Provision relating to Northern Ireland

Part of Agriculture Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 3:00 pm on 15 November 2018.

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Photo of George Eustice George Eustice The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs 3:00, 15 November 2018

This set of amendments, like previous ones, is largely about correcting drafting errors or making technical changes to reflect issues that we identified throughout the passage of the main part of the Bill.

Amendments 29 and 30 provide DAERA with powers to modify voluntary redistributive payments and areas of natural constraint payments, neither of which are currently made in Northern Ireland. Amendments 31, 32 and 38 define retained direct EU legislation related to the coupled support scheme and provide the option to continue and simplify or improve that scheme. That scheme is also not currently used in Northern Ireland, but the amendments ensure that a future Minister is not restricted on their choice of policy scheme.

Amendment 35 makes it clear that changes to basic payments—to improve or simplify—can include the continuation of taking steps towards reaching a flat rate of payment. Amendment 37 ensures that DAERA can continue direct payments after 2020 by enabling it to set ceilings after that scheme year. Amendment 36 allows DAERA to reduce the direct payments ceiling by up to 15% for Northern Ireland in 2020. Northern Ireland at the moment does not modulate at all between pillars 1 and 2.

All those amendments have been requested by DAERA because many of the policies are not ones that are used now—they are options in the CAP that have not been taken up under the Northern Ireland schemes. DAERA believes the powers to be permissive and that it is important for it to retain the option should a new Northern Ireland Administration be formed and decide that they want to take up those options. This is a sensible set of amendments to ensure that a future Administration in Northern Ireland will have the powers to pursue their policy choices.