At last, some joined-up thinking
COUNTRY people will applaud the new Government thinking emerging from the undergrowth of the Brexit negotiations. Two departments are driving innovative policies that could transform the countryside. It’s an unlikely alliance, born out of necessity, between two of the cleverest members of the Cabinet: Greg Clark, the Business Secretary, and Michael Gove, the Defra Secretary. They may have nothing in common on Europe, but, together, they have seized the opportunity of the recently published Industrial Strategy to broker a new deal for food and farming.
Agromenes welcomed Mr Gove’s appointment because it brought energy and direction to what had been a flailing ministry. The new life and purpose in Defra are matched by the spirit engendered by the successful marriage between Energy and Climate Change with Trade and Industry to form the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS). This was hailed as a disaster by much of the Green lobby, but has proved its worth and suffered few of the teething troubles that usually accompany departmental reorganisation.
As a result, BEIS’S strong ministerial team and its clear mandate for wide-reaching reform produced the Clean Growth Strategy and now the Industrial Strategy, which together chart a course for business with a clarity long absent from our political system.
The fundamental change for us is that the whole food and farming industry is to be treated as a single entity from farm to fork. COUNTRY LIFE has long advocated this solution, but it’s seemed out of reach because every part of the chain—farmers, manufacturers, retailers and hauliers—have acted on their own and not in concert. However, as Agromenes has consistently pressed, they are, in fact, one industry, each part dependent upon the other.
Farmers produce the raw materials that manufacturers and retailers need; logistics experts move food products around the country and make ‘just in time’ efficiencies possible. Productivity increases depend on applying scientific advance from universities and agricultural colleges to practical farming; supermarkets depend on it to keep their shelves stocked and their prices competitive.
The opportunity presented by the Industrial Strategy, coupled with the threats posed by Brexit, have galvanised food-industry leaders to work together, in the Food and Drink Group, on a common programme involving everything from horticulture to catering. In return, the Government wants to ensure a coherent approach in every ministry, whether it’s Health or Culture, Media and Sport.
It’s a tall order: Britain’s biggest industry and largest employer working with eight or more government departments as well as with ministers in the devolved administrations. We’re only at the very start, but so much about Britain’s future is uncertain that to have achieved common purpose and the outline of a common programme is itself a major success.
If there’s a missing piece, it’s an explicit commitment to the future of the wider rural community. The Countryside Commission has gone and the Government no longer has a statutory duty to ‘ruralproof’ legislation. As we leave the EU, this lack will become more evident.
Only this week, another major report showed that some of the most deprived of people live in the countryside, where the needs of those with poor access to essential services go unheeded in much of Whitehall. If Defra and the Local Government Department could work to fill this gap, then the scene really would be set for rural stability and investment.
‘Agromenes welcomed Mr Gove’s appointment because it brought energy and direction