My Lords, I add my support for the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Grantchester on the provision of advice, training and guidance for those in receipt of financial assistance. The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, made a good point about there being a kind of free application need as well.
As a nation, we are asking farmers and land managers to make big changes in the way they manage the land —to deliver not only productive and efficient farm businesses but a whole range of public goods as well. Therefore, good advice covering all those issues will be really important.
It was delightful to hear the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, reminisce about the demise of the publicly funded agricultural advisory system. It flourished after the war to get productivity up but got knocked on the head
in the 1990s. Now, many farmers get advice solely from their commercial agronomists, which is altogether too narrow a focus. Advice and training will be particularly important for small farms.
I do not think that a publicly funded or publicly promoted advisory system needs to be top down and statist. Many noble Lords have made the point that local conditions are very important, and that is absolutely clear. We have experience in this country of a number of organisations that have set up county branches to give advice and support, and to bring together farmers around common issues on a local basis. I think that we could rapidly reinvent that. Therefore, the role of the Government needs to be to stump up some money and to give a modest amount of assurance on the quality of the advice being given. At the end of the day, farmers will take advice only from people whom they trust and feel comfortable with, so that has to be built into whatever system is introduced. It would also be beneficial to create some small local businesses in the advisory field to help boost the rural economy. There is a real role for government here.