Ewing claims rules of game are unknown

SL&E conference hears contrasting views over situation facing government

While rural businesses were yesterday urged to ignore uncertainties, “take the wheel” and push ahead with their post-Brexit plans, there was political disagreement over how well placed the Scottish Government was to do the same with its plans for rural policy.

At Scottish Land and Estates’ annual conference in Edinburgh, Rural Economy Secretary Fergus Ewing said a lack of clarity from the UK Government on policy funding, labour availability and trade agreements made formulating any meaningful future strategy impossible:

“Who could draw up a business plan when the funding and the rules of the game remained unknown?” he asked.

He said despite the UK Government’s assurance that farm support funding would be “at least the same” as current levels up until the end of the current parliament, no assurance had yet been given by the Treasury over the funding of key rural development schemes such as the Less Favoured Area payments made to Scotland’s hill farmers and funding for agri-environment support, a proportion of which is from EU coffers.

However, the parliamentary undersecretary for Scotland, former MEP Lord Ian Duncan of Springburn, argued that UK farmers – and the Scottish Government – have more certainty over funding than European counterparts.

He told the conference: “While the UK Government has promised to sustain similar levels of payment to the current spending all the way through to 2022, the rest of Europe is beginning yet another reform of the Common Agricultural Policy, which is likely to see major changes introduced to schemes and spending levels by 2020.”

Turning to trade agreements, he said EU negotiators were specialists in the “last-minute” approach to such talks – but in the current circumstances such a strategy was counterproductive:

“For at the moment everyone feels they are losers – and talks which are aimed solely at making the other side lose more than your own are no help to anyone. There is no excuse to delay things to the last possible moment when everyone needs clarity at an early stage.”

On labour availability he said it was wrong to think that the UK was set to pull up the drawbridge on immigration.

He also said the availability of migrant labour was an issue which went well beyond Brexit, with the growth in the economies of many other Eastern European countries taking the “push” factor away from such movements.

Earlier in the conference SLE chairman David Johnstone had urged rural businesses to take control of their own destiny and to meet the challenges of Brexit “head on”, rather than using them as an excuse for holding fire.

He said it was crucial for businesses to get as much information as possible on the impacts of Brexit.

However, the reality is that change was heading our way regardless, most notably in terms of agricultural support.

There is no excuse to delay things to the last possible moment when everyone needs clarity at an early stage.

LORD IAN DUNCAN

Rural Economy Secretary Fergus Ewing said a lack of clarity from the UK Government on key issues made formulating any meaningful future strategy impossible.