I completely agree with my hon. Friend, if I may be so bold as to call him that. One of the problems with stocking reductions, including the elimination of winter grazing, is that there are many tenants on Dartmoor. They are not landed people; they are tenants. They have no other farms than those they farm on Dartmoor. Where are they to put their flocks if they are told that they must be removed in the winter? What will happen is simple: those flocks will be lost. Either they will be sold if a commercial consideration can be obtained for them or they will be culled, because they may not be wanted anywhere else since they are used to the high moorland and the conditions they live in there.
These flocks are not just any flocks: in many cases they have been there for generations, for decades, for hundreds of years. They are hefted flocks; flocks, in Dartmoor terminology, that hold their leers. Leered flocks, put quite simply, are flocks that instinctively know the boundaries of their own grazing. It is a minor natural marvel of its own. It is part of the social and cultural heritage of Dartmoor, which, if winter grazing is removed completely, will be lost for all time.
My submission to my right hon. Friend the Minister and all Members who have attended the debate is that, as with so many things with life, Dartmoor presents us with a complex balancing exercise in which there are competing public interests to weigh and balance. Of course, the health of the natural environment is a primary consideration, but so I would argue is the cultural and social capital of Dartmoor, its communities and families who have farmed there for centuries—Dartmoor’s own unique heritage. In introducing the grazing calendar for the renewed agreement, we must have regard to that cultural, social and economic capital, which has been built up over the centuries and which is at risk if these destocking or stocking levels are insisted on. That is why my hon. Friends and I have called for an independent process in which, prior to the agreement of the new higher level schemes, an impartial facilitator and reviewer would lead the negotiation and discussion, review the contesting arguments and balance the competing public interests.
I am glad and relieved to say that the call for an independent process has been heeded by the Dartmoor National Park Authority and the Dartmoor Commoners’
Council. Indeed, every relevant stakeholder on the moor, including Natural England, agreed on 4 April this year that such an independent process would be valuable. I would argue that we are now beginning to make progress. Unless we do something like this—unless we subject the factors that should go into these new extended agreements to objective review—we will constantly have a tug of war on Dartmoor, which will sap our strength and undermine our conviction and singleness of purpose to achieve the objectives we all want to see. I call on the Minister to give a fair wind to this important process.
The proposal is that an independent reviewer be appointed, possibly by the Minister himself, and paid for by the stakeholders at no cost to the Government. Who would look a gift horse in the mouth? The proposal is simple: we appoint an independent facilitator and all parties are brought into the process. He then reports over a period of 12 months, taking the views of all sides and proposing ways forward by negotiation and mediation. That seems to be a positive step forward.
We have been vexed for too long on Dartmoor by these entrenched positions—by the naturalists and environmentalists on one side and the farmers on the other, and by anybody else who wants to weigh in. The time has come for us to work together, and the way forward is via this independent process. Since all parties are now subscribed to it, I urge the Minister to agree. When one is presented with an opportunity like that, one does not spurn it.
My first call to the Minister is to allow the proposal to take place. It may require a degree of co-operation and assistance from the Department. The proposal is that for the first 12 months there would be no or minimal grazing level changes and the stocking calendar would essentially not change. However, the proposal is called “one plus four”, so that after the 12-month review in which the independent facilitator works to achieve consensus, the remaining four years would implement the recommendations of that review.
The park authority supports the proposal, and it is the park authority’s job to balance these factors. Part of its statutory definition and purpose is to achieve a balance between the communities, the socioeconomic factors affecting Dartmoor, the natural landscape and environment, and many other factors besides. If the park authority supports the proposal and Natural England is also in agreement, I urge my right hon. Friend the Minister to give it fair wind. However, it will need more than that. Once the independent facilitator has produced his recommendations, it may be that he makes recommendations for the adjustment of grazing on Dartmoor. The problem with the current situation is that in order to renew these agreements, which must be renewed now, none of the farmers concerned about whether to make adjustments in the business model that they have pursued for many years have any time to do so. The proposal would give time not only for an independent review and for the recommendations of an impartial and credible character to be advanced but, as the process unfolded, for farm businesses on Dartmoor to adapt. In many cases, they are fragile, particularly where there are tenants who have no cushion with which to adapt, but they would at least have the opportunity
of planning how, over time, they would adapt to graduated changes, if that was the recommendation for the stocking calendar.
However, the Government can help in this way. It may well be that the grazing of molinia by cattle and ponies is regarded as a good thing, so why are the Government not considering incentivising hill farmers to graze molinia at the correct time—between May and July, when molinia is palatable to cattle? Why are they not producing a scheme for the upland areas that will join in tandem with the statutory objective of bringing these sites into favourable condition by encouraging the practices that will achieve that very thing?
I urge the Minister to have an open mind about how the new environmental land management schemes are being developed for the purposes of the upland areas. It may be that on particular moors there should be an element of bespoke, precise targeting of practices that will assist Natural England, and the families and businesses that farm there, to achieve objectives that we all want to see.
We appreciate that ELMS are experimental schemes. They are still being tried and tested. Although we have seen much welcome detail so far, we have not seen, perhaps, sufficient detail about the upland areas. That presents us with an opportunity over the next 12 months on Dartmoor to design the further detail for the upland areas in a manner that will be tailored to the interests of preserving those precious farms and farming communities, and achieving the objectives of Natural England.
That is my second call to the Government and to my right hon. Friend the Minister: support the independent process, allow it to do its work, and consider how, in designing ELMS for the upland areas, they might be tailored and designed to incentivise and encourage the wholesome objectives of Natural England while preserving viable farm businesses on the moor.
In my opinion and, I believe, in the opinion of my right hon. and hon. Friends who surround me, this is a compelling menu for the Minister to choose from. It achieves what we need to achieve on Dartmoor. I do not want to demonise one side or the other, but there is no doubt that the recent indications and announcements from Natural England have plunged Dartmoor into uncertainty. It would appear from the evidence of my hon. Friends here who represent other moors—indeed, I see across the Chamber others who represent moorland areas—that the same is true elsewhere, but certainly in the south-west, an enormous amount of uncertainty, anxiety and stress has been caused.
It is not just farmers who are experiencing that. Around this country, there are tens of thousands of people who regard with deep sentiment the welfare of Dartmoor and its communities—and also its ponies; we must not forget them. They are genetically unique, and precious to many thousands of people. They, too, are under threat from a policy that would eliminate winter grazing and dramatically reduce summer grazing. Why? Quite simply, it is because they are included in the stocking calendars. Given the choice between a productive unit or an unproductive unit, which will people choose? There is bound to be reduction in the number of Dartmoor ponies, to the extreme dismay of tens of thousands of people throughout this country.
The problem has simply been that Natural England has acted, no doubt with the best intentions, in a
manner that fails to take into account that it is regulating a complex environment, in which there are multiple public interests and goods that have to be weighed. That might mean that it has to accept, as I believe it does, that the return to favourable condition of these precious sites, which we all want to see, might take place over time. We cannot simply explode on these fragile communities a sudden change in the models of what they have been doing for decades—the loss of their hefted flocks and all these social and cultural values—because of a single perspective that fails to take account of the complexity of the balance that must be achieved.
Not only have I described the problem, but I hope I have described the solution. Having served under two Prime Ministers in government, I recall that both used to say, “I don’t want problems, Geoffrey, I want solutions.” Faithful to that prescription, I hope I have adumbrated not only a problem that is of acute concern to many hundreds of decent people, whom I and my colleagues represent, that is precious and integral to the survival of their communities and way of life, but the solution, to which they are all subscribed and which, with one heart and voice, we call on the Minister to endorse.
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