, Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
General Ministerial Scrutiny: Minister for Rural Affairs and North Wales, and Trefnydd
That's right. It was up to £20 million.
, Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
General Ministerial Scrutiny: Minister for Rural Affairs and North Wales, and Trefnydd
Will be next year.
, Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
General Ministerial Scrutiny: Minister for Rural Affairs and North Wales, and Trefnydd
Well, I said in October 2022 'up to £20 million'. I'm looking at Gian Marco now. I think it was always the intention that the majority of that funding would be next year's budget. I think we've spent some this year.
, Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
General Ministerial Scrutiny: Minister for Rural Affairs and North Wales, and Trefnydd
So, I will be bringing forward some dedicated support. Again, it will be announced—. Well, I'm hoping to announce it next week, but certainly in January, if I can't next week. As I say, it won't be a significant pot of money, but I felt it was important to do…
, Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
General Ministerial Scrutiny: Minister for Rural Affairs and North Wales, and Trefnydd
I've got another month yet. Ask me in a month.
, Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
General Ministerial Scrutiny: Minister for Rural Affairs and North Wales, and Trefnydd
There's excellent news. I haven't been asked about the rural development programme for a little while. I think because I said I was a 100 per cent confident that we would spend all the money, people weren't interested in it. So, I'm very glad to be asked…
, Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
General Ministerial Scrutiny: Minister for Rural Affairs and North Wales, and Trefnydd
Well, my personal opinion is it's a consultation. If you look at consultations that have been launched—we're constantly launching consultations. I don't see the necessity to have one. We've had lots of opportunities to discuss sustainable farming. We've just…
, Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
General Ministerial Scrutiny: Minister for Rural Affairs and North Wales, and Trefnydd
You did.
, Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
General Ministerial Scrutiny: Minister for Rural Affairs and North Wales, and Trefnydd
Absolutely.
, Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
General Ministerial Scrutiny: Minister for Rural Affairs and North Wales, and Trefnydd
It is a very important issue, but we've had lots of statements around it, and this is just the consultation, so I don't think I needed to make an oral statement about the consultation. I've done an oral statement on the sustainable farming scheme ahead of—…
, Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
General Ministerial Scrutiny: Minister for Rural Affairs and North Wales, and Trefnydd
So, I guess they would ask for that as part of their consultation.
, Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
General Ministerial Scrutiny: Minister for Rural Affairs and North Wales, and Trefnydd
I'm trying to think if there's a specific question.
, Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
General Ministerial Scrutiny: Minister for Rural Affairs and North Wales, and Trefnydd
I'm going to bring Gian Marco in.
, Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
General Ministerial Scrutiny: Minister for Rural Affairs and North Wales, and Trefnydd
You see, I don't come at perhaps the angle that you're coming at. I don't see trees as being devaluing to the business, to the farming business. So, there's this constant—particularly in the summer, when trees was sort of the hot topic, if you like—'I'm going…
, Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
General Ministerial Scrutiny: Minister for Rural Affairs and North Wales, and Trefnydd
So, I think one of the reasons for having the stability payment is that that will provide support for SFS in advance of additional income from the next two layers of SFS, so the optional and collaborative layers. And I want to provide as much stability in the…
, Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
General Ministerial Scrutiny: Minister for Rural Affairs and North Wales, and Trefnydd
That will be a discussion after the consultation responses, I would say, as to whether we need further—
, Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
General Ministerial Scrutiny: Minister for Rural Affairs and North Wales, and Trefnydd
Well, obviously, that—. Let's see what comes out of the consultation. There'll be ongoing discussions with stakeholders. I'm not sure we'll be going out for formal engagement. I don't think that's—
, Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
General Ministerial Scrutiny: Minister for Rural Affairs and North Wales, and Trefnydd
No, it won't be. We'll be launching the consultation tomorrow. I don't think I've actually said that anywhere else. We'll be launching the SFS consultation tomorrow, which is very exciting, and obviously we'll have a 12-week consultation for SFS. I'm…
, Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
General Ministerial Scrutiny: Minister for Rural Affairs and North Wales, and Trefnydd
Because at the moment it's significantly higher, but we need to work through the expressions of interest, obviously.
, Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
General Ministerial Scrutiny: Minister for Rural Affairs and North Wales, and Trefnydd
When I said that about 'no cliff edge', I was talking about BPS specifically.
, Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
General Ministerial Scrutiny: Minister for Rural Affairs and North Wales, and Trefnydd
I suppose, if I had the money, I could have perhaps—. I don't think there's anything in the rules, but we just did not have the funding.
, Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
General Ministerial Scrutiny: Minister for Rural Affairs and North Wales, and Trefnydd
But I've tried to say that I made it very clear from the outset that we could not just plug that gap that Glastir ending left. There's just no way. If I'd have had the £238 million that the UK Government took off me when they netted that agricultural support…
, Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
General Ministerial Scrutiny: Minister for Rural Affairs and North Wales, and Trefnydd
No, it ended. It ended.
, Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
General Ministerial Scrutiny: Minister for Rural Affairs and North Wales, and Trefnydd
But surely that's best farming practice, and we would expect farmers to be doing that anyway.
, Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
General Ministerial Scrutiny: Minister for Rural Affairs and North Wales, and Trefnydd
So, I haven't had that data yet, but one of the pieces of data I have had, and I'll ask Gian Marco to say a little bit more about that, looking—. Again, I'm not going to give you a figure, but looking at the expressions of interest—as I say, officials are…
