The Farmers’ Union of Wales (FUW) has expressed concern over proposals by the Welsh Government to introduce a statutory licensing scheme for accommodation providers in Wales. In its response to the consultation, the Union stressed that a free statutory registration scheme should be introduced instead.

There is a strong feeling amongst the community of farmers who have diversified into self-catering accommodation that many Welsh Government policies designed with good intention to tackle the impacts of second homes and short-term holiday lets will have a detrimental impact on genuine providers.

The Welsh Government must ensure that such policies do not result in an irreversible impact for the Welsh tourism industry, which in turn leads to a sharp increase in the number of accommodation providers operating under the radar. Consequently this could also lead to empty properties which cannot be used for residential purposes due to planning conditions.

Scotland CAP payments revealed under FOI request

The amount of money Scotland paid out to claimants in 2022 under the Scottish Common Agricultural Policy has been revealed following a Freedom of Information request.

Despite a ceiling of around £500,000 that can be paid for the Basic Area Payment the highest total payment was almost £3.4 million, while the top 10 payments were almost £1.2 million and above.

The majority of the top 10 payments were large estates, landowners and charities with payments from environmental schemes and significant amounts of tree planting.

Following questions to the Welsh Government regarding EU Rural Development Plan (RDP) spending, the Minister for Rural Affairs and North Wales, and Trefnydd confirmed that at the end of 2022, the total spend was £680 million. The total value of the programme is £842 million therefore approximately £162 million remains unspent.

Under EU rules Wales must have committed its spending by the end of 2020 and has until the end of 2023 to use such funding otherwise it will be returned to the EU.

The minister stated that the programme is over-committed, and expects projects to deliver against their agreed objectives in line with RDP 2014-2020 N+3 rule.

The FUW’s concerns regarding the administration and monitoring of the 2014-2020 Wales RDP have been well publicised, including in terms of the underspend from 2020 onwards that led to Wales’ CAP replacement funding being reduced by circa £250 million by the UK Government.

However, the FUW is also concerned that, as Wales approaches the end of the period during which 2014-2020 RDP funding must be spent, the Welsh Government has progressed extremely slowly in terms of developing a comprehensive replacement RDP, and therefore has what at best a rudimentary plan in place - while engagement with key stakeholders in relation to the development of such a replacement has also been minimal.

While the FUW appreciates that certain announcements have been made that are directly related to rural development, there is significant concern that a piecemeal approach has developed/will develop, with schemes and initiatives being announced following development internally by the Welsh Government, with minimal/negligible input by external stakeholders and experts and no overarching evidence-based comprehensive programme.

Naturally, the apparent lack of scrutiny processes (compared with the EU RDP) in terms of both putting together such schemes and monitoring their progress is a concern, and in this context it would appear that the Welsh Government is moving towards/has moved to the type of ‘more relaxed’ design, assessment and administrative processes now in place under the UK Government’s Shared Prosperity/Levelling Up type funding models - which have

quite rightly attracted criticism, including from the Welsh Government, for their scatter-gun approach.

Moreover, the FUW is concerned that the absence of a comprehensive domestic RDP increasingly places Wales at risk of being denied funding by the UK Government, on the grounds that they should not replace European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD) funding without seeing a clear plan and evidence for how the Welsh Government intends to spend such funding and how it will benefit Wales.

The Animal Plant Health Agency (APHA) have announced changes to TB testing in the Low and Intermediate TB Areas of North Wales. The changes come into force on 3rd April 2023.

The changes mean that contiguous tests and post-breakdown tests (6 and 18 months after movement restrictions are lifted) will be read at severe interpretation rather than at standard.

For herds with IRs (but no reactors) identified at these tests, all IRs will receive a gamma blood test. The results of the gamma test will determine subsequent actions in these herds.

Subsequent contiguous tests at 6 months, 12 months and 18 months will be at standard interpretation.

More information is available here