Speeches by Zeichner.

“I have not had any communication so far.”

“I think you will find there have been a lot of debates in this place.”

“As I say, Chair, I believe we have robust supply chains, and I encourage people to have a reasoned dialogue, very much as we have had this morning, about the way forward for the future. The overwhelming message should be that this is a really important sector all the way through the food chain. It does a magnificent jo…”

“That is a very good question, which I will go away and see if we can find the answer to. I suspect, as in so many other things, that there is always more that we can do, but of course we are dependent to some extent on international advice.”

“I absolutely understand why people are stressed, and I have every sympathy with them, but I would urge them to look in detail. I followed your discussions on this issue a few months ago, and what struck me from the witnesses was the complexity of the sets of arrangements that are in place in so many farming estates. Th…”

“Sometimes people are a little surprised that the answer, when I was asked when I knew, was that it was when I was in these Committee Rooms five years ago. We were moving from the common agricultural policy approach, which basically said that everyone who had the entitlement would get a payment, to a different approach,…”

“The Treasury figures showed that a very large amount of public money is going to a very few estates through this relief system, and it is not unreasonable for an incoming Government to look at that. It is still a much more generous system than applies to the general population, and that recognises the particular circum…”

“Thank you for inviting us this morning. I am Daniel Zeichner. I am the Minister for Food Security and Rural Affairs.”

“It does not tell the whole story, because we are working, as I say, within the legislative framework that was agreed by Parliament under the Fisheries Act. Our task is to make those judgments.”

“Absolutely, and that is why we will use this period before opening up the new scheme to tackle this kind of issue. The question I find myself asking is how that scheme could have been introduced in that kind of way in the first place, but that is what we had. The choice we had at any point was, whenever we said it is n…”

“It absolutely does, but it shows the complexity of the decisions that are being made. As a Minister, I can only follow the scientific advice we are being given.”

“There is unhappiness, clearly, within the agricultural sector about the way they are sometimes treated. But I would not want to characterise the food system as being anything other than actually, overall, successful. We do have a successful food system in this country. I am trying to choose my words carefully here beca…”

“May I look to you for that one, Mike?”

“I cannot comment on individual cases, but I can say that, almost inevitably, some schemes will provide better environmental outcomes than others. We have inherited a package of schemes that do some very good things. I should say at this point that when you look at the number of farms that are now in schemes, it is quit…”

“To tax and subsidies?”

“I am afraid I am going to give you the same answer that you got from the DBT, which is that it is a matter for the Competition and Markets Authority, and for the reason I explained earlier: we think the Groceries Code Adjudicator is working well.”

“I think it is working effectively, yes.”

“Again, I would say this can be raised as part of the current review that is going on. Alongside that, we have the new regulations that are coming in that deal with the Agricultural Supply Code Adjudicator. But I hear the point about the wider issues, and I am certainly happy to look at that if evidence comes from your …”

“That is a different question. The Treasury made its announcements at the Budget in the normal way, which is the way you would expect a Budget to be presented. There has been considerable interest in it since, but I do not anticipate any changes.”

“Of course, the Government is looking very closely at what is happening internationally, and DEFRA quite rightly offers its advice on any issues that might come up.”