Yesterday I travelled into London for the launch of a couple of documents by Wildlife and Countryside Link (of which more later).
As I walked up the steps of Westminster tube station I felt slightly nostalgic for the days when I used to spend a lot more time in this habitat and as I emerged, blinking slightly, into the noonday sunshine I glanced up at the Elizabeth Tower with its famous clock face and its invisible bell.
Through habit I scanned the faces of those who were passing by just in case there was a face I knew – there is nothing so welcome to an advocate as an unplanned impromptu quick chat with someone you want to influence. They are often very valuable. After half a dozen steps I spotted my favourite Tory ex-MP, Sir John Randall, and we had a quick social chat. As we did, a prominent scientist walked past and said ‘Hello Mark!’ and then a few minutes later I was chatting to Andy Clements, the boss of the BTO, as we queued to get into the Palace of Westminster.
Now Andy and I were heading to the same event (where the BTO got a mention from the Secretary of State, Liz Truss) but we did some business in the queue and I wish Andy well on Fair Isle later in the month.
Wildlife Link had done well to land the Secretary of State as their star speaker. It’s always interesting and informative to see the top person, a cabinet minister, demonstrate their grasp of their brief, and Ms Truss has been in the job for something like 14 months now (minus a general election campaign, I guess, to be fair). But Ms Truss failed to impress.
Her speech was rambling and along the lines of a child’s essay on ‘What I did in the holidays’. There was little structure to it and no clear message. It had the usual Tory phrases of ‘government needs to show leadership but it’s not just up to government, we all have a part to play’ and a few words in praise of technology, citizen science and engaging people but the audience wasn’t very engaged and the applause at the end was partly of relief and partly polite.
And then there were questions where the Secretary of State showed even more clearly that she didn’t have a clue (after over a year in the job). The sharpest questions were from the CLA (about silos – where the SoS didn’t seem to know what her department was doing) and from Buglife (on neonicotinoids – where the SOS certainly didn’t know what was happening). There were two questions from farmers in the audience – both about how they could get the SoS to help them earn more money! The first was miffed that the world was overproducing commodities and so he was getting less for his produce than he would like. Instead of saying ‘You do know I’m a Tory don’t you? I like markets a lot’ the SoS waffled, but I suspect the farmer will be putting his X next to UKIP if he really wants governments to guarantee him a cushy price. The other farmer was complaining, with some justification, about reductions in payments for educational visits to his farm in agri-environment schemes after recent changes. The SoS didn’t know anything about these and waffled rather than saying, ‘Didn’t you hear the news this morning about Health Authorities heading for the red? You voted for us, we told you this was the age of austerity – take a look at your Single Farm Payment cheque and count your blessings’.
There were quite a lot of ‘Don’t knows’ and the whole performance was poor. It wasn’t a great showing for the SoS after over a year in the job, and not a great advert for women in the Cabinet. But lest you think that is a sexist remark my mind went in that direction because I thought back to a much more impressive performance by Owen Paterson in his first few weeks in the same role. Confident, well-argued and completely wrong – but he clearly believed what he was saying. And he was clearly intent on doing something whilst in Defra (and he did – most of it wrong!). Mr Paterson wasn’t in the room. If he had been I could almost imagine him taking the stage and answering the questions himself with a ‘Let me show you how to do it’, but Mr Paterson’s predecessor, Caroline Spelman, was in the room. Those were the days – when Defra had a thinking, caring and effective SoS. As I’ve said before, the last three Secs of State were the good (Spelman), the bad (Paterson – though, as you can tell, I have some admiration for him) and the invisible (Truss). Unfortunately the invisible showed herself yesterday – bad decision!
When the SoS left, the room was full of slightly embarrassed Tories and slightly frustrated everybody-elses. It was a performance that would be acceptable for someone new in the role but not after all this time.
I imagine Kerry McCarthy is looking forward to her shadow role with some nervousness – everybody does in a new job. On this showing she has nothing to fear.
[registration_form]
I’m disappointed with your generalisation about Liz Truss’s sex. Owen Paterson is an equally bad advert for men in cabinet – willing to spout ideas with supreme confidence but no factual basis. I could give you a list!
Lyn – you did read what I wrote about Caroline Spelman?
And I didn’t generalise about Ms Truss – I was very specific about her, pointedly so!
We’ll have to agree to disagree on this one, Mark. I agree that Liz Truss is bad at her job, full stop, and that Caroline Spelman was good; in neither case because they are women. But “[she is] not a great advert for women in the Cabinet” is a generalisation. Had you said “she is not as good an advert for women in Cabinet as Caroline Spelman”, I would not have commented in the same way.
Your description of Ms Truss’s performance yesterday rather seems to reflect Defra itself these days. A Department that is fundamentally unfit for purpose, offering poor value to the taxpayer and a bum deal to the environment.
I wonder if this may be one of the last occasions that the SOS for Defra is able to speak at this event. Perhaps in future you’ll have to put up with similarly insipid performances from the SOS for the DECC or even Dept. of BIS? And I also wonder if perhaps Ms Truss’s attention is perhaps rather too focused on such matters…
Ps – “The other farmer was complaining, with some justification, about reductions in payments for educational visits to his farm in agri-environment schemes after recent changes”
I’d love to know how said farmer has arrived at this conclusion. My understanding is that Educational Access Visits have been increased from £100 per visit to £290 per visit, with the £500 base payment removed. So overall this means the payment for the first 4 visits (minimum number required) has increased from £900 to £1160 and any visit thereafter is paid at £290. In these austere times that doesn’t seem particularly unfair to me!
Ernest – well you certainly appear to know much more than I do, more than the Secretary of State does and perhaps more than the farmer does!
Thank you.
As I understand this particular case, the agri-environment scheme changes referred to happened a few years ago. The main issues were the introduction of a cap in the number of education visits paid for (25 per year), and the new specification that the only groups of school children or Care Farming were eligible for support.
For those farms that had invested in the skills and infrastructure to provide a lot of educational access (around 100 visits per year in this case) for very diverse audiences, these constraints have proved significant.
Kirsty – thank you for that – I’m sure you’re right.
Thanks Kirsty.
If memory serves me right the 25 visit cap applied from the summer of 2010 onwards to new HLS agreements only. This rule was introduced shortly after the coalition did away with the permissive access options for new HLS agreements. I recall that initially they also proposed that Educational Access visits were to be scrapped, but then, presumably fearful of the outcry, undertook a sudden u-turn. Classic Cameronism.
I don’t blame NE for narrowing the eligibility criteria for certain groups, some farms were claiming for groups that clearly should never have been eligible e.g. small groups of adult birders that would be visiting the farm anyway, but I can well understand the frustration of those set-up for >25 visits of school groups. If I had my way this option would receive much more funding, particularly for visits from inner city schools. I’d rather my taxes were spent on providing 30 inner city school school children with a day trip to a well managed HNV farm than on 0.80ha of rank, species poor ‘field corner management’.
Ernest – Defra must be vulnerable because it has shrunk in size and because it may appear to many PMs over the years to be a source of bad rather than good news. It could be pocketted by another department. And that could be good, or more probably bad.
If Defra disappeared I assume agriculture would go to BIS, where farmers would have to stand in a much longer and more hard-nosed queue to get their case taken up by the SoS, and I agree, presumably nature (biology) would head off to DECC (physics and chemistry).
We’ll see. I seem to be saying ‘We’ll see’ several times a day at the moment.
Your prediction seems in line with that of the rumours I keep hearing, although it is is difficult to judge how well informed these rumours are.
“where farmers would have to stand in a much longer and more hard-nosed queue to get their case taken up by the SoS”
Precisely. But this important point seems to be overlooked by those desperate to separate agri-business from the environment.
Interesting times.
I’ve read the speech and for sure it was bland inoffensive innocuous neutral unobjectionable unexceptional unremarkable commonplace dull tedious run-of-the-mill and maybe even anodyne and although I have searched it carefully I can’t find the bit where she says people should have been killed before they could breed although she does use unpleasant language like “delivery framework” and “the science” but what I found most disappointing was the absence of any reference whatsoever to pork.
The omission of pork from the menu is surprising; nevertheless it is reassuring to note ‘that pollinators are now thriving on the Defra roof.’
I thought ‘…and less than half the phosphate they did 30 years ago’ was sneaky, very sneaky.
In contrast to Liz Truss, very impressed by Kerry McCarthy on the World at One today, defending her brief as shadow SoS . Articulate and focussed in her responses.
Richard – blog coming on that!
I heard her too and a wry smile came to my face as I was driving back from IKEA! An insight, perhaps, on why the NFU and CA are so vehement in their response to her appointment…if Labour came to power and Kerry remained in post, Defra would no longer be dancing to the NFU’s tune/ anthem.
So, hmmmmm, what should we make of Kerry’s appointment? Her dietary preferences are utterly irrelevant; just as Jeremy Corbyn not singing the National Anthem is. I think we could rightly assume that driven grouse shooting would become very vulnerable, regardless of the size of, or existence of, any petition. The environment and nature conservation within her responsibility would seemingly increase in priority (it could hardly decrease mind you!) but; and this is the bitter irony, would Jeremy argue for a Brexit? If we Brexited, would nature conservation in terms of its legal protection suffer as a consequence?
Thus, the whole subject is not straightforward as Kerry v Liz.
I’ll leave you all with this thought…
If Jeremy does fall on the side of Brexit, he’d be campaigning on the same ticket as Nigel Farage. Now, that really would make an interesting blog Mark…perhaps a guest one by the BBC’s Chris Mason?
Mark – I think you might be being a little unfair about the first farmer’s question. As I took it he was asking why, if over-production is driving down commodity prices, the government’s rhetoric and the likely focus of the upcoming 25-year Food & Farming Plan is more or less solely on further increases in production, rather than the more holistic examination of the services farming might provide for society.
Simon – was it? That wasn’t what I got but thank you. You sound as if you know what you are talking about!
Professional Polition!