There are a number of routes that we could pursue to bring this forward. My point is that there is a huge amount of money tied up in the CAP. There are funds, as the hon. Lady said, currently in pillar two. If we are serious about greening pillar one, we could try to transform it into a market, with state funds available to do that, to promote environmental schemes, so it could be almost a transferable obligation. As I said, the lettuce grower on the Cambridgeshire fens might choose not to participate. Another farmer might choose to participate in quite a big way, so we would
actually get some critical mass. We would have wildlife corridors and would make a genuine difference rather than making token gestures.
A lot of the proposals are probably beyond the scope of the current CAP negotiations. It was ever thus. One of the big problems with the CAP is that it always tends to be about 10 years behind where it needs to be. It is now focusing on the environment when it probably ought to be paying, as my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton said, a little more attention to food security. However, I know there is room for negotiation and there is an understanding that greater flexibility needs to be included in some of the proposals. We should at least be arguing for them, and not be afraid of arguing for them just because we do not think that we have enough allies at this point.
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