My hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton will agree with that contention, as I know where he comes from.
The present level of confidence in agri-environmental schemes is, as the hon. Member for Ogmore says, the result of very careful preparation and consideration, as well as ensuring that everybody understood not only what they were to do but the reasons why they were to do it and why the schemes would have an effect.
That is partly the answer to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton about modulation. From our point of view, it is absolutely essential that we are able to ensure the continuation of these schemes, and the way that we can do that is to make sure that there are the funds within pillar two that enable us to maintain them. It is not just the agri-environmental stewardship schemes that matter, although they are of course important. It is also through one of the other things that she mentioned—the rural development programme for England—that we can deliver the other added benefits and the public good, by the use of modulated payments. We must be very conscious of that.
My hon. Friend also made a specific point about the exit from the schemes. I hope that the Government response to the Committee’s report set out what the position would be of someone who has signed up to a 10-year involvement, which is clearly the legal position. However, if difficulties arise after we have concluded the current negotiations and if the new schemes clearly require us to look again at transition, I would be very happy to talk to her, to the rest of the Select Committee and indeed other interested parties about that, to ensure that we have a situation in which people are not penalised for something that is outwith anything that they could reasonably have expected. That is because my determination is that farmers who enter into agri-environmental stewardship schemes have the confidence that, in doing so, they are not shackling their businesses to something that they do not want to do and they are not making a rod for their own back. Instead, they should have the confidence that the scheme will continue and will provide the sort of support they need for them to do the things that they want to do, both in terms of running their businesses on that land and in terms of achieving the environmental benefits for the wider good. So, as I say, I happily give my hon. Friend that assurance.