Jason Beedell

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Farming

Sources in Brussels say that the decision on whether to re-authorise is still in the balance as France, Germany, Luxembourg and Austria have not declared their positions. The Commission has also confirmed that the ‘Stop Glyphosate’ petition has over 1 million checked and validated signatories, and so will be debated in the next few months.

Borrowing by the agricultural, hunting and forestry sector has increased 57% since 2010 to £18.5bn, rising faster than inflation. In real terms, it has risen for the last eight years and is now at the peak levels of the mid-1980s. In Scotland, farm debt has reached record levels; lending by banks rose by 5% to £2.3bn and the farms also have a further £1.1bn of lending through hire purchase, family loans and other sources. The Scottish Government said that it is a good sign that banks remain willing to lend to the sector but some MSPs said that it is an illustration of the worrying state of farming profitability.

The European Union is abolishing its system of quotas and minimum pricing for sugar from 1 October, in one of the biggest changes for British agriculture in recent years. The change should allow the market to better adjust to market demand, and follows a 10-year period in which producers have been encouraged to restructure. British Sugar is planning to increase its production by 50% to 1.4m tonnes in 2018, and production is expected to increase by around 20% across Europe as a larger area is grown and as yields rise due to good growing conditions. The increase is expected to lead to lower imports into Europe and more exports, and prices falling closer to world levels. The sector will not be completely left to the open market, with a number of policies remaining in place to deal with very adverse market conditions (voluntary coupled support, collective bargaining, private storage aid and common market organisation regulations). The change will increase the pressure on Tate and Lyle, which imports sugar cane; it is already running at a loss and will continue to be charged import levies, while world sugar prices are expected to drop due to increased production in Europe.

One of the main challenges that the UK will face post-Brexit – that of balancing fair trade and free trade – is being played out by the EU in its negotiations with the Mercosur counties, particularly on the amounts of beef and ethanol that can be traded at reduced tariffs. The EU has proposed to allow up to 70,000t of hormone-free beef (which is claimed to be the equivalent of 1.7 million suckler cows) to enter the EU, which European governments and farmer organisations say will devastate the sector. In return, the EU will have better access to the Mercosur countries’ 230 million consumers. The UK is one of eight Member States that have urged the EU to finalise a “balanced and ambitious agreement”. The political equation will come down to protecting beef farmers versus access to new services, investment, public procurement and intellectual property markets.

The agreement is on how to share out tariff-rate quotas, which set limits on the amount of farm products that can be imported with lower than usual tariffs into the EU from countries outside it. Importantly for the UK, the deal does not increase overall quotas - and hence market access - despite calls from the third countries to do so. The formula used is based on which countries consumed the imported products, which seems sensible. However, a group of countries led by the US has written to the WTO saying that the proposals would lower access to EU and UK markets as they would be less flexible than at present, for example reducing their ability to divert trade from the UK to the EU if sales fell in the UK. It will be an interesting test case to see how long this agreement, which looks simple on the surface, will take to agree.

Environment

The pollution is mainly from outdated sewage treatment plants, according to research by the World Wildlife Fund. The discharges are legal but the treatment is not good enough to maintain river water health. WWF claims that about 90% of the 18,000 sewer overflows discharge raw sewage (mixed with rainwater) into rivers; 30-50% do this at least monthly – but it should only happen in exceptional circumstances. The Charity recognises the improvements that have been made recently but says they do not go far or fast enough.

Energy

The government will allow onshore wind farms on some Scottish islands to apply for renewable subsidies at its next Contracts for Difference auction in spring 2019. This is a change in policy and ministers have hinted that onshore wind may be allowed more widely.

Government has published its Clean Growth Strategy

This strategy sets out how the government plans to meet the climate change targets it has set for 2030. The long document contains many proposals, including:

- As many homes as possible to reach an energy efficiency rating of C by 2035, where practical, cost-effective and affordable. Currently around a third of homes are C or better.
- Upgrading 2.5m ‘fuel poor’ homes to a new minimum energy efficiency. These are homes in which residents spend more than 10% of their income on heating. This includes forcing landlords to invest in tenanted homes.
- Encouraging banks to offer ‘green mortgages’ with lower interest rates for energy-efficient homes.
- Increase capacity of off-shore windfarms by 400% to 20 gigawatts.
- 130,000 hectares of new woodlands to store carbon in trees, including incentives for planting in less- productive fields.
- £84 million to support innovations in heating, alternative fuels and other low carbon technology.
- Cautious support for “carbon capture” technologies.
- The Energy Company Obligation, under which a levy on energy bills is used to fund insulation and new boilers, will be extended to 2028.
- £1 billion to support the increased use of electric cars.

Property

The Scottish Land Commission is going to carry out a study of whether the claim that fewer than 500 people own around half of the privately-owned land in Scotland has had a positive or detrimental social impact.

Residential

The number of inquiries from buyers fell for the sixth month in a row and the number of house sales also fell in most regions, but with London and the south east falling most, according to the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. The dampening of demand is attributed to greater economic uncertainty, concern that interest rates will rise and also changes in stamp duty in 2014 which have added to moving costs for the most expensive houses. The number of houses for sale stabilised after falling for the past 18 months to historically low levels. Prices seem to have stabilised for the UK as a whole but fell in September in London, the southeast, East Anglia and the northeast. The surveyors expect prices to be higher in most regions in a year’s time.

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