My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister for galloping us through these measures. The challenge for us in this Committee is not to detain him too long, so as to allow him to resume all the work he is doing. I echo much of what the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, said. I declare my peripheral interests; my agriculture and land are all in Scotland so I am not directly involved.
The rationale for this process of cuts is the same as when this was carried out in New Zealand. All input costs and other things—my noble friend the Minister mentioned rents—dropped in parallel with the cuts in government funding. In the current economic situation, there is no way that fertiliser companies have the slack to cut prices. They are being forced up, as my noble friend the Minister will know, by 200% or more. Will the Government be monitoring how this works out in practice and will they create powers to delay the introduction? It will stretch the lump sum payments if they are the only remedy that is available, and people are going to be forced out of business.
My noble friend the Minister has promised that there will be no reduction in payments to farmers, and I am sure he believes that, but what proportion are the Government expecting to go to conservation projects that are not related to farming? Will that considered to be part of the payment or are they going to be financed from elsewhere?