I note what the hon. Gentleman says about flexibility. That is certainly what we are trying to achieve. We want the flexibility to apply practical, effective and simple measures for our farmers. I thought that the hon. Gentleman had, at one point in his speech, ended a sentence when he said, “We want flexibility in the United Kingdom but not in other nations”. I thought, “Right. Yes, just stop there,” but I do not think that that is an achievable negotiating position. To be fair, he did carry on with his sentence.
Let us be absolutely clear: we want to achieve an environmental benefit across Europe, but we do not want to lose our very high standards. We are engaging, therefore, with the European Commission, the European Parliament and other member states to ensure that there is flexibility in the EU’s approach to greening.
My hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton requested an update on the process. It will be extremely difficult to give her the precision that she requires. Many different views are being expressed within the Agriculture Council and the European Parliament, and much will depend on the outcome of the overall budget negotiations. As Members have already said, until that budget is completed we will not know what the quantum is, and it would be very difficult to resolve many of the common agricultural policy issues without knowing the size of that envelope.
There is a move by the Cypriot presidency to achieve a partial general agreement, before the end of the year and the end of its EU presidency. Such an agreement will come about only if we are satisfied that we have something that is sustainable in all of its senses, and as far as the UK is concerned I think that we are some distance from that. I expect—this is no more than an expectation—that it is more likely that we shall come to a conclusion during the Irish presidency, following the conclusion of the budget round.
My hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton asked whether we have allies. Yes, we do. As always with European negotiations, there is a constantly changing kaleidoscope on different issues, but there are member states that clearly understand our points about flexibility and complexity and about how we can achieve the results, rather than focusing on an incomplete understanding of how we can best achieve better environmental benefits across Europe. It would probably be unhelpful at this stage in the negotiations to be numbering our friends and our enemies, because someone’s friend on one issue will often be their opponent on another.
Let me make it plain that we are not opposed to the concept of greening if it delivers greater public benefits from taxpayer expenditure. That is our clear position—the hon. Member for Bristol East made that point—and we want it to be achieved in a way that recognises the wide diversity of agriculture around the European Union. I just do not believe in the one-size-fits-all approach. It is hard to find such an approach even within the United Kingdom, as the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan said. Circumstances are very different within England itself, with a hill farm in the Pennines being very different from a cereal farm in East Anglia, and different parameters apply. I entirely agree with the EFRA Committee’s view that a one-size-fits-all approach might lose its relevance when applied to particular circumstances, and certainly when applied to our own.
Each of the areas proposed by the Commission initially, which were crop diversification, the retention of permanent pasture and the need for a proportion of land to be designated as ecological focus areas, has the capacity to divide opinion—informed opinion, because of exactly the points that Members have made today. Each measure contains the essence of a good idea—there is something there in the initial thinking—but the environmental benefits are not clear when the proposals are considered in the light of our own circumstances. I know that many other European Union member states are forming the same view, and that view is particularly true when the supposed benefits are considered in the light of the costs and complexities of implementation. It is not obvious that the money should be spent in a way that more demonstrably delivers complexity rather than environmental benefit, and that is crucial.
I think that it is fair, and not unkind to Commissioner Ciolos, to say that a particularly remarkable aspect of the greening debate in Brussels is that the Commission seems to have few, if any, supporters for the precise way forward that it has proposed. I would take some comfort from that if I saw a majority in favour of an alternative, but at the moment there are only many minorities.
Some countries have yet to be convinced about the basics, about the further shift towards paying farmers for delivering environmental public goods. They see ideals that we have long shared in this country as an expensive luxury at a time of economic difficulty, and we have to be alive to that view. There are attempts by some to water the proposals down and exempt the majority of their farmers. It is funny how definitions always exempt a member state’s own farmers from their effects—that is known as greenwashing. There are issues about greening by definition, and we do not want this to be a badge of convenience, with people carrying on exactly as before but with the application of greater funding, as that cannot be in anyone’s interest.