We now, kind of, to use jargon, know where we are going in terms of agricultural support after Brexit.

This is on the basis of the Westminster government's draft bill for phasing out the CAP for a new UK model with a bigger environmental element. To be fair to the Defra Secretary, Michael Gove, this appears a well thought-out document, and farmers will be given time to change.

However, for the bill to become reality other up-in-the-air aspects of Brexit need to be sorted. The battle can now begin over which powers and decisions can be devolved. Hopefully, that will deliver the flexibility needed to make Brexit the success it needs to be. Scotland will have separate legislation and that is a great opportunity to shape a unique support model.

Go back to 2016, before the referendum on EU membership, and there were key issues for farmers. They wanted a simple support policy with less red tape; they wanted a policy more focussed on local than EU-wide farming conditions, and they wanted one that ensured aid went to those who farm the land and take the risks. Ideally they also wanted some form of income safety net.

Many farmers voted for Brexit because they were convinced it was more likely than Brussels to deliver the future they wanted. Since then their hopes have been tested by inaction. But with this document they finally have the chance to see what is possible as we move progressively away from the CAP.

The acid test is whether what is on the table now at Westminster is potentially better than what is being discussed in Brussels as the basis for the CAP after 2020. With the glaring omission of any real certainty on funding from the Treasury in London, it is possible that the UK model is a better one.

Already some in Brussels are suggesting this is the case, and that they might look with some envy towards the UK if it can deliver on the key ideas in the new bill. However without a funding commitment it remain jam tomorrow, and the financial commitment on agriculture there now does not run beyond the term of the current parliament.

This could be 2022, but it could be before December if the present political antics continue in the Conservative party. This is a timely reminder of the comment by the farm commissioner, Phil Hogan, before the referendum, that the decision came down to a choice between the financial certainty of the CAP and the 'generosity' of the UK Treasury. Regardless of what is in the bill that remains the core issue for farmers. Hopefully legislation will ensure the funds follow, but for now that cannot be taken for granted.

The positives in the post Brexit bill are significant. The move towards environmental payments should ensure farm support is more acceptable to taxpayers. Keeping it acceptable to farmers however means tempering the ambitions of environmental and other pressure groups that will seek to shape the bill to their advantage. Simply on voting strength farmers could lose out in this argument.

The move towards getting payments away from the situation where 10% of farmers receive over 50% of support makes sense, as does the concept of reward for delivering public goods. Also sensible are plans to encourage new technology, investments to make businesses more profitable and ways to get young farmers into the industry. Also welcome is the move away from the old EU intervention and private storage model towards a different form of income safety net, although again there is no detail on how it might work or be funded.

The draft bill includes a timetable for change, but reading the government document there are good reasons for farmers to remain defiantly sceptical. As it stands it is all things to all people, from the greenest of green pressure groups to the farming lobby; it certainly offers a tantalising vision better than the CAP, with a comment from Gove that it promises a move away from 50 years of the burdensome CAP. That may be true, but with the public goods promise it is in reality swapping one set of regulations for another. The big flaw remains the dependence on future governments and Treasury support to deliver on the promises, and those are huge unknowns. On that basis the bill offers promises, but with continuing uncertainty about delivery.