Common Agricultural Policy

I agree entirely with the hon. Gentleman. Clearly, we have different climates and landscapes, diverse methods of farming and different ways of doing business in farming. Without prejudice to the common market, it is important that decisions are made in a practical way by the people best able to make them. Member states will need flexibility in the process to tailor implementation to their own needs. Within the UK, all three devolved Administrations must be able to work around the challenges that they face in delivering sustainable agricultural development in some least favoured areas. About 85% of Scotland is classified as least favoured areas. That compares with much lower proportions in some other parts of the UK. I hope the Minister will offer assurances that he will press for greater regionalisation as the negotiations intensify and that the issue will not fall off the agenda. The hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh), the Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, quite rightly concentrated on direct payments in her remarks. I welcome the fact that the Government have moved away from the more rigid position of the previous Government, but I am still concerned about their direction of travel. I welcome the Minister's remarks earlier on clarifying the Government's position. I hope that he will listen carefully to the Governments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland on direct payments and pursue a negotiating stance in Europe that reflects the needs and wishes of the whole UK. It is worth remembering, as the hon. Lady pointed out, that direct payments are there primarily to compensate producers for the increased costs of operating in a highly regulated market and to enable them to meet the high animal welfare and food safety standards that we all expect. We need to acknowledge that that does not come for free. We need to accept the reality that, in the past few decades, farming has not been particularly viable as a commercial enterprise. If we did not support agriculture with direct payments, food production and land management simply would not be happening in large areas of the UK. Farming, especially in the least favoured areas, would have ceased a long time ago. We cannot consider this in purely economic terms. The hon. Lady hit the nail on the head when she put food security at the heart of the debate. Brian Pack's 2010 report, which was produced for the Scottish Government, highlighted not just the food security challenge, but the challenges of climate change, water supply, energy use and biodiversity as the starting points for CAP reform. In a global context of rapidly increasing demand for food and the need to manage our natural environment much more sustainably, the case for direct support for farmers is actually much stronger now than it ever has been in the past. We also need to consider the future of direct payments against the historical backdrop of Scottish farmers receiving a disproportionately low share of pillar one support—a pressing issue for those Scottish farmers who want to export their produce. At present, pillar one rates in Scotland are only €130 per hectare, which is less than half the EU average, and well below the UK average of €229 per hectare. The UK needs to argue for its proper share of pillar one, not least so that it can provide a fairer allocation to Scottish farmers.