Graham Stuart, MP for Beverley and Holderness, is to meet members of the River Hull Flood Action Group.

 The meeting comes after the group contacted Graham with concerns about the Environment Agency’s (EA) River Hull Flood Risk Management Strategy.

 Graham said: “The consultation period for the flood management strategy is coming to an end but some constituents [...]]]>

Graham Stuart, MP for Beverley and Holderness, is to meet members of the River Hull Flood Action Group.

 The meeting comes after the group contacted Graham with concerns about the Environment Agency’s (EA) River Hull Flood Risk Management Strategy.

 Graham said: “The consultation period for the flood management strategy is coming to an end but some constituents obviously have concerns about the way things are being handled.”

 Members of the Hull Flood Action Group claim that local knowledge and ideas are being ignored by the EA and that the Agency needs to change its approach and be more genuinely open to the views of those who will be most affected by its decisions.

 The Action Group insists that the EA is underestimating the flood risk benefits of a properly maintained land drainage system providing large areas of dry farmland to soak up excessive rainfall. According to the Group the pumps for land drainage offer cost effective benefits to a strategy to keep dry the whole of the River Hull valley, including the city of Hull. The Group’s members reject the idea that flood benefits are marginal and that the pump system on the River Hull is overwhelmingly for farming benefit.

 Graham added: “Everyone agrees that the current system on the River Hull needs to be maintained for both food production and flood protection alike. The Environment Agency must not walk away from its obligations nor use the current financial situation to offload its responsibilities onto local landowners.

 “I am in regular contact with the EA and will do everything I can to make sure that the system is properly maintained, is financially sustainable and that the EA pays its fair share of the costs.”

 Speaking after the Conservative Party launched its A New Age of Agriculture  document, he said: “Allowing [...]]]> Under the current Government, East Riding farmers have been treated as dispensable and the country has become increasingly dependent on imports of meat, dairy produce and vegetables which we could grow ourselves, says Graham Stuart, MP for Beverley and Holderness. 

 Speaking after the Conservative Party launched its A New Age of Agriculture  document, he said: “Allowing this trend to continue is neither morally or strategically desirable when global food demand is projected to double by 2050. 

 “Falls in domestic production not only weaken our food security, but threaten the viability of rural communities.”

 He said a new approach needed to be looked at which would reverse this damaging trend.

 Increasing production should become a strategic priority, while preventing a return to the days of intervention which distorted the market. 

 Graham said: “Clearly there will be pressure going forward on both the domestic and EU budgets for agriculture.  No government is going to write larger cheques for farming in the years ahead.  But we can focus on creating the conditions which allow our farmers to compete as they move closer to the market.”

In A New Age of Agriculture, the Conservative Party sets out five key conditions for a thriving agricultural sector:

• Promoting fair competition – by ensuring honest country of origin food labelling and a supermarket ombudsman to enforce a code of practice to ensure fair treatment of suppliers.
• Reducing the burden of regulation – with fewer on-farm inspections, greater emphasis on voluntary schemes for self-regulation, proper cost-benefit analysis of EU rules and a focus on outcomes, not processes.
• A Common Agricultural Policy which provides long term stability – with a reformed regime post-2013 which sees less support linked to production and a shift of resources across the EU to the rural development programme, to the benefit of the environment, British farmers and the taxpayer.
• Taking effective action on animal health and welfare – with an animal health strategy that protects the industry and consumers and promotes our high animal welfare standards, including working at an international level to include production standards in WTO negotiations.
• Enabling increased production whilst protecting the environment – with a package of measures to raise production sustainably and boost our science base by prioritising agricultural R&D within Defra’s budget.

The party also announced two important new policies:

• The introduction of rules into the new national planning framework to prevent the development of the most fertile farmland (grades 1 and 2), in all but exceptional circumstances.
• Fundamental reform of the Rural Payments Agency (RPA), appointing the Minister for Farming as Chairman of its Management Board, to improve accountability, reduce costs and drive up performance.

The Government recently published its Food 2030 strategy, but while this belated recognition that farming matters was a welcome step forward, it has little credibility after more than a decade in which the Government has devalued British agriculture and allowed domestic production to decline.

 Graham added: “Farming, in particular on the prime land in Beverley and Holderness, has a critical role in Britain’s future.  As the provider of the majority of our food and the manager of 70 per cent of our landscape, the industry should look forward to a rewarding future under a Conservative government which wants it to succeed and believes that farming matters.”

 A New Age of Agriculture policy document can be found here  and a copy of Nick Herbert’s speech to the NFU, which can also be read here.

Since being set up in 2005 the RPA, charged with organising the payment of European subsidies to farmers, has consistently been in the headlines for [...]]]> Graham Stuart, MP for Beverley and Holderness, today described news staff at the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) had received almost £2 million in bonuses as a woeful use of public money.

Since being set up in 2005 the RPA, charged with organising the payment of European subsidies to farmers, has consistently been in the headlines for all the wrong reasons, with blunders being revealed on a regular basis.

It is understood many farmers were driven to the verge of bankruptcy as their subsidy cheques were continually delayed.

For those that did get them, things were little better with many more either being underpaid or, even worse, overpaid and then told several months later they had to repay the money.

Now a Freedom of Information (FoI) request has revealed the agency paid its staff £1.8 million in bonuses since being set up.

According to reports in the Yorkshire Post the bonuses were handed out to staff based on their achievement.

Graham said: “For the struggling farmers across my constituency this is nothing short of a kick in the teeth.

“It is just another example of a Government agency being set up in haste, failing to do its job correctly and then rewarding that very failure.”

And he added: “I agree with Shadow Agriculture Minister Jim Paice that it is quite disgusting that while farmers are either left wondering where payments are, or are hounded for overpayments and denied any compensation, agency officials are given generous bonuses.”

MPs have demanded that the RPA reports to them every three months after it wasted £680 million of taxpayers’ money.

Last year, the agency overpaid 1,700 farmers by £90m, some of whom are now refusing to repay the money. It also lost computer tapes containing confidential bank details for more than 100,000 farmers.

The agency was sharply criticised by the House of Commons’ Public Accounts Committee for having a disastrous IT system, poor management and delays in payments.  A National Audit Office report into the agency’s dealings was also strongly critical.

Latest figures, published this week, show that, as of December 31 2009, the total value of payments made under SPS for 2009 is just under £1.5 billion which equates to just under 78 per cent of the estimated total fund of £1.86 billion.

More than 91,000 farmers across the country have now received their full SPS payment, representing nearly 85 per cent of the estimated total claimant population of 107,500.

A spokeswoman for the RPA said the agency is now “working hard to finalise checks on the remaining claims and is aiming to pay farmers as quickly as possible”.