Agriculture Bill

Debate between Lord Hain and Lord Carrington

Committee stage & Committee: 5th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 5th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 21st July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hain [V]]

My Lords, it is always a pleasure to speak after the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, who speaks with such authority and passion on these agricultural questions.

I wish to speak to my Amendment 175; I am grateful for the support of the noble Lord, Lord Cormack. The agricultural sector has always been subject to the whims of nature and climate. However, recent years have seen an increase in disruptive weather patterns, such as prolonged, unseasonal periods of flooding, extreme cold and heat, and drought—often with different challenges at the same time in different areas of the country. We have also experienced the impact that invasive diseases, such as bird influenza, blue tongue and ash dieback, can have on plants and animals.

These unexpected, often catastrophic, events can deliver significant damage to our agriculture businesses, both individuals and whole sectors. A year’s worth of income can be decimated by one bad storm or a few rain-free months during a growing season. In Wales, the 2013 heavy spring snow is a good example; by the way, England was even worse hit then. Another example in Wales is the long summer droughts of 2018 and 2019 that caused even secure water sources to dry up and arable yields to drop significantly as water for irrigation was unavailable. These farming “natural disasters” are at such a scale that there is a case for state sector intervention of the kind that this amendment proposes—especially with the growing impact of climate change, which is undoubtedly a cause of them.

These uncontrollable factors uniquely affect the products that we grow from our land. Increasingly, it is not just the market conditions of the globalised agricultural commodity markets that affect our core industry of food and farming; it is the untameable elements of nature that are getting increasingly erratic and wild. This new reality, already acknowledged and understood when we look at actions around climate change adaptation, needs to be extended into the thinking on how we support farming businesses affected by these situations. The drivers of exceptional circumstances have changed, and we must change with them. I hope that the Government take heed of that.

Indeed, that imperative is underlined by official Defra statistics showing that our food sector is heavily reliant on imports. We export £2.1 billion of meat but import £6.6 billion, and we export £1.3 billion of fruit and veg but import a massive £11.5 billion. We are so vulnerable as a nation over our food supplies; that is made worse by the ravaging effects of climate change.

The policy objective of this Bill is admirable. It is to encourage and incentivise our farmers, the custodians of our countryside and the managers of our land, to deliver more environmental benefits from their land use and use new trade opportunities and markets to increase economic sustainability. This ambition must be balanced with a fresh look at how, when and why the Government are willing to provide additional support to a key economic sector in crisis. That means looking beyond the traditional and narrow definition of what drives economic failures. It also means acknowledging and providing emergency support tools to deal with the reality that our climate, our weather and our environment are changing and that businesses operating in the natural environment will be detrimentally impacted by factors completely beyond their control—indeed, beyond our control—including the Covid-19 pandemic, an unexpected crisis that has shaken the world economy beyond anybody’s imagination. We should be using this opportunity to make sure that we have the tools and powers in place to allow us to support those businesses if and when a natural crisis occurs, which is what Amendment 175 seeks to do. I hope that it finds favour with the Minister, who has played such a constructive role in his sympathetic handling of this Bill.

[Lord Carrington]

My Lords, I declare my interests as a farmer and landowner, as set out in the register. I had great pleasure in putting my name to the important Amendment 174, and to Amendment 285, proposed by the noble Baronesses, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb and Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick. This amendment has the support of the Tenant Farmers Association, the National Farmers’ Union and the CLA, together with a high proportion of farmers. They have the invaluable experience of farming the land and are well aware of the many unpredictable factors that can quickly turn a crop from profit to loss or livestock from asset to liability.

Amendment 174 widens the definition of “exceptional market conditions” to make sure that as many circumstances as possible are covered. It moves beyond global market changes to other triggers, such as severe weather and disease. The intention is not to provide an easy escape route for farmers to claim that circumstances have conspired against them. The definition remains tighter than many would wish. It is particularly important that we get this right, in view of the removal of the overall safety net of the basic payment scheme, which has protected farmers from so much volatility, often caused by exceptional market conditions, for over 40 years.

The importance of the amendment is shown by the events earlier this year when rain caused devastating flooding. Happily, the Government stepped in and support was given to flooded farms. However, the effects of this—hopefully exceptional—weather event were felt much more broadly, and the result can be seen across the country: land left fallow, patchy crops and much more. Most farmers have relied on the BPS to cover their fall in income. This sorry situation was compounded by the length of time it took the Government to repeal the three-crop rule. Desperate farmers drilled crops in unsuitable conditions to adhere to the rule, and this has caused environmental damage to soil structure and more.

It is also vital that a process exists to ensure that there are no delays in triggering intervention. The impact of Covid-19 on the dairy industry is a good case in point. Although a support scheme was implemented, it took an inordinate amount of lobbying by the industry to achieve a positive result.

Finally, I am not a lawyer, but I ask the Minister to clarify exactly what is meant by “prices achievable” in subsection (2)(b). It is surely a matter not just of price but of income too. Can the Minister confirm that it covers the situation where a farmer or grower cannot achieve the price because he does not have the product to sell, due to drought, flood, disease or other exceptional conditions?