Defra: Disease Outbreaks
Lord Plumb Excerpts(13 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Henley
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Countess for reminding us that it is only 10 years since the last major outbreak of foot and mouth, which she, I and many others remember well. I am also grateful to her for mentioning Exercise Silver Birch, which has recently concluded. It was a fairly major exercise organised by Defra, the devolved Administrations and many others, in which more than 600 people took part to look at how a foot and mouth outbreak might affect England, Scotland and Wales. The important thing to remember about it is that it will report in due course. I hope that lessons can be learnt from the report when it is published in, we hope, March of this year. That will probably be when I can comment in more detail on the further points that the noble Countess made, which are very valid at this stage.
Lord Plumb
Does the Minister agree that contingency planning and funding are becoming more important, as exotic diseases will probably come into this country through greater globalisation and climate change? Does he accept that, in the ongoing situation, there should be more contingency planning to deal with outbreaks of TB? We are still losing something like 100 cattle a day through tuberculosis. I accept that much is being done, but is Defra satisfied with the efficacy of the vaccine for badgers?
Lord Henley
My Lords, my noble friend is right to point to the importance of contingency planning, rather than contingency funding. The important thing is that we plan for these situations. I can give an assurance that Defra has planned and will continue to plan and test for all diseases. I also underline his point about the increasing risk of exotic diseases, which is one possible consequence of climate change. As regards his specific question about the efficacy of the badger vaccine, I can give an assurance that laboratory studies have demonstrated that the vaccination of badgers by injection with BCG significantly reduces the progression, severity and excretion of TB infection after experimental challenge. However, we still have a little way to go on these matters before we can make such vaccines more widely available.
Common Agricultural Policy
Lord Plumb Excerpts(14 years ago)
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Lord Plumb
My Lords, in declaring my farming interests and involvement with agricultural policy and development over many years, I welcome every opportunity to look to the future—recognising, as I hope we do, that farming is part of a global industry as well as a major part of our national economy.
Many noble Lords will remember that the UK’s farm policy changed from the price guarantee and efficiency payment system when we joined the European Union in 1973—a policy which farmers were beginning to realise was creaking at the seams as production and costs increased—and moved, in six steps over a period of five years, into the common agricultural policy. The CAP has faced a lot of flak over the years, and some of the criticism has been justified, but those who wish to scrap it should understand, as my noble friend Lord Greaves has recognised, that it operates in the long-term interests of consumers.
The CAP has been regularly reformed over the past 50 years and, despite its often perceived failings, reliably fulfilled its primary role of providing high-quality food throughout Europe. It has also delivered the current standards of environmental management, food hygiene and animal welfare. However, this more modern food and farming industry has become energy intensive, requiring oil to produce fertilisers, agrochemicals and fuel. Agriculture uses 70 per cent of the world’s water and is responsible for 14 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Agriculture and the food industry—which now employ 14 per cent of our nation’s workforce—are therefore very much part of the global climate change problem. The demand for more renewable energy sources also means that the food processing industry now has to compete with the biofuel industry, which uses sugar, maize and wheat, for example, for raw materials. As that demand increases, the cost of food will rise.
Before I raise the issues that the reformed common agriculture policy will have to confront, your Lordships may wish to consider the reply I received from my noble friend Lord Sassoon in response to questions I posed, following the spending review debate, about Defra’s position. After recognising that Defra’s running costs would be reduced by £174 million, he stated that, by the end of the spending review period, a saving of £66 million will be made right across the rural development programme for England. The document which my noble friend supplied said:
“However, by making the most effective use of the European funding available to the programme and by taking advantage of movement in Euro/Sterling exchange rates, funding on the Higher Level Scheme will rise by 83% by 2013-14”.
Where hedging risks from exchange rate movements represented good value for money,
“Defra, Natural England and the Rural Payments Agency will work to ensure RDPE payments are made promptly and accurately”.
I welcome that.
The CAP will be reformed in 2012-13. As to its cost, many figures are quoted and misused, but they are spread across the lands of 500 million people, and I am told that €50 billion—£40 billion—is equal to 23p per day to consumers.
A reformed CAP has to confront five new issues; my noble friend has already mentioned them. They include food security, price volatility, climate change and rural degradation. The intensification of farming, as it has changed over the years and continues to change, threatens the viability of extensive regions of moorland and forest. There are three conflicting demands: the price of food against the background of budget control and the effect of the recession on consumer spending; globalisation and the liberalisation of world trade as we try to feed 9 billion people in the world; and the long-term trend in energy costs and the incentives for growing energy crops. The Commission’s proposals as we have read them in their leaked form are a little like the curate’s egg.
With all the development that is taking place, I am optimistic about a future in which science and technology, including GM crops, will become more important. In order to feed the world’s growing population, we need to double the output of food. We need a progressive common agricultural policy. It should be clearer, simpler and less confusing. It should involve less risk and be more market-focused and competitive in spirit. It should offer incentives to improve environmental performance. Above all, a common agricultural policy has to maintain productive capacity.
I hope the Government will oppose a renationalised policy giving more flexibility and possible co-financing by member states. I hope the Minister will also look further at the regulation payment rates for agri-environment schemes, as set out in his letter following our debate on the Prince’s Countryside Fund.
Baroness Trumpington
My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, may I ask him whether he includes the valuable research done under the heading of “general agricultural policy”, which is of benefit to the entire world?
Lord Plumb
Of course I value the tremendous research done both privately and publicly. Without it, we would not have seen the growth that has been delivered through science and technology. That development is not only important but has been taken on with enthusiasm by people who realise that, in the long term, the food industry is probably one of the most important industries that we have in this country and throughout the world.
Rural Communities: Prince’s Countryside Fund
Lord Plumb Excerpts(14 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Plumb
My Lords, I, too, congratulate my noble friend Lord Gardiner on securing this debate. It is very opportune to talk about rural affairs and to link them with urban affairs in the context of the work that His Royal Highness himself is involved in. I do not know whether your Lordships are aware of the tremendous work that he has been doing, particularly in the field of mutton and wool, which my noble friend Lord Gardiner referred to earlier. He has made a world of difference to both, and we are beginning to see that represented through the price of them both. It is natural, then, that we are aware of his interest in and commitment to rural as well as urban affairs. He has created the brainchild of the countryside fund, raising money from more than 15 organisations, with founding companies already pledging well over £1 million with the objective of improving the status of British farming.
We all know that, in these days, practices in science and advanced technology have revolutionised farming, but farmers have limited access to the technology of many urban areas and are hampered by poor access to broadband, which quite obviously needs to be improved, as has already been said. Yet to create a fund which will, I am sure, grow over the years, it is essential that assistance is directed at areas in need for innovation. Many farmers, as His Royal Highness made clear when opening this fund, are invaluable and form a unique part of our country’s heritage and culture. He said that their intuition and wisdom, built over a long period of time, had been handed down from generation to generation, and he commented that as with their hefted flocks of sheep, there are hefted people whose future is linked to the whole of the country.
What is badly needed is the realisation that there is a rising problem of retaining the next generation on farms, particularly of family and livestock farmers in marginal areas where farming plays such a marginal role as part of the overall viability of rural areas. The main stumbling block is the difficulty in obtaining planning consent to build affordable houses on farms to stop the outward migration of young people, many of whom are currently training. Universities and colleges are full of young people who see an important future for production of food and energy and in the many related sectors. I am very interested in the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Best; I know he has a wealth of experience in that field. We look forward to his support.
The Prince's Countryside Fund is reserving a portion of funding to be used in times of crisis. We are all aware of the devastating impact of foot and mouth disease, floods, drought and now bovine TB, with the loss of 40,000 cattle a year. The existing farm charities welcome this, and have haunting memories of administering emergency relief in all those cases. The Royal Agricultural Benevolent Institution is celebrating 150 years of its existence this year, as my noble friend Lord Brooke said, raising funds in celebration for the benefit of many farming families and farm workers. One of the most encouraging responses to the Prince's initiative comes from supporting businesses, all of which believe and state that a strong, effective rural community is the bedrock of wider countryside prosperity. This strengthens the commercial relationship with the producer, which is good for the nation's economy.
The countryside as we know it is a living, breathing workplace for everyone to appreciate, and it is essential that we help to increase self-sufficiency in the food supply and products for energy production. We must safeguard jobs, care for the environment and ensure a stable and lasting economy. Farmers are the stewards of the environment.
Agriculture: Farming
Lord Plumb Excerpts(14 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Plumb
To ask Her Majesty’s Government when the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs’ Task Force on Farming Regulation will make their recommendations.
Lord Plumb
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. In so doing, I declare my interest as a farmer.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Henley)
My Lords, I, too, declare my interest as a farmer. The Task Force on Farming Regulation, to be chaired by Richard Macdonald, will identify ways of reducing the regulatory burden through a review of relevant regulations and their implementation, as well as advising on how best to achieve a risk-based system of regulation in future. It will produce its initial views in early 2011.
Lord Plumb
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply and I congratulate him and the Government on calling for a task force to consider this whole issue, which has got out of hand in the past year or two. Although the Rural Payments Agency has been making improvements, the way in which it has operated over the past couple of years or so has been a great shambles. Action is therefore needed to simplify the whole process. Is the Minister aware, therefore—I know that he is, of course—that all cattle reared on farms have to have a passport and that sheep have to be electronically tagged? Think of the difficulty of getting 5,000 sheep off a hill to electronically tag them. Livestock movements have to be recorded in quadruplicate. On the whole question of the movement of livestock, forms are supplied in second-classed envelopes. The Minister is obviously aware—
Lord Plumb
Does the Minister accept that every field, hedge, pond and tree has to be entered on the environmental map, to name but a few of the problems that we face, all creating high costs for little benefit? Does the Minister accept—
Lord Plumb
Does the Minister accept that future procedure needs the application of a bit of common sense to reduce the regulatory burden on farming without compromising standards?
Lord Henley
My Lords, if I can answer briefly, we must move away from the idea that the only way of solving problems is to regulate. To take just one of my noble friend’s examples, the EID for sheep, I can give him an assurance that, when Commissioner Dalli, who has responsibility for this in the EU, visits this country, we will certainly make him aware of the problems that electronic identification of sheep is creating. I am sure that my honourable friend in another place, Mr Paice, will make a point of encouraging him to visit one of the big sheep sales to see what the problems are.
Agriculture: Farm Animal Disease
Lord Plumb Excerpts(14 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Henley
My Lords, the noble Lord and I are both old enough to remember the 2001 outbreak. I can just about remember the 1967 outbreak—I was in short trousers—and other Members of this House who are older than me might also remember it. The noble Lord will also remember that there was a good report from, I think, the Duke of Northumberland into that outbreak from which lessons could have been learnt, and lessons could have been learnt from the 2001 outbreak. I appreciate that these outbreaks happen only rarely; I would have hoped that they would have been even rarer, but we will certainly want to continue to learn lessons on each occasion.
Lord Plumb
My Lords, I doubt whether the Minister will remember that some 40 years ago I had the privilege of announcing that we had totally eradicated bovine tuberculosis. He will know that 40,000 animals are lost to it every year at the moment, at a cost of £100 million. How are we going to deal with that in the future?
Lord Henley
My Lords, I would not want to make any comment about how we will deal with bovine TB, but my noble friend is right to stress how much it costs us each year. The figure that I have is in the order of £80 million and rising. We will, again, look at all evidence. We want all decisions to be made on an evidence-based model. We will make appropriate responses in due course.
Queen's Speech
Lord Plumb Excerpts(14 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Plumb
My Lords, I join the other 47 speakers in offering my congratulations and good wishes to my noble friends Lady Wilcox and Lord Henley. She made a cracking opening in this debate and I do not think that any of us would envy my noble friend Lord Henley winding up this wide-ranging, but extremely important, debate. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Myners, for his contribution on the economy and financial matters over the past year. It has been interesting to share some of the concerns with him.
Many farmers were encouraged by the statement in the Conservative Party manifesto promising to prioritise research and development, and to develop a long-term strategic agenda across the food chain that reflects the importance of raising production sustainably. It is worth quoting some interesting research carried out at Humboldt University of Berlin. It calculated that 35 million hectares of land outside Europe is needed, equivalent to twice the area of United Kingdom land that produces food, to meet the needs of a population of 9 billion people. It also claimed that the food needs of the world can be met only when the richer countries produce more, not less, as is often argued.
Sadly, as we have already heard, our starting point for growth is lower than it should be. We are importing some £32 billion worth of food, compared with exports of £13 billion. Those are the most recent figures, which will have changed with currency ratios. In addition, 40,000 cattle each year are slaughtered as a result of bovine TB, at a cost of some £100 million.
Regarding the Bills mentioned in the gracious Speech, it is essential that the proposed cuts of £162 million and budget savings do not harm competitiveness. I hope that the Minister will be in a position to tell your Lordships how Defra can reduce spending without hindering a forward-looking farming industry.
While food security should have priority, there will be three Bills of significance to which I shall refer—the energy security and green economy Bill, the decentralisation and localism Bill and the public bodies reform Bill. These are all important Bills. The encouraging signals to deliver greater levels of low-carbon energy generation will increase investor confidence in renewables, whereby farmers and growers can play a major role.
Revision of the feed-in tariff incentive for small and medium-sized anaerobic digestion plants is a key element, and planners must take note and act without delay on the contribution that they make when dealing with waste for the production of energy from waste products, including food, that currently pour into infill sites. Waste is power and could be the focus of energy policy. Energy from wind farms can be variable, but energy from waste is base-load power. Power from biofuels will continue to be commercially important for heavy vehicle transport in the foreseeable future.
On decentralisation and localism, the consequence of a commitment to abolish RDAs is something that a lot of people would say “Hear, hear” to. Creating local enterprise partnerships raises questions on the seven-year programme due to end in 2013. That programme is worth £3.9 billion and is part of the common agricultural policy. It should also be considered within the context of the future of the CAP, which we will debate in the future. The programme aims to support and promote sustainable farming, forestry and food sectors and brings wider benefit for the economy and the environment. I hope that the Minister can comment on these matters, but there is also concern as to whether returning decision powers for rural housing and planning to local councils will work. The question is: will the guidance to local authorities be robust or will localism prevail?
Public bodies and quangos are likely to be a target for financial cuts, which is understandable. However, it is important to target cuts that do not undermine food production. Farming is expected to operate like any other business where workers are protected by minimum wage legislation; so why maintain the Agricultural Wages Board? Cutting it would save some £500,000 per year; and I would include some of Defra’s quangos, such as the communications and policy departments.
Despite these problems, there are encouraging signs of an increased understanding of the connection between food and farming, which has led to a greater desire for fair trade both overseas and at home. Support systems for agriculture now rightly recognise the farmer as not only the essential food producer but also the custodian of our biodiverse countryside.
On Sunday 13 June, many people throughout the country will have the chance to visit farms. On Farm Sunday, farms will be open to visits by people who wish to see what happens on a farm and how food is produced, and also to learn about environmental policies.
In future, when we debate the developments that are needed and the CAP, we should embrace one word: “simplification”.