My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, makes a powerful case for a new environmental regulatory regime for agriculture in introducing Amendment 229. While I accept that regulation will never stand still but always evolve in line with famers’ and consumers’ priorities and our understanding of the natural environment and what affects it, I think that, at a time when farmers are having
to adapt their business models to reflect the loss of what is, for many, the largest single component of their annual incomes, introducing a new regulatory regime would be unnecessarily burdensome and confusing.
I seek clarification from my noble friend the Minister that the cross-compliance rules will also apply to payments under the ELM scheme; I expect that this would mean that this amendment and, indeed, Amendments 230 and 231, in the name of my noble friend Lord Randall of Uxbridge, are not necessary. Furthermore, his intention to reduce from 20 metres to 10 metres the minimum length of hedgerows to which regulations apply is surely disproportionate and unreasonable. Is my noble friend not aware that, up and down the country, farmers are putting in new hedgerows?
In Amendment 297, the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, seeks to place a limit on rearing pigs on any land at a density greater than 20 healthy pigs per hectare. A friend of mine whose family have farmed pigs in Lincolnshire for generations tells me that this density is very low. I ask my noble friend the Minister to confirm that he agrees.