Flood Defences: Tenbury Wells

Bill Wiggin Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker, and thank you for allowing this twice-postponed debate to be held on flood defences for Tenbury Wells. We have just gone through the driest May on record and the pandemic is taking so much of the country’s bandwidth, so it is hard to believe that less than four months ago, we suffered some of the worst flooding in recent years in the Severn valley and elsewhere. We were very badly affected by Storm Ciara and Storm Dennis, and many people, homes and businesses were and indeed still are affected.

In West Worcestershire, we have the confluence of the River Severn, the River Teme and the River Avon, so we are used to regular winter flooding. After particularly bad floods in the summer of 2007, I started campaigns to build more flood defences in our area. Since 2010, we have had seven new flood defence schemes built with the help of the excellent team at the Environment Agency. Those schemes are in Uckinghall, Pershore, Powick and Kempsey, with two schemes in Upton-upon-Severn. The seventh, a community-based scheme, is in Callow End. Throughout the regular winter floods that have continued to affect the area, these flood defences have proved their worth time and again, and protected many homes on many occasions. The Upton-upon-Severn permanent flood defences alone have been called into service over 30 times and have allowed the town’s shops and pubs to remain open for residents at almost all normal times. The cumulative amount spent on these schemes has been over £9 million. They have largely been funded by the local flood levy budgets, with the flood wall in Upton-upon-Severn calling on about £4 million of the billions in capital spend on flood defences in this country in the last decade.

I am pleased that, since the February floods, the Environment Agency has committed to reviewing the Powick flood defences, as they were overtopped then. It would be good to see whether they can be raised without having a detrimental effect elsewhere. However, I will not stop campaigning until two further schemes are built in West Worcestershire. One is a bund in Severn Stoke, which is progressing well and has reached the planning permission stage. The cost is significantly lower than at Tenbury Wells and has been further reduced through the local supply of the material needed to build the bund. That leaves the final scheme—the big challenge —at Tenbury Wells. I am delighted to see my hon. Friend the Member for North Herefordshire (Bill Wiggin), who was the Member for Tenbury Wells at the time of the 2007 floods, here to support my request today.

Tenbury Wells is a wonderful market town on the River Teme. A market has been held there since 1249. The town has always been prone to flooding. The current bridge was built in 1795 by Thomas Telford, after the older one was washed away. The town is built on a flood plain and water can rush down incredibly quickly from the hills in Wales and Shropshire. The Kyre brook also flows right through the town and can fill up very quickly.

After the 1947 floods, which are still the worst on record, plans were drawn up to protect the town with flood defences, which would have cost less than £200,000, albeit in 1947 money, which I believe would be worth about £2.4 million today. Sadly, that scheme never went ahead.

During the three summer floods in 2007, the town’s toilets were washed away. They have since been replaced by an award-winning scheme, and a lot of further work has been done, with individual property-level protection, new culverts and some work on the drainage. The Environment Agency is making sure that the Kyre brook vegetation is regularly cut back and has recently drawn up a feasible and deliverable scheme for a full flood defence around the town. I know that exhibits are not allowed in the Chamber, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I have with me a copy of what the Environment Agency has drawn up.

[Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)]

I would like briefly to share with the House the misery caused by the flooding in 2007, when the residents of Tenbury Wells were hit three times by something that was evil in its outcome. I thank my hon. Friend for her excellent campaigning and wish her every success and more power to her elbow in a wonderful place that has suffered so badly.

[Harriett Baldwin]

I very much appreciate my hon. Friend and neighbour’s support for the campaign.

The Tenbury Wells scheme is feasible and deliverable, incorporating some wall around the church and a bund around the burgage and in other key places. Under the existing cost-benefit rules, the scheme would attract only about £1 million of flood defence grant in aid. Sadly, it was not built in time for the floods that struck this February, which were the worst for 13 years. The community did a remarkable job. They helped everyone affected, as did the local councils—the town, district and county councils—the local emergency services and the highways and waste collection teams. They were all outstanding, but the fact remains that 190 homes and businesses were again damaged and many closed, including the newly opened post office. As there was no time to repair the flood damage before the lockdown started, some people have had to spend the lockdown in flood-damaged homes. Central parts of the community’s fabric were also badly damaged, including the famous Chinese gothic pump rooms where the town council meets, the town’s swimming pool and the beautiful Tenbury Regal Theatre. In fact, the only thing that was not damaged was the amazing, resilient spirit of the town.

So we need to act. This wonderful market town serves a rural area for miles in every direction. It cannot help the fact that hundreds of years ago it grew up on a floodplain. If we want Tenbury Wells to thrive for hundreds of years to come—and we do—it needs a permanent flood defence. The temporary barriers that are deployed in Bewdley will not suit Tenbury Wells because the flood waters rise too suddenly and unpredictably. The Environment Agency says in its own report that the variable terrain, combined with the flood depth and the length of barrier required, mean that temporary barriers would not provide an effective or robust solution. Of course, the cost has risen to nearer £5 million, although I am sure that, just as in Severn Stoke and Callow End, local farmers and builders would be happy to help to bring down the cost of the booms. Because Tenbury Wells is a small town of fewer than 4,000 inhabitants, it will never meet the national formula, which puts so much weight on houses protected. It is a formula that cannot capture the key role that this market town plays in the much wider area around it.

So Minister, let us agree a plan of action tonight. The Environment Agency should start a consultation on its already drawn-up plans. They have been widely welcomed, but there are those whose objections and suggestions must be heard. And let us do it in a socially distant way—remotely, even: by post and internet if need be. I also welcome the interest shown in the scheme by the Woodland Trust, which has some good ideas about building leaky dams at the source of the Teme and planting trees along the catchment—the kind of natural upstream solutions that will be the kind of public goods that the Agriculture Bill will enable farmers to be paid for. The evidence is that, while these measures will not stop the flooding, they can reduce the peak of flood events by about 20%, although they would clearly only complement a permanent flood defence.

Let us bring together all the sources of funding: the county council capital budget, the local flood resilience levy fund and the £120 million in capital announced for schemes that do not meet the formula. I would welcome some clarification from the Minister this evening on how to bid for that fund. This is something that the town itself would be prepared to contribute to, and the Heritage Lottery Fund is going to be approached to help to protect the town’s heritage. There will be section 106 money from the new housing in the town and, of course, that help in kind from local farmers and builders. The Environment Agency does a wonderful job of supporting this process, and then we can put the scheme in for planning permission—this year, I hope. Once that process is complete, I believe that it is ambitious but feasible for the scheme to be shovel-ready next year. So Minister, I urge you to ask your officials—

Flooding

Bill Wiggin Excerpts

Wednesday 4th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for mentioning Tenbury Wells, which was in my constituency in 2007 when it flooded three times. The fact that somebody lost their life there is a proper tragedy, and when one talks about flooding, there is only one thing worse, and that is efforts to politicise it.

In just two days, we had a whole month’s worth of rain, on 15 and 16 February, which has caused about £10 million of damage in my constituency. Some 110 properties have been flooded, and 389 people were evacuated or led to safety. The fire brigade has done a phenomenal job. It also rescued 30 dogs, 12 cats, 55 sheep, a pony, a parrot and a snake, believe it or not. The village of Hampton Bishop in my constituency was very badly affected. We saw the Lugg and the Wye rise to their highest levels since recording began 200 years ago, so people who think that this was a normal flood are wrong. We had 700 tonnes of water per second going past the bridge on the Wye in Hereford. The Environment Agency pumped water out of Hampton Bishop, but the problem is of the one-in-100 year floods meeting one-in-25-year defences, and we need to do considerably better.

[Daniel Kawczynski]

My hon. Friend is outlining the devastation that Herefordshire suffered during the recent floods. We of course experienced similar problems in Shropshire, but the leader of my council is telling me that the Bellwin scheme is not proving sufficient to meet all the demands that the council has in clearing up the mess. Could he say something about that?

[Bill Wiggin]

My council has had the same problem. I would ask the Government to think very carefully about training local authorities in how to manage the Bellwin scheme. Certainly, councillors in Herefordshire have been panicking because they do not necessarily understand how the scheme works, they do not know how much they can spend, and they do not know who to turn to. I think the Department that is managing this scheme needs to reach out to the affected local authorities so that at least the officers there know what they are talking about and can advise elected councillors properly.

[Craig Whittaker]

Calderdale is the second smallest local authority in the country, and we have to spend about £750,000 before we get £50,000 back from Bellwin. Does he agree with me that the scheme needs reviewing and bringing into the modern age?

[Bill Wiggin]

I do agree.

In my constituency, we have had the Holme Lacy Causeway inundated. We knew it would flood: it flooded last October, and it has flooded again. Nothing was done to protect that stretch of road. The worst case is the B4224, which is the main road through Fownhope. The damage there is so severe that the wall supporting the road has collapsed into the garden of my own parliamentary assistant, so not only could I not find out what was going on, but she could not get to work. She is about to get married and could really do without this, but worst of all, the people of Fownhope and the businesses there are not able to get the passing trade. Again, the council has been worrying about whether it is going to get the money, instead of getting on with repairing this road. However, even if it moves as quickly as possible, it will still take a long time.

I do think that local authorities need considerable training in understanding the Bellwin scheme, and if it is not fit for purpose, we need to make sure that it is. When we get a situation such as the one I have described, vehicles have to be sent round other roads, which damages them and means that they are not necessarily in a fit state at the end of such a diversion. The potholes are already bad; everybody has the same problem with them. We therefore need to get a much better understanding of the problems local authorities go through when dealing with flooding, just as the Government did with Flood Re, when they understood some of the challenges people faced in getting home insurance. Obviously I agree with what I heard earlier about how that needs to be extended to local businesses, because in my constituency businesses are damaged by floods again and again, and we need a more robust system for assisting and helping those people.

One cannot simply put into words the praise required for the fire brigade, the Army and the Environment Agency when such floods take place, and indeed, as the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) said, for the way that our constituents rise to the challenge. The people of my constituency, and indeed all of Herefordshire and I suspect the whole country, have been fantastic in the way they have supported one another; they have risen to the challenge of understanding what a community is and have united in trying to deal with this horrendous problem of flooding. My hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr Walker) has been having trouble with Toronto Close, which was under water; he has asked me to mention that because, as a Minister, he is not able to speak himself. There, once again, residents were left to deal with flood defences themselves. It is tough enough when we know that we are going to flood, but not getting the support and help that we need from the Environment Agency makes it even worse.

Every year—every summer—I go around my constituency with the Environment Agency to make sure that all the preparation we can possibly do is done to ensure the flooding alleviation systems work. It is worth doing; those who do not do it should do so, because that preparation makes a world of difference. We saw it with the Somerset levels, when the Environment Agency thought it was all right to let trees grow in the rivers, and then all that happened was that the wildlife and the species it was hoping to protect simply drowned when the rivers backed up, because branches got caught in the overhanging trees.

We really do need to manage our waterways properly. We need to ensure that the people who understand that are listened to, and we need to ensure that the communities that suffer again and again and again are protected. That is why I welcome some of the things the Government have done. I think that local authorities could do more, and they need the help and training to make sure that that happens.

My heart goes out to anybody who has been flooded. I lost my car in 2007. I do not think people can understand until they have been through it the smell, the filth and the vile nature of a flood, and I would wish it on no one.

Flooding

Bill Wiggin Excerpts

Monday 24th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice]

We will, during the course of this week, be issuing local authorities with more detailed guidance on the flood resilience fund. Our view at the moment is not to give it to people who have already claimed it, since they have already invested to make their homes more resilient.

[Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)]

Herefordshire was very hard hit. I want my local authority to focus on making good some of the terrible damage we have suffered, rather than getting its Bellwin application in by 15 March. Will the Secretary of State do all he can to ensure that local authorities are doing what they are meant to be doing, rather than claiming the money? Will he make sure that Herefordshire does not miss out on the farming recovery fund, like it did last time?

[George Eustice]

My hon. Friend makes an important point, but a lot of local authorities will say that they need access to that money, or at least to know that they will be able to reclaim some of their new burden costs, in order to make precisely the response he talks of.

Agriculture Bill

Bill Wiggin Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons & Money resolution & Programme motion
Monday 3rd February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Luke Pollard]

I agree entirely. Sometimes there is a temptation to believe that, just because a dodgy socialist at a Dispatch Box said it, it must be untrue, but apparently there are an awful lot of dodgy socialists out there now.

[Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)]

I do not for one second suggest that the hon. Gentleman is in any way dodgy, but does he not realise that while the points the hon. Member for Ogmore (Chris Elmore) made are valid to him and would be perfectly reasonable to make the subject of amendments, by choosing to oppose Second Reading of the Bill, he would make amendments impossible? Will he withdraw his opposition to the Bill so that he can make the amendments that he purports to want?

[Luke Pollard]

Perhaps the Government’s whipping arrangements are somewhat flawed tonight, but with a majority of 80 the Bill will proceed, unless the hon. Gentleman would like to join me in the Lobby. If he is so worried about the future of the Bill, he is welcome to join me in expressing the serious and heartfelt concerns not just of Opposition Members, but of organisations that work day in, day out with our agricultural communities, which are worried that while they are improving standards in the UK, we will leave the door open to their being undermined. That is not something I can accept.

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[Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)]

This is an excellent Bill, and I am delighted to support it. I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

This Bill is the gateway to the future for an exciting and vibrant agricultural sector. I am particularly delighted that the Bill will allow financial assistance to the shepherds in my constituency, who I have been worried about. I like the direct payment element, although sadly there is more enthusiasm in the drafting of the Bill for cuts than for increases; I hope Ministers will keep an eye on that, although there are powers to modify the scheme as and when. There is an element of in-lieu payments, which is welcome for retiring farmers, although I suspect that death duties on agricultural land will delay that policy.

The food security element is vital, of course, to our whole population. The Bill is the perfect example of how Parliament should behave on a matter of national importance. The Government have not created a quango, as they seek to do in the Environment Bill—this Bill is a far better way of legislating. The elements on exceptional market conditions and fair dealing for food chain participants are welcome.

I am slightly worried about the red meat levy, because of course I care very much about native breeds, provision for which in the Bill is welcome. However, as with “pasture-fed”, there is an issue with the definition of what native breeds are—pedigree or cross-bred. The figure of 51% is not adequate: we need to amend that part of DEFRA legislation to ensure that pasture herd farmers are getting the rewards that they richly deserve. As the National Trust found, grass-fed beef production does not just reduce greenhouse gas emissions; when carbon sequestration and storage are considered, it is actually a carbon net gain. The nonsense from the hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies), who intervened earlier, should be put to one side. The bit of the Bill that encourages organic production should be welcomed. This excellent Bill is good for my constituents, good for their food and great for our country.

Direct Payments to Farmers (Legislative Continuity) Bill

Bill Wiggin Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 21st January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Theresa Villiers]

My hon. Friend makes a strong point. We believe that our new system of farm support can work for farmers and our environment. We believe that we can do a thousand times better than has been the case under the CAP.

[Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend must surely agree that the purpose of subsidy is to ensure that British agriculture can compete with agriculture in the European Union and, indeed, the rest of the world. Will she therefore ensure that her Department does the necessary research, so that when we move from direct payments for acreage to public money for public goods, the money does arrive on the farm? We cannot afford for our farmers to be poorer because of these excellent intentions.

[Theresa Villiers]

We will be looking carefully at all aspects of the scheme. This is a hugely challenging thing to deliver, which is why we will phase it in over seven years. Of course, it is essential to get the funds to the farmers who are delivering the public goods that we want to secure. Because change always brings its challenges, to ease the introduction of the new system, we will adopt a seven-year transition period, and the Bill is a vital step in smoothing the path towards the start of that period.

This legislation may be less radical than the forthcoming Agriculture Bill, but it is still vital for the livelihood of farmers across our United Kingdom. I hope that Members will give their backing to this short but crucial legislation, so that we can give our farmers continuity, certainty and support as we move towards exit day and our departure from the European Union. The Bill provides a stepping stone to a more profitable, more productive, more resilient and more sustainable future for farming in this country, so that our hard-working farmers can continue to produce high-quality, high-welfare, iconic British food that is prized around the world and appreciated so much by all of us here at home. I commend the Bill to the House.

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[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Speaker. May I welcome the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) to his new post as shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs? I want to pay tribute to Sue Hayman, David Drew and Sandy Martin, because I worked very well cross-party with them when dealing with the previous Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, and I would like to put that on record.

Naturally, I very much welcome the Secretary of State’s statement about the continuity of payments to farmers because I think this is very important. We stand at a great moment when we can create a much better policy than the common agricultural policy. This is a moment of truth, shall we say? We now have not only this Bill, which will allow for payments to be made for the next year in a very similar way to how they were made in the past, but then the transitional period of seven years from one type of payment to the other, which gives us a real opportunity to look at the way we deliver payments.

The Rural Payments Agency has finally got delivering the basic farm payment right. What does slightly worry me, however, is that the one payment it finds great difficulty with delivering is that for the stewardship schemes. Whether that is a combination of Natural England and the Rural Payments Agency, there does seem to be a problem there. We have time to iron it out, but we have to be absolutely certain, as we move to new policies that are going to be much more in line with the stewardship schemes, that we get the system right and get this paid on time.

The interesting point about the transitional period and new payments for farmers is that some farmers are perhaps under the slight illusion that they are going to be able to get exactly the same level of payment from the new system as they do from the basic farm payment. Of course, like it or not, probably over half the farmers in this country rely on the basic farm payment for part of their income. Historically, it has always been said that farmers should set aside those payments and should not put them into their budget, but, as a practical farmer for many years, I can assure Members that those payments have always gone into the farming budget. About the only time that the bank manager ever smiled at me was when that payment came in, because it was a good lump sum.

[Bill Wiggin]

Not only am I grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way, but I smile at him too. Does he not agree with me that the purpose of subsidy is to keep those farm businesses competitive with our international competitors? Therefore, if he is right—I hope his Committee, when it is reconstituted, will investigate this—and this money does not go to those businesses, that competitive edge will be lost. From a food security point of view, if nothing else, it is vital that that money does arrive in the pockets of our farmers and then of their bank managers.

[Neil Parish]

My hon. Friend raises a very good point, which I am leading on to. As we deal with farm payments in the future, we have to make sure that we build on our environment and that we do not forget food production, healthy food and delivering British food at high standards. I think it is the NFU that says:

“You can’t go green if you’re in the red!”

That is the issue. We have to make sure that there is enough money flowing into farming businesses to ensure that we have good healthy food.

The one little criticism I have of the new Agriculture Bill is that there is possibly not quite enough in it on farming and food production. It is better than it was, and I give great credit to my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench who have worked very hard to get that into the Bill, but I still want to ensure that an Agriculture Bill is actually about food production and about agriculture. It is also about the environment, but I would like those to be equal parts of it, and I think that is the great challenge.

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[Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the new hon. Member for Angus (Dave Doogan). Making a maiden speech is terrifying; following one, particularly one as good as that, equally daunting. I commend the hon. Gentleman for saying that he will do his very best; that should apply to us all. He of course thanked voters and his predecessor, Kirstene Hair, who was a lovely and wonderful Member of this House. It is deeply important for all of us to heap praise on our predecessors, no matter how difficult it may be—it certainly was when I made my maiden speech—because we are all united here in doing the best we can for our constituents.

I liked listening to the hon. Member’s description of the landscape, and the Harley-Davidson motorcycle reference was particularly dear to my heart. When I look at Angus I think of the second-best breed of British cattle, the Aberdeen Angus, which from Herefordshire is not a difficult one for me to tease him about. I look forward to his maintaining the status quo for at least the next five years here, and I wish him every success with his career, which I suspect will go from strength to strength.

Colleagues should bear in mind that declaring one’s interests is very important in these debates—in fact, the most important thing. I am the lucky recipient of a very small cheque from the RPA once a year for my smallholding in Herefordshire.

I absolutely reject the purpose of subsidy in all fields except agriculture, because although our farmers produce the finest food in the world, they do so from a playing field that is anything but level, so we need to help them maintain the skills necessary to provide the food security that we may need at any time. It is easy to forget that epidemics such as foot and mouth, which hit our country in 2001, can happen anywhere in the world. We have also seen bluetongue and avian influenza, for example. Our food supply is always vulnerable. One cannot learn how to farm quickly; it takes years—generations—and great skill and appropriate qualifications. That is why, for the security of our country, we need to support our agricultural industry.

It is worth it. We put £3.5 billion into agriculture every year, but our food exports alone are worth £22 billion. We are 60% self-sufficient; 60% of the food we eat is produced here. I believe that the future for agriculture is that it will provide a healthier diet for our country. So as we will not only be providing the security that we need and a wonderful export market, but saving ourselves a fortune through the NHS, by ensuring that our population are healthier, better-fed and thriving. Of course, we can do that only if we control what comes into our country according to its quality and the production methods used.

That, if nothing else, is a good reason to support the Bill, but I am pleased to say that there is more. I, too, have had problems with the RPA—oh my goodness! I have also given it a fair few problems of my own, but it has always handled them extremely well and politely. However, the burden that the RPA lands on farmers, such as the one in my constituency who had to undertake the re-mapping of every hedge on his farm because the data had been lost, is horrendous. Having the power not to have to follow the EU’s rules will be tremendously positive for all those working for the RPA, and we should not be looking at spending more money on it, but making its job easier by demanding less from it. I look forward to that as one of the future steps to easing the burden on our constituents and on farmers, by ensuring that the RPA regulations are more straightforward.

In any change to agriculture, the biggest thing is that we take the public with us. Food labelling is therefore the most fundamental thing to get right. The problem with food labelling is that our eyesight is not necessarily good enough to read the small writing necessary to include all the information we need on small amounts of food. That is particularly true of restaurant menus, on which we cannot see where, say, the chicken has come from. That is just taken as the restaurant’s corporate responsibility.

The problem is that, until we conquer the challenge of industrial food production, we will not be able to protect standards, even if we want to, so I urge the Government to look carefully at how to ensure the public are properly informed. I suggest they pay particular attention to private Member’s Bill No. 17, which seeks to address this issue in great detail not only in the labelling of food but in how meat is graded.

One problem we have with meat is that we care about how fat the animal is and how much meat and muscle it has, but we do not care about what it tastes like. That is a fundamental mistake when we expect people to eat it. We should be doing a great deal more on eating quality, as the Canadians and the Australians do. There is a huge benefit to eating quality, because the calmer and more placid the animal, the better it tastes. A calm and placid animal is considerably safer to have on a farm, which means the risk to farmers of being killed by their cattle—that risk is particularly serious for older farmers—is considerably reduced.

Nearly all the people who die on farms in animal accidents are farmers aged over 60. They die, whereas younger farmers are able to recover. We lose about seven farmers a year to such deaths, and we could do a great deal more just by having better-tasting meat. What a great success that would be.

On the subject of saving lives, I come to chlorinated chicken. I have a huge number of poultry producers in my constituency, and the nightmare for them is campylobacter, which causes food poisoning that kills about six people a year. If we chlorinate our chicken, we should save those lives. Do not be fooled by the anti-chlorination argument. There are terrible problems with hormones in beef, which I will not touch on—I will leave it to those who wish to criticise American food production—but chlorinated chicken is not the monster it is made out to be.

[Deidre Brock]

The hon. Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax) spoke about chlorinated chicken and how we put chlorine in our swimming pools, and so on. The main point to which people object is that chlorinating chicken disguises the poor welfare standards that lead to the amount of germs and bacteria in the meat that is presented to us.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. I remind Members that the Bill is about payments to farmers and not much wider farming issues. I am sure the hon. Lady has made her point.

[Bill Wiggin]

Madam Deputy Speaker, you have completely torpedoed my response because, of course, the only sector that is not subsidised is the pig and poultry sector. It is worth bearing in mind how long chickens live in those broiler houses: normally 29 days.

[Adam Afriyie (Windsor) (Con)]

Having studied agricultural economics many years ago, the last time I saw a very healthy-looking animal was on my hon. Friend’s farm. It strikes me that farmers are not just raising cattle or growing crops but are doing an awful lot of other activities that maintain our environment and maintain the health and beauty of the countryside. Does he agree that if we had control over the direct payments we make to our farmers, we would have better control over their activities and the levels of profit they can make?

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[Bill Wiggin]

I absolutely agree. Another element to direct payments is that, by paying our farmers, to some extent we control what they are doing. I hope we will get away from that when we cease to be controlled by the common agricultural policy, but it does mean that, as taxpayers, we have a say in the beauty of our countryside. Of course, when one looks at the size of the tourist industry or, indeed, any of the other industries that live off our views or our environment, we see that this is a tremendous advantage. That is why it is critical that the Bill is passed.

[Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)]

I thank my fellow farmer for giving way. He mentioned that it is significant that farmers develop their skills over many years and often many generations. When considering direct payments, does he agree it is important that farmers are able to plan for their future by knowing what subsidies they are likely to receive so that they can tailor their farming practices accordingly?

[Bill Wiggin]

My hon. Friend makes a vital point, and it is why the Government have a seven-year tail to this policy. The Bill does not do as much as she and I would both like it to do in delivering certainty. That is a huge problem in my constituency. I have 10,500 people working on farms in my constituency, 88% of which is farmland. Some £23.2 million a year comes into my constituency in subsidy, and it is critical to those farm businesses that they know exactly what is happening.

One problem I face is the current trend away from eating meat, which is a disaster for British agriculture. I was stopped during the general election campaign by someone who said, “Mr Wiggin, you don’t like vegetarians.” I said, “That’s not strictly true, but I do have an issue with this desire to go to a plant-based diet, because it means importing soya from Brazil. It means living with the big pharmaceutical companies determining our diet.”

I am keen that we get back to direct payments for livestock farmers, particularly in Herefordshire, and that we return to British food for British voters, constituents and consumers, so I thoroughly look forward to seeing this Bill become law, and to the Agriculture Bill that follows, so that we can get a lot of these details on to the statute book for the benefit of all concerned.