Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee

Meeting date: Wednesday, October 9, 2013

Official Report 514KB pdf

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Subordinate Legislation

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Common Agricultural Policy Single Farm Payment and Support Schemes (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2013 (SSI 2013/265)

Good morning and welcome to the 29th meeting this year of the Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee. Members of the committee and members of the public should turn off their mobile phones et cetera, as they can interfere with the sound system. Apologies have been received from Alex Fergusson. We welcome Jamie McGrigor to the meeting as the substitute for Alex.

Agenda item 1 is subordinate legislation. The committee will consider a negative instrument. Members should note that no motion to annul the amendment regulations has been received. I refer members to the paper on the regulations.

Members have no questions to raise regarding the paper. I have a question about the regulations for the Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and the Environment, since he is here. They show us that the rates of European modulation go from zero to a higher rate as we go through to the bigger income earners, and that you have changed the member state modulation so as to produce a flatter overall curve. That means that, in overall terms, there is a 9 per cent modulation for the lowest paid and 14 per cent for those receiving over €5,000, and that same overall rate will now apply right up to payments over €300,000. Is that just a continuation of the same practice as before?

Good morning. Yes, it is. We set the rates back in 2007, if my memory serves me correctly. The rates before you are just repeats of the rates that have been in place through the whole of the rural development programme and the single farm payment regime.

The rate of modulation is largely dictated by the size of the pillar 2 budget. Needless to say, although modulation has been replaced by flexibility under the new common agricultural policy reforms, the extent to which we transfer from pillar 1, which is direct support to farms, to pillar 2, which is for rural development, will be dictated by the size of the pillar 2 budget that we get under the current budget negotiations.

It sounds as though we could be strapped for cash once again, and perhaps more so than last time.

As I have said publicly, it is very unlikely that we will be transferring from pillar 2 to pillar 1, and it is very likely that we will require a transfer from pillar 1 to pillar 2, because of the poor budget that we have in pillar 2. However, the extent to which we do that will probably be subject to a mini-consultation, because that is the first decision that we must take under the reforms. The decision about the extent to which we will transfer from pillar 1 to pillar 2 has to be taken before the end of this year.

It occurred to me that it would be useful to get that explanation, as I hope members understand. However, there is no motion to annul the regulations, and no member wishes to make any recommendation.