Farmers' champion to review red tape

Mr Paice announced the Task Force on Farming Regulation at the Cereals 2010 event in Cambridgeshire yesterday, and said it would be chaired by former NFU official Richard Macdonald.

He said: "There's too much red tape tying up our farmers. That's why we committed in the Coalition Agreement to reduce the regulatory burden by moving to a risk-based system of regulation. The burden on farming and food manufacturing is not just the number of regulations but the emphasis on process rather than outcomes.

"I'm going to ask this industry-led task force to look at the way we make and implement regulations right across the board, both at what's already in place and how we should do things in the future."

Welcoming the news of his appointment, Mr Macdonald said: "I am very much looking forward to leading a task which I have long thought needs doing. As well as the task force itself, I plan to consult everybody in the farming and food sector interested in working with us. Together I hope that we can make a real difference".

He was director general of the NFU from 1996 until December 2009, with overall responsibility for the management of the NFU and for policy advice to it. Since retiring from the NFU he has become a non-executive director of poultry producer Moy Park.

In 2002 he was awarded the CBE for Services to Agriculture.

The task force will make its initial recommendations to Government by early 2011.