Lord Rooker (Lab)

My Lords, I rise to make a brief intervention. I have absolutely no interests to declare and I have no criticism of my noble friend the Minister or the Minister in the other place, the Member for Cambridge. In fact, in 14 years in opposition, he was the only shadow Minister who ever contacted me to ask me to talk about my experience of Defra and MAFF during the new Labour years of government. He listened, and that was fine—it was good to do, and I have no complaints about that at all. However, I am reminded of a time when, at that Dispatch Box in about early 2002, when I was on my third ministry and the first in this House, I said that, in my experience to that date, the Treasury had “wrecked every good idea I have come across”—[Official Report, 16/4/02; col. 837.] in government. Obviously, the Chancellor was not very happy about that. The fact is that, three ministries later, before I left government, I was thoroughly justified. We have a classic example of this tonight. I am in favour of the CAP going; I have no problem with that—I am a remainer, but that is not the issue. I am in favour of reform of the CAP but, to wreck a good idea, it takes the Treasury. I do not hold Ministers responsible for this at all. The fact of the matter is that you go back through the memories on this issue. The Minister talked about diversification. I can remember a very senior official saying to me when I was at Defra—I left Defra in 2008, so we are going back a little bit—that they did not really pay much attention to a particular farmer in the Lake District because he was not a full-time farmer, because he diversified into writing. That was what was said to me—it was because he was not a full-time farmer. Noble Lords are obviously aware of who I am referring to. It is only my respect for this House and our procedures that prevents me walking out, because I have not the slightest intention of voting to support these regulations. I understand the rules about fatal amendments, but the Government would have to pick it up and do it again—that is the reality. We have the power, but we do not use it; as a senior Cross-Bencher said recently, powers you do not use, you lose, so there will come a time when we do not have that. I do not intend to vote to support this, so I will do exactly what my friend from the gym, the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, said and I will abstain on both amendments. I will not hang around during the votes; I shall go.