In a crunch week for the UK Government on its Brexit Withdrawal Agreement, NFU Scotland has returned to Westminster to meet key decision-makers to discuss the progress of the UK Government’s Agriculture Bill, and the priorities of its members from the EU/UK draft Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration. Director of policy Jonnie Hall and political affairs manager Clare Slipper visited the parliamentary under-secretary of state for Scotland, Lord Duncan, as well as MPs and members of the House of Lords in a day of meetings in Westminster on Tuesday December 4.
The UK Government’s Agriculture Bill is completing its first stages in the House of Commons, where NFU Scotland has had success in achieving Defra’s agreement to an amendment which will establish a mechanism to repatriate red meat levy funding to Quality Meat Scotland. With the Bill shortly moving to the Lords, NFU Scotland held discussions with cross-party members of the House of Lords in order to highlight further UK-wide areas of the Bill which it would like to see amendments on.
These areas include the creation of a multi-annual financial framework for agricultural policy payments, which would provide longerterm certainty for claimants and would protect the agricultural budget from discretionary spending decisions.