T Y N W A L D C O U R T O F F I C I A L R E P O R T
R E C O R T Y S O I K O I L Q U A I Y L T I N V A A L
P R O C E E D I N G S
D A A L T Y N
S T A N D I N G C O M M I T T E E O F T Y N W A L D O N E N V I R O N M E N T A N D I N F R A S T R U C T U R E P O L I C Y R E V I E W
B I N G V E A Y N T I N V A A L M Y C H I O N E A A S C R U T A G H E Y P O L A S E E Y N E R C O O I S H Y N C H Y M M Y L T A G H T A S B U N – T R O G G A L Y S
DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENT, FOOD AND AGRICULTURE
HANSARD
Douglas, Wednesday, 1st May 2013
PP89/13 EIPRC-E, No. 1/12-13
All published Official Reports can be found on the Tynwald website www.tynwald.org.im/Official Papers/Hansards/Please select a year:
Published by the Office of the Clerk of Tynwald, Legislative Buildings, Finch Road, Douglas, Isle of Man, IM1 3PW. © High Court of Tynwald, 2013 TYNWALD STANDING COMMITTEE, WEDNESDAY, 1ST MAY 2013
Members Present:
Acting Chairman: Mr A F Downie OBE MLC Mr Z Hall MHK
Clerk: Mrs E M Lambden
Apologies: Mr D M W Butt MLC
Business Transacted Page
Procedural ...... 3
Evidence of Hon. P A Gawne MHK, Minister and Mr R Lole, Chief Executive, Department of Environment, Food and Agriculture...... 3
The Committee adjourned at 4.09 p.m.
______2 EIPRC-E/12-13 TYNWALD STANDING COMMITTEE, WEDNESDAY, 1ST MAY 2013
Standing Committee of Tynwald on Environment and Infrastructure Policy Review
Department of Environment, Food and Agriculture
The Committee sat in public at 2.30 p.m. in the Legislative Council Chamber, Legislative Buildings, Douglas
[MR DOWNIE in the Chair]
Procedural
5 The Acting Chairman (Mr A F Downie MLC): Good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to this public meeting of the Environment and Infrastructure Policy Review Committee, which is a Standing Committee of Tynwald. Could I, first of all, put on record the apologies from our Chairman, Mr Dudley Butt MLC. My name is Alex Downie MLC and I will be chairing the Committee today in his absence. I also have 10 with me Zac Hall MHK, who is part of the Committee, and our secretary here is Mrs Marie Lambden – she is our Clerk. Just one or two housekeeping issues. If there is a fire in the building, an alarm will sound and all of the exits are quite clearly illustrated. I would suggest that we assemble outside and nobody wanders off, and if there is a headcount or a roll call, we will know exactly who has been in the 15 building with us. I would ask you to ensure your mobile phones are switched off – not just on silent, as it does interfere with Hansard. Also for the purposes of Hansard, I will be ensuring that we do not have two people speaking at once. The Environmental and Infrastructure Policy Review Committee is one of three Standing 20 Committees of Tynwald established in October 2011 with a wide scrutiny remit. We have three Departments to cover, which are the Department of Community, Culture and Leisure; the Department of Food and Agriculture; and the Department of Infrastructure. Today’s session is the second of our routine scrutiny sessions with the Department of Environment, Food and Agriculture, and to that end our Clerk has written to your Department, 25 Minister, and given you an indication of some of the areas we would like to cover today. I am not saying that what we have sent to you is written in tablets of stone, but there have been other opportunities to develop questions, and of course recently the agricultural community has suffered a very difficult time, so we might want to ask a few questions in that area. There will be one at the end of the session, which has just been brought to our notice today, 30 with regard to houses in multiple occupancy, which is an Environmental Health question that Mr Hall will raise with you, probably as a final item.
35 EVIDENCE OF HON. P A GAWNE MHK AND MR R LOLE
Q1. The Acting Chairman: If I can start then by just asking the two of you to introduce yourselves to us for purpose of the record, and then we will get on with the session.
40 The Minister for Environment, Food and Agriculture (Mr Gawne): Phil Gawne, Minister for Environment, Food and Agriculture.
Mr Lole: Richard Lole, Chief Executive of the Department of Environment, Food and Agriculture. 45 Q2. The Acting Chairman: Thank you. ______3 EIPRC-E/12-13 TYNWALD STANDING COMMITTEE, WEDNESDAY, 1ST MAY 2013
The first issue we would like to raise is related to the Food Park in Peel. This Committee has had some fairly extensive dialogue and correspondence from Mr Davison regarding the Food Park. There are two issues here. The first issue is do you accept that Mr 50 Davison has a valid point in respect of the gates and fences around the Food Park? Also, has the proximity of the Food Park to the proposed sewage works been considered, and has any liaison with other Government Departments been taken to discuss this subject?
The Minister: Yes, I am more than happy to answer that. 55 I think it is fair to say that Mr Davison has a point in that we, as a Department, could have done a little bit better in terms of our discussions with the tenants, and I think, subsequent to a lot of Mr Davison’s concerns becoming made more public – and I have to say he did not contact the Department directly; he went straight to the press with some of these comments, which I think… Everyone is entitled to their own way of doing things, but I would have thought it would have 60 been easier to have talked to us first. However, I do acknowledge that the Department could have done better in terms of our discussions with tenants. We did have a meeting – I think it was in early March, would it be? – with the tenants and had a very thorough exploration of all the issues that had been raised, both by Mr Davison and some of the other tenants as well. As a result of that meeting, I think the 65 relationships between the Department, as landlord, and the tenants have have improved quite dramatically. Certainly I have not heard of any further significant concerns from tenants in terms of the issues that Mr Davison was raising. As far as the issue in relation to the gates and the security fencing, it is fair to say that you could get British retail accreditation by having other mechanisms in place other than a security 70 fence, but the purpose of the security fence was not just about BRC accreditation – it was also about tidying up the yard and making the place look presentable. I think we have had concerns for many years – certainly as long as I have been involved with the Department – about the state of the yard, that people were using it to dump vehicles and fly tip, effectively, as well. I think it was really important to tidy up the yard and the BRC accreditation is part of that and is achieved 75 through the fence. Added to that, we have got a much tidier-looking yard, a much more presentable-looking yard when we are bringing international buyers over, visiting and hopefully purchasing the Manx food that is produced there. So I think we have come up with the right solution. There were concerns about the position of the gate, how it was situated, and again, whilst the 80 evidence on the ground would suggest that the fact that the gate was hit by a vehicle must imply that indeed the gates were in the wrong place, actually the vehicle that hit the gates was not manned and seemed to automatically click itself into reverse gear and back into the gate. We have actually got CCTV evidence that shows that happening. It was a bizarre circumstance that resulted in the gate getting wrecked. 85 Other than that, yes indeed, there have been some drivers complaining that the gateway was a bit narrow, but this is an EU-recognised standard. The designers of the whole scheme have followed the standards as well as they can and there appears to be no reason why the drivers are having difficulty, according to the standards that have been set. So, in terms of the positioning of the gateway, we do not see a significant problem with that. 90 The other issue… I did answer a Question on this in the House of Keys – I think it was the House of Keys; it might have been Tynwald, but certainly in the last three or four weeks, so there will be a full version of that. Unfortunately, I have not brought that with me but that will be available in Hansard. But yes, we have checked out… I know that the Environment Directorate has looked into this for us – this is in relation to the proposed sewerage works – and we are 95 content that the proposed sewerage works will not have any impact on the Food Park. We are aware of similar sewerage works next to similar food parks in various parts of the United Kingdom and there have been no concerns raised by them. We are assuming there will be a similar lack of concern with this. Obviously, a food park having a sewerage works nearby is not necessarily a good thing, but that is a perception issue rather than a significant problem as far as 100 the officers are concerned.
The Acting Chairman: A question, Mr Hall?
Q3. Mr Hall: Yes, I have just got a couple of questions. The first one: you are saying, in terms 105 of the proposed sewerage works in the proximity of the Food Park, you do not consider that is going to be an issue – so have any thorough, detailed impact assessments actually been undertaken by the Department, or on behalf of the Department, in respect of that particular issue? ______4 EIPRC-E/12-13 TYNWALD STANDING COMMITTEE, WEDNESDAY, 1ST MAY 2013
The Minister: The Environment Directorate have looked into the matter for us. I understand 110 they have had discussions with the Water and Sewerage Authority and they are –
Q4. Mr Hall: An officer has looked into it, but that is different from doing an actual impact assessment in terms of producing a hard copy that is the impact assessment of the proposed sewerage works in relation to the Food Park, and obviously that is for your consideration. That is 115 very different from somebody just looking into it from your Department and saying, ‘We think it is okay. I have had a look at it, and it does not seem…’ Do you see what I mean? There is a difference between the two. So has there been an impact assessment?
The Minister: I will finish the first answer, and then I will address the second one. 120 They have investigated the matter. As far as I am concerned, that investigation is as thorough an investigation as we need to be able to have the confidence to say what I have said in Keys, which is that there is no risk to the Food Park from the proposed sewerage works. I do not actually have enough officers in my Department to conduct in-depth investigations into every single thing that comes across my desk. I, though, have confidence in the report that I have received from my 125 officers that the sewerage works proposed does –
Q5. Mr Hall: You say that you acknowledge that you do not have the resources in the Department to be able to conduct a detailed assessment, so would you –
130 The Minister: That is not what I said.
Mr Hall: You said you did not have, if I recall… Correct me, if I am wrong, Chair –
The Minister: What I have said is that I believe that the investigation that has been undertaken 135 is sufficient to give me the confidence that I need to say that the sewerage works is not going to affect the Food Park. That is what I have said. What I also said was I do not have the available resource in my Department to instruct officers to go off and do thorough investigations where thorough investigations are not necessary. The investigation that has taken place is sufficient to give me the confidence that I need. That is what I 140 am saying.
Q6. Mr Hall: Okay, that has clarified that. Going back, when you said, regarding the better consultation with the tenants and obviously you could have done better, I would have thought that that perhaps should have been at the 145 forefront of the Department’s objectives at the outset. So how exactly did that happen in the first place, where the very people it was all concerning… and yet the Department fell short and you acknowledge did not actually go and consult with them. So how did that actually –
The Minister: Well, neither… You are putting words in my mouth here. What I said was that 150 the relationship was not as good as it should have been, and I have admitted that and am more than happy to. I believe that a lot of this is as a result of both sides not communicating properly. Perhaps we should have done more in terms of being absolutely clear when we were talking to people that they either agreed or disagreed with us; but equally the people we were talking to probably ought to 155 have been a bit clearer back in saying, ‘Actually, what you have just told us might be what you want us to believe, but we do not think that,’ and then come back to us and be a bit forceful. It is just managing that relationship. I think that I am happy to concede that we did not manage that as well as we should have done and I think that is more down to the respective parties perhaps not engaging as well as they should have done. We did actually do the work; it is just perhaps the 160 talking side of the work was done more forcefully than the listening side, and I think that is a lesson learned for the Department.
Q7. The Acting Chairman: Just on the final point there, the proposed sewerage treatment works is, in fact… It is not next door; it is quite some distance away, isn’t it? 165 The Minister: Yes.
The Acting Chairman: Just give us an indication, for the record, how far it is away.
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170 The Minister: Somebody told me it was about half a mile away, but I am not absolutely sure, to be honest.
The Acting Chairman: Right, okay.
175 Mr Hall: I think it was, but I think the Chair of the Water and Sewerage Authority did actually put that on record. I think it might be on the Hansard, if we want to…
Q8. The Acting Chairman: The next issue we want to talk to you about, then, relates to the terms and conditions of the Countryside Care Scheme. What we would like to know is are these 180 being adhered to, and how does the Department feel that farmland is currently being maintained. Just to give you a bit of a steer there, some of these issues have arisen with the progress of the Flood Risk Management Bill. We have heard from people about water running off agricultural land, largely due to the fact that, in some places, proper ditching is not being carried out any more, drains need replacing. 185 One of the concerns that was expressed to us is that if you go from Union Mills now up the Ballahutchin and on through Crosby, there is little or no stock on either side of the road but the fields now are absolutely full of reeds. As many an old farmer would say to you, that is an indication that there are problems with the drainage and the reeds are taking over what was considered to be good, viable agricultural land. Whether it is not being farmed properly or… 190 I am aware that lots of farmers now only have land for 364 days. Whether there is not felt to be the investment or the support available for improving drainage and other things, the basic question is what do you do to make sure that, if a person is benefiting from the Countryside Care Scheme, the land is staying in good heart and being properly looked after, properly drained and properly fertilised. 195 The Minister: That is a good question. I will try and answer it, although I may not have remembered everything. As far as the original question, in terms of the Countryside Care Scheme – is it being adhered to – generally, the answer to that would be yes. We gave you, I think, answers which showed the 200 number of breaches that there have been over the course of the last 12 months. Did we give those?
Mr Lole: Sorry, no; this is our brief. We have not provided that.
205 The Minister: We have not provided that, apologies. Right, so altogether 20 breaches last year, and –
Q9. The Acting Chairman: Describe what you would call a breach.
210 The Minister: I will. This is in relation… First of all, in terms of statutory management requirements, those are actually the law of the land, so they are not specifically imposed by the Countryside Care Scheme; they are imposed by other statutory requirements. In relation to groundwater, there were two breaches; in relation to the identification/registration of animals, there were two breaches; and in relation to restrictions on the use of plant protection products, 215 there was one breach. Then, in relation to good agricultural and environmental conditions, which are more directly associated with the Countryside Care Scheme, the unique feature that we introduced – which I think many people who travel through the countryside agree was a good step forward for the Isle of Man – was the landscape, litter, waste and scrap feature, and there have been 11 breaches in 220 relation to that. In relation to protection of habitats, wildlife areas and non-productive landscape features and archaeological sites, there were two breaches; in relation to field boundaries, one breach; and in relation to encroachment of unwanted vegetation, one breach. Breaches varied, in terms of the penalty imposed, from warning letters issued to 5% reduction in Countryside Care Scheme payments. 225 In relation to the more general point you were putting about how is farmland being used in the Isle of Man, I think what we have to bear in mind is that the purpose of introducing the Countryside Care Scheme was that there had been a general decline in agriculture for quite some considerable period. The Department, in its various guises, had endeavoured to manipulate different schemes to improve production in certain areas, and indeed we were particularly 230 successful in 2007, getting a significant high in terms of beef production. This was a deliberate ______6 EIPRC-E/12-13 TYNWALD STANDING COMMITTEE, WEDNESDAY, 1ST MAY 2013
endeavour on the part of the Departments to try and encourage people, farmers, to move into beef production rather than sheep and lamb production, for the simple reason that we could see that the market for beef was much more profitable than that for sheep and lamb, so we had done that. But generally speaking, there has been quite a decline in agriculture. What you need to reverse 235 that decline is not Government imposing rules and regulations; what you need is money into the industry, and we – quite reasonably, I think – had noted that there was little chance that Government would be able to supplement the incomes of farmers for the foreseeable future, which is what effectively would be required under the old production support system. So we decided to work with farmers, particularly as a result of the expected, at the time, loss of red meat derogation, 240 to try and find ways in which we could get more money into the industry, to put it crudely. As a result of what we did with the Countryside Care Scheme, we managed to ensure that farmers continue to get the same level of support, or as high a level of support as they have ever had directly from the Government, added to which we have seen, over the course of the last three years – largely, I have to say, as a result of the introduction of single farm payment across Europe 245 – a significant increase in livestock prices and indeed in milk price. We could talk averages, but it is in the region of 40% increase, in terms of direct incomes from livestock, over that period. So farmers are getting more money now than they were when the Countryside Care Scheme was introduced. Sadly, of course, anyone who follows agriculture – as I know you do, Chairman – will know 250 that the companies who make the imports – fertiliser particularly and feedstuffs – follow farm incomes. So, if they see farm incomes dropping, the cost of fertiliser goes down a bit, and if they see farm incomes rocketing, the cost of fertiliser rockets, and despite the fact that farmers have got more money in their pockets, or more money coming into their pockets, they have also got a lot more money going out as well. 255 I suppose the best part of the Countryside Care Scheme is the fact that farmers no longer have to follow that production treadmill: they produce if they make money out of the production; they do not produce because Government tells them to produce. It is, in my view, and I have to say I share this view with Manx National Farmers’ Union flockmasters, beef producers, Isle of Man Meats and Isle of Man Creamery – or, at least, when we 260 introduced the Scheme that was the view of all those representative bodies… It is my view that the Countryside Care Scheme represents the best way forward for Manx agriculture. At the time we introduced the Scheme, back in 2008, we predicted that when production support ceased there would be a period of two or three years of nervousness, uncertainty and disruption generally to the whole agricultural sector, and indeed our predictions were correct. 265 What we were not, though, able to predict was the worst snow event on record – and I say that in agricultural terms, because we have had heavier snowfalls but never at such a bad time in terms of lambing and calving – added to which we have had the wettest 12 months on record. Both of these things have had a significant impact on agriculture. You gave me a long-winded question; I am giving you probably a longer-winded answer! 270 The top and the bottom of it is that, for many, many years – long before the introduction of the Countryside Care Scheme – ditches were getting blocked, drainage was not being sorted, and generally farmers have been going into decline. Certainly in my experience, the farms that I know, because of the fact that consumers are not prepared to pay what is needed for reasonable levels of husbandry and land management to take place, because that money is not coming in, farmers have 275 to cut back and the things that they cut back on are some of the basic maintenance issues.
Q10. The Acting Chairman: Do you feel then that the land in the Isle of Man in general is in as good a heart now as it was maybe 10 or 15 years ago? The reason I ask you that question is because a lot of people who contact the Committee, or contact the members of the Committee, feel 280 that a lot of the land now is being neglected. Whereas we have got some excellent farmers on the Isle of Man, everybody is rushing around, trying to cope with less and do more with less, and things like the drainage issues, the ditching and so on are being neglected; and then, every time it rains now we are seeing places where there is water actually coming over the tops of the hedges because there is just not the amount of work to 285 do. I am not criticising the farmers for that. I am just wondering whether, in this policy that we have, the people who own the land are the ones probably who are getting the most money, and the guy who is renting land or doing a bit of ranching, or whatever he is doing… There is nothing in it for him to be maintaining the land in the condition that it might have been in years ago, and it 290 seems to me that one of the issues that we need to get to the bottom of is does somebody from
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your Department visit, on a regular basis, some of the farms and say, ‘This needs doing, that needs doing, and if you do not do this we are not going to be paying you money.’
The Minister: What I would say is that, as a result of the introduction of the Countryside Care 295 Scheme, farmers are now required to follow practices which keep the land in good agricultural and environmental condition. That is a direct result of the Countryside Care Scheme. That was not in place three years ago. So it should, in theory, be being better managed. In reality though, you have to bear in mind what I have said, which is that, in my view anyway, ultimately there is not enough money going into agriculture for farmers to adequately maintain 300 their farms in the way that I would like, and I am sure that others in this room would like, to see it and –
Q11. Mr Downie: So what do you suggest?
305 The Minister: I would also say that, over the course of the last 15 years, the standards of maintenance of the countryside are perhaps poorer now than they were 15 years ago. Again, I would agree with you: that is not about the farmers; that is about the reality that they just simply do not have enough money or enough time to go round and do everything because, for whatever reason, we have got latched on to this idea that cheap food is a good thing and we are not prepared 310 to pay the price, as a society, for the food or to have farms maintained to the standard that they should be.
The Acting Chairman: Mr Hall.
315 Q12. Mr Hall: Just one question for the Minister. We are aware of the money issue, but taking the money issues aside with regard to the Countryside Care Scheme, what would you say would be the main weaknesses with it and areas for improvement – as it has evolved and based on the experience of the Department?
320 The Minister: I think the biggest weakness in one person’s eye is its biggest strength in the other person’s. The problem we have got is we have got different competing interests. There is a small minority of farmers who have always opposed the introduction of the Scheme and they put very coherent arguments forward for their opposition. I am following the… what I believe, anyway, to be the majority view – certainly that is the majority view that has been 325 expressed to the Department – which is that the Countryside Care Scheme was the best and indeed the only option available for having any chance of Manx agriculture having a future. I know that there are people who would disagree with that point of view, but it is largely for them to put their case, rather than for me to do it for them. The inevitable problem with the Countryside Care Scheme is twofold. The first one is in 330 relation to supporting the processing sectors, because I think what is absolutely clear to everyone is that, for many years, farmers were subsidising their processing plants, particularly the Meat Plant, probably to the tune of £1 million or £2 million per year. Because the farmers had to supply that Plant, the Plant did not have to improve, did not have to get greater efficiency, did not have to look for new markets, did not have to do any of that because it knew that farmers had to supply it, 335 and actually, up until 2010, anyone who wanted to sell meat in the Isle of Man had to buy it from the Meat Plant. So there was no incentive there for that Plant to do anything to improve its efficiency. So the Countryside Care Scheme has been a major driver for change in relation to the plants. What we, as Government, needed to do was ensure that we allow farmers to compete on a level 340 playing field, and effectively that is, I believe, what has happened with the Countryside Care Scheme. It has allowed farmers to have the option of either supplying the Meat Plant or shipping their animals – more difficult in terms of milk, because obviously you cannot as easily ship milk, although I have noted now that Isle of Man Creamy is starting to have bulk shipments of raw milk as well. 345 Where Government then has to step in is to make sure that the Meat Plant, the Creamery and the mill actually can offer a level playing field to farmers by way of equivalence, in terms of processing costs and in terms of the return that they actually get, and that is obviously where we start to come unstuck. We are doing our best, we are working with the directors, but we predicted a three-year transition period – we are into the second year; we have another year to go – and it is 350 a difficult time. It is difficult at the best of times, but then when you add the extraordinary weather events we have just had, it is making our task much more difficult. ______8 EIPRC-E/12-13 TYNWALD STANDING COMMITTEE, WEDNESDAY, 1ST MAY 2013
The second difficulty with the Scheme is that you have some farmers who benefit from the older, historic-based payment that we are using for the Countryside Care Scheme –
355 The Acting Chairman: Yes, the grandfather rights.
The Minister: – and you will have other farmers who will benefit from a flat rate area payment. So the ones who have been benefiting for the last three or four years through the Countryside Care Scheme, through historic payments, believe that the weakness in the Scheme is 360 that we are going to have a transition to area payments; and the ones who would benefit from area payments believe that the weakness in the Scheme is that we have not moved quickly enough from historic payments to area payments. Inevitably, as we go through this transition, we will upset both sets of farmers along the way.
365 Q13. The Acting Chairman: I think one of the areas of concern though, when you are on about Government subventions and so on… You did answer a Written Question yesterday in the House of Keys, which indicates that, in 2012, there was a Government subvention of £713,463 put into the Meat Plant. We have not even looked at 2013 yet. The previous year, it was only £267,725. (The Minister: Yes.) That is a massive increase. There have been job losses there. 370 I think the abattoir has been a bone of contention for years now, and yet we are still seeing, with the other figures that were circulated, there is still a huge amount of stock exported off the Isle of Man. Just to finish – and then I will let you come back – one of the issues that we were advised was that there was going to be a level playing field, so if a farmer put his stock through the Meat Plant, 375 he was going to be no less adversely affected than he would if they were sent away. Well, that does not appear to be the case, and I just wonder how long we can go on putting these sort of figures into the Meat Plant, where we know that, come August and September of this year, all of those lambs and additional sheep will not be there. So you are on a hiding for nothing.
380 The Minister: Right. A case for the defence then –
The Acting Chairman: No, it is not your problem; it is –
The Minister: Well, it is our problem, and actually I am very glad you mentioned that, because 385 one of the aspects of the promise that I am supposed to have given, in relation to equivalence, to farmers before the introduction of the Countryside Care Scheme… One of the aspects, which is conveniently forgotten, was I did point out that the only way we could deliver this was if all players actually contributed to making this level playing field happen. So, the inefficiencies that inevitably exist in the processing plants needed to be resolved, and 390 that is not something that Government can do on its own. That is something that needs to be resolved by the directors of the plants, and indeed the farmers who supply those plants working with a more commercial mind perhaps than they have had to in the past. I believe that, actually, the evidence that is shown in the Answer clearly demonstrates that the Department is playing its part. 395 The only year that I was not Minister for the full time was that 2011 year. That was the first year where there had been a complete break from production support. From 2009 and 2010, there had been a gradual tailing off in production support – 2011 was the first year where there was that break. Obviously, I was not Minister at the time, so I do not know what the thinking was. I have got some idea, based on some of the papers that were submitted to Treasury in relation to that 400 subvention, but effectively we were anticipating – and it is clear in the report that went to Tynwald in April 2008, our strategy for agriculture – that in that 2011 year we need to spend, we thought, at least £1 million in terms of subvention for that year. That was going to be the most difficult year. In reality, we spent £130,000 in subvention. So, not surprisingly, 2011 saw a significant increase in the number of animals exported. 405 I do not know what the thinking was behind that significant reduction in what we felt we needed to put in and what was actually put in. I do not really understand why it was felt that we did not need that, but all along I felt that without that significant amount of support, and bearing in mind as well that was the first year – not only the first year that we had no production support, but it was also the first year that we had no red meat derogation – it certainly surprised me to see how 410 little money was put in during that particular year.
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I believe that the figure we have got for 2012 is a more realistic figure, but unfortunately, due to the lack of confidence in 2011, some of which was certainly down to the poorer price being paid at the Meat Plant, a lot of livestock was exported, so we now do not have the throughput. This year, the figures do demonstrate that we have significantly reduced the number of exports 415 and I am quite encouraged to see that, but I think that is largely down to the fact that we put a lot more money in in 2012.
Q14. The Acting Chairman: But, to add to that, there is a £2.2 million or a £2.5 million refurbishment scheme somewhere that is coming along. That is just adding more to the cost. 420 The Minister: I think, inevitably, when a plant has got to the age that it has, you would expect a refurbishment to be undertaken, and I think it is right and proper for us to expect that to happen. There is no doubt that there are certain elements within the Meat Plant which have come towards, or are coming towards the end of their useful working life, and we need to do something 425 about that. Over the preceding 10 years, very little was put aside, if anything, to actually tackle these problems that were clearly building up, so perhaps, with the benefit of hindsight, we should have ensured that there was £100,000 or £200,000 a year set aside to deal with refurbishment costs.
430 Q15. The Acting Chairman: So given that they have shed workers in these last two weeks – there are 12 jobs gone sometime last week – how confident are you that this… what can we refer it to… the financial… I will just give you a little bit of background. The financial support Isle of Man Meats was one of a number of actions proposed within the Department of Agriculture’s strategy, ‘Developing a 435 Reliable, Sustainable, Self Reliant Manx Agriculture’, which was presented and agreed by Tynwald in 2008. That is seven years ago. Things have moved on; markets are completely different. Do you honestly feel now that you can sit there and fully justify the amount of money that has been invested; and are the people who are producing the animals… do they have enough 440 confidence in the system to put their animals through there, or are we going to continue to see this loss of revenue, loss of income, because people have the option to export and obviously get more money?
The Minister: I think the level playing field is a good thing because it allows farmers to have 445 that choice; and I think, as far as farm business is concerned, having a choice of what they do with their animals is a positive thing. It allows them to run their businesses in as profitable a way as they possibly can. The problem with the Meat Plant is no longer the farmers’ problem; it is society’s problem generally, so we have to decide how we are going to deal with that. I have to say that, as a result of what I believe to be the lack of investment in that 2011 450 calendar year, we have created an additional £300,000 or £400,000-a-year problem whilst we try and restock the Island from the stock that was shipped off in that particularly bad year. So that is going to cause us a problem; there is no doubt about that. Add to that £300,000 or £400,000 a year for the problem that we have now got as a result of the loss of livestock through the snow event, and you can see why the figures that we had been 455 predicting by now – I think we were supposed to be down to about £400,000 or £500,000 for this year and then back to the £350,000 that we had been putting in in the previous three years – 2008, 2009 and 2010… We would have been probably quite close to the predicted figures, but I do believe that the lack of confidence in 2011, which resulted in that massive exodus in productive livestock, will have a knock-on effect which will cost us money. 460 So, going back to the original question – can we afford to carry on doing this – I think we could have done this a lot cheaper if we had stuck to the original plan, but we are where we are and we have got to go on from here. If we do not support the Meat Plant and do not continue the process… because I do believe that they have made such good efforts, both the current directors and previous directors, in terms of 465 driving out the inefficiencies in the Plant. Our problem now is that we have a considerably more efficient meat processing plant but we have not got the livestock numbers to keep it going, and had we maintained the confidence in 2011, had we not had the wettest year on record and then this incredibly bad snow event, I think the figures that we will probably have to put in this year and next year would have been substantially lower. The alternative is we do not put any support in and 470 we lose the Meat Plant.
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I should add that the woes of our Meat Plant are mirrored by meat plants across the United Kingdom and indeed Europe. This is not unique to the Isle of Man. I suppose the unique aspect is that we are in a position, as a Government, to support the Meat Plant and we have a reasonable case to make for putting subvention in to the tune of £350,000 because of the unique 475 circumstances we find ourselves in in the Island, both in terms of having a multi-species Meat Plant and the fact that we have poorer economies of scale because of the inevitable amount of animals available to put through the Plant.
The Acting Chairman: Mr Hall, have you any questions? 480 Q16. Mr Hall: Yes. I would not mind having, if you could give us, an update on the recent snow storm and obviously the effect that that has had with regard to the farmers and the up-to-date options that are being looked at by the Department in terms of the assistance through funding, if you could. 485 The Minister: Yes. It is still policy development and I cannot go into a huge amount of detail on what eventually our schemes are going to look like. What I can say is that we have identified that the total number of animals collected over the course of the last four or five weeks is… Have you got the figures there? 490 Mr Lole: That is the extra numbers, the two combined.
The Minister: We have not got the actual?
495 Mr Lole: No.
The Minister: I think it was something like 14,500 sheep… Yes, here we are: 14,617 sheep, of which 6,678 were lambs… Is that correct?
500 Mr Lole: No, they are the ewes.
The Minister: Anyway, 14,617 sheep and 736 cattle. What we should remember is that, on an annual basis, this time of year is the time of year when animals do die – because sheep are giving birth, cattle are giving birth – so there are inevitable losses during this period anyway. The three- 505 year average losses for the previous three years were 2,300 sheep and 329 cattle, so we have lost – or, using that average figure, if you take that off, we have lost – 407 cattle as a result of the snow event and 12,306 sheep as a result of the snow event. That actually works out at 5% of the breeding herd for cattle and over 10% of the breeding herd for sheep, because half of the sheep figure that I have given would be lambs but the other half 510 is breeding ewes, so we have lost a significant proportion of our breeding livestock. Northern Ireland reckons they lost 2%, and they were the worst affected region of the UK, so our 10% for sheep and 5% for cattle is a really quite significant loss. Clearly we will have to provide some assistance to farmers. We propose to do that in a variety of different ways. We have already, through the very generous support from the Department of 515 Infrastructure, waived the collection cost for animal disposal, which will certainly have assisted farmers. We have opened up a farm improvement scheme for boundary fencing, which again will help farmers to deal with immediate problems. As far as restocking is concerned, that is a more difficult issue. Clearly, we know that there is going to be a significant impact by the loss of this livestock on the Meat Plant, so we need to look 520 at providing additional support to the Meat Plant. We also need to provide support for those farmers who have been most severely affected by the snow event. We have got to bear in mind that these things do come along from time to time and farmers are used to peaks and troughs, but having just been through the trough of the worst wet-weather-event 12 months that we have ever had, then to have this snow event on the back of that, it means that Government needs to step in 525 and provide some help there. So there will be some kind of support scheme for direct replacement of livestock, but we are also looking at providing a loan scheme as well so that we can help farmers get funds for reinvestment into their industry.
Q17. Mr Hall: Just to clarify then, just for the avoidance of any doubt, that the costs of 530 collection and disposal of all of the fallen animals, that fee has been completely waived for collection and disposal? ______11 EIPRC-E/12-13 TYNWALD STANDING COMMITTEE, WEDNESDAY, 1ST MAY 2013
The Minister: Absolutely.
535 Q18. Mr Hall: Okay, and in terms of the possible schemes that may evolve for supporting the farmers, one of which I asked in I think it may have been Tynwald… but in terms of the EU regulations that cover… I note that in the UK they have got a similar… a hardship scheme, (The Minister: Yes.) which is being set up to mitigate the costs of the losses, and of course it is being governed by the EU, and – this is particularly talking with regard to that hardship scheme – that is 540 limited to €7,500 per farmer, which is not a huge amount, and probably a token with some of the losses that the farmers have incurred here. So my question is that particular… which is affecting the UK with regard to EU rules, when we are talking about the aid in terms of a hardship scheme, would that apply to the farmers here, that that is going to be the same, that will apply to each farmer here, that the maximum under that 545 particular type of assistance, a loan thing, would be different?
The Minister: I will repeat the answer I gave to you in… Was it Keys or Tynwald? I cannot remember.
550 Mr Hall: Yes, maybe different types of…
The Minister: Yes, effectively, in regard to a general payment to all livestock or all farmers you are absolutely right, but there are various exceptions and rules and other elements to funding that we will be looking at to ensure that we can provide the support that we need to provide. 555 Mr Hall: Okay.
Q19. The Acting Chairman: Can I just clarify one point: under the old scheme, when we had the headage payments, if a farmer lost an animal, he normally chopped the ear off with the tag in it 560 and that was the evidence that that animal had either fallen over a cliff or had to be put down by the vet, or whatever, and then there was some recompense there. Is there anything like that being done for the agriculture community now? Is there a criterion that has been laid down for farmers who may be in a position that they might be entitled to a claim, so we know the numbers and we have got the evidence-gathering and so on? 565 The Minister: Yes. The animal collection service is operated by the Department of Infrastructure. Farmers are no longer allowed to dispose of their livestock on farm; they have to have it collected and disposed of at the animal waste plant. So that is the mechanism that we are using to check on the numbers. 570 The only exception to that was… I did introduce a derogation into the Isle of Man to allow us to have, in unique circumstances, disposal on farm, because of, obviously, the scale of the problem that farmers have had to face. I understand that about 30 animals have been disposed of in that way and those animals have been specifically… in terms of those disposals, the farmer has to demonstrate to the Department that they have disposed of that number of animals, so we have 575 visits and all the rest of it.
Q20. The Acting Chairman: Moving on, then: milking herds. One of the questions we put to you was how many milking herds there are now and how many were here 10 years ago, and why we are seeing this decline in the number of dairy farmers on the Isle of Man. 580 The Minister: I think, again, I would answer in a similar way that I have answered the previous questions. If you look back, certainly when I started feeding calves as a young fella, most farms in the Isle of Man were mixed farms – so they had a bit of dairy, a bit of livestock and a bit of grain and what have you – and certainly throughout my lifetime we have seen a decline in the 585 number of dairy producers. Up until recently, that had been a decline which had been as a result of other farmers, or dairy farmers, becoming more productive, so there were increases in productive capacity from people who were focusing far more on dairy production. But even with that, there had been a continual decline in daily production. 590 What we saw as result of the change with the Countryside Care Scheme was there was a gradual reduction in fall-off before the Countryside Care Scheme was introduced, then there was a drop as a result of the Countryside Care Scheme being introduced, and then there has been a decline in the fall-off rate since the Countryside Care Scheme has been introduced. There has been ______12 EIPRC-E/12-13 TYNWALD STANDING COMMITTEE, WEDNESDAY, 1ST MAY 2013
a significant reduction of production over the last three or four years, but then there had been a 595 significant reduction in production before that, anyway. What we are trying to do is find an answer to a long-term problem, and as I said when I was answering the Countryside Care question, we predicted that this… this is actually the second of three years where there was going to be quite a significant amount of uncertainty while farmers readjusted to a different way of doing things. These were the years where we needed to put in the 600 most support to help in the readjustment of the industry, and that is what we believe we are doing at the moment – we have got some ongoing work at the Creamery; the Meat Plant work is well- known – so we are doing what we can to help farmers readjust. I suppose the big key point I would like you to take from this though is that the garden was not rosy before we started trying to do this. The purpose of introducing this Scheme was to try and 605 reverse an ongoing and general decline in agricultural production.
Q21. The Acting Chairman: But is there any danger that we could, at some stage, be importing milk into the Isle of Man to keep the Creamery viable because there is not enough in production locally? 610 The Minister: I think that is one of the problems that we face – that we are importing milk into the Isle of Man, and it is not so much that that is something we should be encouraging, but this is one of the problems. And actually, we mentioned earlier that the farmers, the processors and the Department had a key part to play in ensuring equivalence – the people who have got the most 615 significant role to play are the retailers and probably the consumers. If we want to have a viable food production system on the Isle of Man, we have got to recognise that it costs money to produce the food. We cannot just keep expecting farmers to cut costs and processors to cut their costs, and we end up then with the ridiculous situation with the Tesco horse-burgers and a similar sort of thing. If you want to pay really cheap prices for your food, expect to have cheap quality 620 food. You cannot expect the high-quality production that we have got on the Isle of Man if you are going to pay peanuts.
The Acting Chairman: I happen to think milk is very good value for money when you compare what people pay for a bottle of water. 625 The Minister: Absolutely, yes.
The Acting Chairman: The work involved in producing that bottle of water –
630 The Minister: Bottle of water, £1; a pint of milk, 30 pence cheaper.
Q22. The Acting Chairman: One of the other issues that we were asked to pursue… I went to a presentation recently that was put on by one of the local supermarkets who promote the agricultural industry in general and try to get more, and their arguments were that we do not have 635 any by-products, we do not have a horticultural industry any more, we do not have people growing lettuce, tomatoes, pepper, aubergines, all the things that we import now in huge numbers – very, very expensive. We do not seem to have a poultry industry, like we had a few years ago, and in fact this supermarket said that they would buy every Manx chicken they could get if somebody bothered to rear them. And of course the concern about the Creamery was, ‘Wouldn’t it be nice if 640 they could introduce Manx yogurts,’ because that is as a very big industry now and a top-selling line. What is the Department’s view? How do you try and convince an agricultural industry that we should be doing more polytunnels and salads and things like that? Are you doing that much fire- fighting now with other issues, and your budget is constrained to such an extent that you just have 645 not got the money to invest in these other areas?
The Minister: You are answering the question for me a bit there, but yes –
The Acting Chairman: Well, I am giving you a lead, and this is an opportunity for you to – 650 The Minister: No, you are absolutely right. The real answer to your question is guarantee a price, and then farmers will produce, but that is where the discussions with… and I do take my hat off to that particular supermarket. I will not mention names, but Shoprite do a fantastic job for Manx producers. ______13 EIPRC-E/12-13 TYNWALD STANDING COMMITTEE, WEDNESDAY, 1ST MAY 2013
655 When we have had these sorts of discussions with supermarkets, we wholly support them and say, ‘Yes, this is entirely the right sort of thing to do. What you need to do to make this happen is guarantee a price for say three years while people move into that market place,’ and that is where the conversation stops. They are happy to pay the market price, but they are not going to give you a guaranteed price for a period of time, and that is what farmers need. 660 If you are going to move into a new production system, you need to know that you have got a market, and unfortunately this is what happens – part of the shoddy practices engaged in the UK supermarkets, in terms of buying… They will pick up a farmer, the farmer will be supported and everything will be fantastic, and then a change in price and suddenly that farmer is dropped and then they are on to the next one, and effectively the farmer can face financial ruin as a result. That 665 is, to my mind, a result of supermarkets having far too much power and control, and this is an area where, if we had the resource, I would like to spend a bit of time in terms of policy development. There was a fantastic report produced a few years ago – I think it was by the Competition Commission; a UK report, anyway – looking at supermarkets, looking at what needed to be done to control some of the excesses of supermarkets and the role they played in the Manx food chain, 670 and there were some really good proposals in there, which did not find favour in the UK because most of the UK… Well, you could cynically suggest that most of the UK political parties are funded by supermarkets, and maybe that had an influence on why they did not support the –
Q23. The Acting Chairman: And yet the UK has seen a resurgence in its horticultural 675 industry; hence the numbers of immigrants moving into the UK to work in these areas and so on. We are not all that dissimilar from what is happening in the fish yards, (The Minister: Absolutely.) but if we are serious about diversification in agriculture, we have got to try these things.
680 The Minister: And that was the only significant area that we were not able to deliver on, in terms of the 2008 strategy that we took to Tynwald – a particular disappointment for me, but you have got to take account of the financial reality Government faces at the moment. I had very strongly hoped that we would have had some kind of a diversification support scheme in place. That was part of the strategy. It is not something we have delivered, it is not 685 something I believe we can deliver in the near future, and it is a shame because farmers probably do need that support. But, as I say, again, the crucial thing, in terms of production, is if supermarkets want farmers to produce new innovative products, they do need to be able to give them some support.
690 Q24. Mr Hall: In terms of the Manx meat, what update discussions have you had with Tesco and the like regarding the Manx meat, in terms of being able to market it? What is the latest with regard to that situation?
The Minister: For whatever reason, Tesco do not seem that eager to talk to the Department. I 695 think that is, quite frankly, quite rude of them, but they do not seem to respond, to any significant extent, to any of the attempts we have made to communicate with them. What we know is that Isle of Man Meats have had discussions with Tesco, and effectively Isle of Man Meats could not afford to supply Tesco at the prices that Tesco were expecting to pay, so Isle of Man Meats has taken that decision to stop supplying. Tesco is going to say, ‘Oh, well, it’s 700 nothing to do with us.’ Well, actually, it is to do with Tesco. If Tesco were serious about supporting local produce, they would be trying to find a way in which they can work with Isle of Man Meats. Tesco have, all around our shores, been going around saying how important it is to minimise the length of the food chain, to actually buy local. There was some fantastic announcement in 705 Northern Ireland, around about the same week that the ending of Tesco’s supply from Isle of Man Meats was being announced, but in Northern Ireland they were saying how they were going to massively increase the amount of Northern Irish sourced meat sold in their supermarkets in Northern Ireland.
710 The Acting Chairman: I think the farmers are a bit more vitriolic in Northern Ireland than they are in the Isle of Man.
The Minister: Yes, maybe we should take all our farmers on a –
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715 Q25. Mr Hall: Actually, I read a very interesting article when I was in Ireland, and it said in Ireland their land is perfectly matched with their climate with regard to the land for producing fine meat, because of their climate –
The Minister: Which indeed ours is too. 720 Q26. Mr Hall: – and ours is very similar, so there is a lot to market, for sure. I have got a question on wildlife, if we can just turn to that, because I understand that there are around about 70 sites that are registered as wildlife sites and the project to register more is pending, so I would just like to know what the purpose is of these sites and their registration and 725 what the Department’s role in the project is – if you could just give us a bit of a brief on that.
The Minister: Yes. There are various ways in which you can protect your wildlife or biodiversity, whatever you want to call it. There are two emerging, fairly distinctive, points of view as to what the best way forward is. There is one, which could be described as putting up a 730 ‘You cannot go here’ notice and putting a bit of barbed-wire fence round; and then there is another, which is about educating people generally, specifically about the benefits of diversity, so that they would not want to go and trample on the rare orchid or nesting bird, whatever it might be. Certainly as far as the Department is concerned, I think we are now being more encouraged to look at that more general aspect, which is about education and general promotion of the benefits of 735 biodiversity, rather than specifically going around, slapping preservation notices on things. Ultimately, if we manage to get the education right and win the hearts and minds of the Manx public, we are going to be more successful than two or three officers going around with magnifying glasses, checking to see what is and is not worthy of a designation, and potentially we will designate a number of sites – which in theory and in practice is a good thing but, with limited 740 resource, far better to educate the public to the benefits of maintaining all of our biodiversity, rather than just targeting the small specific areas. So the sites that we have, generally – Areas of Special Scientific Interest… there are a variety of protections that are put on these sites and those protections are listed in the designation documents, and they are working very well. Most of the land that needs to be designated I believe 745 is designated now, and a lot of the land that could be designated is in Government ownership. So we could go round designating Manx National Heritage’s land and the Department’s land and the Water Authority’s land, but as – we would like to think, anyway – Government is a responsible landowner and is unlikely to cause significant damage to the biodiversity on these sites, it could be argued that that is a meaningless paper exercise. 750 Far better to try and work on the other element, which is general promotion of the benefits of diversity, and that is why you will see in the Agenda for Change we have discussed the possibility of creating, for the Isle of Man, a designation of a UNESCO Biosphere Designation. I think we would be the first nation, if not the first Island, to have such a designation, so we are looking to introduce that, which is more about education and promotion, rather than the ‘slap a protection 755 notice on’ route.
Q27. Mr Hall: Is it costly for the Department when you are registering these particular sites as wildlife sites? Is that costly for the Department?
760 The Minister: It has not seemed to be. As part of the designation, farmers or landowners can claim compensation for loss of value of their land, but I do not think there is any example of that being done. There are also, though, certain payments that we can make to farmers to manage their land in a more diversity-friendly way, and certainly those payments are made from time to time but again I do not think they are a significant part of the Department’s budget. 765 Q28. The Acting Chairman: Obviously, you talk to people in the countryside… I went to see a farmer the other day and I was quite surprised to see about 15 goldfinches, siskins – birds I never thought would be in the Isle of Man. I said to him, ‘Is this down to the Countryside Care Scheme?’ He said, ‘No, it is down to my wife bringing home sunflower seed hearts; they go absolutely mad 770 for them.’ We are definitely seeing a more diversified wildlife in the Isle of Man, a resurgence in birds of prey – owls and so on – but I think we have had this conversation before. I think animals like hares and ground-nesting birds must have been absolutely devastated by the recent weather and I hope that the Department is going to do something to try and give them some protection to allow them 775 to recover again. ______15 EIPRC-E/12-13 TYNWALD STANDING COMMITTEE, WEDNESDAY, 1ST MAY 2013
The Minister: Well, actually, on the hares, one of the problems we have had, particularly with the blue hares, is that they have been easy prey for probably the previous many winters because we have not had an awful lot of snow. As a result, actually, of having more snow this year and, I 780 think, two years and three years ago, there do appear to be greater numbers of blue hares than we would have anticipated, bearing in mind that they had been declining. But it is certainly something that we are looking at. I think we have to make them designated as game to be able to protect them. If they are not designated as game, we cannot protect them so we need to change the game, in effect. 785 Q29. The Acting Chairman: I walked over North Barrule last weekend, and the only one I saw had been torn to pieces by dogs, (The Minister: Right.) and it was in about half a dozen different pieces, and it had not been long killed. That animal would have been weak – no food – and how, in the name of… it had survived up there all this time, I do not know, but people who are 790 interested in those animals will tell you that they are on a knife edge at the moment. There has been a little bit of an increase in the brown hare population. These animals are beautiful. If people knew we had that type of wildlife, they would actually come to the Isle of Man to see it and see them in the fields, boxing and all the things that they do at this time of the year. And what do you do if you have shot it? You cannot eat it, their flesh is 795 that strong. To me, they are the things that we should be looking to try and save for the next generation.
The Minister: And we are. We have a Bill that we are working on. The question really, for us, is how much officer time we can spend on all the different things we need to do. 800 We certainly had hoped to have a Game Bill brought forward in this parliamentary sitting, but it may be now that it is going to have to be next year before we will get that brought forward, because there are lots of competing interests for our legislative time.
Q30. The Acting Chairman: Moving onwards, then: sewage pellets as fertiliser. We have 805 discussed this in the past, and increasing costs… You mentioned the cost of fertiliser earlier on and how it has gone up in value. Have we not been able to carry out some tests to see if this by- product that is produced by Government at Meary Veg would be suitable for applying on some land, even if it is grazing land, or whatever? It seems to me crazy that we are spending money drying this cake and turning it into pellets, and then taking it away and burning it in the 810 incinerator, when all our colleagues in Europe are busy putting it on the land and growing –
The Minister: We reckon we need 730 acres to spread, so about ½% of the agricultural land of the Island, and we have – I think we have already supplied this to the Committee – issued, back in 2006, a safe sewage-sludge matrix, which demonstrates clearly what we believe to be safe use of 815 the sewage-sludge pellets. For whatever reason – and I think it is largely the money-related reason – farmers are wanting to be paid more than WASA is reasonably prepared to pay. As you say, this is a product which has quite significant nutritional benefit. Farmers are wanting to be paid to spread it on their land, and in our view, they should be quite happy to accept it for nothing at the very least, if not paying for it, because it does have this good value in terms of 820 improving the land.
Q31. The Acting Chairman: How do I know I am not buying it when I go to the garden centre and I buy my pelletised manure? How do I know that I am not buying something that has been produced in some sewage treatment works in the UK or in Europe, or wherever? 825 The Minister: I am sure that there will be somebody who goes round checking these things.
The Acting Chairman: Back to your horse argument.
830 The Minister: Yes, absolutely.
Q32. Mr Hall: I was just wondering, talking about the pellets going off to the incinerator, do we have any indication of exactly how much is going there –
835 The Acting Chairman: It was a lot.
Mr Hall: – in terms of its volume or weight? ______16 EIPRC-E/12-13 TYNWALD STANDING COMMITTEE, WEDNESDAY, 1ST MAY 2013
The Minister: I can concur with your Chairman – ‘a lot’ – but Richard has been sitting here 840 very quiet, so I do not know… Have you got the figures?
Mr Lole: I have not got the figures on total volume that is going through, but as I understand it, it is the majority of the production at the moment that is going through the incinerator. There is clearly a large amount of land that would be available for spreading on. Despite the concerns that 845 some consumers have a preference not to eat food produced on it, there are stages in the production where it could be used, so it probably is around price.
Q33. The Acting Chairman: If there was ever a time to revisit this… I am only in my mid- 60s, but I have never known a time in the Isle of Man when the land looked so drained and burnt 850 and scorched because of the bad weather. Four weeks ago, I acquired some of this stuff and threw it on my lawns, and I will tell you what: they are like green pastures today, and that is in a few weeks, so the stuff actually works. I know the other argument is how the supermarkets react to it and so on, but we are not unique in this. Lots of other places must use this, and since the matrix was established, seven years have 855 passed. There is all sorts of technology now that could be utilised to make sure that all these pathogens are properly disposed of. To me, it just seems to be that we are missing a trick here and we should be trying to make sure that we are getting the best out of what we are producing, particularly as times are hard. There must be lots of land here, marginal land, that would benefit from some of this stuff being put on it. 860 The Minister: I think it is just helpful to revisit the matrix. The only four areas where we are saying that we would not support the use of it are for grazing for milking cows plus dairy cows within three months of calving, grazing for finishing livestock within three months of slaughter for human consumption, cereals for human consumption and horticulture for human consumption. So 865 there is quite a vast array of production that you could actually use fertiliser for.
Q34. The Acting Chairman: So, will you undertake then to talk to the Water and Sewerage Authority about this and see if there is a way that you might be able to get the matter opened up for discussion again – 870 The Minister: I think, to be honest, the –
The Acting Chairman: – or would you rather we put it in our report?
875 The Minister: I would be more than happy to talk to them, but I think, to be honest, it is more about the farmers and whether the farmers are prepared to use the materials or not.
Q35. The Acting Chairman: Right, okay. I have got one last item, and I know that my colleague here has another item. It is just a quickie 880 really, and it relates to the… I know time is running on. I just want an overall opinion about privatisation of the sawmills and how that would sit with the privatisation of Silverdale, Laxey Glen Gardens, the Dhoon and so on. It is just a general question and I just want to finish that off by asking is there still timber going to the prison for various projects that they have been involved in, in making these fences and panels and so on? 885 The Minister: I will start with the prison first, and Richard might be able to assist me with this in more detail. I hope that there is still that productive working relationship with the prison, because I think, in theory, it is a good idea. In practice, again I am happy to hold my hands up that we set the scheme 890 up, the eye was then taken off the ball by the manager who had established this, and we ended up with prisoners churning out loads and loads of… I think it was fence panels, and we had more fence panels produced than we would ever know what to do with. Clearly, that has not been particularly well managed and we must not allow that to happen.
895 Q36. The Acting Chairman: If the fence panels were put into the farmers’ fields from Lambfell to Kirk Michael and allowed the snow to drift there, you would not have had… [Inaudible]
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The Minister: Well, we were wondering, actually, whether the prisoners were stacking them 900 up next to the fence and they were going to jump over! But whatever it was, we did not… The theory was good, but in practice we have got to make sure that we keep managing these things. If Richard has anything to add, he can add that on at the end of this. As far as privatisation or outsourcing, obviously all the cafés in all our glens are currently, effectively, outsourced. They are run by private enterprise and we generally have reasonably good 905 working relations with our tenants, although there are occasions where things do not go quite as well as we would hope. I am sure there are ways in which we could manage these relationships better, but again we only have so many hours in the day and there is only so much time to do all the things that we need to do. I think the concern that I would have about privatising or outsourcing the functions currently 910 provided by the sawmill are that, compared with a café, it is a much bigger enterprise, it is a much bigger thing for us to manage. So one of the issues which we would have to deal with is would the sawmill be responsible just from running a sawmill, or would they be responsible for harvesting timber; and if they were not responsible for harvesting the timber, what would be the penalties if we could not provide them with the timber when they needed the timber. They could find that they 915 would have all sorts of production issues if they did not have a regular source of timber, so then we would have to work out exactly what that relationship would be, and if we said, ‘Well, actually, no, you can have the harvesting and the sawmill itself,’ then that might work better in terms of the supply of the mill, but we could end up with some very unpleasant-looking countryside if the mill decided to exploit particular plantations in a particularly aggressive way. 920 Added to that, you will be aware that – over the last 18 months, I think it is – we have had the phytophthora problem, which has resulted in us having to fell vast swathes of plantations to try and control that disease. How would you put into a contract of a private operator a requirement for them to fell vast amounts of their potential profitability and effectively just bin it? How would that work? My concern is the way that that would work would be the Department would end up having 925 to pay significant sums in terms of compensation and we could end up paying more by giving this to private operators than we are actually paying ourselves. It sounds like I am, but I am not saying that the Department has ruled out the prospect of privatising the sawmill – we certainly have not and we will certainly engage fully in investigations to see whether this is going to be profitable or not – but I certainly wish to place on public record 930 the caveats that I just have done, that there are potentially quite serious risks from doing this. We will see where we end up, but certainly we are actively looking at the sawmill. Did you have any…?
Mr Lole: There were two things I was going to go back to, if we got to that point. 935 The first, if I may, was to go back to the diversification discussion and to acknowledge that one of the things that the Countryside Care Scheme was intended explicitly to do, in disconnecting the support payments from the actual specific production, was to avoid persuading farmers to produce what we support and to leave them to focus on what they produce and the market wants to buy. The hope is, therefore, it is a much lower risk to diversify into horticulture, or something of 940 that nature, if that is what the market will pay for, because the support payment is still there; whereas there was a very strong argument that the agriculture – not just here, but throughout Europe – has become more and more focused where the production was over the last few generations, at the expense of anything that was not supported. Historically, horticulture has not had support and a lot of people have come out of it, and what 945 you rightly identified was that the UK has seen an increase in people trying to produce other things since they decoupled a few years before we did. So there does seem to be some evidence that people are using the schemes to manage the risk – because those payments will come in anyway, providing they look after and meet the cost compliance standards – and are therefore able to do something different and make more money by 950 supplying other markets which are not currently supplied. That was quite an important point I wanted to bring out – thank you for that – and the other one was to come back briefly to the wood and the wood products in the prison, and just to reassure the Committee that officers have literally met about 10 days ago with the prison staff to try and work out how to get that running again and to make sure that what is produced does have an end 955 product, as in it is something that the public want to buy currently, but also to acknowledge the importance for the prisoners.
The Acting Chairman: Okay. Do you want to go on to your housing question? 960 ______18 EIPRC-E/12-13 TYNWALD STANDING COMMITTEE, WEDNESDAY, 1ST MAY 2013
Q37. Mr Hall: Yes. I just want to go on, because I know that your Department is… regarding this proposed… the Landlord and Tenant – the proposal for the registration scheme by the Department of Social Care. Your Department is already involved in this area through the Housing (Miscellaneous 965 Provisions) Act 2011, so I am just wondering what is the Department’s view of this proposed Bill that is coming forward, and to perhaps try and clarify the differences between what is in the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, which deals with standards… and we are told that the Landlord and Tenant, the purpose behind it, one of them, is to raise standards, registering, obviously, landlords. 970 The Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, which effectively is what your Department oversees, already seems to deal with standards with regard to flats and properties, and I note it also deals with ventilation, heating and insulation, sanitary provision, water supply and obviously keeping the buildings in safe conditions. It deals with the multiple occupancy and which need to be registered, in which it notes that your Department… It specifies which flats and houses in 975 multiple occupation have to be registered. It incorporates that the housing standards have got to come to Tynwald by your Department. So there is quite a lot, or it seems that it is quite substantial. So, in that particular Act, dealing with all of these issues, including multiple occupancy… and I am just wondering what the actual difference is, because it seems that the only difference, on the surface perhaps, is that the landlords 980 have to be registered. There seems to be a risk of duplication between these two, and from two different Departments. Of course, I noted on the BBC website in February that a spokesman from your Department was confirming that, literally, this issue was pretty much to do with multiple occupancy. That was one of the drivers behind it to do with toilets and washing facilities and things like that. But this 985 Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2011 seems to deal with all of these issues which your Department is responsible for, so I am just wondering if you can give us a bit of an insight, really, of exactly… that we are not running down a road where we are going to end up with a duplication between the two, because if this goes through we will have the Department of Social Care dealing with… and the purpose being it is going to raise the standards of accommodation, but as I have 990 just pointed out, there are lots of things in this Act to do with multiple occupancy and housing and flats and standards which seem to be dealt with already. It already seems to be there.
The Minister: Yes. I think you have got a little bit of confusion there, in that we have – I thought rather cleverly – done two consultations together. We have got our houses of multiple 995 occupancy consultation, because whilst we have the primary legislation, what we do not have in place is the regulations, so what our spokesman was talking about was our houses of multiple occupancy regulations, which we are going out for consultation on – or at least I am assuming that is the… I have not got the quote with me, so I cannot be absolutely sure, but I am assuming that would be the case. I would be very surprised if a spokesman from our Department was making 1000 comment on the Landlord and Tenant Bill.
Q38. Mr Hall: It seems that he is, because… I will read it here. It says:
‘Plans to implement a registration scheme for multiple occupancy homes on the Isle of Man will go to public 1005 consultation…’
– (The Minister: And that is what we have gone out –) –
‘It is thought the proposals, designed to raise rental standards, could affect about 200… properties. Landlords would be 1010 given three years to comply… An environment… spokesman said multiple occupancy homes were illegal but the changes would give an alternative to prosecution.’
The Minister: Yes, that is our houses of multiple occupancy regulations.
1015 Mr Hall: Here, it is saying about the ‘registration scheme’. It seems to imply that it is referring to the Department of –
The Minister: No, it –
1020 Q39. Mr Hall: So you are saying it is not?
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The Minister: This is registering houses of multiple occupancy, because at the moment they are illegal. Until such time as we bring forward the regulations, technically speaking, you cannot have a house of multiple occupancy. So we are introducing those regulations to legalise something 1025 that we know is happening. We are trying to ‘regulise’ that.
Q40. The Acting Chairman: Why aren’t we doing something about it?
The Minister: Well, that is what we are doing. 1030 Q41. The Acting Chairman: If we are all about improving standards, why have we got 12 or 14 people living in a house, sharing kitchens and bathrooms?
The Minister: That is what I am saying. It has been a key priority for me since I have been 1035 made Minister in charge of Environment – I had not been before – to get those regulations in place, and I have been pushing those as hard as I can since I got into the role as Minister. So, we have the consultation out. We hope to have the regulations, I think, to July Tynwald, which means that we will then be able to do something about houses of multiple occupancy. At the moment, technically speaking, they do not exist. We cannot regulate something until it is lawful. 1040 At the moment, we could go round and close it all down, in which case you would have lots of people with nowhere to live. So we are trying, as quickly as we can, to ‘regulise’ something which is an absolute problem. As far as the Landlord and Tenant Bill, it is not really for me to comment specifically on that.
1045 Q42. Mr Hall: No, I appreciate that, but do you feel there is a risk that there is going to be an overlap, a duplication in legislation, if this goes for the Department of Social Care, and then of course in your Department you have got the Act and everything else… that there is a duplication in some way?
1050 The Minister: I do think you have got to be enormously careful, in primary legislation, that you do not go for duplication, because I know that there is a serious risk, if you are duplicating powers in primary legislation, then you can potentially result in the neutralisation of one piece of legislation by the other. So I think we would have to be enormously careful to make sure that is the case. 1055 Q43. Mr Hall: Do you feel that there is a risk of duplication here?
The Minister: You are pursuing me, and I was going to answer anyway. I have to say that one of the few areas of my Department that I am still not absolutely up to speed on is this particular 1060 area, so I would have to go away and do some more research and let you know about that.
Q44. Mr Hall: I would appreciate if you could give us an update, because it certainly seems that, on reading this Act, it is dealing with many things to do with standards and dealing with the flats and everything else and Health and Safety, and I am just a bit concerned that what is coming 1065 out, the other Department within Council is doing the same thing.
The Minister: All I can say is I would be very surprised if we have not checked this out for duplication. Beyond that, I cannot say, because it is somebody else’s piece of legislation. My officers will have been involved in that discussion process, but I will go back and check this out. 1070 Q45. Mr Hall: If you could give an undertaking to the Committee and go back to absolutely double-check that between what we have in the Act and what is proposed, there are no areas of duplication.
1075 The Minister: I will do better than that: I will commit to providing the Committee with – when do you reckon by, three weeks’ time, would that be reasonable? (Mr Lole: Yes.) – an account of why our piece of legislation is needed and why we do not think that conflicts – hopefully, anyway – with the Bill.
1080 Mr Hall: I think it will be useful to do that.
The Minister: We will make sure that is done. ______20 EIPRC-E/12-13 TYNWALD STANDING COMMITTEE, WEDNESDAY, 1ST MAY 2013
Mr Hall: I appreciate that, yes. 1085 The Acting Chairman: Okay, are you done?
Mr Hall: Yes.
1090 The Acting Chairman: All finished now? I think we have enjoyed our discussion today and we have covered lots of subjects, a lot of them very relevant. I would just like to thank the two members of the public who have come in to listen to the deliberations of the Committee and get an understanding of how we work, and thank both Mr 1095 Gawne and Mr Lole for coming in today for and the frankness and honesty in your answers.
The Minister: And if I could pass on my thanks for actually having a Committee of Tynwald properly scrutinising the work of the Department, because I think it is an incredibly valuable role that you play. Thanks. 1100 The Acting Chairman: Thank you.
The Committee adjourned at 4.09 p.m.
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