Mr. Barclay Bell:

I thank the Chairman. We appreciate the opportunity to come and present here this morning.

I will start by saying a little about the Ulster Farmers Union. We have between 11,500 and 12,000 members. There are 25,000 farm businesses in Northern Ireland, so we are a key player in the North. I think all the members of the committee have a copy of our presentation. We will start on the second slide, which addresses the matter of where we are now. It mentions the political situation in both Northern Ireland and the mainland UK. At present, when we do not have devolution, we do not have anybody sitting at Stormont and we do not have anybody in London right now, we feel somewhat exposed as an industry in that we do not actually have anybody to talk to. Hopefully there will be somebody by the end of June. It could be a longer process up at Stormont. As far as the Ulster Farmers Union goes, our process has been a case where we have consulted. We started off the week after the referendum and tried to identify ten key goals and what was going to be important to the farming industry going forward. Since then, we have started to develop our thinking, and, just last week, we launched a discussion document on possible support arrangements for the industry going forward. That is all happening and live at present.

I think the biggest issue here is probably the uncertainty. There is no real clarity anywhere at the minute. Article 50 has been triggered. After the general election in the UK, we will maybe start to get a bit more clarity. From the Ulster Farmers Union's point of view, we had ten key goals. Those were identified in the first fortnight after the referendum, and we are focusing on four main themes. They are trade, agriculture support, regulation, and labour. We liaise closely with our counterparts in Scotland, England and Wales, as we do with the Irish Farmers Association here as well. When we looked at the four themes, the one which we identified as being key in all of this was the issue of trade. Trade and trade deals will affect everything else. While there seemed to be some doubt around whether the UK was leaving the customs union or not, in some recent discussions we had just last week, at our premier show in the North, we got an indication from the Secretary of State that we would be leaving the customs union. The term "a deep and special partnership" is used, which we want. The defining of that is important.

Trade North to South is one of our key issues. I am sure members of the committee are all aware of the statistics about milk. Probably 30% of our milk pool travels up and down on a daily basis. Probably upwards of 40% of our lambs are processed here in Southern meat plants. Conversely - I am not sure of the exact figure - many pigs head north for slaughter and processing.

The logistics of crossing the Border on a daily basis must be worked out. There is no doubt that flexible and imaginative solutions will be required. Procedures that slow down the transportation of milk and lambs to the South and pigs to the North would have a major impact. The extent of trade and trade deals will have a major impact on the level of support needed by farmers.

The agriculture sector in Northern Ireland receives approximately £300 million sterling per annum from the United Kingdom. We have been given an assurance that this level of support will be guaranteed until 2020. Our big fear concerns what will happen after 2020.

Some farmers voted to leave the European Union as they had become very frustrated with the current regulations under the Common Agricultural Policy. We like to think there will be an opportunity to draw up an agricultural policy for the United Kingdom which would be fit for purpose and move the industry to a different level. The key to this is the government not taking Ulster farmers over a cliff edge. Agriculture and agricultural industries will need a transitional period. A new support system must be focused on productivity, under which the farmer producing the goods will be rewarded, there will be environmental sustainability and some level of regionalisation. We hope a devolved government will be back in place. There have been some suggestions of a UK agriculture Bill. We would like to see legislation to give certainty to the industry and, possibly, ring-fence a pot of money in an agriculture Bill. Noises have come from Whitehall in that regard and we will watch with interest to see what happens.

There has been a considerable level of activity by the Ulster Farmers Union in the past couple of months and it will ramp up throughout the summer.

The conversion of EU law into domestic law will result from the great repeal Bill and we hope to see regulation evolve over a period of years. There will be an evolution of regulation and we hope it will be science based and that we will see advocacy first and regulation second. We have seen a few examples of this model working in the North. We believe advocacy first and regulation second is sometimes a better way of working.

Labour is a significant issue. Upwards of 65% of the workforce in the agrifood industry and meat processing plants are migrant labourers. A major concern for the wider industry is access to labour. The Ulster Farmers Union and the four UK unions believe this is an issue the British Government could sort out quickly. It is not only in the agrifood industry that there is a requirement for labour, it crosses many industries in every MP's constituency. There is a need for a statement on the supply of migrant labourers. As I said, this is an issue that could be sorted out quickly by the British Government.

The Ulster Farmers Union believes farmers need the best possible access to European markets and that they need to secure additional trade agreements outside the European Union. The fear when the United Kingdom enters into trade deals will centre on whether the food imports are produced to similar standards to those applying in the United Kingdom. Farmers could not accept product produced to lower standards being imported into the United Kingdom. A key point is that anything that would disrupt the existing trading relation between the North and the South could have very damaging effects. We have high animal health and plant health standards in Northern Ireland and want to see them maintained. There are no borders when it comes to animal and plant health.

I will compare the level of growth in exports from the food and drink sector in the years from 2005 to 2014. A strategy report from three or four years ago identified the potential of the agrifood industry in the North. Since 2005 the percentage increase in food and drink sector sales was 96% to Great Britain, 114% to the Republic of Ireland and 135% to other EU member states. Milk and milk products, as well as beef and sheepmeat, are the significant contributors to this growth.

The rates of food self-sufficiency in the United Kingdom have been highlighted in the past seven or eight months. The United Kingdom is only 61% self-sufficient in food production. We have a table that shows that the United Kingdom has a self-sufficiency rate of 55% for pork and 75% for beef. There is room to supply product to the UK market. We have another table in which we compare imports and exports that shows the UK trade imbalance by commodity. There is a major trade gap, with a significant level of imports of poultry products. It extends right across the board to beef, lamb, dairy and pork products, but the difference is less marked in the case of eggs.

We have set out in tabular form alternatives to EU membership.

Members will see from the tables there is not much change at the top but if they then go right down to the two free trade agreements and to the figures for the World Trade Organization, right down at the bottom, they will see a lot of red boxes and many things that would change. At the moment we are looking at all these alternatives. There is much talk about the Norwegian model and reference was made to the Cypriot model. Currently, we are trying to look at all the different scenarios going forward. This presentation has been a quick overview. Trade, labour, regulation and agriculture support are the four key areas that we as an industry are trying to get our heads around in order to move the whole debate on, and in the absence of any political stability in the North.