Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:33 pm on 14 May 2024.
Huw Irranca-Davies
Labour
4:33,
14 May 2024
Thank you, Sam. Listen, I'd echo the thanks to all those organisations who made submissions to the consultation but who also engaged, including in the run-up to the protest. And I've said previously, I think, in terms of Senedd Cymru, Welsh Parliament, people actually protesting outside we should welcome. It's part of the political engagement. We really should. And then we should listen to what's being said. It's not that we take everything on face value, but we should listen and engage. That's part of being a proper, mature Parliament.
In terms of the consultation, can I just put on record my thanks to Lesley Griffiths and her officials for all the work that they've done? They've taken some brickbats, particularly when the protests were going on and so on, but there was a genuine, meaningful approach to engage. It was a genuine consultation as well. I think that's reflected in my ability to come in now, at this timely juncture, and just reflect on it and think, 'Right, well, how do we take it forward?' It was a genuine consultation. But the points you make on HWS and the data and the mapping are well made. We do need to get this right going forward, and that will be of help not only to the sustainable farming scheme itself, but actually to wider land management in Wales going forward for many years to come. We haven't got it right. The HWS, curiously, as I mentioned earlier on—the take-up has been greater than expected, which is really good. But what it means now is that we can use some of the things that have come forward to go back to farmers and say, 'Right, what's wrong here?', as well as the other mapping that we have. So, there's work to be done on that.
And finally, your point on greenwashing—you are so right. One of the areas that we are interested in, beyond SFS, is whether we can look at a real scheme with integrity, with real ethical integrity within it, that could lever funds that are beyond the taxpayer funds into enabling farmers to do more, and it could be within biodiversity schemes, landscape management schemes, it could be within tree planting, but not on productive land, yes, but, of course, farmers make commercial decisions as well, they do. But we’ve got to make sure that what is being done in Wales is to the benefit of those land managers, landowners and local communities in Wales. That’s it. So, we need to think collectively about how we can bring forward something that does that, because there is scope. We’re talking about a scheme that is predicated upon, if you like, public funds going into developing the support and the sort of farming we want to see in future, and the sort of food production and the wider benefits. Beyond that, there could well be a quantum of funding out there that if we design something correctly, that could be quite interesting, and there could be more that we could do. There could be more we can do in biodiversity and environmental gain et cetera, et cetera, but getting that right, not having greenwashing, not selling it to outside bodies. So, there's a piece of work to be done.
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