Direct Payments to Farmers (Legislative Continuity) Bill

I think it important to learn the lessons of our involvement in the common agricultural policy over the years, and to consider some of the things that have gone wrong with it. In the context of implementing future changes in regulation, we should recognise that, for example, the set-aside rule—which those of us who were in farming in those days know and love—would sometimes represent the difference between profit and loss for a farm. To put it bluntly, the difference between the farm being viable and not viable was what the EU paid farmers not to grow anything. How can we incorporate that balance between productivity in our land and a viable economic agricultural and rural sector in our future legislation? I am heartened to hear that we are keeping that option in this Bill.