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The UK government’s agriculture bill allows “maximum flexibility” for developing new support payments specifically for NI farms, DAERA Minister Edwin Poots has said.
A motion on the agriculture bill was approved by the NI Assembly on Tuesday which gives a legal basis for current pillar 1 and pillar 2 support payments to be issued in NI beyond 2020. It also gives DAERA powers to develop new farm support schemes for NI.
Minister Poots made clear that NI would not be following plans in England where the Basic Payments Scheme is to be gradually phased out, starting from next year, and replaced by new environment-based schemes.
The minister gave no indication when the current system of support payments in NI will be replaced by a new agricultural policy
“Importantly, it (the agriculture bill) does not provide for the phasing out of direct payments or for a transition period, which is the position in England,” he told MLAs.
The minister gave no indication when the current system of support payments in NI will be replaced by a new agricultural policy. Instead, he told MLAs that he would introduce an NI-specific agriculture bill at “the appropriate time”.
Stormont agriculture committee chair Declan McAleer suggested that it could be after the next Assembly elections in 2022 before work on developing new schemes begins in earnest, and it could be 2024 before the policy is operational.
“That would give us a couple of years in the new mandate to thrash out our own agricultural policy, tailor-made for the North,” the Sinn Féin MLA said.
The UK government is coming under increased pressure from farmer organisations to delay plans to phase out direct payments in England
With the NI Assembly only restored in January 2020, there has been a narrow window for MLAs to scrutinise the UK government’s agriculture bill and proceedings at Stormont have now been stripped back to essential business due to the coronavirus pandemic.
However, MLAs were told that the accelerated passage of the bill through Stormont was needed to ensure that payments could be made to NI farmers beyond 2020.
Meanwhile, the UK government is coming under increased pressure from farmer organisations to delay plans to phase out direct payments in England. The plan is for a seven-year transition period to begin in 2021, but coronavirus has meant the passage of the bill through Westminster is likely to run behind schedule.
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