Mccornick left ‘frustrated’ after meeting with Gove and Duncan

The turf war over who holds the reins of power – and the purse-strings – of agricultural policy in Scotland after the UK leaves the EU continues to hamper any progress on developing a coherent policy, it was claimed yesterday.

Following a roundtable meeting in Aberdeen at which UK Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Michael Gove and Scotland Office minister Lord Duncan met representatives of Scottish agriculture, NFU Scotland president Andrew Mccor- nick said there had been a “frank” discussion on Brexit.

“Frustratingly, future UK agricultural policy and where the levers of power will sit remains the main area of political conflict,” said Mccornick. “What the industry needs is clarity and that requires political posturing to come to an end and all parties to sit down as soon as possible for proper discussion on what is sensible at a UK level and what is needed at a devolved level.”

Mccornick said the main thrust of the message given to the UK ministers had been the need for Scottish agricultural funding to be ring-fenced and for policy tools to be made available to the industry to determine how policy should develop in the future.

With many agricultural sectors reliant on continued access to migrant labour he added: “[We] also impressed on the ministers the clear need for an immigration policy on longterm and seasonal workers that helps rather than hinders the ambition of our farmers and Scotland’s food and drink sector.”

Gove said that details of the future shape of support measures would be decided when a white paper on the subject was published, most likely in spring 2018.