More dither and delay
THE big announcement which the Cabinet Secretary teased at the Farmer’s rally last week, turns out to be that the new all-singing-all-dancing agricultural payment system won’t be ready in 2025.
Rather, the old system will make the payments with additional rules for farmers to be more green, efficient and wildlife friendly. Whether the new system will be ready by 2026 remains to be seen.
But the Government have managed to achieve what few thought possible, a united countryside. Environmentalists, farmers, crofters and charities are all standing shoulder to shoulder as they decry the dither and delay, and demand the government come clean on the new rural rules.
Delay seems to be the key theme, as even the end date of the consultation is getting its own extension. We have two weeks more to fill-in-forms answering questions on how the government will ask us to fill-in-forms in the future, only no-one has a clue what the future forms will look like, you could not make it up!
We might not know what the new rules look like, but we can be sure there will be more of them. There will be ‘new conditionality’ in 2025 then ‘enhanced conditionality’ in 2026, if the Scottish Government can get its act together.
Conditionality was a new one on us when the policy wonks started using the term, but I am pretty sure it means more hoops to jump through. Deciding on the size and type of these hoops will be the moment when it gets messy and the rural unity starts to tear at the seams.
The government is well aware of this and has constantly kicked the can down the road. If full detail was divulged, the winners and losers would become apparent and farmer rallies could turn to protests. This wouldn’t be the ideal backdrop for a government planning to paint a harmonious vision of Scotland in the run up to the proposed referendum.
Our lobbying organisations were quieter than usual on the most recent delay announcement, maybe they are so used to government dithering, it fails to register, or perhaps they are so short staffed they can’t find someone to write a statement.
Meanwhile, the Chancellor of the Exchequer has a difficult task balancing the books following the chaos caused in just 45 days by former PM Liz Truss. Tax rises and budget cuts are likely in the autumn statement, but it would be wise for Jeremy Hunt to remember that a happy voter starts with a full belly. It is a moral imperative that nothing be done which will reduce the amount of food we produce.
Nevertheless the here and now in the real world – beyond endless form filling – is that jobs need done as our farms creak at the seams with costs, prices and disease ravaging the countryside.
We know as the autumn rain pelts off our faces and we pull the Stanley blade across the next silage bale, you can’t hide away from the task in hand or you’ll start to hear them roar.