Even if I’m not able to congratulate the Chair of the committee on obtaining the debate, I very much want to congratulate him on his speech and for collecting the cup and what he is doing with the committee. I very much want to distinguish what I said last week about the allocation of Chairs and Standing Orders from welcoming him personally to the position, and I only hope he enjoys it as much as I did. Thank you, also, to him and Huw Irranca-Davies for their remarks.

I was delighted to steer or shepherd this report through committee, and I think it’s a very strong committee and a good report that has cross-party support and, I think, speaks for Wales. I would like to concentrate my remarks on a number of the recommendations.

Recommendation 6 was that there should be bilateral discussions between the Welsh Government and the UK Government. We gave some specific areas where that should happen, but in general I think it’s a good approach. I totally understand there are formal sort of cross-UK devolution approaches, whether that’s the JMC or a replacement, but I think we also need our own bilateral relationships to develop particular issues for Wales. Paul Davies mentioned red meat and, particularly, lamb exports, but also I think there’s just a very different political context. Scotland has a Government that is committed to independence and breaking up the UK. The DUP, if the Executive gets back, will have a First Minister who is in an alliance or a pact at Westminster with the Conservative Government, and has her own particular ways of influencing the agenda through that. I think we’re probably in an intermediary position to those two, but we need to be making our points forcefully, bilaterally as well as multilaterally, through the devolved arrangements, and I think we need to work together as an Assembly. We’ve done that on this report, but I hope we could also do so more generally. We were speaking yesterday about all 60 Assembly Members working together to get more resources for Wales, but, yes, particularly in the agricultural area. Andrew R.T. Davies is a farmer. He’s leader of the opposition. He’s offered his help in any way with these post-Brexit discussions to try and get the best deal for Wales, and I just hope the Welsh Government will take him up on that offer.

I want to look at recommendations 9, 10 and 15, which broadly relate to funding. I think there has been some move forward on this. To me, at least, the Conservative manifesto was clear that there would be continued funding through to 2022. That wasn’t reflected in the Welsh Government’s response to the committee report. I assume that’s because that hadn’t been communicated, at that point, at Government-to-Government level. I’m pleased to hear, I think, from the Cabinet Secretary, that that has now happened, and indeed if the DUP have helped to accelerate this, at least that is one positive point.

I think, as a committee, we thought very carefully about this recommendation. We want to continue getting money for Wales. We think farmers continue to need support. On the other hand, I think, for some of us, there’s a question as to how realistic it is to say that that must happen forever and a day, whatever happens to be the support at this particular point in time, because the Welsh farming and agricultural land development will develop, the CAP will develop, and we don’t know what the CAP funding is going to be between 2021 and 2027. We think that’s the most appropriate benchmark, but we also think that’s a sensible period to transition to a new system. I think now that the UK Government is offering financial support on reasonably equivalent terms through to 2022, that takes us well into that transition period. I think it would be helpful if Welsh Government could clarify and confirm that that money, to the extent that it flows from the UK, will continue to be spent on agriculture, farming and land management purposes more broadly over that period. Then we need to look to a transition into a new system. And whatever people’s views about the merits of the European Union, I think few people would say that we would have designed the CAP specifically for Wales. When we get the opportunity to determine our own agriculture policy and for land management, that will be very different.

I think, for many farmers, it is going to be quite a challenge making that transition. It’s very important that we give them time to plan for that, but I think also if there is a change in funding relations and, as on recommendation 16, that we are using those to be more aligned to sustainable outcomes while producing high-quality food, but public benefit for public money, that will be a very different system. To the extent farmers plan and develop for that, I think if we move away from pillar 1 subsidies or payments simply on the basis of land ownership, one implication of that may be that the value of agricultural land becomes less over that period. One implication as a sustainable thing may be in terms of forestry. We didn’t see it as a binary thing of forestry or farming; we actually think many farmers would like to plant more woodland on their farms than they do now, and do so more easily, and that farming and forestry can work together, just as we hope that the Welsh Government and UK Government will work together to see a better future for farming and land management in Wales.