Jeremy's Blog 30th September 2022: The Need for Narrative
This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 29th September 2022
Nature abhors a vacuum. Governments that do not tell their story lose control of its telling as others seize the moment to fill the void.
DEFRA let it be known that there was a “rapid review” of the present policies. Little was then said and so, while reasonable for new ministers and perhaps no more than a routine “kicking of tyres”, the void was filled by third party speculation becoming a reverberating echo chamber of environmental lobbies, already bothered by other proposals, fearing backsliding. Stabilising matters after the event, DEFRA affirmed its new Environment Act with targets for nature, its Nature Recovery Green Paper with the reform of Habitats regulations, the “30 by 30” commitment and that it was looking at how best to implement environmental land management schemes – “the environment, farming and economic growth go hand-in-hand”. The aim for regulation was not to weaken standards but ease processes and reduce delays.
Friday’s Financial Statement set out to define the Government’s purpose of improving the UK poor growth record – a single moment to go large and explain well. After setting out the expected large costs of the energy package, it had a public focus on substantial tax cuts. While it was no secret that both parts would be funded by more debt, a choice was made not to publish costings and forecasts. That spooked markets across the world about the UK, fearing that, in the absence of such a framework, the offered promise of future growth was just a wing and prayer. Once that mood set in, the feeding frenzy escalated.
While the tax cuts might catch the eye as a public marker of the changed approach, the real and much harder work to achieve growth lies in the Statement’s other proposals including planning, regulation, investment zones and infrastructure. These are all issues on which the Government will need to persuade its uncomfortable backbenchers, needing a clear, simple, unifying and sustained narrative of growth. The scale of that task was shown by the fate of the 2020 Planning White Paper and, whatever its merits, by MPs quizzing on local consent for fracking last Thursday. If people who might want the fruits of growth in general are loth to be disturbed enough to achieve it, we will slide towards being a poorer country.
The welcome new permanence of the £1 million Annual Investment Allowance for plant and machinery had been urged by the CAAV and the Agricultural Productivity Task Force. It was due to drop to £200,000 in April and now gives more confidence to invest in technology.
A statement on agricultural productivity is to come. That needs to focus on actions that will achieve real gains, not only with investment, innovation and skills but recognise the structural change required for proficient farmers, existing and new, to have access to land to become the thriving businesses of the future.
The latest CAAV Agricultural Land Occupation Survey shows the damaging effects of area payments on activity in the let sector but also the positive and varied uses that can be made of FBTs. With the “who” of farming mattering at least as much for productivity as the “how”, we need an approach, such as the Irish Republic’s Income Tax relief for letting, that encourages more land onto the let market and supports farming owners who are weary of the new world to let their land to those who can farm it well. Area payments have left us with 30 years of muted change and 30 years of poor productivity improvement. A clear story for a comprehensive package is needed.