Contents:

1. Background: farm payments data in the Agriculture Bill

2. Why is farm payments data important?

3. Suggested amendment

4. Next steps

5. Appendix: Technical notes on data requested

6. Appendix: Data in the devolved administrations

This briefing explains why the new Agriculture Bill, as currently drafted, could result in very little data being collected and published on government payments to farmers.

The current data measures are so weak that even MPs and Ministers may not be able to obtain critical data on billions of pounds of public money.

The briefing explains the nature of this omission, sets out some of the harms that may follow, and lays out suggested amendment text to ensure that the UK’s agriculture data regime is fit for purpose.

You can download this briefing as a PDF.

To discuss any of the issues here, please contact contact@centreforpublicdata.org.

A new Agriculture Bill is passing through Parliament, which significantly reforms the UK’s agricultural policies and the £3.5 billion paid annually to UK farmers. Farmers in England will no longer receive a fixed payment per acre, but will be paid for delivering ‘public goods’ like environmental improvements. 

However, the draft Bill may result in much less data being collected and published than is currently the case. While an EU member, the UK was required to publish data on the recipients and amounts of farm payments. Although limited in quality and scope, this data was essential for helping MPs, ministers, businesses and the public understand how funding was allocated.

The new Agriculture Bill no longer requires the Secretary of State to publish data on funding. It merely states in clause 2(8) that the Secretary of State may do so, delegating the details to secondary legislation.

The grounds given in the associated Memorandum given for moving the requirement to secondary legislation are:

Future schemes are still being co-designed with stakeholders. The Government wants to continue to be transparent in how public funds are being used but will engage on the details of how it approaches this with stakeholders.

While we applaud the desire to put in place a regime that can evolve data publication as needs and technologies evolve, it is concerning that not even the simplest and most basic of requirements are spelled out in primarily legislation. This could lead to a situation in which under a future minister, no data of any kind was collected or distributed on agricultural payments.

Robust public data on farm payments is vital for monitoring the effectiveness and externalities of policy. If the government enabled the publication of richer geospatial data, it would also open up potential for innovation.

1. Monitoring effectiveness: The purpose of the new funding system is to support ‘public goods’, such as access to the countryside and healthy ecosystems. Without robust, reliable public data, it will not be possible for MPs, ministers, policy analysts and the public to evaluate whether the schemes are working.

2. Commercial potential: Data on payments is important for companies and startups. Detailed geographic data would allow startups to combine funding information with new datasets such as satellite imagery, sensor and geospatial datasets to monitor, predict and improve the impact of funding. 

Without a clear legislative commitment to maintaining and improving this public data, we risk losing even the limited data that is currently collected and published. This would severely limit both the ability to evaluate the policy, and to build commercial services with it.

We propose the following amendment, which simply requires basic data on payments and their geospatial boundaries to be collected and published.

For section 2(8) substitute—

(8) The Secretary of State shall make regulations that require specified information to be published on financial assistance under this Act, in order to enable the public to evaluate whether the purposes in section 1(1) are met.

For section 2(9) substitute—

(9) Information that shall be specified shall include –

(a) the full legal name of the recipient of financial assistance;
(b) the amounts of payment corresponding to each measure financed by the funds received by each beneficiary in the financial year concerned;
(c) the purposes of the payment corresponding to section 1(1);
(d) the geographical boundaries of the land corresponding to the amounts and purposes above;
(e) any other information that in the view of the Secretary of State is appropriate to ensure the purposes of the Act are upheld.

Explanatory statement: The new drafting ensures that the public may evaluate whether the Act’s purposes in providing public goods are in fact being fulfilled and may physically see the differences in relation to environmental improvement, and ensures there is no regression in the standards of information to be provided.

When the amendment is debated, the following questions could also be asked:

• Can the Secretary of State commit to publishing the information? The Bill may significantly reduce the amount of data that may be collected and published from the current position. Will the Secretary of State name certain key data that they will commit to gathering and publishing?

• If not, can the Secretary of State commit to holding a public consultation on what will be published? The Bill’s Memorandum states that the Government will “work with stakeholders to consider proportionate approaches to publication of beneficiary information”. It is important that the widest possible range of stakeholders is consulted, including civil society and the business community. Can the Secretary of State commit to holding a public consultation on the matter?

The Bill is currently (20 July 2020) at committee stage in the Lords: amendments can now be submitted for the report stage.

To discuss the proposed amendment, or any issues raised here, please contact contact@centreforpublicdata.org.

The minimum data needed to understand the funding scheme is as follows:

1. The name and legal entity identifier of the recipient of funds 

2. Whether the recipient is the landowner

3. The amount of the grant, the awarding scheme and purpose 

4. The dates covered by the grant

5. The geospatial boundaries of the land affected.

Geospatial boundaries are particularly important for enabling analysis and innovation (e.g. combining with other data sources such as satellite data), and are currently held internally, but not published.

This table summarises the current availability of data, and whether it is straightforward to collect.

Technical note: To be most useful, the data should be published in timely fashion and as structured data under the Open Government Licence, and should be available in perpetuity, rather than removed after two years as currently.

The above discussion relates to payments in England only. Wales and Northern Ireland are still consulting on future payment schemes. 

Scotland is also yet to decided on its preferred payment scheme. However, the new Agriculture (Retained EU Law and Data) (Scotland) Bill contains new powers to collect and publish data for various purposes.

The accompanying Policy Memorandum explains that these powers are designed to help improve evidence-based policymaking, and also ensure that there is a strong legal basis for collecting data:

The policy objective behind the data collection powers in these sections... is to improve the Scottish Government’s understanding of the agricultural sector… The data collected is used to analyse economic output of the sector, but is also used to analyse the economic performance of the sector, and the effectiveness of policies implemented to support businesses connected with the rural economy, which then helps to shape and improve policy delivery.

The legislative commitment to data in Scotland contrasts with the English legislation.