Swingeing budget cuts could hinder Defra’s ability to handle a variety of challenges, an influential committee of MPs has warned.
The department could struggle to cope with future floods and environmental crises, CAP reform, and the battle against bovine TB, the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee (EFRA) said today in its annual departmental report.
“The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is one of the smallest of government departments but it has faced among the most substantial budget cuts, which are set to continue up to 2016,” the report said. “The Department spent just under £2.5bn in 2012-13. Its budget has been cut by £500m since the 2010 Spending Review and it will face another reduction of £300m in the years up to 2015-16.”
MPs called for clarity on which areas of Defra’s work would face significant budget reductions over the next two years, and noted that it works with 28 separate delivery agencies – all of which also need clarity over their future funding, they said.
On the issue of CAP reform, “delivery of CAP payments to farmers is at stake” according to Efra chair Anne McIntosh MP.
From 2015, access to CAP funding will be “digital by default”, with Defra due to roll out a new digital payments system to farmers in the next 12 months. “Farmers who are unable to access online systems, particularly in areas not yet adequately covered by the government’s own Rural Broadband Programme, must be able to continue to access payments via paper-based systems,” McIntosh warned.
MPs welcomed Defra’s move to impose a charge for single-use plastic bags in supermarkets in England but said they were disappointed it was not being introduced until 2015, despite evidence it successfully reduced carrier bag usage in other parts of the UK.
On the controversial badger cull policy, the Efra report found that revisions of the estimated badger populations in the affected counties “undermines confidence in the process”. “We invite the government to set out why the first year of the pilots failed to achieve the target figure in the allotted time and what changes are required in order for the planned future culls to be effective.”
The Efra report also found that a Defra staff survey revealed “an increased lack of confidence in the management and leadership of the Department”.
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