My Lords, Amendment 43 is a very harmless amendment, which merely gives Defra powers to introduce schemes to boost the rural economy. It does not force anyone, including Defra, to do anything, but merely enables them to ensure that as many as possible of the farming families, who are the backbone of rural England, will be able to survive on their land in years to come—particularly in the next five years, through the dramatic changes being introduced by the Bill. The fact that such powers also allow Defra to support the wider rural economy, and thus justify the rural affairs bit of its title, is incidental to the Bill, but it is hugely important to the majority of the people who live in our countryside. We should never forget that all the UK farmers and foresters together represent only about 4.5% of the rural population.
10.45 pm
For the purposes of this Bill, within the farming community, when the single farm payment disappears, most farmers will not be able to survive on their agricultural production alone. As I said in Committee, these farming households will depend for their survival largely on the cash wages brought in by the members of the wider household—the farmer’s spouse and his or her sons and daughters. So the whole survival of the farm and the family or families on it depends on the vitality of the wider rural economy around it. I do not mean to cry wolf, but there will be thousands of farms and farming families—particularly stock farms in the West Country, where I live, and throughout the western side of England—that will go under unless the wider rural economy comes to their rescue.
As I said in Committee, Pillar 2 of the CAP was based on this principle, as was our own Rural Development Commission, which lasted for nearly 100 years before being submerged and lost in Defra. So I am trying to give Defra back a very small arrow in its quiver, to continue the good work started so many years ago. This amendment does not even force it to use the arrow, just to have it standing by in case the Shared Prosperity Fund does not provide enough support for our rural communities—and just in case the Shared Prosperity Fund does not recognise or give enough weight to the very real intergenerational deprivation that exists in our otherwise beautiful countryside.
I am looking for a greater degree of comfort from the Minister than he gave me in Committee. Either he accepts my amendment or he agrees to bring in his own amendment, or we get a firm statement from him
about the Shared Prosperity Fund. I am looking for a statement that there will be a clear rural component to this fund and that the Government as a whole recognise the very real social need to continually promote the wider rural economy outside the narrow confines of farming. This is not only to help our hard-pressed farmers survive on their farms but to alleviate some of the very real deprivation that exists in many parts of our countryside. I beg to move.