Part of 1. 1. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Environment and Rural Affairs – in the Senedd at 1:43 pm on 5 April 2017.
Indeed. I was wondering though whether we could have any idea of how long the Cabinet Secretary is likely to take before she’s able to announce what proposals the Government might have. There are a number of relatively uncontroversial things that it would be helpful to have some advance indication on. For example, many farmers are worried that, whatever testing regime emerges from this, it is practical and takes account of the facts of life of being a livestock farmer. Tests that fall at inconvenient times, such as when the harvests are occurring or when cattle are calving, would be very, very difficult. Also, there’s another issue that ought to be borne in mind, namely that there is currently a county parish holding rationalisation programme going on, and many farmers are concerned that this would add further complications to what’s already a very complicated situation, if that’s not taken account of in the Cabinet Secretary’s decisions.