Oral Answers to Questions

Neil Parish Excerpts

Thursday 6th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Heath]

Let us just be clear for the benefit of the hon. Gentleman: if the infected tree is mature, as we are not in the period of sporulation there is no danger to surrounding trees, certainly not at the moment. The advice from the scientific advisers is that it is better to leave mature trees in situ than to fell them. The contrary advice applies to new planting saplings.

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

T7. The people of Halberton and the Environment Agency worked very well when the damage to the canal happened, preventing flooding from occurring throughout the village. However, I want to see better management of our waterways, through farmers and local communities managing water and helping to dredge the rivers, because we are not doing enough to stop the flooding.

[Richard Benyon]

I assure my hon. Friend that we learn lessons from every flooding incident. Although we have implemented Pitt and the other aspects that came from recent floods, we are looking closely at issues such as dredging. I know that that is a concern in his constituency, as it is in Somerset and other places where the belief is that water is held on the ground for too long.

Fisheries

Neil Parish Excerpts

Thursday 6th December 2012 Westminster Hall

[Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to welcome you to the Chair and to speak under your chairmanship, Ms Clark. I congratulate the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Mr Doran) and his hon. Friend the Member for South Down (Ms Ritchie) —she is also my hon. Friend on the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs—on securing the debate, but I echo his concerns that it is not taking place in the main Chamber. Given the level of debate and focus that the issue is achieving, I hope that we can return to the main Chamber in the future.

I am sure that my hon. Friend the Minister will feel that we are between two systems at the moment. I would welcome his views, given that he has just returned from one Fisheries Council and is about to go to another this month, on how the interim arrangements are working. I welcome what the Minister was able to share with the Select Committee yesterday as regards our inshore fishermen, whom a number of hon. Members here represent. In my constituency, just six families now sail three coble boats off Coble landing, at Filey. I hope that everyone will come to visit Filey to see what a tourist attraction it is. There is a real appetite for them to have more quota. I also welcome the Minister’s comments yesterday that shellfish across United Kingdom waters enjoy good health at this time.

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful contribution to the debate. What I am particularly keen to see, especially off the western approaches, where we have very mixed fisheries, is the operation of a better system of quotas, so that we do not throw away a lot of good, healthy cod just because it cannot be landed when it is already dead. I know that my hon. Friend the Minister is working hard on discards, but where there is a mixed fishery, that is particularly difficult.

[Miss McIntosh]

I am most grateful for my hon. Friend’s comments. I will come on to the issue that he raises.

The conclusions that we reached echo what was said by the hon. Member for Aberdeen North. I welcome the fact that there is co-decision. Having spent 10 years as a Member of Parliament and five and a half years advising Members of the European Parliament, I think that it is important that Members of the European Parliament take their responsibilities seriously. I am alarmed at the way this is going. Obviously, it is possible that the proposals will not be adopted finally in their current form. The Minister may want to shed more light on that. Co-decision is welcome, provided that the three institutions—the Commission, the Council of Fisheries Ministers and the European Parliament—take their responsibilities seriously.

Radical reform is needed. We need a new fisheries policy that will deliver for fishermen and coastal communities and for sustainable fishing in our waters. We want an end to the centralised micro-management from Brussels, which by any view has failed. I am very keen to see regionalisation. I do not wish to dance on the head of a pin. What we see from the Commission and what the Minister reported to us is very welcome indeed, but it must be deliverable. I shall say a few more words about that.

The end point that I would like to see would be member states, together with their own fisheries in those waters—for example, the North sea, the Irish sea and the Mediterranean—having a greater say over fisheries policies in their own waters. We must accept that there is no one size that fits all. There is an argument that the Commission should set high-level objectives only and leave regional groupings of member states and regional advisory councils to take the day-to-day decisions. I hope that the Minister will come forward with the register that he has promised us of who owns the quotas

I come now to the issue of discards. Where fish can be discarded at sea and where they have a high survival rate, we must welcome that as a sustainable form of fisheries management. I am concerned that we will swap discards at sea for discards on land. We need to know much more about what the discard policy is, how it will be achievable and the Minister’s reaction to our call for discarding to be slowed down and for us to rely on the science—the excellent work that ICES does. Perhaps a decision should be taken in a longer time frame. The date that we gave in the Select Committee report was 2020. That is something that the Minister may care to share with us.

I make a special plea for inshore fishermen in relation to the future policy. I have mentioned that. I would like to recognise and congratulate, because it is based in Copenhagen in my second homeland, ICES on the excellent work that it is doing. It is staggering that past fisheries reforms have proceeded on a base of inaccurate science. If we have learned anything, it is that we must proceed on a sound scientific basis, but we also need a workable legal basis. We heard yesterday in the Select Committee that a decision can be reached in two ways. One is that member states agree the regulation and introduce national legislation to give detailed effect to it. The other way is through a Commission regulation where Council members agree. I would like an assurance from the Minister that that will not enable the Commission to continue to give detailed directives on what the fishing regulations should be. To me, that would not be a step forward at all; it would be no advance whatever.

I was delighted that in the context of preparing our report, we had the opportunity to visit some fishermen in the small community of Gilleleje in northern Denmark, on the main island of Zealand. We saw the nets that they were preparing under an agreement that has been reached in their own waters, the Kattegat and Skagerrak, which are fished by Danish and Swedish fishermen only. They have reached a very positive decision about how the fish should be fished. The mesh sizes and all the other detailed analysis have been agreed by the fishermen and by their own Governments. Therefore, it is staggering to know from the Commission that that has not been given legal effect. If it is the model to be used going forward, we need to know from the Minister, from the Commission and from the other institutions involved that whatever emerges from regionalisation, it will be deliverable.

There is a groundswell of support for regionalisation. I was delighted when a Commission official told me in a recent meeting in Cyprus of fellow Chairs of Select Committees in other Parliaments that it is also being supported by Mediterranean countries. However, that will mean nothing if agreement cannot be reached and if it is not given legal effect, so what assurance can the Minister give us today that regionalisation will work and will deliver for UK sustainable fishing and for the fishermen and coastal communities that are so dependent on our fisheries?

What is the time frame? It is rather alarming that we may not reach a decision during the Irish presidency. It then goes to Lithuania, which will be presiding for the first time. After that, it is the Greeks—need I say more. I wish the Minister extremely well in his endeavours. I am sure that he has the full support of the House.

Flooding

Neil Parish Excerpts

Monday 26th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

I thank the Secretary of State and Ministers for keeping us informed by phone about the problems. I have had flooding in Bampton, Tiverton and Cullompton, and the canal has broken its banks at Holberton. Feniton has now flooded in 2007, 2008 and 2012. One of the problems is that, although the local authorities have resisted more houses, the inspector has allowed them, despite flooding in the village. We need to ensure that inspectors have the same views on flooding as the Government and local authorities.

[Mr Paterson]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend’s constituents, who are stoic under these very difficult circumstances. I stress that the NPPF is absolutely clear on this: it is the intention that developments should not happen on floodplains. He is absolutely right to raise the issue and he should bring it to the attention of all those involved in planning locally.

Groceries Code Adjudicator Bill [Lords]

Neil Parish Excerpts

Monday 19th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to speak in this debate and to follow the hon. Member for East Lothian (Fiona O'Donnell), whose remarks I echo. This has been a great cross-party debate and Members want to make sure that the Bill is good and right. I also welcome the fact that Ministers from the Departments for Business, Innovation and Skills and for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs are at one on this. Even the Select Committees are united. There is parliamentary unity on the Bill, so this must be one of the greatest moments of all time.

I say to the Ministers that the Bill will need to have real teeth, for the simple reason that one of this country’s retail traders has more than 30% of the trade, a larger turnover than many small countries, and huge powers. It is a great idea to name and shame retailers, but we need to have the powers to fine them and to keep fining them. If they do not adhere in the first instance, there must be real pain, by which I do not mean tuppence ha’penny from the billions of pounds of turnover; the fine has to mean business. We have to turn this situation around.

I am not here to slam the supermarkets—they do a great deal of good—but we have to make sure that enough money cascades from what the consumer pays for his or her product at the supermarket back down to both the producer and the grower.

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

I endorse what my hon. Friend is saying and I know that the growers and producers in Northumberland will support this Bill wholeheartedly. What robust measures does he think would genuinely hold the supermarkets to account?

--- Later in debate ---

[Neil Parish]

I would like to see fines incorporated into the Bill—I am sure that the Government will listen when it is debated in Committee—so that there is real pain. I believe that the threat of fines, as well as that of naming and shaming, will help make sure that not too many of the large retailers will have to go before the adjudicator. If they have nothing to hide and if their retail trade practices are right, they will have nothing whatsoever to fear, either from the Bill or from potential fines.

It is not only the producer who is at risk in these trades. Many of the direct contracts that the supermarkets have with farmers in the dairy and meat trades are excellent. However, supermarkets may decide to have a price war and to reduce their prices, perhaps by using these products as loss leaders. That is wonderful for consumers, provided that it is the supermarkets who pay for those loss leaders, and that they do not go back down the chain and squeeze not only the producer, but the processor.

[Guy Opperman]

I know that my hon. Friend is a champion of the dairy industry. The Minister who will respond to this debate is the Minister who responded to the dairy debate in Westminster Hall. Does my hon. Friend agree that the dairy industry is the biggest example that we can cite of a price compromise affecting the farmer and the producer such that they effectively go out of business?

[Neil Parish]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. Much work was done by the previous farming and food Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Sir James Paice), to get voluntary dairy codes in place. The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath) is carrying on that good work. The hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Roger Williams) said that we need to be sure that the groceries code adjudicator will be able to look at the voluntary codes and contracts. I repeat that it is essential that a share of the money that the consumer pays for his or her product goes to the processor and the producer.

We are moving into a world of some 7 billion people. That world does not have oceans of cheap food. In many ways, that is a good thing, but it is also difficult for consumers across the world. There are people in this country who are struggling to buy food and it is essential that they get a good deal. However, in order to get a good deal, we must ensure that the producer, be it of milk, beef, lamb, carrots, potatoes or other vegetables, gets a return. If they get a return on their investment, they will produce more food and do so efficiently. That is the way to ensure that we can deliver products at a good price on the supermarket shelf.

Some of the ways in which large buyers and retailers have abused their position over the years have made food prices higher rather than lower. In the short term, when the supermarkets have a price war that drives prices down, it seems like the consumer is getting a good deal, but it drives many people out of business, meaning that there is less production than there was before.

Until now it has been possible to go around the world and bring in the extra product that is needed. However, to take the meat sector, where is the beef that is out there in the world? Forty years ago, the Chinese were eating 500,000 tonnes of beef a year. Now, they are eating 5 million tonnes of beef a year. The UK produces about 1 million tonnes of beef, so one can see that instead of eating half as much beef as we produce, China is now eating five times that amount. All the beef that used to be sloshing around in Brazil and Argentina, which could once be bought cheaply and used, dare I say it, to drive down the price of beef in this country, is no longer there. That is why it is important not only to get things right for the consumer and the trade, but to ensure that we will have reasonably priced food in the future.

In the summer, 3,000 dairy farmers protested outside Westminster, and we had a huge meeting. It was absolutely right for the farmers to protest. They had some of the worst weather that I have seen in my lifetime, and the cost of producing milk went up while the price went down. However, is it right that those farmers with family farms have to march up the hill every time and show how desperate they are to make a fair living? Is it right that we have to use social media to name and shame supermarkets? Again, the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire made that point. It is not right. There is something wrong with the process of trade in this country, and that is why the groceries code adjudicator is so important.

We set much store by the Bill. Other hon. Members referred to the common agricultural policy and the single farm payments. All Members want farmers to get more money and more of their income. Farmers would much rather have more of their income from the market—from what they produce—than from what they receive in the single farm payment. They would thus not be so vulnerable to the politics of not only Britain, but the European Union.

The rising population, the need to produce more food from the same amount of land throughout the world, global warming, and the fact that northern Europe and Britain will need to produce much more food, mean that we should be able to get a good price for that food. However, if we have not got the market right, the price of food will not go back to the producer, and we will not produce the amount of food that we need.

There is a need for food security, and a moral issue about producing food. Some people in the world cannot afford to eat and it is therefore important that we produce more food—sustainably, and in an environmentally and animal-welfare friendly way. That is what our consumers want: to be sure that, when they go to a supermarket or a small retailer, they get they get a fair deal, and that that also applies to the producer and the grower, not only in this country, but in developing countries. Our supermarkets often do not give producers throughout the world a fair deal. Let us hope that the groceries code adjudicator can do that.

We have rightly talked a lot about the retailer and the producer today, but we must remember that nearly 500,000 people in this country are involved in food processing, and 80% of the food that they process is grown and produced in this country. The Bill is therefore good not only for the producer but for the processor and I believe that, in the end, it will be good for our supermarkets.

Much as one would perhaps enjoy a major war with the supermarkets and the big retailers, it is ultimately not a war that we want because where do 70%, 80% or even 90% of the population buy their food? They buy it in supermarkets—they want to shop there. We must be sure that, when they shop, the groceries code adjudicator will have enough teeth to ensure that the consumer, the producer and the processor—everyone in the food chain—get a fair deal.

[Mr Spencer]

Does my hon. Friend acknowledge that farmers need to bear some of the responsibility? Many dairy farmers, instead of selling to a co-operative, decided to trade direct. If they stuck together, they would be much stronger. Some farmers almost pay gate money to obtain those direct contracts, and steal contracts from other farmers, thereby contributing to their own downfall.

[Neil Parish]

I welcome my hon. Friend’s intervention. I often say that farmers’ great strength is their independence, although that can also be their great weakness. I welcome the deal between Milk Link and Arla Foods because this country now has a co-operative that controls some 25% of the milk, giving it real clout in the marketplace. It is right for farmers to come together and co-operate, and the Bill will help such co-operation within the farming, processing and retail sectors. As I said, no retailer has anything to fear from the groceries code adjudicator if they have the correct practices, and that is right. Finally, I say again that the Government welcome this Bill, but the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee and the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee must look to put real fines in place so that those who abuse the grocery trade can be brought to book, and not only named and shamed, but properly fined.

Ash Dieback Disease

Neil Parish Excerpts

Monday 12th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

It is very sad that the House of Commons cannot come together today to tackle this disease. The Opposition’s attempt to land a blow on the Government in this regard is absolute nonsense. There is no doubt that, as the relevant map shows, a lot of the disease comes across from the continent. No Government, irrespective of their political persuasion, can stop what blows on the wind. Therefore, we must concentrate on how we are going to deal with this disease. We must look for ash trees that will be immune in future, so that we can take the seeds from them and grow them. As the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Roger Williams) said, we do not want to see the decimation that we experienced with Dutch elm disease. Indeed, I saw that on my own farm: the decimation of massive trees that were hundreds of years old. We have never really recovered from that: every time a tree grows, it catches the disease again perhaps 10 or 15 years later. We want to ensure that the ash tree is there for the future.

We must also be certain that the single market, the great wonder of the European Union, is not abused. The trouble is that no Government can stop the import of ash trees until they have proved that they have the disease, and by that time it is too late. That really has to be put right. We are surrounded by water—let us hope that not every disease can be blown across the channel—and Britain could develop the same methods that Australia and New Zealand have developed in trying to keep disease out of the country. We must ensure that we breed ash trees in this country—that we do not export the seed to Holland, where the trees are then grown, and then import the trees back again. The industry itself must take some responsibility here. When the disease is on the continent, it is absolute nonsense to keep this trade going backwards and forwards. Given the existence of the single market, it is very difficult to stop it, but we need to change things.

I want Britain to have beautiful trees into the future. As Members have pointed out, there are many diseases out there that we need to tackle, so let us adopt a positive approach. I praise what Ministers and the Secretary of State are doing to analyse where all the diseased trees are located, so that we can act quickly. We cannot simply stop the disease by chopping down all the ash trees that have it—the saplings, yes; but the mature trees, we cannot. Let us hope that some of those trees survive and that from those, we can grow the great ash trees that we want to see.

The lesson in all this is that we cannot keep exporting and importing trees, bringing disease with them. I look forward to a positive message from Ministers on research and maintaining “fortress Britain” so far as growing trees and keeping out disease is concerned, and then perhaps repopulating trees across Europe. I repeat my first point: I am very sad that the Opposition have made such a thing of this. I respect what the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) did while he was Secretary of State; he has taken a much more responsible attitude.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

To resume his seat no later than 6.40, Dr Julian Lewis.

Common Agricultural Policy

Neil Parish Excerpts

Thursday 1st November 2012 Westminster Hall

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Chope. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh), the Chair of the Select Committee, for securing the debate.

First, I want to say that I am probably a very sad case, because I spent 10 years in the European Parliament, and all that time was spent on the agriculture committee, which I chaired from January 2007 to June 2009. I am actually waiting for the men in white coats to come and get me; I am sure they will, before too long. The only thing that gives me some recompense is the knowledge that I will probably not be the only one who is taken away. It is a good idea to debate greening the common agricultural policy. Like the Chair of the Committee, I want to start with some history—how we have come to the place we are in—and the issue of the mythical level playing field that farmers always seek, but that often seems further and further away.

We not only do not have a level playing field across the 27 member states of the European Union, but do not have a level playing field in the United Kingdom, because we have three different agricultural policies. The policy in England is to spread payments across the land and is not so historically based on the number of cattle and sheep kept, whereas in Wales and Scotland payments are made entirely on the basis of historical payments made to farmers between 2000 and 2001-02. There is no doubt but that we must look again at some of the systems of payment, because it is ridiculous to base an agricultural policy from 2014-15 to 2020 on payments made to farmers in 2001-02.

Another issue, which is probably more European, is that Estonia receives €70 per hectare and Greece €500 per hectare, so there will have to be a little bit of levelling of those payments. When in the European Parliament, I was not always admired by the French and Germans when I said, “In 2004, when the new member states came in, they were not equal, but by the time we get to 2014-15 and later, they ought to be much more equal.” Those payments will have to be levelled, like it or not, across the EU. The one good thing for British farmers is that we are somewhere in the middle of the payment table, between Estonia and Greece, so should not be affected too badly by some sort of levelling. If there is to be any form of common policy, the level of payment across Europe needs to be considered.

The CAP was started in 1962 by five member states to produce food after the war, and it was successful in producing food until the 1980s, when there was a lot of food in the world and Europe was subsidising it. When there was too much food in Europe, we put it on the developing world’s markets, destroying their markets. Something had to be done about that. We were subsiding Greek tobacco, for instance. One can argue about whether it is right or wrong to subsidise food and food production, but to use good taxpayers’ money to subsidise tobacco takes a little bit of working out, especially when one third of the tobacco grown in Greece was burnt in heaps on the ground, one third was reasonable quality and the other third was dumped on developing-world markets, leading to Zimbabwe and other countries having trouble with this dodgy tobacco.

We have to face up to the fact that it is no good producing food for the sake of it. The idea of CAP reforms was to move towards an environmental, land-based payment. That is being done to some degree. It is also useful from a world trade point of view, because payments are put into the so-called green box and are not directly linked to production, and so can technically be made to farmers without distorting the international market for food. That also means that we are not directly subsidising the number of cattle or the number of hectares—in real money, acres—of corn, and so on, to produce more food.

We have rightly moved in that direction, but as we move into 2012-13 and onwards, we should recognise that we are living in a different world. The Labour Government, slightly belatedly, worked out that there was a need for food and food production. I attended a Morrisons breakfast the other morning. We were talking about the affordability of food. There is no doubt—I do not level the charge at Morrisons in particular—that certain big buyers over the years have looked around the world to buy reasonably cheap food. However, now there are not vast amounts of cheap food to be had out in the world. China was eating 500,000 tonnes of beef 40 years ago, but is now eating 5 million tonnes of beef. The United Kingdom produced 1 million tonnes, but China is now eating five times the amount of beef that we produce. The beef produced in Brazil, Argentina and other countries that produce lots of beef is not necessarily finding its way on to our markets; it is finding its way into China. Therefore, food and raw material prices are higher.

Although the CAP must be greened, it also has to reflect the fact that we need food that is produced at an economic price that our consumers can afford. I am a farmer—I declare an interest—and farmers would like the prices that they are paid for food to be higher. Of course, consumers are having to pay more. We should ensure that enough of the money that the consumer pays the retailer for his or her food gets back into the producer’s—the farmer’s—pocket. Although that is not necessarily part of CAP greening, it is relevant to agriculture and farmers’ incomes.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point about food prices. Does he agree that, although people always say that farmers receive subsidies, as if those are going straight into their back pocket, the truth is that in a lot of cases farm subsidies in recent decades have subsidised a cheap-food policy? Household expenditure on food has been falling for many decades, and that has reversed only recently.

[Neil Parish]

The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point. The payments coming to farmers have encouraged them to produce food—in many ways quite rightly—and helped to keep the price of food down for the consumer. It is only now, in recent times, with 7 billion people and rising in the world, that more food has been needed, and its price is going up.

In recent times, the prices of fertiliser, fuel and all those inputs that are needed to produce food have doubled. Therefore, the key is to consider an agricultural policy that is not only green, but looks to ensure that food that can be produced sustainably, is supported. This point has been made many times before, but if we look at our upland and hill farming, why are our hills so green and pleasant? Because they are farmed, and because there is stock on those hills. We need to consider that in respect of the CAP, because again—I am probably a little bit more controversial than some in this regard—it is no good just making a general payment across all farmers in future; we must look at the way that those payments are made.

Does the East Anglian farmer on the fens, who can produce 4 or 5 tonnes of wheat per hectare, necessarily need the same payment as the farmer struggling on the hills? Is it not time that we found a way for the farmer in East Anglia, who could carry on producing good wheat, to trade his environmental payments with somebody farming on the hills? In Britain there is not a shortage of land used for conservation and agri-environment schemes; nearly two thirds of the land is in one scheme or another.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

I attended the same breakfast as the hon. Gentleman; it was a good discussion. On the important point that he is making, is there a case for the Minister engaging in that? In respect of high levels of CAP payment, particularly to the large agri-industrialist arable farmers towards the top end, there may be a case to be made for ensuring that the additional money from taxpayers is used for increased innovation, research and development, and more targeted and accurate farming, so that the productivity, not just production levels, on such farms is massively increased as a result of using taxpayers’ money.

[Neil Parish]

The shadow Minister is exactly right, and he leads me down a path towards making a point on which not all will agree with me, which is that the one thing that is being denied to European and British farmers is biotechnology and science. No other industry in this country is hampered by not being able to use the best science. A blight-resistant potato used for starch production is in existence. Eventually, we will have a blight-resistant potato fit for human consumption; will we then deny ourselves the use of it? Many in the House are better historians than me, but was it not potato blight that caused the potato famine in Ireland? Solving the problem of having to spray potatoes 20 times a year—probably more this year, because of the terrible weather conditions—would be a great bonus. Similarly, as always promised, we might soon have nitrogen-enhancing wheats and oilseed rapes. Will Europe deny itself those, too?

As a Government, we need to be a little more proactive in discussing biotechnology. It is not for the Monsantos and Syngentas to promote it, but perhaps for our universities and others, so that we can tell people about the possible green bonus from crops that need to be sprayed less and that use less artificial fertiliser—all part of science and technology.

[George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)]

On science, technology and innovation, as my hon. Friend knows, because he has attended meetings of the all-party group on science and technology in agriculture, of which I am chair, the Government have just launched a call for evidence on precisely that—a strategy for agricultural science and research, as part of a comprehensive life sciences strategy. Does he agree that, as we think about greening the CAP, we should consider how Europe’s farming and its agriculture, science and research base, often led by this country, can play a part globally in tackling the challenge of sustainable intensification, as laid out in the foresight report?

[Neil Parish]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. I congratulate him on chairing the all-party group. We need to bring to the attention of the world what is needed, with biotechnology. We have a moral duty not only to look after the environment, but to feed people. As there is more and more global warming, northern Europe, and we in particular, will need to produce more and more food, and using biotechnology is the way forward. Europe, however, has dragged its feet, as has this country. The debate would be worth having if the potential for environmental and productive gains and slightly cheaper food could be presented to the British public, and if they could see some financial benefits—people’s hearts are on the left and their pockets are on the right.

If we look at the protein that we feed our chickens, our pigs in particular, and our dairy cows, most comes from South America and America, and most is genetically modified soya, so the idea that we are living in a world free from GM is absolutely wrong. The Americans, dare I say it—I never was politically correct—might in part be slightly overweight, but they have not died from eating GM products, which have been used to good effect in America. If we want a more competitive agriculture in Europe and Britain, denying ourselves GM in the future would be wrong. A Government who brought up that subject for debate would be brave, although I think that the public might just about be ready for it. I am interested in what our new Agriculture Minister will say. I am tempting him, ever so slightly, to comment on the subject.

We have some good stewardship schemes in this country, probably among the best in Europe. The trouble is that the Ciolos reform is trying to go down to the lowest common denominator. Of the 27 countries, some have monocultures of maize, maize and more maize, so Ciolos is trying to bring in such things as a four-crop rotation, but if we have land in stewardship schemes or permanent pasture, or hill land that is extremely valuable for its landscape, the last thing we want to do is encourage farmers to plough up part of it. Some of what is coming through from Ciolos, therefore, is complete madness. One idea is that every farm has to have 7% set aside, but some farms have anywhere between 20% and 40% of their land in a stewardship scheme—some more—while other, highly productive farms are much better off producing food and getting on with it. That is why “one size fits all” is not the way forward, as my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton said.

We will have to fight hard in Europe—I look forward to the Minister fighting his corner—because in this country we run very productive farms. We farm pretty competitively. When some of my farmers in the west country get excited if the Commission talks about small farmers, I warn them, “Don’t get too excited,” because the Commission means farmers of about 5 acres, or 2 hectares, not farmers of 50, 100 or 150 acres. Poland has more farmers than the rest of the European Union, or certainly did when it entered, because it has so many small farms. Be careful when the Commission offers handouts to small farmers, because it does not mean ours.

That brings me to a key point. As we green the CAP, what is needed is agricultural environmental policy, and at the moment too much social policy is involved. Many member states will talk about labour requirements that very much favour the huge amount of labour on the very small farms in some countries, which will put British farming at a disadvantage. That will also take the CAP from where we want it to go, because the whole idea—probably with cross-party support—is to see farmers not only farming in a green way, but producing food competitively, and we also want them to get more money out of the marketplace. That is where I disagree with the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford), who spoke before me. It is not a matter of finding more money from the CAP to support farming; it is about enabling farmers to be competitive and produce food well. I do, however, agree with the need to look much more at what land is given the CAP payments; that is where Scotland may well benefit.

[Dr Whiteford]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman on his latter point, because in Scotland we have some serious disadvantages, in the kind of land that we have, its quality and its location. My key point was that the proportion we get of the overall CAP budget, whatever its size, needs to be more equitable.

[Neil Parish]

I understand exactly where the hon. Lady is coming from, but looking at Scotland, dare I question whether the highlands and the bare rocks need the same payment as some land that can be farmed, such as grasslands? Averages of payment throughout Scotland are interesting. How I dare even suggest such things, I do not know—I do not want to get into a war with Scotland—but there are statistics and statistics.

We are at a crossroads, and at a place where Britain is well in advance of others, with regard to environment payments. We need to ensure that we can pay for those payments. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton that modulation is unfair to British farmers. However, I also know that the Treasury is not noted for its generosity, and if we do not modulate, we will not have enough money to pay for our stewardship schemes. If the Minister and the Secretary of State with responsibility for agriculture went cap in hand to the Treasury, saying, “We already receive £2 billion or £3 billion from the CAP, but we need more money from the Treasury to prop up stewardship schemes,” I suspect that they would be told in good Anglo-Saxon terms to go on their way. As we negotiate the new agricultural policy, we must ensure that those stewardship schemes are funded through it in some shape or form. We must be careful when we say that we will throw the modulation out with the bathwater, because that may not be the right way forward.

This debate is a great opportunity, and I wish Ministers well in their negotiations. The argument in Europe is always that we should have an agricultural policy for the whole of Europe and a budget to fit that policy, but in the real politics of the European Union, there is a budget for agriculture, and agricultural policy is then fitted to that budget. That is exactly what will happen this time.

We must get the best deal for our farmers and the environment. I wish our new Minister and the Secretary of State well in their negotiations with our European partners. We must be tough to ensure that we move our agriculture forward to competitive food production and a green agriculture policy, but we must not lose sight of the fact that in the end, much of the food that our farmers produce is also part of the green environment.

[George Eustice (Camborne and Redruth) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that a problem with a one-size-fits-all policy such as the CAP is that it is difficult to have policy innovation, because any such innovation is stifled by the need for negotiations between 27 member states? Does he think it might be better gradually to move to a system with a common agricultural policy with common objectives—safeguarding the environment, improving animal welfare, and food security—so that those policies are increasingly delivered on the ground by national Governments from their own budgets, and we do not recycle funds through the EU in the first place?

[Neil Parish]

Yes. My hon. Friend raises a good point. What needs to be brought in is not only a policy, but co-financing, because each member state would then pay for its own agricultural policy, and might not be quite so keen on throwing money away on strange projects, as some countries do. Olive oil is produced in Greece, and reindeer are supported in north Finland and Sweden. Wheat and barley are grown across much of Europe, and rice is grown in parts of Italy and Greece. It is difficult to support a policy and have one aim. It would be much better to ensure that member states had their own money. The downside of that is that we do not want the French throwing all its money into supporting suckler cows and beef production, and that highly subsidised beef then coming across the channel to compete with our beef, which may not be subsidised in the same way.

[George Eustice]

I completely accept that point, but does my hon. Friend agree that for any other goods, and in any other part of the single market, state aid rules, which the European Court of Justice enforces, prevent that from happening? It would be possible to have an agricultural policy with common objectives, but delivered nationally, with those state aid rules to prevent the sort of behaviour he mentioned.

[Neil Parish]

My hon. Friend has heard the phrase, “The law works for the law-abiding,” and we can be certain that the French would find every reason to distort the market in their favour, wait until that was challenged by the European Commission, and drag it through the European courts for years, so I am not as sure as he is that state aid rules will stop the French or anyone else distorting the market. We must be careful if we go down that route. State aid rules are a blunt weapon, and I believe the Anglo-Saxons in Europe conform to them more closely than those in other parts of the European Union. State aid rules alone will not be enough.

We must ensure that CAP reform is done in a way that does not distort the market further. We should green it, but have food production, and ensure that as we deal with farmers in this country, we have food production on the best land and increase it sustainably, but have conservation on our more marginal land. That is the way forward, and that is where we must be careful in our negotiations on the greening of the CAP. I look forward to Ministers doing a good job.

--- Later in debate ---

[George Eustice (Camborne and Redruth) (Con)]

Thank you for allowing me to speak, Mr Chope. I am conscious that I was not here for the opening of the debate. The title of the Select Committee’s report is “Greening the Common Agricultural Policy,” but more specifically the Commission’s proposals are about greening pillar one of the CAP. It is worth noting that supporting the greening of pillar one represents quite a significant departure from the long-standing British foreign policy position, which is that we should gradually phase out pillar one and direct payments all together and put our support into pillar two, so that we can have more tailored local and national support for environmental stewardship schemes.

My concern is that by going for the greening of pillar one, we will end up with what is already being called in some circles green taping—rather than red tape, we will have green tape. There will be quite bureaucratic and centralised diktats coming out about what farmers can and cannot do, which invariably will not have been thought through properly. We might lose the opportunity to achieve the more satisfactory long-term objective of removing pillar one altogether and having effective, well thought through countryside stewardship schemes. In recent decades, British Governments of all colours have led the way in developing some of the successful ones. The entry-level and higher-level stewardship schemes are held up as exemplars for others to follow. There is a danger that we will lose that momentum towards a more sensible CAP and end up reverting to and getting bogged down in, again, quite a bureaucratic process.

I shall highlight a few key problems that I see with some of the proposals. There is the idea that we should go back to set-aside. We moved away from set-aside 15 or 20 years ago because it was not working. The point was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) that it is not always right to have just 7% of every farmholding set aside and not farmed intensively. The evidence is that if we really want to encourage wildlife, we should have wildlife corridors. Some parts of the country where the agricultural value of the land is lower might opt to do more of these environmental schemes—

[Neil Parish]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right about the set-aside argument. Do we get value for money in greening with set-aside, counterbalancing the fact that we are taking out a lot of land that could be used for food production? There is a moral duty to produce food as well as taking land out for so-called environmental set-aside.

[George Eustice]

That is right. The environmental stewardship schemes in pillar two are much more proactive about encouraging wildlife and improving biodiversity, whereas the problem with set-aside is that it becomes something that has to be done and everyone finds all sorts of ways around the rules so that, for instance, they can graze a particular type of goat on the land and get away with it. There is an issue with the bureaucratic system of set-aside.

My hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton also alluded to the crop rotation requirement. Anyone who has been a farmer, as I once was, knows that crop rotation is a good thing. A farmer who farms without rotating their crops, particularly in the arable or vegetable sectors, will soon run into problems, such as crop disease, which causes a great deal more expense than any subsidy would have been worth. I question the value of insisting, in the latest proposals, that each farmholding must grow three crops. It proves that whoever came up with the idea is not a farmer; they are a bureaucrat. One could grow three brassicas—cabbage, oilseed rape and cauliflower—which would satisfy the three-crop rule, but the farmer would have clubroot disease in all those crops within two or three years.

I understand why some would regard the proposal to cap subsidies to individual farmholdings as superficially attractive; they think, “Why should we give a huge amount of money to very large farms?” However, no one has thought through the likely impact. Large farmholdings might break themselves into small farmholdings to get around the rules. There would be all sorts of avoidance problems, which would need a suite of anti-avoidance measures and people to ensure that farmers did not break up their holdings to circumvent the provisions. There would be major problems with that, so one must question what we are trying to achieve. If an objective of the CAP always has been and should be to promote food security and competitive farming, why would we want a policy designed to undermine the most productive and efficient farms in Europe and reward the least efficient? Although I understand why some would find the proposal superficially attractive, it is a mistake.

[George Eustice]

That is an interesting proposal, which I would like to look at more closely. I have previously argued that we could develop a system in which environmental obligations became transferable in some regards. The lettuce grower on the Cambridgeshire fens, who has a model that getting the single farm payment is irrelevant to, might forgo the payment, which could instead go to a farmer on more marginal land in, let us say, Wales—I do not want to offend anyone with a Welsh background. Such schemes could therefore receive more investment.

A problem that we all recognise in the EU negotiating process, which I alluded to in my question to my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton, is that rather than going into negotiations saying, “What is the best possible agricultural policy we could design?” and “What is the optimum policy we could pursue?” we are always hamstrung by voices in DEFRA and the civil service that say, “You can’t do that because Denmark won’t agree. If you advance this idea France will reject it, and we will lose our allies in Poland and eastern Europe.” Everything about agricultural policy ends up being seen through the prism of an incredibly complicated 27-way negotiation, which frankly leads to a poverty of vision of what our agricultural policy could become. We instead plod along like a blinkered horse, trying to achieve what we can. It is all about the lowest common denominator, rather than genuinely successful and thoughtful policy. Pillar two is a classic case of that.

[Mr Dai Havard in the Chair]

In the last Parliament, our Committee, before I was on it, criticised the Labour Government for arguing that we should phase out pillar one and have pillar two only, because it was not achievable and undermined our negotiating position. If we do not even articulate what we believe because we are concerned that doing so will undermine our negotiating position, there is a problem.

I would like a much looser CAP in future: a common policy about common objectives. We could set common objectives for improving animal welfare, safeguarding the environment, enhancing biodiversity and promoting food security. There could be much looser policies and arrangements centrally and much more decision making and responsibility for implementation devolved to national Governments.

[Neil Parish]

This will tempt my hon. Friend further from the topic of debate, but would a looser common agricultural policy, or an agriculture policy, be part of a new relationship that we might negotiate with Europe?

[Mr Dai Havard (in the Chair)]

Do not be tempted too far, Mr Eustice.

--- Later in debate ---

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

Among progressive reformers, there has long been a focus on delivering a smaller, greener CAP with a more competitive and productive farming sector, both in the UK and across the EU. Does the Minister agree that yesterday’s vote in Parliament on the question of seeking a real-terms reduction in the next multi-annual financial framework actively assists the Government in pursuing those aims? If so, perhaps he can explain why Ministers were whipped to oppose the motion. Surely yesterday we provided a clear assist to the Government, in strengthening their hand in negotiations on the overall budget, and ultimately in respect of bold CAP reform. We should not forget, with regard to greening and all other matters, that part of this long-advocated reform is intended to reduce the barriers of protectionism, not put more up. It is intended to liberalise trade, which I am sure is supported on both sides of the House.

As well as the need to increase the competitiveness and productivity of UK farming, there is a need to level the playing field across the EU. Let us not forget the need to reduce the trade barriers that disadvantage the poorest farmers in the developing world. We often talk about food security in domestic terms only, but it is also an issue for international trade and developing nations. We urgently need to support growth in agricultural production, especially in the developing world, to feed a rising and poor population.

Let me again commend the forensic work of the EFRA Committee, and then ask the Minister several specific questions on the greening elements of the CAP. First, on a consensual note, we are glad to see the Government continuing with Labour’s focus on a greener CAP, with a greater proportion spent on public goods. We note as well the Government’s commitment

“to a very significant reduction of direct support under Pillar 1 …and a CAP that moves away from market-distorting subsidies.”

We are also glad that the Government are focused on simplification. However, we share the EFRA Committee’s concerns that elements of the proposals, as currently understood, will indeed add to the complexity and the bureaucracy of delivering public goods, including environmental benefits.

The Government must continue to argue in the EU for flexibility for the UK to devise and implement greening measures, to build on what has been referred to in this debate as the great success of the past couple of decades—it is 25 years since we first introduced agri-environment schemes in the UK—and to further those environmental gains. We do not want to destroy our progress or duplicate, overcomplicate or add bureaucracy. One of the things that have not been emphasised as much as they should have been today is the fact that the EU needs to go further. Resting on our laurels, however comfortable, is not an option. Ambitious green reforms need an acknowledgement from Government and from farming leaders that there is more still to do.

I note the Government’s response to the Committee’s concerns, expressed in recommendation 8, about gold-plating greening, in which they restate their high level of ambition for greening across the EU. It is right that we should be ambitious about greening in the UK. Does the Minister agree that, despite all our progress in this area, we need to do more? We need to ensure that there is a level playing field, and that farmers in other nations are stepping up to the green mark, and not finding easy access to indirect payments that support production, thereby disadvantaging UK farmers who are doing the right thing.

The Commission’s impact assessment estimates a 15% increase in administrative burdens linked to direct payments. I hope that the Minister can tell us that he will not be returning to the UK at the end of the negotiations with additional costs and burdens for farmers. What can he tell us of his hopes to achieve simplification and lower costs, alongside the green reforms and public benefits? He understands the concerns about the crop diversification proposals, which, in the UK, could have negative consequences, whereas crop rotation could improve soil and water quality, and help climate change mitigation.

There needs to be flexibility in the ecological focus area proposals to reflect the diversity of UK farming. Perhaps we could use our imagination and modify further the proposal. One suggestion, which is already in play for the Minister, would assist farmers and the environment, and it ties in with ideas proposed by the hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth. It reduces the 7% devoted to EFA to 5% for farmers who are willing to work together to collaborate on projects such as wildlife corridors, and to co-ordinate on a spatial and regional basis to develop those things that help us with climate change adaptation. I have met with large-scale farmers, both out in the fields and here at Westminster, who are already working effectively together on environmental measures, and such an approach, I suspect, would appeal directly to them.

The permanent pasture proposals are in danger of failing to deliver the environmental benefits that they profess to seek.

[Neil Parish]

Not only is there a problem with permanent grass payments, but if we are not careful, farmers will plough up in advance grassland that they would not otherwise have ploughed up if it had not been for this ridiculous measure coming from the Commission.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

Indeed. That is one of the many unintended consequences of devising a central system, which is why it is vital that we have the right flexibilities in place, so that we can sometimes work around this. We will support the Minister in any way that we can on this matter. I remember, at the 11th hour of a three-day CAP meeting, when we had come up with a final list of proposals, a great chap—I will not say what region he came from, to avoid the risk of embarrassing somebody—who had been involved in the negotiations from the fisheries side came up to me and said, “I cannot say this publicly, but well done, Minister. That is the best possible deal we could have had. I am now going to go away and see how we can work around it.” What we do not want is that sort of outcome. We do not want to come up with a complex list of things that people plan to work around. We would rather see the matter simplified. None the less, the hon. Gentleman makes a good point.

I mentioned the permanent pasture proposals. There is a world of difference between valuable permanent pasture that is not ploughed over regularly, which is home to semi-natural vegetation and great biodiversity, and pasture that is periodically cultivated and seeded. How does the Minister intend to negotiate the maximum public good from that proposal?

On exemptions, how does the Minister guard against the fear of double payments and maximise taxpayer benefit? Will he give us more details on the ways the Government will improve the competitiveness and productivity of UK farming while promoting further progress in greening and the achievement of wider public good? What specific measures are the Government working on now, regardless of CAP reform, that will allow both aims to be achieved simultaneously? We do not want the green food project, which has been quite well received, going the same way as the green deal in the Department of Energy and Climate Change, which has over-promised, is forecast to underachieve and is fundamentally flawed. The green food project needs to produce benefits and to bring together all the strands. I am sure that the Minister will be able to stand up and assure us that that is the case.

The Government have had some criticism from the EFRA Committee and others for the late introduction of proposals for a points system that would aid flexibility of the Commission’s proposals on a member state basis. I welcome the proposals, but wonder whether playing this card so late has diminished the chances of success in negotiations. May I also ask the Minister how, in promoting the laudable aim of achieving member state flexibility, we can guard against the use of such flexibility by some member states to dilute their greening imperatives? Does not that risk mean that the Commission will strictly have to constrain any flexibility, and what impact will that have on the Government’s ability to deliver for farmers in the UK while trying to guard against the dangers of flexibility among other EU nations? I notice that the Minister is chuckling, but he knows what I am talking about.

In short, flexibility at member state level is not just desirable but essential, but it cannot be allowed, in other nations, to add to the very real cost for UK farmers and consumers. It cannot be allowed to become a euphemism for an abdication of environmental responsibility.

The Minister has a lot on his plate, but if he tires, I am more than willing to step in and pick up where I left off. That would of course require this Government to step aside, so it may not be an option for the moment. Meanwhile, I genuinely wish him well in continuing negotiations on greening, and on all other aspects of CAP reform. Labour will support where we can, and we will challenge where we should, to achieve the outcome that is good for farmers, consumers, taxpayers and the environment—a smaller, greener CAP, and a more competitive and productive farming sector. I am talking about a one-nation approach to CAP reform where the many, not the few, gain.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Heath]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Mr Havard, we are going to have an embarrassing degree of consensus in Westminster Hall today on an awful lot of this material, because we have very strong common ground across the political parties and across the nations and regions.

I must say that it was not always so. When agri-environmental schemes were introduced, I remember that in my part of the world in particular there was a huge outcry about the “imposition”, as it was described, of agri-environmental schemes on the Somerset levels. People were very upset about what was happening, and then effigies of Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food officials were burned on the levels. We get very excited about these things in my part of the world—we are all revolting peasants at heart.

[Neil Parish]

indicated assent.

[Mr Heath]

My hon. Friend will agree with that contention, as I know where he comes from.

The confidence in agri-environmental schemes is, as the hon. Member for Ogmore says, the result of careful preparation and consideration, as well as ensuring that everybody understood not only what they were to do, but the reasons why they were to do it and why the schemes would have an effect.

That is partly the answer to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton about modulation. From our point of view, it is essential that we are able to ensure the continuation of these schemes, and the way that we can do that is to make sure that there are the funds within pillar two that enable us to maintain them. It is not just the agri-environmental stewardship schemes that matter, although they are important. It is also through one of the other things that she mentioned—the rural development programme for England—that we can deliver the other added benefits and the public good, by the use of modulated payments. We must be very conscious of that.

My hon. Friend also made a specific point about the exit from the schemes. I hope that the Government response to the Committee’s report set out the position of someone who has signed up to a 10-year involvement, which is clearly the legal position. However, if difficulties arise after we have concluded the negotiations and if the new schemes clearly require us to look again at transition, I will be happy to talk to her, the rest of the Select Committee and indeed other interested parties about that, to ensure that people are not penalised for something that is outwith anything that they might reasonably have expected. That is because my determination is that farmers who enter into agri-environmental stewardship schemes have the confidence that, in doing so, they are not shackling their businesses to something that they do not want to do and are not making a rod for their own back. Instead, they should have the confidence that the scheme will continue and will provide the support they need for them to do the things that they want to do, both in running their businesses on that land and in achieving the environmental benefits for the wider good. I happily give my hon. Friend that assurance.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Heath]

I note what the hon. Gentleman says about flexibility. That is certainly what we are trying to achieve. We want the flexibility to apply practical, effective and simple measures for our farmers. I thought that he ended a sentence in his speech with, “We want flexibility in the United Kingdom but not in other nations”. I thought, “Right. Yes, just stop there,” but I do not think that that is an achievable negotiating position. To be fair, he did carry on with his sentence.

Let us be absolutely clear: we want to achieve an environmental benefit across Europe, but we do not want to lose our high standards. We are engaging, therefore, with the European Commission, the European Parliament and other member states to ensure that there is flexibility in the EU’s approach to greening.

My hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton requested an update on the process. It will be extremely difficult to offer the precision that she requires. Many different views are being expressed within the Agriculture Council and the European Parliament, and much will depend on the outcome of the overall budget negotiations. As Members have already said, until that budget is completed we will not know what the quantum is, and it would be difficult to resolve many of the CAP issues without knowing the size of that envelope.

There is a move by the Cypriot presidency to achieve a partial general agreement, before the end of the year and the end of its EU presidency. Such an agreement will come about only if we are satisfied that we have something that is sustainable in all its senses, and as far as the UK is concerned I think that we are some distance from that. I expect—this is no more than an expectation—that it is more likely that we shall come to a conclusion during the Irish presidency, following the conclusion of the budget round.

My hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton asked whether we have allies. Yes, we do. As always with European negotiations, there is a constantly changing kaleidoscope on different issues, but there are member states that clearly understand our points about flexibility and complexity and about how we can achieve the results, rather than focusing on an incomplete understanding of how we can best achieve better environmental benefits across Europe. It would probably be unhelpful at this stage in the negotiations to be numbering our friends and our enemies, because someone’s friend on one issue will often be their opponent on another.

Let me make it plain that we are not opposed to the concept of greening if it delivers greater public benefits from taxpayer expenditure. That is our clear position—the hon. Member for Bristol East made that point—and we want it to be achieved in a way that recognises the wide diversity of agriculture around the European Union. I just do not believe in the one-size-fits-all approach. It is hard to find such an approach even within the United Kingdom, as the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan said. Circumstances are different within England itself, with a hill farm in the Pennines being different from a cereal farm in East Anglia, and different parameters apply. I entirely agree with the EFRA Committee’s view that a one-size-fits-all approach might lose its relevance when applied to particular circumstances, and certainly when applied to our own.

Each of the areas proposed by the Commission initially, which were crop diversification, the retention of permanent pasture and the need for a proportion of land to be designated as ecological focus areas, has the capacity to divide opinion—informed opinion, because of exactly the points that Members have made today. Each measure contains the essence of a good idea—there is something there in the initial thinking—but the environmental benefits are not clear when the proposals are considered in the light of our own circumstances. I know that many other European Union member states are forming the same view, particularly when the supposed benefits are considered in the light of the costs and complexities of implementation. It is not obvious that the money should be spent in a way that more demonstrably delivers complexity rather than environmental benefit, which is crucial.

It is fair, and not unkind to Commissioner Ciolos, to say that a particularly remarkable aspect of the greening debate in Brussels is the fact that the Commission seems to have few, if any, supporters for the precise way forward that it has proposed. I would take some comfort from that if I saw a majority in favour of an alternative, but at the moment there are only many minorities.

Some countries have yet to be convinced about the basics, about the further shift towards paying farmers for delivering environmental public goods. They see ideals that we have long shared in this country as an expensive luxury at a time of economic difficulty, and we have to be alive to that view. There are attempts by some to water the proposals down and exempt the majority of their farmers. It is funny how definitions always exempt a member state’s own farmers from their effects—that is known as greenwashing. There are issues about greening by definition, and we do not want this to be a badge of convenience, with people carrying on exactly as before but with the application of greater funding, as that cannot be in anyone’s interest.

[Neil Parish]

The Minister makes an interesting point. There are cases in Europe of people wanting to exempt small farmers from a lot of the conditions. In countries where the majority of the land is made up of very small farms, all the greening aspects get taken out because the farmers are ruled out of them.

[Mr Heath]

Precisely so. Time and again people pay lip service to a “very good idea” but somehow it then does not apply to their own circumstances. We have to be wary of that and not fall into the same trap.

If we are to go down a route of some form of greening by definition—to which there is some advantage, in reducing complexity and allowing for easier systems—it has to be on the basis of something that shows the environmental benefit. I would argue, for instance, that our stewardship schemes do that. We could demonstrate beyond anyone’s reasonable doubt that our environmental schemes show a clear commitment to environmental benefits on the land within their compass. If we extend the self-definition too far, however, we get to the point at which simply having a hedge is sufficient qualification to be a greened farm. That is not an adequate definition.

Other member states share our view that this is basically the right direction for the CAP to be moving in, but that the Commission’s proposals are too blunt, too inflexible and too complex in their implementation. We have heard a few examples of that. The hon. Member for Banff and Buchan talked about the definition of “active farmer,” and my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) pointed out that quite a lot of Scotland is not farmed as intensively as most parts of England because of the nature of the ground. Yes, that is true, but the Scots have a case with, for instance, grazed heather, and we are helping to press that case strongly in the negotiations on behalf of the Scottish Government, with whom we have very close contacts, as we do with the other devolved Administrations.

With tenants, there is a question of who is the active farmer. It is far more important to identify the activity, rather than the status, of the person doing the farming. I hope we can move in that direction. I have already mentioned hill farming, and in the negotiations we have to be alive to the interests of less favoured areas. I said as much when I was in Cumbria recently and, not surprisingly, I received a measure of support, but we have to be conscious of the fact that there are many different types of farming, and we need to have something that, as far as possible, can accommodate those differences.

The hon. Member for Ogmore and others mentioned capping—I am sorry, but I cannot remember who provided the response. With the proposals on capping and young farmers, for instance, it is all too easy for lawyers simply to adjust the holding to fit the policy, rather than change what is happening. I am wary of that. I want to maintain the incentives, the competitiveness and all the rest. Although I can sometimes see the advantages of such proposals, I do not want the nominal ownership of an enterprise to be changed simply to create a money stream that would not otherwise be there, because that is not in the interests of efficient farming or the objectives that we have set.

Badger Cull

Neil Parish Excerpts

Thursday 25th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

I want to concentrate on the effect of TB-infected herds on farmers, especially in the west country, particularly in Devon. For nearly 20 years, and certainly for the past 15 years, cases have been increasing. In Devon, we started off in 1998 with some 1,700 infected cattle, and now there are 5,000-plus. We should not forget that those farmers who have herds with TB have been restricted throughout that period, when they have been testing their cattle every 60 days. Under restriction, dairy farmers can sell their milk and beef farmers their finished animals, provided that they do not have TB, but they cannot sell any young stock. They are restricted throughout the period, so one can imagine the effect on family farms and their finances.

I declare an interest: I am a farmer. Most hon. Members will not have heard me say anything else but that. Farmers whose cattle are restricted and who cannot sell their young stock see only an ever-rising overdraft. Not to put too fine a point on it, every time the bank statement arrives, farmers feel suicidal. They are trapped because nothing can be done; they cannot rid their cattle of the disease. There is not only the emotional impact, but the impact on all the cattle of being for ever tested. Cattle do not like being put through a crush every 60 days and injected. Would any of us? Those are the sorts of things that we have to face up to.

We have talked a lot today about vaccines, which are always a year away. For 20 years, farmers have been told that. The last Labour Government spent virtually all the time saying that to farmers. I have much respect for the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick), but the last Labour Government got very close to having a cull and they chickened out, which the Secretary of State has no intention of doing.

[Angela Smith]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Neil Parish]

No, I think not. I want to carry on in this vein.

I object to Opposition Members’ comments that farmers have not restricted cattle movement. There have been a few such cases, but the vast majority of farmers have had ever-stricter regulations imposed on them. They clean those cattle; every summer and winter, they come in and are tested and the TB reactors are taken out. In the spring, those cattle are put back out to grass. I might be being simplistic, but they then graze on grass infected with badger urine. Do not forget that whatever the percentage of badgers with TB, we can be certain that the biggest percentage of infected badgers are where the most TB is in cattle, so they are giving it to one another. However, we are taking out cattle with TB, but we are not taking out and controlling badgers.

We know that the vaccine will not work on infected badgers. Government Members are not bloodthirsty. We do not love the idea of a cull, but we must take out badgers in those areas with the highest concentration of infected badgers. We must not forget that these are pilot culls in areas that have been chosen because they are TB hot spots with harder boundaries. Yes, badgers will cross roads, but with a large motorway, a river or the sea, there will be much less perturbation. We all accept that there will be some, but if it can be restricted, that is right.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Neil Parish]

No, I will not, because I did give way earlier. I will carry on.

This is mainly an Opposition Back-Bench debate—[Interruption.] I did say “mainly”. If one looks at the list of speakers, I would not be far wrong. But it is the Government Benches rather than the Opposition Benches that are packed out. We have real concern about prevaricating and doing nothing, as the previous Labour Government did, and the Government are making a real effort to control the disease.

Badger numbers are interesting. Let us not forget that the Badger Trust has argued for years that there are not such numbers of badgers in the country, but the badger population has continually increased and become more diseased. As that population grows, badgers become more adventurous and are much more likely to enter cattle sheds and infect cattle. Increased numbers of badgers and diseased badgers create a problem not only for cattle, but for wildlife and wildlife management.

[Duncan Hames]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Neil Parish]

As the hon. Gentleman is so persistent, yes.

[Duncan Hames]

I am very grateful. On perturbation, what happens to the setts of badgers that are culled in the trials? Are they then occupied by healthy badgers or by diseased badgers? Are they destroyed to prevent them from being occupied, or do natural processes mean that they are not occupied by badgers after the trial?

[Neil Parish]

The whole idea of the trial is to get a 70% reduction in the number of badgers—

[Angela Smith]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Neil Parish]

I have not really answered the previous intervention, but I will give way.

[Angela Smith]

The evidence is that the setts are left untouched. That has already been demonstrated. They are often repopulated by healthy badgers, which then pick up the disease.

[Neil Parish]

My point, in answer to both interventions, is that the whole idea of the trial is to carry out a cull of at least 70% of badgers in the given area over a four or five-year period. That is key to ensuring that we cull the diseased badgers. I cannot say which badger will go back to which sett, but I am certain that if we reduce those numbers, we will reduce their movement, and if they cannot spread beyond the cull area, we will see a reduction of much more than 16% in TB in cattle in those areas. It has been found throughout the world that where infected wildlife are culled there is a much greater effect.

The Government are right to carry on with the culls. I respect what the NFU has had to do. Because of the Olympics, it was late in the day before the culls could be started. We are getting towards much darker nights and we have had probably one of the wettest summers and autumns that I have ever known, so now is the wrong time to go forward with the cull. But I dispute the idea that we can do nothing about the situation and that culling badgers in the infected areas is wrong.

Until we tackle those concerns, farmers in my constituency and across the country, especially in the west, will be unable to rest, because they know that more and more cattle will become diseased and more and more restrictions will be imposed on them, and in the end many of them will decide, because of the weather, the price of feed and the disease, to give up cattle farming. Do we not want to see those farmed cattle healthy and grazing in the fields? Of course we do, which is why we need to take action. I very much respect the Secretary of State for sticking to the plan to have a cull.

--- Later in debate ---

[Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)]

In following the hon. Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart), let me say that I was disappointed at an attempted politicisation of this debate, which has so far been incredibly cross-Bench and non-partisan. What Members are doing today is putting the issue first. This is not about party politics; it is about animal welfare. More than anything else, it is about the future of farming in our country and the attempts that we need to make effectively to tackle bovine TB.

Tuesday of this week was a day on which a degree of common sense prevailed in DEFRA. Although I welcome Tuesday’s announcement, it was only for a postponement and I, along with many others, want to see this madness stopped and will not rest until the Secretary of State sees sense and stops the cull permanently. That is what the motion is about.

Let me be clear: there is no doubt that bovine TB is a major problem. If there is one thing on which I agree with the Government it is that bovine TB presents a serious threat to both cattle and wildlife. Where we differ, however, is on the actions needed to tackle this awful disease. In order to answer that question, one has to ask why, after the successful reductions of the disease in the 1950s and ’60s, it has become more prevalent, particularly during and after the 1990s. I do not believe that the rise was due to an increase in the number of badgers, which is an equation often made by the myth makers.

What is clear is that changes to farming practices are not helping matters. The intensification of farming means that we have ever bigger herds, and all the evidence says that the bigger the herd, the faster the disease will spread within it once it takes root.

Husbandry is another issue that we cannot dismiss. Yesterday in the Lobby we had a visit from Steve Jones, who is a dairy farmer in the Forest of Dean. He described eloquently the often less than ideal conditions in which cows were—and still are in some instances—kept, along with the increasingly intensive regimes to which the animals are subjected. For example, water troughs are often said to rarely be cleaned out. Over time, they can become reservoirs of the disease as the stagnating water collects various bacteria, typically over the winter months. He also talked about the practice of some farmers—not all of them by any means—who, even now, collect the slurry deposited during the course of a farming day, spread it over the land and immediately let some of their cattle feed off those fields.

[Neil Parish]

I cannot believe that the hon. Lady believes that farmers who have had the disease and who have been testing their cattle every 60 days do not clean their water troughs. If she had suffered the same pain as a farmer, she would not make such a comment.

[Angela Smith]

I will not comment on particular instances of the husbandry practices of farmers and how they keep their herds. All I can say is that there is some evidence that water troughs, particularly those kept at ground level, can be a source of the disease and that some farmers do not keep them as clear as they ought to of disease.

It is also argued that cows infected are often not quarantined quickly enough and that animal stress levels caused by pain and suffering can reduce immunity and make cattle more susceptible to diseases such as bovine TB.

As the instances of bovine TB started to climb in the 1990s, the then Secretary of State, Jack Cunningham, asked Professor Krebs to report on the matter and then to conduct the randomised badger culling trials, which have been referred to so often today. The important point is that they still stand as the most extensive study ever completed into the relationship between bovine TB and badgers. A two-page paper produced two or three years later does not stand in the context of the extensive trials carried out as the legitimate view of the scientists.

Although it is true that the independent science group concluded that in the cull areas the incidence of bovine TB fell by 23%, it also found that in neighbouring land outside the culled area the incidence of the disease rose by approximately 29%, thanks to perturbation, whereby surviving badgers move to new areas as a consequence of disturbance.

Overall, the study concluded that the benefits of culling were, at best, modest, with an average reduction of just 12% to 16% in the incidence of infection over a period of seven years. The ISG concluded that

“badger culling can make no meaningful contribution to cattle TB control in Britain.”

That point was reiterated by Lord Krebs on Monday when he said in the other place that, after nine years of culling,

“there is still more TB around than there was at the beginning; it is just that there is 16% less than there would have been without a cull. The number is not the 30% that the NFU quoted; that is misleading—a dishonest filleting of the data.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 23 October 2012; Vol. 740, c. 148.]

Another problem is that the test used to check whether cattle are infected with bovine TB—the so called SICCT, or single intradermal comparative cervical tuberculin test—is not accurate. A recent scientific paper has suggested that as many as two in 10 infected cattle might be missed by the test. That is a staggering 20%, meaning that a significant proportion of cattle-to-cattle transmission of bovine TB may be going undetected and that the role of badgers in the spread of bovine TB to cattle may be overestimated.

Culling, therefore, is not the way forward. Its impact, the science tells us, would be marginal, and if we get it wrong, the results could be disastrous. It is demanded that 70% of badgers in the pilot culling areas must be culled; otherwise, the incidence of bovine TB could get worse—hence this week’s U-turn. Given the lack of credible assessment of the number of badgers in the pilot areas, it is difficult to get the 70% figure right. Equally, it is also difficult to avoid breaching the law by killing too many and taking the species to the brink of extinction in the specified areas.

When I started my contribution, I said that bovine TB is a major issue for farmers and I stand by that. I want the Government to take the opportunity over the next few months to work more intensively on developing the badger vaccination programme, which all experts believe is a better way forward in diminishing the instances of bovine TB in that species. We also have to do more to develop a vaccine for cattle, which is the long-term answer to this problem. I am told that there is now a suitable DIVA test to identify and separate cattle with bovine TB from those that have been vaccinated, and that it is in the process of being licensed.

I appeal to the Minister to take seriously the points that have been made, to invest in getting the cattle vaccine licensed and on the table, and to talk to the EU to get it sorted.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)]

I ask colleagues to imagine a bowl of fresh green salad, but rather than sprinkling it with the salad dressing of their choice, I would like them to imagine sprinkling it with some diseased badger urine—urine from a badger that has lesions in its kidneys, which sadly is commonly the case. Before pasteurisation made milk absolutely safe to drink, countless thousands of people died from bovine TB, because the disease can be spread through ingestion. It is very important to understand that for several reasons, particularly those related to biosecurity.

I absolutely support the comments that have been made about the importance of biosecurity and preventing cattle-to-cattle spread. However, a farmer can take all the effort he or she wants to keep badgers out of cowsheds, but those cattle are still grazing on infected pastures and will still be at risk. We are talking about closed herds with no concerns about TB being imported from outside, which is an important route for transmission.

Reference has been made to super-dairies and huge herds of cows, thousands strong, being kept inside. We do not want that. We all saw last year’s campaign, “Cows need grass, not concrete”, and I absolutely support that. However, in parts of South Hams in my constituency, putting cattle out on to infected pastures is tantamount to a death sentence—a form of culinary Russian roulette. We have to take this very seriously.

Let us look at the figures. In 1998 in my constituency, fewer than 600 cattle were culled; in 2010, that figure had risen to just short of 6,000. This is a dangerous zoonosis that is spreading inexorably year on year; we can look at the geographical maps and see the edge spreading. As other Members have said, sporadic cases are arising elsewhere which are undoubtedly due to the movement of cattle, but the inexorable spread that we see on the charts is due, in part, to the reservoir in badgers. Let us imagine how a dangerous zoonosis like this might spread out to other mammals; we are seeing it increasingly in deer, alpacas and pigs, and now in domestic pets as well. This is a real threat, so why have we not got a grip of the situation?

I should like to say something quite uncomfortable—that we are seeing the rise of the celebrity mammal. Indeed, we have a celebrity mammal here with us today, and very welcome he is too. We are beginning to focus on a single species, and that is unhelpful. I would challenge anybody to come down to south Devon and lay their hand on the side of one of the beautiful south Devon cattle and tell me that that animal is less important than the badger. All these animals are important, but there is a balance to be struck. When I step outside my door of an evening in south Devon, I frequently see badgers; they are a wonderful sight. The last time I saw a hedgehog was over five years ago. That element of balance is sometimes missing from this debate.

The rise of the celebrity mammal has been a barrier to science. Those on both sides of the debate rightly quote scientists, who will disagree about the issue; that is what scientists do. We want a robust debate, and I welcome it. The problem is that there were some flaws in the randomised badger culling trial, particularly regarding the size of the triplets and the edge effect. In that circumstance, the right thing to do is to take matters further and consider pilots that explore the edge effect, but we are prevented from doing so because of the effect on politicians and the public of a focus on the needs of a specific animal, lovely as it may be. We need to tackle that issue head on.

Will the Minister say whether we are exploring the PCR—polymerase chain reaction—test further? We want to have a test of greater sensitivity and specificity that will allow us to test badger droppings, and then perhaps look to a further trial, even on whole-sett humane underground culling. There are also issues to do with perturbation, such as the effect of picking off one animal at a time. I suggest that we would be perturbed in an entirely different way if someone picked off members of our families one by one.

Let us see more focus on the science. Let us tackle this as a dangerous zoonosis. Let us also look at vaccination. The important point is that if any Member in this House developed any sort of TB, they would be looking at weeks and weeks of a complex antibiotic regime. Any doctor who treated them with vaccination would be struck off. It is not possible to cure an infected badger with a vaccination. Of course I want to see vaccination and prevention in disease-free animals. However, we should not pretend that we can extrapolate the results from an injectable vaccine, which may indeed show a slight reduction in the amount of TB excreted in urine by infected badgers, to oral vaccines. Oral vaccines and injectable vaccines are entirely different, and so we must be very careful.

I fully support a move towards greater investment in vaccination, but perhaps that is because I am a people person. I went into medicine rather than go to veterinary school because I think that people matter more. I was rewarded for that—I was never bitten by a patient in 24 years.

[Neil Parish]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Dr Wollaston]

No, I am going to carry on, if I may.

The point is, yes, let us see investment, but we want to see an oral bait vaccine. I want to leave a question in the air: is there something obscene about the amount of money we are going to spend on trapping and vaccinating every single wild badger in this country, year on year, when there are other things that that money could be spent on? I want to see an oral bait vaccine and an improved test, but we have to be honest and tackle a dangerous zoonosis. We have to be honest about the need for further scientific pilots and I am afraid that we have to do it now, because farmers in my constituency are suffering. These are the people who feed the nation—they put food on our plates and care for our countryside.

Oral Answers to Questions

Neil Parish Excerpts

Thursday 25th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Heath]

The national minimum wage is doing a good job of putting a floor under wages in this country, and I see no reason to have extra bureaucracy on top of that.

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

2. What steps his Department is taking to support the dairy industry.

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr David Heath)]

The Dairy Supply Chain Forum and the Dairy 2020 initiative are focused on the future of the industry and opportunities to boost growth and exports. After months of hard work, not least by my predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Sir James Paice), the many beneficial terms of the industry code of practice can be translated into contracts. Implementing the EU dairy package will provide new opportunities for innovation and collaboration, and £5 million of additional funds from the rural development programme for England are available for high-quality projects from the dairy industry.

[Neil Parish]

Dairy farmers in my constituency are facing high feed costs. Consumers are paying enough for milk, but not enough of that end price goes back to the famer. What more can we do?

[Mr Heath]

I am optimistic that with the voluntary code we have for the first time the basis to be fair to producers, processors, retailers and consumers. I want to make that stick, and I believe that it can make a real difference. As I have said all along, if the voluntary code is not successful, we have the opportunity to bring forward a statutory code, and I will consult on that later this year if necessary.

Bovine TB and Badger Control

Neil Parish Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paterson]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for that question, but I did answer it earlier. It appeared in September that Natural England was not happy with the figures that had been provided locally. That is why it asked FERA to do a full survey, which took some time. That shows how deadly serious we are in respecting the science. It would not have been right to go ahead on the basis of numbers that Natural England believed to be inaccurate, so it was right to take more time and to do a thorough survey, and that came up with dramatically larger numbers.

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

Dairy and beef farmers in my constituency are desperate because of TB. They have been cleaning their cattle for years. There now needs to be clean wildlife to stop the disease spreading. Can I have the absolute assurance of the Secretary of State that the cull will go ahead next year?

[Mr Paterson]

I am entirely in agreement with my hon. Friend. We want to see healthy wildlife—healthy badgers in this case—living alongside healthy cattle. We will achieve that only if we drive through the two pilots and extend them across the country, as I have just assured my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski).

Dairy Industry

Neil Parish Excerpts

Thursday 13th September 2012 Westminster Hall

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Walker, for calling me to speak. It is a great pleasure to speak in this debate.

I thank the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty), because he and I have secured this debate. He has a great knowledge of the retail trade, so perhaps with that knowledge, my own knowledge of farming and some cross-party support we can get a really good price for milk. We want this debate to be about the price of milk, and the fact that we have nearly 40 Members in Westminster Hall who want to speak in this debate shows how important the issue is to everyone in this House. In fact, I suspect that at the moment there are probably more people in Westminster Hall than there are in the main Chamber. I thank all Members who are present for coming, and the number of Members who are here shows the seriousness of this matter. I also thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting this debate; it is a very important one.

Confidence in the dairy industry has been at an all-time low this year, not only because of the prices for its products but because we have had probably some of the worst weather that we have ever seen in the UK. As a result, we have had some of the worst May silage, and all those types of things, coupled with the high price of cereals, have meant that farmers are being crushed between low prices and the high cost of feeding animals.

Ten years ago, there were more than 26,000 dairy farmers; now we are down to fewer than 15,000 dairy farmers. That shows how many dairy farmers have been forced out of the industry, and how things have become more and more competitive.

It is good to see the new Minister here in Westminster Hall today and it is also good to see my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh), the Chairman of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, here.

The voluntary code of best practice on contracts between milk buyers and dairy farmers is an important settlement. It will prevent producers from being trapped in unfavourable contracts and it will add much-needed transparency to milk contracts. I pay great tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Mr Paice), who worked absolutely tirelessly with all parties to reach that agreement. It is a great legacy and I know that Members from all parts of the House are grateful to him for his profound knowledge of farming and for his support.

I welcome the new Minister to his post, and I hope that he can pursue the voluntary code as quickly as possible. The contract between producers and purchasers should set out a clear price. It should also set out that in future producers must receive at least 30 days’ notice of a price change; that retrospective price adjustments will not be accepted; that dairy producers are allowed to supply more than one processor when their primary milk buyer seeks to cap their production; and that supermarkets setting farm prices must engage meaningfully with farmers and their representatives, rather than just driving farmers into a corner and every now and again adding a sop, when what farmers need is a long-term future. The code must be implemented and then monitored for compliance and effectiveness. If it is not working, the Government must consider what statutory powers and mandatory powers can be added to it.

The Government have also made a very welcome and long-overdue move to introduce the Groceries Code Adjudicator Bill. It was presented to the House of Lords only last week and we now look forward to its Second Reading.

This issue is about fairness. It is also about supermarkets, particularly the few large ones that dominate the retail market and that have been able to increase their profits at the expense of food producers by using—

[Mr Ian Liddell-Grainger (Bridgwater and West Somerset) (Con)]

There is one issue that my hon. Friend forgot to mention just now. He lives in Somerset and I represent a Somerset constituency. However, he forgot to mention the Wiseman dairy at Bridgwater, which is one of the processors, and the processors are equally culpable in this matter.

[Neil Parish]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I will be talking about processors shortly, but he is absolutely right to make that point. However, we should not forget that processors, especially when there is a fixed price with the supermarkets, are very often the ones that get squeezed, because there is a guaranteed price to the farmer and then the farmers enter into a trade war with their supermarket friends—or enemies—and at the end of the day it is probably the processor that actually pays the price.

We must move more swiftly to make the Groceries Adjudicator Code Bill law, so that supermarkets play by the rules, producers have confidence that their complaints will be taken up and third parties can also raise issues with the buyers. If the supermarkets and other larger retailers are not doing anything wrong, they have nothing whatever to fear from the groceries code adjudicator. However, some supermarkets and other large retailers are less than enthusiastic about the adjudicator, so I feel that there is much to answer for.

It is also very important that third parties, such as unions and trade associations, are able to submit complaints to the groceries code adjudicator on behalf of producers, so that producers are able to benefit from the legal advice and support that those third parties may be able to offer.

All supermarkets can and should do more when it comes to responsible sourcing of all dairy products. The pursuit of ever greater margins, coupled with a short-termist approach to sourcing British dairy products, is jeopardising the future of the British dairy industry. Marks & Spencer, Waitrose, Tesco and Sainsbury’s should be acknowledged for introducing more transparent pricing mechanisms into their milk groups but, as the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife said earlier, they have got to do much more about the cheese market. Retailers that have promised to do more, such as the Co-op, Morrisons, Lidl, Farmfoods, Iceland and Spar, have got to be brought to the table actually to do something, rather than just promising to do something, because let us not forget that all the time they are driving the price of milk down.

The point that I want to make very strongly to everybody here in Westminster Hall today is that consumers already pay enough money for their milk. The problem is that many of the large retailers are taking 16p in profit out of that money. That is where the problem is, and therefore some percentage of that profit needs to go back to the farmer. It is not just a case of farmers breaking even; they need to be able to make a profit to reinvest.

[Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)]

On that point of reinvestment and making milk production more efficient, does my hon. Friend think that there has been an absurd situation in recent years whereby the regional development agencies have been distributing Government funding to try to support farmers in that regard, but in my constituency farmers on one side of the A5 have been unable to access that funding whereas on the other side of the A5, and under a different RDA, farmers have been able to access it? Does he agree that we need to have a more transparent system, a more level playing field and a sensible amount of funding from Government to try to help our farmers to become more efficient?

[Neil Parish]

Yes. My hon. Friend raises an interesting issue. It is not only a question of RDAs and which side of the A5 they are on; it is also a question of which side of the border people are on, because there are probably different policies in Wales and Scotland too. At the end of the day, all these things distort the market and we should not distort the market with public money. We need a level playing field, so that farmers can compete very well together.

I want to ask the Minister for an update on the milk package proposals, particularly on the establishment of producer organisations that will be able jointly to negotiate contracts, collaborate over price and adapt the production of their members to market demands. I hope that the farmer-owned co-operatives will be able to work more together to drive the price up, rather than compete with each other, which sometimes drives the price down in the liquid market.

It is also vital that farmers are given more bargaining power. Today, 87% of milk comes from just five companies, resulting in an effective monopoly in some regions.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

The producer group question is really important, because it leads us on to the contracts. It is very important that contracts are fair for farmers; they are already rather too prone to defend the position of the purchaser. Let us ensure that the farmer gets a fair chance in the contract.

[Neil Parish]

I welcome my hon. Friend’s contribution. More producer organisations being able to negotiate decent contracts, and being able to cut the contracts within three months, which is what the voluntary code is all about, will help to drive the price up. In the past, some contracts have done the reverse, and have driven the price down.

Currently, there are no formally recognised producer organisations operating in the dairy sector, nor is there a definite interpretation of what the dairy package regulation means for the establishment and recognition of producer organisations known to the industry. Members will hiss when I say that my experience is that producer organisations are much stronger in many other countries across Europe and, dare I say it, probably get a better price because of that. Let us not always shun what may be done across the channel, but endorse some of it if it improves the price to farmers.

[Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that if producer organisations are to have clout they have to represent everyone in the industry and not be dictated to by the large producers, as we have seen happen in other industries, such as fisheries?

[Neil Parish]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Farmers’ great strength is their independence, but sometimes they do not get together as much as they should. This is an opportunity, with producer organisations, to do precisely that. It is important that the Rural Payments Agency is in a position to formally recognise groups of farmers who wish to constitute themselves as a dairy producer organisation before spring 2013. We have to stop talking about that, and do it.

The Government must also continue their work in making farming and the dairy industry more competitive, through cutting regulation, waste and red tape. The independent taskforce, set up by Richard—Dick—Macdonald, has been successful, but it means that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has revoked some 39 statutory instruments only to turn around and introduce a further 41. We have, therefore, to run a little faster to get rid of regulation.

Farmers have to spend a great deal of their time filling and refilling forms on everything from livestock movements to nitrates regulation. The cost of current regulation is upward of £5 billion a year, with 50% of all DEFRA regulations coming from the EU. In particular, it is important that the Government look again at the nitrate vulnerable zone, because I do not think that it is scientifically based, and it costs the industry a huge amount. Ultimately, DEFRA must go further in cutting the barriers to growth domestically, and give Parliament more scrutiny over EU regulation coming in.

Farmers are never going to get a good price while we flood the UK market with liquid milk. The majority of milk produced in this country is for the liquid milk market, with only 49% of it going into processed products such as cheese and yogurt, which is far less than in many other countries. For instance, in Eire—the Republic of Ireland—80% of the milk is exported.

[Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman has had more than the allotted time. Out of deference to him, I will let him start to wind up now. I will give him one more minute.

[Neil Parish]

I am very close to the end.

We need, therefore, to get more milk into the emerging markets of China and the far east, to ensure that we take more milk out of the system and create greater competition, which can drive up the price.

Finally, please can we ensure that the groceries code adjudicator is given real teeth and comes in quickly? Please can we ensure that all the work that the previous Minister did on the voluntary code is up and running immediately? When are the Government going to spend the £5 billion earmarked for producer organisations? Can we keep up the good work that we have done on eradicating tuberculosis? Healthy livestock, healthy wildlife.

[Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

Lots of colleagues want to speak. I was slightly generous to the hon. Gentleman, but I really am going to do six minutes, with a minute for an intervention.

--- Later in debate ---

[Neil Parish]

In the short time I have left, I thank everyone for their contributions this afternoon. There have been more than 30 contributions, which shows the strength of feeling across the country. I will not enter into whose milk is the best, whose cream is the best or anything else, but this debate has shown that dairy farming is important to this country, and not only for dairy—the industry produces 70% of beef animals, too.

I am an optimist. I believe there is a future for agriculture, and I believe young farmers will go into agriculture. I was a young farmer many moons ago, and I have milked cows for 25 years. I have seen prices go up and down. We have marched up and down this hill before, so we have to ensure that this time we get the code in place and make it bite.

I welcome the Minister’s comment that he will legislate if the code does not bite. If there is such a threat to legislate, the code will work. There is enough money out there from what consumers are paying for milk, but the money is not getting back to the farmer.

I thank everyone for their contribution. This debate has shown the House at its best. Finally, I am looking forward to hearing the Labour party’s view on tuberculosis and the badger cull, because we have to be united to get rid of that disease.

Question put and agreed to.