Part of 2. 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:55 pm on 4 October 2016.
‘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.