Diolch, Llywydd. It’s on agricultural payments, actually.

5. Will the Cabinet Secretary make a statement on the Welsh Government’s plans for common agricultural policy payments post-Brexit? (OAQ51036)

Thank you. I’m extremely concerned the UK Government has yet to commit funding for agricultural support beyond 2022, which was promised by George Eustice before the referendum. Meanwhile, we are working with other administrations to ensure that day 1 readiness preparations will be in place, enabling payments to continue to be made.

Yes, thank you for that answer. Clearly, I understand that there is some uncertainty regarding the future, but you sound reasonably convinced that some speedy and effective form of payments can be made if the responsibility does eventually devolve to here. Would you agree with that?

I think uncertainty for the future is probably one of the biggest understatements I’ve heard this year. At the moment, there’s a black hole after 2022. We don’t know what funding we are going to receive from the UK Government. They haven’t been very clear about that. They did promise before the EU referendum that we would receive every penny that we are having currently, so we are holding them to that. You will be very aware that I work very closely with my three other counterparts across the UK. We’ve got our next quadrilateral meeting on Monday, in London. It will be the first one that Michael Gove has attended since his appointment back in June. So, these are all issues that, obviously, are ongoing, but I’ve made it very clear that I cannot see a time when we’ll be in a position not to support our farming industry, so we need to make sure that the Tory Government hold very firm in their promises to us.

When I last questioned the Cabinet Secretary on this, the UK Government had guaranteed payments to 2020. They’ve now guaranteed them until at least 2022. So, I hope that she will welcome that. And also, when she has discussions with the UK Government around the complex area of how devolution works post Brexit and what areas of agriculture should be determined here and what the UK framework that should be agreed is and what the international trade policy that should be for the UK Government is, will she, in those discussions at all times, bear in mind that the absolute priority for farmers in Wales, who aren’t so concerned, perhaps, about where power lies, is that that money continues to flow?

I wouldn’t say that farmers aren’t that concerned where powers lie. I think certainly the farmers who I’ve engaged with and the farming unions absolutely recognise that the agricultural powers belong to the people of Wales and they don’t want to see any power grab by the UK Government. You’re quite right—. I think probably—well, it was before the election that was called in June of this year, we were given assurance to 2020 and then following the election, the Treasury gave assurance to fully fund direct payments until 2022. Of course, that’s welcome, but we need far more detail around that.

So, I’ve always been very clear that we will have a Welsh agricultural policy post Brexit. However, we do accept that, in some areas, there will be UK frameworks. I’m very keen to start those conversations about the UK frameworks. Unfortunately, because we haven’t had any engagement with the UK Government for such a long time at a ministerial level, we’ve not been able to process those conversations. But certainly, on Monday, I will be raising UK frameworks in that quadrilateral meeting.