Our comments on the Government
response
5. In its response to our conclusions 1, 11, 14 and
20 Defra says that "[o]n the back of the vision's publication,
an intensive programme of engagement was launched by Defra, Treasury
and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to take forward debate
about the long term future of the CAP." We note that there
is no rebuttal of our claim that in advance of publication the
Government failed to prepare EU farm ministers and other key players
for its publication.
6. In the same section of its response, the Government
asserts that "[f]ar from undermining our influence, several
other countries have followed our lead and published, or are debating,
long term perspectives of their own. Agriculture Commissioner,
Mariann Fischer Boel, has similarly signalled the intention to
set out her long term vision for the future CAP." We were
in no doubt that the Vision document provoked a reaction, albeit
a negative one. The point we were making was that that the timing
and nature of the publication antagonised other Member States
and the Commission and so may have undermined the UK's ability
fully to influence the reform agenda in the future.
7. In response to our conclusions 12, 17 and 18,
the response says that
The Government disagrees with[3]
the Committee's criticisms about the nature of the CAP vision.
Indeed, there is an element of inconsistency in the Committee's
view that on the one hand the vision was not sufficiently revolutionary
and on the other that its publication antagonised the Commission
and Member States (conclusion 1).
We do not accept this charge of inconsistency.
Our criticisms were about the timing of the publication and the
Government's failure to prepare the ground properly for the launch
of its Vision. These meant that the Vision actually undermined
the Government's prospects for development of Pillar 2, and may
have undermined the UK's efforts to influence the reform agenda
in future.
8. In its response to our conclusions 2 and 3, we
note that the Government will shortly publish a more detailed
assessment of its own of the impacts of eliminating Pillar 1 of
the CAP. We welcome this acceptance by the Government that
it needs to provide a fuller analysis of this matter than it did
in the Vision.
9. In the same section of the response, we are puzzled
that the Government says that "we urge the Committee to accept
that evaluation of our proposals for future reform and of the
2003 reforms should be wider in scope than just their likely impact
on the farming sector … it would be unbalanced not also to
take account of benefits to consumers and taxpayers". While
we did say that more analysis of the Vision's implications for
the farming sector and the environment was needed, we were also
explicit in our report that "[t]he only long-term
justification for future expenditure taxpayers' money in the agricultural
sector is the provision of public goods", and that these
benefits in turn should be capable of evaluation[4].
The Government welcomed this conclusion.[5]
Our acceptance that the interests of taxpayers and consumers
must be taken into account was implicit in our advocacy of fundamental
reform.
10. We were pleased to see that the Government says
in response to our conclusions 12, 17 and 18 that it "will
continue to debate with stakeholders and across the EU the issue
of public goods and the best means of their delivery. We will
disseminate our emerging thinking in due course". The
Secretary of State should announce a timescale for publishing
the findings of this work.
11. Fundamental reform of the CAP is necessary, but
we do not underestimate the scale of the political challenge it
represents. We will continue to monitor the Government's efforts
to achieve it.
12. If there is a valid criticism of both the Government's
Vision document and our own Report, it is on the issue of food
security—a matter on which both parties now need to do further
work in relation to CAP reform. Whilst the Committee took evidence
on this,[6] we now believe
that we did not fully evaluate and comment upon the growing importance
of the issue and take into account issues such as the development
of biofuels, the effects of climate change and the impact of transmissible
animal diseases. Food security is a matter to which the Committee
will have to return.
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