THE UK Government “sent shockwaves” throughout the agricultural sector after ditching a ring-fenced fund for Scottish agriculture, a union has said.
Martin Kennedy, president of the National Farmers’ Union Scotland (NFUS), led a demonstration outside the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh on Thursday calling on the Scottish Government to ring-fence agricultural funding in Scotland in its Budget statement on December 4.
He was joined by hundreds of farmers, crofters and agricultural workers, and told them the UK Government has thrown the existing financial framework in the industry “out the window”.
He said: “On October 30, the new Labour Government sent shockwaves throughout the whole of agriculture throughout the UK. It was really devastating – it sent shockwaves through us all.
“Not only on the agricultural property relief and business property relief issues that we’ve been talking about, and that has been highlighted very much last week in London, but particularly, it’s every bit as important as the funding element.
“First of all, under Europe, a seven-year multi-annual financial framework and after Brexit we’ve had a five-year multi-annual financial framework so we can plan ahead.
“The Labour Government threw that out the window.
“They’ve completely washed their hands of that. They’ve said to the devolved parliaments, ‘you do what you like with agriculture’.
“Agriculture is devolved, and that’s fine, the policy is devolved, but so is the funding and it’s now part of the block grant, so we have no security, and no idea how much the Scottish Government are going to commit to Scottish agriculture going forward.”
He said the Scottish Budget is going to be “absolutely critical” and he wants to see the Government ring-fence the £620m, saying there is no reason for them not to do so.
He told the crowd: “They have had a £3.4 billion uplift in the block grant coming to Scotland, and that is an 8.1% uplift in their overall budget.
“We are asking the Scottish Government to not only ring-fence the £620m, but to add on the £80m that they have traditionally put towards the block grant or towards agricultural funding, plus the £50m that is the 8.1% uplift in funding, and let’s not forget, the £46m that has still got to come back into our portfolio because it was ours before it was taken out.
“We need to see that on December 4.”
Other speakers from the NFUS echoed Kennedy’s message to the Scottish Government, as did a number of political figures, including Scottish Conservative leader Russell Findlay.
Findlay warned that the agricultural industry is under “critical threat like never before”, and said a number of NFUS members had spoken to him previously about their fears over the funding.
“I heard loud and clear about the many concerns, one of the biggest of those being around the uncertainly on funding,” he said.
Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton told the rally: “The Budget, I think, is a new era for farming in Scotland because the £620m is now being given straight to the Scottish Government.
“We need to make sure that this is ring-fenced and goes directly into farming, but over and above that, there is an actual real-terms increase in the money that we invest in farming and agriculture, because it is the engine room of our economy.
“It is so important to Scotland, to our food security, our national heritage and our environmental sustainability."
The Scottish and UK governments have been contacted for comment.
