Gove in vow to protect £3.4bn of EU funding for farmers

SCOTLAND’S farmers have been handed a major boost after the Tories promised to maintain EU funding levels for the next five years.

Annual subsidies issued via the bloc’s common agricultural policy (CAP) are worth around £3.4billion a year UK-wide.

The pledge to protect the payments if the Conservatives win the General Election was made yesterday by Michael Gove, who heads up the Government’s Brexit planning.

He said CAP funding would continue for the lifetime of the next parliament – due to run until 2024.

Mr Gove announced the move while visiting a farm near Castle Douglas, Kirkcudbrightshire.

He said: ‘A majority Conservative government will safeguard farm payments for the lifetime of the next Westminster parliament.

‘That is a five-year guarantee. It means farmers and land managers will receive the same level of support in cash terms.

‘Agriculture is devolved, so it will be for the Scottish Government to determine how that money is distributed. But Scottish farmers can be reassured the total amount of support will be maintained under a Conservative UK government.

‘Farmers can invest with confidence for the future. That is great news for one of Scotland’s most important industries.

‘No other party is making this promise and no other country is offering such certainty for farmers.’

The Conservatives also vowed to use leaving the EU as an opportunity to encourage the public sector to ‘Buy British’ produce.

When the UK leaves the EU, it will quit the CAP system of subsidies to farmers, which mostly pays them for the amount of land they farm.

Before the General Election was called, the UK Government had pledged to maintain the £3.4billiona-year level of cash support for farmers for the duration of the parliamentary term, due to run until 2022. The new announcement means the help for farmers will be likely to continue until 2024.

But Scottish Liberal Democrat General Election chairman Alex Cole-Hamilton said: ‘Michael Gove is a fool if he thinks Brexit will benefit Scottish farmers.

‘Farms are struggling to get the seasonal workers they need and are worried that new barriers will cost them money.’

Andrew McCornick, president of the National Farmers Union (NFU) Scotland, said: ‘NFU Scotland has issued its manifesto to all political parties and candidates standing in this election. It calls upon all parties to deliver unambiguous

‘Invest with confidence’

commitments on future funding so that industry can work with governments to develop and deliver a bold new agricultural policy that will support farmers and crofters to improve productivity, environmental benefits and financial stability.’

Meanwhile, Mr Gove also said yesterday that Nicola Sturgeon is the ‘strongest electoral asset’ the Tories have north of the Border due to her demands for a second referendum on independence.

Mr Gove, who is also Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, ruled out granting a Section 30 Order to hold another vote on Scexit, describing the 2014 poll as a ‘once-in-a-lifetime event’.

He said another referendum would be a ‘waste of time’ and a ‘distraction’, and called on the SNP to instead focus on solving problems in the health and education sectors.

Mr Gove said: ‘Our [the Tories’] biggest electoral asset, of course, is Nicola Sturgeon, because Nicola Sturgeon’s insistence on a second independence referendum, come hell or high water, is not going down well on the doorstep.’

He added that the First Minister and SNP would ‘use any reason, any excuse, any justification to say there should be a second independence referendum’, adding that if Miss Sturgeon’s party wins a majority at the next Holyrood election in 2021, ‘they will say that is another reason to have a referendum’.

Mr Gove said: ‘We’re not going to grant that. We will say no, because she said that this was a once-in-alifetime event.

‘It erodes trust in politics if you say it is a once-in-a-lifetime event and then you go back on that.’