Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:31 pm on 27 September 2022.
Diolch, and again I look forward to working with you closely taking this Bill forward.
I'm going to start with your last bit around funding. You asked when you'll be able to scrutinise the funding elements of it. We're doing some economic analysis and modelling. That will be done for the rest of the course of this year and probably into early next year, so I would imagine it will be around spring of next year. There is huge uncertainty around funding, as you know. We'd been promised that we wouldn't lose a penny from the UK Government; we've seen that's not the case. But I just wish we could get some certainty from the UK Government. I go back to what Sam Kurtz was asking around stability and growth. It's really hard to offer stability. I've done my very best with keeping the BPS going, for instance, for a few more years than other parts of the UK were looking at, but it is very difficult to give that stability that I really would like to give, without knowing. And you will have seen the Scottish Government's announcements this week around the cutting of their agricultural Bill. It's not, I'm sure, where they would want to be; it's not where anybody would want to be. But, unfortunately, because of the lack of confirmation around the agricultural funding from the UK Government, it is very difficult to do that, but I hope that answers your question.
I think one of the things I've been really keen to avoid, and this came about early, at the start of the policy work around this piece of legislation, when I went to New Zealand, to talk to farmers there who remembered that cliff edge they had in 1984 when they stopped their basic payment scheme, and you saw the small farms that were just absolutely swallowed up by the large farms, and they lost that feeling of community, and of course they don't have the language to preserve that we do here in Wales. So, I was very clear right from the start that we had to protect those small family farms and not allow them to be swallowed up so that they lost that feel of community, and they saw rugby clubs disappearing because the farms weren't there to sustain them. So, that was very much part of early thinking in relation to the Bill.
I hear what you're saying about there being too broad powers, and there probably isn't a perfect answer I can give you, but it is about that balance. I think we need to have that flexibility to support the sector in the way that we do with stable policies, and I think the way to do that is the way that we've set out. The section you refer to around sustainable land management outcomes, they're referred to as purposes within the Bill and they absolutely reflect the SLM outcomes that support may be given for, and there's a list of support that can be provided. That's financial or otherwise, really, and that's what this Bill will enable Ministers to do, to provide that support for agriculture and ancillary activities in a way that that will then contribute to the sustainable land management objectives.
Of course, our main delivery mechanism will be the sustainable farming scheme. That's why it's really so important. I plugged it again today. Please make sure that as many people—constituents and farmers—please, help us with that co-design, because it needs to work for them.
I should say the list of purposes within the Bill seeks to meet the requirement that we are looking for, but the list of purposes isn't exhaustive. So, there's room for more there. I think that's everything.