Single Farm Payment Scheme

Debate between Lord Gardiner of Kimble and Baroness Byford

Wednesday 20th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord. We both hold the dairy industry extremely dear. On that point, one of our highest priorities of all is to ensure that we are now working on the creation of a domestic agricultural policy that will support our farmers and consumers in our country at large.

[Baroness Byford (Con)]

My Lords, can the Minister cast a bit more light on the reasons for some of these delays? Is he confident that the new IT system is adequate? Over the years, IT system failure has caused delays in many of the payments. I should declare that we have received our farm payment.

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, I understand what my noble friend said, and yes, I have looked into this already. The main IT system has worked very well indeed, and in fact, over 80% of the claims were submitted online this year, which is the highest proportion of online claims in any one year. We need to improve on that. A lot of the work this year has been about improving the IT system. We have invested quite a lot; now we need the return.

Agriculture: Dairy Farmers

Debate between Lord Gardiner of Kimble and Baroness Byford

Monday 22nd February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

I would be delighted to compliment all those retailers that are taking their responsibilities seriously. What the noble Baroness has said is that it is very important that we improve our labelling. It is very important people know that, when they buy British produce, it is not British-processed produce but produce that is grown in this country.

[Baroness Byford (Con)]

My Lords, may I follow up that comment? The work undertaken by retailers is beginning to have an effect, but part of the problem— I hope that my noble friend will be able to tell us a little more about this—is that only half of that milk ends up as liquid milk. Most of it ends up as processed milk. The difficulty is the amount that we can actually use, so export, which the Minister spoke about, is key. The price that retailers pay is in some ways better than the bulk commodity price; it is the bulk commodity price that is the real problem.

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend. A lot of retailers are paying 20p or 30p a litre. She is absolutely right to say that one way in which we can help to address the problem is to become much more resilient and much more export focused. We have brilliant produce in this country and we need to export more of it. That is what the Government are working on.