Lord Tunnicliffe
Main Page: Lord Tunnicliffe (Labour - Life peer)
Baroness Penn
I thank the noble Baroness for her question. The Government continue to engage with farmers and the NFU to see what support we can put in place for the sector. Of course, all existing business support is available to farmers and we will look at any particular problems that they may have in accessing that support.
Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
The noble Baroness’s Answer is typical of the Government’s response, which tends to be relatively short-term, looking just one or two months ahead. What work are the Government doing to develop longer-term scenarios, with proposals that look further ahead and are more holistic, fitting all sectors of the economy together in the overall consideration?
Baroness Penn
I agree with the noble Lord about the importance of a longer-term view. He is right that in the last five weeks we have focused on getting immediate support up and running for individuals and businesses, setting out those policies and making them operational, but that does not mean that there is not further work to be done to take into account the longer-term view of this crisis. It is true that facts are changing as we go along—the disease and our knowledge of it are changing—so we will want to take that into account as we develop our long-term plan.