• Greg Clark confirms details of £120 million of government’s flagship Faraday Battery Challenge investment into making the UK a world leader in the development and production of battery technology
• £80 million set to be invested in a new state-of-the-art automotive battery development facility, the UK’s first ever facility of this kind, based in West Midlands, following a successful bid by a consortium led by Coventry and Warwickshire LEP and including Warwick Manufacturing Group
• Government will shortly publish details of its Automotive Sector Deal agreement reached with industry, with a strategic vision that builds on the collaborative partnership established between government and the auto sector
• Business Secretary also confirms £53 million of funding for new aerospace projects boosting the West Midlands strength in this sector

Business and Energy Secretary Greg Clark has today (Wednesday 29 November) announced that Coventry and Warwickshire will be the home of the new National Battery Manufacturing Development Facility (NMDF).

The facility, with £80 million of funding from the government’s flagship £246 million investment in battery technology – the Faraday Battery Challenge – will be the UK’s first ever battery development facility and will help establish the UK as one of the world leader’s in battery technology and innovation.

A key part of the Automotive Sector Deal, the new centre will build on the West Midlands exceptional reputation for automotive expertise and research and development (R&D) with a facility that will host cutting-edge production and assembly processes and support the future scale-up of battery technologies.

The facility will be responsible for turning the most promising early and mid-stage battery research and development activities into scalable business propositions that are commercially viable, while also providing a learning environment to enable training and skills development. The new centre will be an independent facility that is openly accessible to UK-based companies wishing to develop battery technologies.

In a speech to the Battery and Energy Storage Conference, Greg Clark confirmed that the area had won the national competition, led by the Advanced Propulsion Centre (APC), for the new centre, following a successful bid by a consortium led by Coventry and Warwickshire LEP and including Warwick Manufacturing Group. The open competition was overseen by APC and judged by an independent panel.

Business and Energy Secretary, Greg Clark said:

Battery technology is one of the most game-changing forms of energy innovation and it is one of the cornerstones of our ambition, through the Industrial Strategy and the Faraday Challenge, to ensure that the UK leads the world, and reaps the economic benefits, in the global transition to a low carbon economy.

The new facility, based in Coventry and Warwickshire, will propel the UK forward in this thriving area, bringing together the best minds from academia and industry together to deliver innovation and R&D that will further enhance the West Midlands international reputation as a cluster of automotive excellence.

Dr Ralf Speth, CEO Jaguar Land Rover, said

If the UK wants to stay competitive and make domestic EV manufacturing viable in the long run, a high level of ambition is required as set out in the Industrial Strategy. JLR is already investing heavily to make the vision of autonomous and electric mobility come true.

From 2020, all of our new vehicles will be electrified with Mild Hybrid, Plug-in Hybrid and Battery Electric solutions, and these are already being designed in the West Midlands. We also intend to produce battery electric vehicles in the region, bringing the West Midlands to the forefront of modern mobility in the UK.

Lord Bhattacharyya, Chairman of Warwick Manufacturing Group, said

WMG, at the University of Warwick, has a strong record of industry innovation partnerships going back many years. We are delighted that we will be home to the National Battery Manufacturing Development Facility, a core part of the Faraday Battery Challenge.

This will be an openly accessible centre of real impact, working coherently with the application-inspired fundamental research emerging from Faraday Institution and ensuring the transfer of technology takes place at scale to support the industrialisation of batteries in the UK.

This joined up end-to-end approach will be a UK first, and is critical to ensure our fundamental research translates into sustaining and growing manufacturing jobs in the UK.

Faraday Challenge winners

During his speech the Business Secretary also announced the winners of £40 million of additional Faraday Battery Challenge investment, allocated through Innovate UK led Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund innovation competitions, that will help make UK businesses a world leader in battery technology.

27 innovative projects are being funded, involving 66 organisations, covering key technologies such as the development of battery materials and cell manufacturing, design and production of modules and packs including advances in thermal management and battery management systems, and recycling and recyclability of battery packs.

Innovate UK Chief Executive, Ruth McKernan said:

The Faraday Battery Challenge is breaking new ground because it offers for the first time a co-ordinated programme of competitions across research, innovation and scale-up.

It will therefore draw the very best of the UK’s world-leading research into commercial technologies and put UK businesses at the forefront of electric vehicle battery development.

Aerospace R&D funding

Following the launch of the Industrial Strategy White Paper, Business Secretary Greg Clark has also today announced £53.7 million of funding for 7 R&D projects to grow innovation in the aerospace sector. This funding is part of government’s work with industry through the Aerospace Growth Partnership (AGP) to tackle barriers to growth, boost exports and grow high value jobs.

Today’s announcement builds on the £923 million of government investment delivered through the ATI programme, which has supported 196 projects involving 208 different companies and organisations. Establishing the Institute in 2013, government and industry made a joint commitment to invest £3.9 billion in civil aerospace R&D projects by 2026.

Two of these projects, Digital Reconfigurable Additive Manufacturing facilities for Aerospace (DRAMA) and the Open Flight Deck project, led by GE Aviation, will directly benefit the Midlands. A further project – the Zephyr Innovation Programme (ZIP) led by Airbus – will develop aerospace battery technology amongst other areas.

Business Secretary Greg Clark said:

Earlier this week, we launched our ambitious Industrial Strategy which builds on our significant economic strengths, while looking at innovative ways to improve our productivity and will ensure government continues to work closely with industries including our UK aerospace sector.

The UK aerospace sector is one of the most successful in the world, which is why we are today announcing £53.7 million of investment in 7 aerospace research and development (R&D) projects across the UK. This investment, part of the £3.9 billion government and industry committed to this sector by 2026. The Aerospace Technology Institute plays a crucial role in helping to direct this investment and maintain UK excellence in the sector.

Notes to editors

Additional quotes:

Simon Saunders, CEO, Ariel Motor Company, said:

We face significant challenges when looking to progress our vehicle technologies toward low and zero emission platforms, with our combination of specialist niche requirements not currently being met by the existing UK supply chain. Therefore, we are particularly interested in the proposed centre of excellence and the planned capability to support such a broad range of manufacturing requirements.

Chief Executive of the Advanced Propulsion Centre, Ian Constance said:

The new National Battery Manufacturing Development facility will be a national asset and the first of its kind open to all UK-located organisations. It will enable them to develop manufacturing processes for their concept-ready battery technologies at production rates appropriate to ‘giga’ factories.

The objective is that these processes can transfer to UK high-volume manufacturing facilities.

Jonathan Browning, chair of the Coventry and Warwickshire Local Enterprise Partnership, said:

This is excellent news on every level. We have worked very closely with our partners WMG and Coventry City Council with support from the West Midlands mayor and that joined-up approach not only maximised our effectiveness but sent a powerful message to Government.

We believe we are uniquely placed with our links between industry and academia to bring the National Battery Manufacturing Development Facility to fruition and it will give huge opportunities to local companies of all sizes and will continue our push to be world leader in advanced research and manufacturing, especially in the automotive and transport sector.

It will also further enhance our reputation as the Knowledge Capital of the UK in the field of engineering R&D.

Coventry City Councillor Jim O’Boyle, cabinet member for jobs and regeneration and CWLEP board director, said:

Its brilliant news that Government has decided the country’s new National Battery Manufacturing Development Facility should be located here.

I’m glad the final decision has been made and of course I’m delighted that my home city will once again be at the cutting-edge of the automotive sector. For many years our city and region provided the innovation and skilled workforce to help the UK lead the world.

Car manufacturing provided a secure, well paid job for thousands of Coventry people, including me. And now battery development has the potential to do the same for a whole new generation of Coventry people.

I hope battery development will create thousands of new jobs and if there is one thing we know for certain, it’s that having a job changes lives. That’s the real reason this is such good news. And Coventry of course is the it’s the perfect choice. We have a rich heritage in motor vehicle manufacture and it’s only right that we will once again lead the way with this pioneering new technology.

Clean air vehicles and autonomous cars are the future and now the centre of excellence will be here right where it belongs. It’s the public sector, industry and education working together that has got us to this point today but now it’s time for the real work to begin.

Projects linked to the Midlands include:

The Open Flight Deck project, led by GE Aviation, will seek to overcome the barriers to adopting new technologies on the flight deck; traditionally difficult to do because of the high cost of change and certification. Open Flight Deck will be an open platform that allows the OEM to work with a range of suppliers to develop ‘apps’ – easier to build, quicker to deploy, and with the potential for upgrade as new capabilities become possible. The consortium behind the project, which has received a grant of £13.1 million, also includes BAE Systems, Rolls-Royce, Coventry University and the University of Southampton.

The DRAMA (Digital Reconfigurable Additive Manufacturing facilities for Aerospace) project is led by the Manufacturing Technology Centre (MTC) with partners ATS Global, Autodesk, Granta Design, Midlands Aerospace Alliance, National Physics Laboratory, Renishaw and the University of Birmingham. DRAMA will establish leading additive manufacturing ‘test bed’ facilities for the aerospace industry and its supply chain at the National Centre for Additive Manufacturing (based at the MTC in Coventry) and the Renishaw AM Solution Centre in Stone. The project will showcase the use of digital technologies to drive productivity and reliability in AM, leading to increased adoption of AM technologies by the aerospace sector and, in the long term, other industrial sectors. It will also deliver the world’s first digitally-twinned reconfigurable AM facility and establish the UK as a global leader in additive manufacturing technology. The project, part of the ATI programme, has received a grant of £11.2 million through the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund.

Project developing aerospace battery technology

The Zephyr Innovation Programme (ZIP) was created as a strategic R&D project to develop new cutting-edge component technologies to support Airbus’s Zephyr High Altitude Pseudo Satellite (HAPS). ZIP is led by Airbus in partnership with Axillium Research, Formtech Composites, Productiv, OXIS Energy, Newcastle University and Cranfield University. The grant of £3.6 million will support the development of key technologies in aerostructures, battery technology and energy storage, and propulsion that will enable flight performance improvements, expanding the operational capabilities of the next generation of Airbus Zephyr.

The Environment Agency are calling upon all migratory salmon and sea trout rod licence holders to submit their catch return records by 1 January 2018.

The submission of angler’s reports plays a vital role in the assessment and management of salmon and sea trout stocks in England. The information submitted forms part of the wider Environment Agency’s Salmon 5 Point Approach, which aims to conserve and enhance England’s salmon populations.

The submission is a legal requirement for all salmon and sea trout anglers, and each submission will go towards securing the future of the sport.

Lawrence Talks, National Senior Advisor for Salmonid Management, said:

Salmon are a highly valued fish in the world of angling and we ask all migratory salmon and sea trout rod licence holders to complete a ‘catch return’ in order to help us secure the future of this sport.

The Environment Agency, Government and partners are committed to taking action to conserve and enhance England’s salmon populations. We use the catch return data to assess and manage salmon and sea trout stocks in a sustainable way.

Catch returns can be completed online at GOV.UK/catch-return and need to be submitted by 1st January 2018.

Anglers can fill in their catch returns online: www.gov.uk/catch-return

The Environment Agency has removed a large amount of debris from a County Durham dam following rain and high river flows.

Prolonged heavy rain saw river levels rise across the north east leading to Environment Agency field teams working through the night to keep the region’s rivers flowing.

Spring Gardens dam – which reduces the risk of flooding to West Auckland from the River Gaunless – prevented large amounts of debris from causing blockages further downstream.

This week the field team has been back out clearing up after the heavy rain resulted in 12 Flood Alerts being issued across the region.

Alex Murray, Field Team Leader, said:

The dam is designed to hold back flood water during high flows, and then slowly release it once the threat has passed.

While it wasn’t necessary for it to operate during the heavy rain last week, it prevented debris from reaching downstream and creating blockages, which is equally important and helps reduce the risk of flooding to the town.

It resulted in a large build-up of debris so this week we’ve been clearing it up, along with our other flood defence assets, to ensure they are clear and in working order ready to do their job again.

Our Field Teams regularly carry out work to check and maintain our rivers right across the north east to make sure anything which is deemed a potential flood risk is removed.

Spring Gardens dam was built after West Auckland and South Church were badly affected by floods in 2000.

Issues that may arise during construction of the Shoreham Adur tidal walls scheme.

Introduction

I wanted to begin by reflecting on the past. The CLA has been around for around 110 years now. And as I’m sure every single person in this room knows, the CLA was originally founded following the publication of a pamphlet called the ‘Land and the Social Problem by a man called Algernon Tumor. Now, Algernon had been a private Secretary to Benjamin Disraeli when he was Prime Minister. In that pamphlet in 1907 he argued that British agriculture was going through a time of huge change. Of course the political backdrop at that time was a debate about whether or not we should pursue more free trade agreements with countries in far flung regions or whether we should integrate more closely with our European partners. And at the same time as Algernon was making the case for this period of change he also excoriated politicians for their failure to show provide sufficient leadership when it came to charting a clear course for those who own, manage and work on the land. How very different things are, 110 years on. I think the role that you in the CLA have played for over a hundred years has been wonderful. You have been leading the debate over how we use our oldest and most precious national asset – our land. In the face of social, political, economic and technological change, the CLA has always been pioneering new ideas, you have supported imaginative approaches to land management, you’ve helped us to sustain the rural economy, growing health, guaranteed employment for hundreds of thousands and you continue to shape a progressive future for the countryside.

I want to say a particular thanks to Ross Murray for his leadership and Tim Breitmeyer for his continuing leadership. You are uniquely fortunate in having two such distinguished individuals who understand the reality of the rural economy, who speak with authority and such candour to those in power and are an asset to this country and also to you, the membership of the CLA.

Even in the brief opportunity I had to mix with some of you after lunch earlier, I was again struck by the way in which CLA members lean in. The way in which CLA members embrace the future. When I was talking to Ed Barnston earlier about the work he is doing in south Cheshire I was struck by the fact that he is ambitious for the future investing in an increasing determination to grow and produce more high quality food. And when I was talking to Peverel Manners, I was struck by his desire to clock up the air miles, go out to Australia and further afield to ensure that Great British produce was on foreign kitchen tables. It is that degree of ambition for the future which has always characterised the CLA and one thing that will always be true about land ownership and land management in this country is that we need to be ambitious for the future when it comes to continuing to produce the very best food and drink in the world. Because demand for British food has never been higher.

Food and drink

Our exports now surpass £20 billion for the first time, up by nearly 10% on the last year. That growth has been built on the reputation for quality built by people in this room.

And we know, that the food chain brings £110 billion to the UK economy. Food and drink is our biggest manufacturing sector. That is why I am so delighted that in the Industrial Strategy published by my colleague Greg Clark yesterday recognised the vital importance of food and drink, with a new Food and Drink Sector Council. This Council will help pair the way for a for a food and drink sector deal in order to ensure that responsibility for effectively marketing and supporting primary producers and others is at the heart of the government’s industrial strategy.

When we talk about the industrial strategy it is important to recognise that we are not just world leaders in the way in which food and drink has grown as an export in the course of the last couple of years. We are world leaders in terms of quality. We have the world’s highest animal welfare standards, we are moving towards having the world’s most ambitious environmental goals and also embedding the most rigorous approach towards sustainability,

All these are good in themselves but it is also the case that they can provide us with an advantage in the marketplace for food and drink. Increasingly consumers – not just in this country but across the world – are demanding higher quality food. Consumers want to know more about the meat they buy, the milk they drink, the provenance of their vegetables, the carbon cost of production, the weight of the footprint left on the planet by particular farming methods and the circumstances under which animals were reared during their lives. Not to mention the way in which their lives end.

The more specific the story we can tell about the care invested in the food we produce the more we actually reinforce our competitive edge Because if we make quality our hallmark we can secure farming’s future.

So when it comes to finding an edge in an ever more competitive world of food and drink, we need to recognise its in goods recognised for their exceptional quality and special distinctive provenance that will become market leaders.

Let me give you one example. As I was searching for an example I was spoilt for choice, thinking about producers in this room who have shown how provenance and quality can give you a marketing edge. So I didn’t want to favour anyone by making them teacher’s pet. I wanted to choose an example not relevant to anyone in this room but very close to my heart. Whisky.

When I was growing up whisky was produced – in industrial quantities – using industrial methods – for an industrious population – that meant that when you bought your Whyte and Mackay or Bell’s or Black and White it was pretty much the same product, the differentiation was price.

Now, whisky is sold more and more not on the basis of price but provenance, not cost but quality. Instead of relying on industrially-produced blends, the Scottish whisky trade is moving to carefully crafted single malts, with water drawn from particular springs, peatiness inculcated from particular islands and delicate flavour notes imparted by ancient sherry or port barrels for the fastest market growth.

And Since 2000 there has been a 218% increase by volume and a 415% increase by value in malt whisky exports. The Macallan, Glenlivet, Glenfiddich, Laphroaig and others have become global brands. All by stressing their local, and artisan, origins.

I believe that by stressing the local and the distinctive, whether its lamb or beef, cheese or bacon, cider or beer, bread or jam, that products will become the best in the world. The more the story behind the product speaks of provenance and tradition, attention to quality, respect for the environment and the highest ethical standards, the bigger the commercial opportunity for all of us.

But if we are to continue to strengthen our position as a world leader in quality food production we need to concentrate not just on provenance but also on productivity.

Productivity and technology

And that means investing in the technology of the future.

Today you have already heard from the world-leading academics at Harper Adams University. On a recent visit there I saw for myself the ground-breaking work that they are undertaking.

From the fit-bit for cows that tracks their health and diet, to the ‘hands-free hectare’ technology, these latest advances will shape farming in the future and also demand of the next generation of farmers a familiarity with robotics and data analytics alongside an understanding of animal husbandry and soil health.

We are on the cusp of a new agricultural revolution.

There is a critical role for Government to play. We need to support the innovation that you will use to reshape agriculture. Scientific breakthroughs in other countries in areas as diverse as nuclear, biotech and digital have been stimulated by Government investment and government ambition.

There is no reason why Britain cannot be the world leader in drone technology, robotics, laser treatment of weeds and pests, the deployment of big data, and also responsible genomics. All of these have the capacity to improve productivity and enable environmental enhancement. And I hope to say more in coming days about how we will advance these technologies.

Of course, we already help farmers, landowners and rural entrepreneurs through the Rural Development Programme, which is supporting thousands of projects in areas as diverse as innovative cheese making and also the deployment of artificial intelligence. Funding is granted to ideas that improve productivity, generate growth and provide additional jobs in rural areas.

Today I am pleased to announce that applications for grants from a further £45 million will open this Thursday, 30th November. Grants will be awarded to projects that support business development, food processing and, in addition, rural tourism infrastructure projects.

Recently, we have also put £60 million into the Countryside Productivity scheme, which makes large grants for projects that add value to farm produce and improve farming productivity. This money can also be used to buy tools like precision slurry application equipment, which reduces ammonia emissions, delivers savings on fertiliser and ultimately helps the environment.

Tools like this are exactly what we want to support when we say you can boost productivity and enhance the environment at the same time. And that brings me to the final and most fundamental aspect of a successful rural economy: environmental stewardship.

As custodians of the landscape, farmers know, and have known for centuries what the rest of us are only just beginning to properly appreciate: without a healthy environment we have nothing.

To take just one example from many, over the last 200 years we have lost 84% of our fertile peat topsoil in East Anglia. It is estimated that what remains, unless we take action, could be eradicated in the next 30-60 years. The rate at which vast stores of carbon held in these soils is being lost is nothing short of an emergency. We know that in many cases this damage is due to the short-term thinking which governed past patterns of intensive agricultural activity.

We know that 95% of food production relies on healthy soil, antibiotics come from soil, a quarter of the world’s biodiversity comes from soil, so it is clear that we need to think and act together more sustainably. To everyone in this room, soil is a fundamental asset and its degradation costs us money. So Defra must, in its future agricultural support funding prioritise the health of our soils.

History teaches us that civilisations can survive incredible challenges. Coups, revolutions, secession from empires, all these are survivable, sometimes even beneficial, but one change is fatal. The degradation of our environment. We have only one set of natural resources. We have to protect them and manage them sustainably to make sure our children can enjoy their fruits. No country can withstand the loss of its soil.

At Defra we have made a commitment to be the first generation to leave the environment in a better state than we found it. And if we want a better environment we must protect all our habitats, enhance our biodiversity and safeguard the beauty of all our rural landscapes. And it is for that reason we said we will change the way in which we invest in our countryside. The public money which we, rightly, allocate to land owners to help them manage the land is there, ultimately, to secure public goods. And the pre-eminent public good is environmental enhancement.

We all know that the current system of support for farmers and landowners shaped by the Common Agricultural Policy is inefficient, ineffective, inequitable and environmentally harmful.

The environmental damage generated under the CAP has been striking. EU-inspired systems of agricultural production have damaged our soil.

CAP-inspired and sponsored methods of agricultural production in the UK have led to soil degradation which costs us £1.2 billion a year according to Cranfield University.

The damage is more than just towards soil. Since we joined the EU the number of farmland birds has declined by 54% while the populations of priority species overall have declined by 33%.
And also, in recent years, intensive agricultural production systems of the kind driven by the CAP have reduced the numbers of pollinators. With a 49% decline in some specific bee populations, scarcely mitigated by a 29% increase in others.

All of this has happened under a system where the majority of financial support allocated to farmers and landowners has comes under “Pillar One” of the CAP and has all been related to the size of productive agricultural land-holding rather than any wider benefit.

And even though Pillar One funding has recently been changed to incorporate explicit environmental goods – the greening of CAP, the evidence that Pillar One funding encourages genuine environmental improvement is slight. In a recent paper by Alan Matthews for the RISE Foundation he pointed out that Pillar One funding had done little to improve land use.

“The maintenance of permanent grassland requirement and the crop diversification obligation have led to minimal changes in land use, and the fact that the great majority of land enrolled in EFAs is used for productive options are pointers to that the additional environmental benefits, relative to the pre-greening baseline are likely to be low”

The lion’s share of current support for land owners is, clearly, inefficiently allocated. It does not secure the public goods the public wants and needs if you want to provide resilient habitats, richer wildlife, healthier rivers and cleaner water, trees and peatland to absorb carbon and provide a home to precious species.

We do know, however, that, public money, properly allocated through agri-environment or environmental land management schemes, can secure significant gains.

Analysis of how farms in one particular set of Higher Level Stewardship schemes have done over the years are encouraging. There is no perfect single measure of biodiversity but the Farmland Bird Index is one of the best. And it has shown that in farms operating countryside stewardship schemes there has been an increase in the Farmland Bird Index of up to 165% even as the numbers nationally were in decline by 24%.

Effective environmental land management schemes can do so much to protect our countryside. It can help protect moorland and heathland, encourage tree planting and wildflower meadows, mitigate the impact of flooding and climate change, improve water quality and lock in improved soil health and fertility. But it is still the case that of the money we allocate from Defra to the CAP, only around one fifth of the goes on environmental land management schemes, around 80% goes on the inefficient and ineffective pillar one payments.

I believe that has to change. And I know that one of the major reasons why there has been such a relatively low take-up of appropriate environmental land management schemes so far has been the dreadful way in which we in Government have actually administered them. Natural England does many many good things but I have to say that Natural England and Defra scarcely deserve medals for the operation and administration of the Countryside Stewardship scheme.

That is why I have asked Andrew Sells, Natural England’s brilliant Chairman, and James Cross, The Natural England Chief Executive, working with the Rural Payments Agency, to overhaul delivery of the scheme. The first part of that reform is a simplification of the application process and the creation of four new, hopefully much more streamlined offers, which I hope will be routes to securing support. These changes will, I hope, encourage more land owners and managers to adopt stewardship schemes but I, and the leadership team at Natural England, know there is still much more to be done.

Because as everyone here knows – if we can get more investment in environmental land management schemes we can generate more economic growth. Studies of rural development spending have shown that schemes with an environmental focus have a very good return on investment, with each pound spent generating £3 in return. Natural capital analysis shows that the priority habitats which environmental land management schemes protect and enhance provide more than a billion pounds of economic benefit every year. And, of course, that investment, properly directed, also helps support food production. Wildflower margins which attract bees and other insects not only help pollination they also attract the predators who deal effectively with crop pests.

In addition, as everyone here will also know, rural tourism is a vital, and inevitably growing, element in driving rural economic growth and wise environmental land management is critical to encouraging that tourism. Whether people are drawn by the chance to see rare flora and fauna, enjoy green space, appreciate the wild and untamed, follow traditional country pursuits or go glamping within easy reach of a gastropub, the quality of the environment is a critical factor in bringing visitors, and money, into the countryside. The consultancy GHK has estimated that 60% of rural tourism is dependent on high quality landscape and wildlife, generating around 5 billion pounds a year and supporting at the moment nearly 200,000 jobs.

Conclusion

As we prepare to leave the European Union we have a once in a lifetime opportunity to refashion how the state supports farming, what we pay landowners and what we want from the land.

Government I believe has a vital role to play. It’s our role to champion food production, it’s our role to help you invest in new technology and it’s our role to pay you if you enhance the environment. Because ultimately our landscapes are beautiful and special not because the state or any Minister decrees it so but because those, you, who work on the land love what you do and where you work. Which is why we in government are grateful to all of you. Thank you.