Secretary of State for Scotland

Listen to Secretary of State for Scotland's Address to NFUS AGM

Not surprisingly his address was highly political.
He described 2013 as a momentus year for Scottish Agriculture long tough journey to devise a CAP
He reflected that the negotiations delivered Scottish wins
Concerted effort in Brussels
Best when all pull together but there is full autonomy for Scotland to make decisions on how best to implement.

IMF forecast UK is the fastest growing economy in Europe.

He outlined how Government had support rural communities and created a supermarket adjudicator.
First rural UK fuel duty scheme, well received and application to extend this to rural areas as well.

2014 will bring more challenges.

He then turned to the Referendum in September and made his plea for support to preserve the UK. He felt that the choice to leave the UK would lead to the need to reapply to Europe.

George Eustice MP attended in place of the Minister Owen Paterson.
1. Full autonomy for the four nations of the UK to make own decisions
2. Move from historic to area payments
3. Listened to Scotland about impact on Scottish beef sector to allow 8% coupling
4. On greening, flexibility through scheme and livestock farms smaller than ….. Including heather land to exempt from farm diversification rules.
Transition
Slipper farming exclude unproductive land.
Richard Lochhead is not excluded from discussions. “We really delivered for them.”
None of this takes away from the disappointment of the decisions of distribution.
Note that everyone has had a cut and objective is to share that across the UK.

Looking forward there will be a review of allocations in 2016-2017. This will address fairness, respect for difference ( more of own decisions),
Important that devolved administration take responsibility for the decisions they take.

The remainder of his speech addressed innovation at farm level and consultations with the likes of QMS to examine export markets. Beef is worth 611m in 2011 and export to Russia could add £100m. He claimed that Scottish beef was now ….

George Eustice also made political points re referendum.

In the questions that followed there were complaints about the no vote getting such huge exposure without anyone there to counter their argument. It was suggested that Richard Lochhead would have the last word on that when he addressed the conference the following day.