Welsh Rural Economy

Debate between Liz Saville Roberts and Dave Doogan

Tuesday 22nd June 2021 Westminster Hall

[Dave Doogan (Angus) (SNP)]

Thank you, Mrs Cummins, for your indulgence, given my slightly late appearance at this debate. I apologise to colleagues in the debate and especially to the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts) for being slightly late—demonstrating to colleagues that it is literally impossible to be in two places at once.

I am very pleased to take part in this debate, but I will proceed with caution because, despite a very happy 18 months living and working in the Vale of Glamorgan, I recognise my limited knowledge of matters Welsh, and there is nothing more irritating to a Member of Parliament than somebody talking about our part of the world with less than comprehensive knowledge. But there are very many similarities between the situation that the rural Welsh economy finds itself in and the rural Scottish economy.

I represent a rural ward in Angus in Scotland. There is not so much difference between the Welsh valleys and the Angus glens. I would contend that neither are being particularly well served by the UK Government at the current time, a classic example of that being the Australia trade deal. I will not labour this point. It is a hot topic in the Chamber and in the media. Suffice it to say that the reassurances—if we can call them that—coming from the Department for International Trade and, to a significantly and tellingly lesser extent, from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs are very hollow indeed. The supposed safeguards for Welsh producers, Scottish producers and Cumbrian producers of lamb are paper thin. There is also the fact that, watery as they are, they are timebound over a maximum period of 15 years. I wonder what the Government will tell Welsh farmers is going to happen after 15 years. Is the scale of Welsh farming suddenly going to increase after 15 years to the extent that farmers will be able to compete with the colossal enterprises in Australia and, by that time of course, New Zealand, Mexico, Brazil and many other colossal producers?

[Liz Saville Roberts]

Does the hon. Gentleman share my concerns about the anticipated trade agreement with New Zealand, which we expect to be announced in August? It has seen the precedent set with Australia and, in terms of lamb, this deal looks even more damaging than the present agreement.

[Dave Doogan]

The right hon. Member is exactly right. We are looking at the thin end of the wedge. I will come on to why this is a function of a disconnect in the current set-up of the United Kingdom, but of course she is right. With my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock), I met the Australian high commissioner to the UK about a year ago, and we were assured by him that Australia was not particularly interested in bulk volumes, in terms of exporting lamb to the UK. I did not believe it then and I do not believe it now; it is inconsistent.

New Zealand will follow where Australia leads. Such is the unseemly haste with which the UK Government are pursuing any and all opportunities for international trade, as though it somehow validates the ridiculous and reckless Brexit course, they will do deals with New Zealand and we will see further attrition in the markets that we currently satisfy from domestic production. It is a very damaging prospect that faces us now.

Yesterday I met NFU Scotland members in Angus. Their issues include the arbitrary discussions around journey times for animals; the trade deals we have touched on today; welfare standards that we must adhere to in this country but that our competitors are not similarly held to; and the availability of seasonal agricultural workers because of the Conservative Government’s fundamental ideology of not wanting people to come from outside to support our industries and enhance our communities, despite the negative effect that that has on the rural economies of the constituent nations of the UK. Likewise food standards are now a lottery, depending on the food we buy and the market it comes from.

I had an interesting meeting recently with a renewable energy company that has floating wind farms. It has a tremendous pilot project off the Pembrokeshire coast, and it wants to do something similar off the North sea coast, off Peterhead. The dialogue that it had with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy was so slow that it represents a golden opportunity lost by the Government to open up rural and very rural parts of our economy and to meet our net zero and renewable energy targets. There is a level of disconnect. Even if the company did get the project going, like many renewable projects in mid and west Wales, the feed-in tariffs, although not so bad in Wales, are still appalling, whereas we have energy producers around London paid to connect to the grid. In Wales they will have to pay a couple of pounds per unit, and in Caithness in Scotland, very, very rural communities will have to pay £6 or £7 per unit. BEIS just holds up its hands—“It’s not us. It is Ofgem.” Such levels of disconnect from central Government in London are not acceptable. They hold our economies back.

As a member of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, I take part in good faith and in good spirit when discussing issues that are of no consequence to my constituents because I am a Member of the UK Parliament. I would rather not be, but I am—I wish I was a member of a sovereign Scottish Parliament. What has come through loud and clear is the disconnect and the asymmetry in the representation of the people of the United Kingdom. There is no English Government, but DEFRA is little more than an English Government Department. It has very little locus in the United Kingdom at large, and where it does, it exercises it with indifference and ambivalence. It is a great impediment to our rural communities.