Neil Hamilton, MS for Mid & West Wales, and Leader of UKIP Wales, has pledged to fight for a better deal for farmers.
Mr Hamilton, a member of the Climate Change, Environment and Rural Affairs committee, has vowed to support farming unions who have expressed concern over the Welsh Government’s water quality legislation.
He said:
“I am amazed and shocked the Minister has the affront totally to disregard the concerns and needs of Welsh farmers.
“As a long term critic of these proposals, I fully support the Farmers’ Union of Wales when they say it makes a mockery of devolution. Last year I urged Welsh Government to listen to the experts – the farmers – when it comes to bringing forward new regulations.
“Our hard working farmers are trying their best to survive in these very difficult times. We need a targeted and proportionate approach to tackle recurring incidents of pollution in intensively farmed areas.
“It looks as if the Welsh Government has simply ‘cut and pasted’ the EU regulations rather than taking the opportunity to introduce a proportionate, targeted and innovative approach to tackling the problems.
“The priority of Welsh Government should be fair and proportionate to all farms, many of which are small family-run businesses, which should not be made to suffer from top-down, ill-informed Government regulations. This pan-Wales approach places an unnecessary burden on small farmers.
“Unfortunately, Welsh Labour has a record of disregarding hard evidence and expert advice from stakeholders and have revealed themselves to be no friend of rural Wales.
Whether it’s banning shooting on public land, the failure to eradicate Bovine TB or to halt draconian fishing by-laws, Welsh Government has failed rural Wales at nearly every juncture.”
The Farmers’ Union of Wales says Welsh Government water quality legislation announced today, January 27 makes a mockery of devolution by failing to address Welsh concerns and needs.
The legislation will mean the phasing across Wales of what are effectively EU rules currently in place in intensively farmed areas – designate the whole of Wales as an EU Nitrate Vulnerable Zone, NVZ, an area more than forty times bigger than the current Welsh NVZ area, and eleven times bigger than what was recommended by NRW.
FUW president Glyn Roberts said: “The blank sheet of devolution and Brexit allows Welsh Government to design a bespoke system which would target problem areas without being disproportionate and costing the farming industry hundreds of millions – including in areas where there are no problems.
“This was precisely the recommendation of NRW, the FUW and others in a report presented to Welsh Government in 2018.”
Mr Roberts said that instead the Welsh Government has taken the draconian and unimaginative move of taking off-the-shelf regulations and applying them for the whole of Wales.
“As with the current white paper proposals for agricultural support, which simply copies a Defra plan, this announcement makes a mockery of devolution, and marks a betrayal of the principles of evidence-based decision making,” added Mr Roberts.
NRW had previously advised the Welsh Government against implementing the legislation, warning it could have the perverse outcome of making pollution worse, while also warning of the severe resource implications of such a draconian move.
