Sustainable Livestock Bill

Debate between Kerry McCarthy and Ian Paisley

Friday 12th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Ian Paisley]

I accept that point and I will discuss it when I deal with that aspect of the Bill, which, I believe, reflects the promoter’s gut instinct.

Our stakeholder group in the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development was formed at the end of July last year and wishes to consider how best to reduce greenhouse gases in the agricultural sector in Northern Ireland while remaining competitive in the marketplace. Our devolved Government have already taken several steps to address the issue, and I know that that also applies to the other devolved regions and to central Government in Westminster.

Do we need more legislation? Parliaments have a propensity to legislate when there is no need to do so. We should be careful not to load more bureaucracy—legislation for legislation’s sake—on to industry and the production of food. That is a key reason for my opposition to the Bill.

Given that work is already under way genuinely to address the problems, there should be no need for more legislative interventionism. Indeed, it would create additional bureaucracy and be less effective in delivering the necessary meaningful improvements and have an adverse impact on the agri-food industry.

There are three tests that the Bill must pass. The first is the economic sustainability test, which I believe it Bill fails. As I said, about £20 billion-worth of food is produced in the United Kingdom, and the Bill would force the Government to try to compel the new, ongoing common agricultural policy negotiations to change the subsidy rules so that every hectare of farm land in the United Kingdom would have to receive an increase in subsidy of between £100 and £200. For the life of me, I do not see the current European Union increasing food and farm subsidy in the current CAP negotiations. I wish that it would; it is not a realistic prospect, yet that needs to happen for the Bill to be effective. It will not happen in 2013, and we would therefore be arguing for something that is detrimental to the economy.

Production-limited support is contrary to World Trade Organisation regulations. If something is contrary to the CAP and WTO regulations, the likelihood of our getting an increase in the subsidy is small. The cost for farmers of having to purchase in a particular way in order to produce in a more carbon-efficient way would mean an additional burden and would be detrimental to the industry. Ultimately, who will lose? The farmer will put his hand in his pocket again and spend the money, but you, Mr Hoyle, I and the consumer will lose, because food prices will go up. Instead of good-quality, traceable food at a reasonable price, we will have more expensive food. The consumer will ultimately lose out.

What will the consumers do? They will do what all the polls tell us: they will buy not the high-quality food that is produced in the United Kingdom but the cheap, imported food, which will flood into the United Kingdom, further damaging our agricultural sector. In the past few years, we have fought against cheap meat from Brazil. If it is made even more accessible to our markets, when our consumers go to Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Asda, they will fill their trolleys with cheap Brazilian imports. Why? Because they are cheaper, and that is what will drive the consumer. We should realise that. I do not agree with the hon. Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) that such prices will make us want to become vegetarians or vegans; they will just make us want to buy cheaper food. That is a genuine downside to the Bill, so it fails the economic test.

The Bill also fails the social test. My constituency is made up of lowland and hill farming, and there is a certain shape and scope to our land. A previous contributor described it as God-given beauty. It has been shaped by the grazing habits that farmers have introduced. Under the Bill, that would change. It will become more expensive to graze our animals on the uplands because it will be more expensive to import the food for them. The shape of our land would therefore change dramatically, so the social impact would not be as effective as the Bill suggests.

The Bill also fails the environmental test. It would use the sledgehammer of environmental protectionism to crack a nut. The entire UK agriculture industry is responsible for only 7% of our greenhouse gas emissions, and our emissions have already fallen by 21% since 1990.

John F. Kennedy memorably said:

“The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie… but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.”

We have heard some myths today which should be debunked. The Bill has an admirable aim to stop deforestation, but it will not do that. The House could pass the measure and say, “We want to stop deforestation,” but the Bill will contribute nothing to that aim. Indeed, its very publication contributes to deforestation because it needs paper. We must recognise the myth.

Another myth is that livestock will be raised indoors—that we will drive through our land and see great big silos and sheds where our livestock is raised. However, when I drive through my constituency, I see cattle and sheep in the fields.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Gentleman know that there is currently a planning application for a dairy farm in Lincolnshire, which will have more than 8,000 cows indoors practically throughout the year? There is also an application in Derbyshire for a pig farm that will host about 26,000 pigs. That is the direction in which the UK agricultural sector is moving. It is similar to what happens in some parts of eastern Europe and in America. That is a fact.

[Ian Paisley]

I accept that those two applications have been made—two applications in a massive industry. The planning service has the ability to restrict and reduce those plans if it considers them detrimental to the countryside. It is a myth that all farming will take place indoors. That cannot happen—milk cannot be obtained from cattle that are raised indoors.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I am interested in the Minister’s response to that point, because when I criticised the move towards raising cows indoors, he told me recently at Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs questions that I needed to go away and learn something more about dairy farming.

[Ian Paisley]

The hon. Lady can take that up with the Minister if she wishes. However, it is unrealistic to claim that, as we drive from the north of Scotland to the south of Devon, all that we will see in our countryside are huge sheds, inside which are animals that will never see the light of day. That is preposterous. It will not happen. It is a scare tactic that undermines the promoter’s good intention.