Wind Farm Subsidies (Abolition) Bill
Debate between Peter Bone and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Mr Bone
I am more confused now. I do not know whether the shadow Minister was announcing new policy, but my understanding of a freeze is that that is the price—it cannot go down. If I am wrong—perhaps Labour has done a U-turn—my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) is right and the policy makes no sense. Either it wants higher energy prices, which I understand, or it wants lower energy prices and more wind turbines, which of course it cannot have.
Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his brilliant and inspired Bill. On the socialists’ policy, if it is a cap, rather than a freeze, what company—particularly in the energy market, where prices are so volatile—in its right mind would reduce prices, even if the market price fell, knowing it could not put them back up if the market price rose?
Mr Bone
My hon. Friend is entirely correct, including in describing it as a socialist policy, because that is precisely the direction we are moving in—we know that Labour has moved significantly to the left. The issue here is that it wants to interfere with prices using a state mechanism, and that always fails.
I shall return to the Bill because I want to be brief and we have a lot of Bills to get through today, and, as I said, it is uncontroversial. In July 2013, the Energy and Climate Change Committee issued its report, “Energy Prices, Profits and Poverty”, which said:
“The main driver behind energy prices has been wholesale gas and electricity costs, but network charges, energy and climate change policies and company costs and profits also contribute. In future, DECC estimates that its energy and climate change policies will add 33% to the average electricity price paid by UK households in 2020, in addition to any potential wholesale price rises.”
That is worth hearing again: “In future, DECC estimates”—it must be right, because it is a Government estimate—
“that its energy and climate change policies will add 33% to the average electricity price paid by UK households in 2020, in addition to any potential wholesale price rises.”
It also concluded that:
“The increasing use of levies on bills to fund energy and climate change policies is problematic since it is likely to hit hardest those least able to pay. We note that public funding is less regressive than levies in this respect.”
The subsidies paid for by consumers are clearly generous, hence the clamour from developers to access them. As long ago as October 2013, an answer to a parliamentary question identified that the Government had hit their targets of 13 GW of production capacity from onshore wind by 2020, with 6.8 GW operational, 6.4 GW consented and 6.4 GW in the planning system. Furthermore, many will question why constraint payments are being made to generators in return for reducing output, as more electricity is being generated than can be used in particular regions because a grid constraint exists. If all that was not bad enough, the subsidies have also been geared up—this is almost unbelievable—in such a way that they will be paid over 25 years, even though, as Dr Gordon Hughes has found,
“few wind farms will operate for more than 12-15 years.”
Therefore, they will operate for 12 to 15 years, but for a further 10 years they will receive subsidies for nothing.
Wind turbines are an expensive way of generating electricity and are clearly bad value for money. I go back to what the Leader of the Opposition said when he was Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change in the last Labour Government:
“Yes, there are upward pressures on energy bills, and that makes life difficult for people, including those in fuel poverty, but it is right that we go down the low-carbon energy route.”
In other words, he is quite happy for poor people to pay more for their energy because he thinks there is some good in the low-carbon energy route. We should not be so complacent and dismissive of the problem, and the idea that wind turbines are somehow green is stretching it somewhat too, considering the amount of carbon burnt in producing a single turbine, not to mention the amount of concrete poured into the ground to put it up.
Where are we now on this issue? As has been mentioned, the Labour and Liberal Democrat positions are absolutely clear: they want more onshore wind farms wherever they can have them. In contrast, I agree squarely with the Prime Minister, who has said:
“I think the public are, frankly, fed up with so many wind farms being built that won’t be necessary. Now we’ve reached some 10 per cent of our electricity by onshore wind, we don’t need to have more of these subsidised onshore. So let’s get rid of the subsidy, put them into the planning system and, if they can make their case, they can make their case. I suspect they won’t.”
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I wonder whether my hon. Friend would go further and say that we should not have subsidies in the energy market at all and that it should be a proper free market, with providers getting a market price and consumers paying the market price, rather than additions for what the Prime Minister once described in fairly fruity terms in relation to greenery.
Mr Bone
My hon. Friend tempts me into a much wider field. I am afraid we are going to keep very much to this little Bill—indeed, it is so small that I doubt whether anyone will oppose it, other than those on the Opposition Benches, which are not exactly packed. If this was a controversial Bill, I would be seeing a sea of angry faces on the Opposition Benches and all I can see is two charming people sitting there.
As with the issue of an EU referendum and the need to tackle immigration from within Europe, once again the Prime Minister has it spot on—and let us not forget that only he and the Conservatives can deliver on these issues. I know that he has fought hard in the coalition to make this happen prior to the general election, and I applaud his efforts in that regard. As on so many issues, however, common sense has been thwarted by the yellow peril. That is why I am bringing this Bill forward today: to support the Prime Minister, support the Conservative party and move this agenda forward. If a local community supports wind farm construction and the project is commercially viable in its own right, fine. However, I see no reason why further generous subsidies should be provided, not least because, by the Government’s own admission, the targets have been met.
I pay tribute to Tom Pursglove, the national director of Together Against Wind, who has provided a lot of the information in my short speech today. He also happens to be the Conservative candidate for Corby at the general election. Indeed, it would be much easier in north Northamptonshire if we had my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone), Tom in Corby and me, all fighting against wind farms, rather than somebody who supports wind farms everywhere in north Northamptonshire. I want to end with Tom’s words:
“The only way to end the wind farm folly, is to knock the subsidies on the head once and for all.”
That is exactly what this little Bill does.
EU Justice and Home Affairs Measures
Debate between Peter Bone and Jacob Rees-Mogg(9 years, 6 months ago)
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Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
May I begin by thanking the shadow Home Secretary for bringing forward this debate? In a wonderful spirit of bipartisanship, she has spared the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary their honour. Thanks to the right hon. Lady, the Prime Minister’s promise to have a debate on the European arrest warrant has been met. That shows an admirable, broad-minded, good-spiritedness although we are still some time from Christmas. I will not dwell unduly on the procedures, as those were covered quite thoroughly last week, other than to remind the House of what was said in the other place on Monday. The dissatisfaction is not limited to this Chamber. My noble Friend Lord Boswell, who is not a hard-nosed, hatchet-faced Eurosceptic, said:
“The problem now is a handling issue. The Government—particularly the Home Office—seem to be crippled by fear. Instead of encouraging a frank debate and a clear vote on their decision, they have resorted to undignified and ultimately self-defeating procedural dodges.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 17 November 2014; Vol. 757, c. 333.]
That is an extraordinary statement to be made in their lordships’ House, which is a much less aggressive, more kindly place than this Chamber sometimes.
I want to move on to the substance of the issue. With seven seconds for each of the 35 articles into which we are opting, I will not try to cover every one of them; I feel obliged to stick to the arrest warrant and answer the point that the arrest warrant is not essential to extradition. It is perfectly possible to have extradition arrangements either with the European Union or with individual nation states, as we do with the United States of America. That is then outside the ambit of the European Court of Justice. It is the Court of Justice of the European Union that is at the heart of the matter. Constitutionally, it is the real problem, because all our safeguards are speculative—the Home Secretary admits that herself. It has not yet been judged by the Court of Justice as to whether those safeguards will be upheld, and there is no appetite within Europe for reforming the basis of the arrest warrant. I am glad to see the Home Secretary returning to her place.
In evidence given to the European Scrutiny Committee, it was made clear that efforts to rewrite the details of the arrest warrant to put in some of the protections did not meet with any support. When a representative of the Commission gave evidence to the Lords’ Extradition Law Committee, she said that there was no willingness to transform the arrest warrant to bring in those safeguards. The European Court of Justice, an ambitious court that has historically extended its powers to cover an increasing number of areas, will be in charge of how extradition from this country takes place from 1 December. That is very dangerous, because it risks some of those things that we in this country hold most dear; it risks people being extradited to countries that do not have habeas corpus.
Prime Minister (Replacement) Bill
Debate between Peter Bone and Jacob Rees-Mogg(10 years, 5 months ago)
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Jacob Rees-Mogg
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that crucial point, because I was shocked to discover that advice had been given that the Speaker could not be included on the list. Parliament can put anyone on a list.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
Oh, I was forgetting about Geoffrey Howe, who was given it when he fell out with the great, almost divine Margaret Thatcher. It didn’t work anyway; it didn’t cheer him up, and he resigned in a huff not much later. It was then given to the noble Lord Prescott to keep the left of the Labour party on board. It is not really a proper constitutional position, whereas the Lord President of the Council—well, he is the fine fellow who makes us regulate the press and goes along to get royal charters introduced.
I am also very disturbed that the Lord Privy Seal is not referred to correctly. In my view, he should be particularly high up the list, because we have such a fine Lord Privy Seal. It is worth bearing it in mind that the title of “Leader of the House” used to be held by the Prime Minister himself, which is a reminder of why that position is of such fundamental importance. Control of the programme of the House is essential to government, and the man or woman in charge of that is a most senior figure in the Government—as I say, it used to be the Prime Minister—so I should like the Lord Privy Seal to leapfrog all the way up, probably ahead even of the Deputy Prime Minister, in recognition of the reality and seriousness of the role.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I am grateful to my hon. Friend.
There is another lacuna in the Bill. It refers to
“the Secretary of State with responsibility for Business and Innovation”,
but that great man, that right hon. Friend of mine, wonderful figure that he is, is in fact President of the Board of Trade. He is a very important figure is the President of the Board of Trade. That board, on which also sit people such as the Archbishop of Canterbury, meets very infrequently; it has met a couple of times in the past couple of hundred years, which is about as often as we need most government as far as I can tell.
Then there is the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Since 1714, of course, the post of Lord High Treasurer has been in commission and the First Lord is customarily the Prime Minister and the Second Lord is the Chancellor. If the Prime Minister were incapacitated, the Treasury would remain in commission; it would not need the Second Lord to take on the role of the First Lord—
Sittings of the House (22 March)
Debate between Peter Bone and Jacob Rees-Mogg(11 years, 2 months ago)
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Jacob Rees-Mogg
I believe it is orderly, Mr Speaker, to say that the right hon. Gentleman is guilty of terminological inexactitude. The Prime Minister said nothing about a bedroom tax, for there is no bedroom tax. The Prime Minister is somebody who deals in truth, right and justice, and therefore does not talk about things that do not exist.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I am delighted that, as always, my hon. Friend has come up with a novel argument. I hope that it is approved of by Mrs Bone, although I would have thought that she would like to have him back for Easter by Holy Wednesday, which does seem a little late to be sitting.
Let me remind the House of my admiration for the nobility of the Opposition in offering themselves up as sacrificial lambs. Perhaps it is appropriate, in the context of Holy Wednesday, for them to be thinking of sacrificial lambs. However, it is better to save them the embarrassment and humiliation of having to watch, and save the nation its pity at having to watch, the poor Leader of the Opposition being filleted by our noble, illustrious and great Prime Minister, who on every Wednesday comes forth and ensures that there is success, a spring in the step of Conservatives, and joy across the land.
Succession to the Crown Bill
Debate between Peter Bone and Jacob Rees-Mogg(11 years, 4 months ago)
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The Temporary Chair (Mr Peter Bone)
Order. I remind the Committee that we are dealing only with the narrow amendment that is being moved at the moment.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
Thank you for that guidance, Mr Bone. That is the amendment I am moving. It is intended to be helpful and clarifying. Were it to be sent to the other realms in which Her Majesty is sovereign, I would have thought that they would not find it unduly objectionable. Therefore, I bring it to the Government’s attention and hope that they will consider it carefully.
The Temporary Chair (Mr Peter Bone)
Order. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman’s intervention will be very concise and to do with clause 2.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
It is incredibly concise and relevant to clause 2. My simple point is that the matter to which my hon. Friend refers is one for the Papacy. I do not have the authority to do as he asks.
Connecting Europe Facility
Debate between Peter Bone and Jacob Rees-Mogg(12 years, 4 months ago)
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Jacob Rees-Mogg
What is even worse is that the EU, when it has spent our money, then has the cheek to fine people for failing to fly the European flag. The way in which it wastes British taxpayers’ money is absolutely disgraceful.
Mr Bone
Of course my hon. Friend makes eminent sense, as always.
There is something even more worrying about this situation: all these billions of pounds are going into the European Union but it cannot even get its auditors to give it a clean bill of health—the accounts are rejected year after year. We would not give money to any other organisation—in this country—that did not have audited accounts.
Broadcasting (Public Service Content) Bill
Debate between Peter Bone and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
I am concerned about that suggestion, because it might lead to a whole load of left-wing voters moving to Wellingborough, which could undermine my hon. Friend’s majority.
Mr Bone
Alas, the public interest comes before self-interest, and I would lay down my seat if we could get the BBC to move to Wellingborough. Also, if the Bill were passed into law, the BBC would be a completely different kettle of fish, so I do not think I have too much to worry about in that regard. One of the great advantages of the Bill, if it became law, would be that the newly appointed Lord Patten would not have a job. That would save the BBC a considerable amount of money.
The Bill has had a small change in its text since its previous incarnation, but that change has important implications for non-BBC broadcasters. The Bill is also a sequel to the 2008 private Member’s Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch. The aim of the Broadcasting (Television Licence Fee Abolition) Bill was fairly modest: it just wanted to abolish the licence fee in total. I do not think that that is right. I want to retain the licence fee, but I want it to cost a lot less, and I want its benefits to be available to non-BBC broadcasters. At the moment, it is not so much a licence fee as a BBC fee. All the money goes to the BBC, and none goes to other broadcasters.
I am told that the current licence fee, which is in effect a poll tax, is £145.50 a year. Almost no one can avoid paying that if they are under the age of 75. Anyone who has more than one television set in more than one location has to pay more than one licence fee. It is a very regressive tax. Also, anyone who does not have a television is still hounded as though they do have one. I had a constituent—this is not made up—who told the BBC licensing authorities that he did not have a television set. They did not believe him. They sent inspectors around to inspect every room in his home to see whether there was a hidden television. That is the sort of thing we might get in a totalitarian state, but surely it is not acceptable in the United Kingdom at any time, and certainly not in this century.
Let me provide a much more up-to-date example. First, however, I want to put on the record my thanks to my researchers, Mr James Newhall and Miss Victoria Michell, who provided some of the research for my speech, and to my hon. Friend for his previous work. Victoria Michell is my intern. She experienced the TV licensing authority’s wrath. Previously living alone, working hard for a living and choosing to spend her money on shoes rather than a television, she informed the licensing authority that she did not own a television set and thought that that would be the end of the matter. Oh no! She regularly received letters from the licensing authority, insisting that she must have a television set and demanding to know why she had not paid the fee. She then received a visit from the inspectors. Unfortunately, she was at work—a normal pastime of those in their 20s—so they left her a note informing her that they would be back. She called the authority, grudgingly admitting she felt a little intimidated, to tell them that she worked full time and that if they wanted to visit her, they could do so but out of working hours. She was told by the inspectors that they would visit when it suited them. She waited every night—when she was not working late, at the gym or having dinner with friends—eagerly to clear her name, prove her innocence and show off her shoe collection. However, they never came. My intern would like to inform the House, so it is absolutely on the record, that she has since moved, adopted two televisions and has a TV licence.
Although that is a somewhat light-hearted story, if that person had been elderly or vulnerable, they would have felt considerably intimidated by a state regulator invading their privacy. The Bill would put an end to that. I should say that my intern is a well-qualified, highly articulate, intelligent young lady who is not easily intimidated. By the way, if anyone has a job going, I would recommend her as an exceptional researcher
The next part of my speech is put in to get myself promoted! In these days of economic crisis, which is due to the mismanagement of the economy by the previous Labour Administration, who believed the illusion of there being no more boom and bust and threw away more and more public money, we now have a coalition Government, who were put together for the purpose of cutting the deficit. Everyone understands that these are tough times, and my constituents in Wellingborough find it difficult to pay £145.50 a year for something that they might not want. It is extraordinarily unfair that hard-working families who just get by have to pay nearly £150 whether they like it or not. What is really unfair is that a millionaire in another part of the country has to pay the same amount. In any other taxation situation, Labour Members would jump up and down and say that that is terribly regressive, which, of course, it is.
The Government, led by my right hon. Friends the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, did an exceptionally good job with the Budget, but there were difficult decisions to be taken and they had to cut. It is rather strange that one thing that did not get cut—and a number of things did not get cut—was the cost of the television licence.
Let me now turn my attention to the issue of whether the BBC provides any public service content broadcasting at all and whether it should qualify for any money whatsoever under the Bill. I shall be interested to hear Members’ views about this later. The Bill calls for public service content to be impartial and factual, so we need to see whether the BBC meets that test. My argument is that the BBC is, in fact, institutionally biased. It does not know that it is biased, but it is. I shall provide three brief examples of that.
The Government have ring-fenced spending on the NHS and is increasing it in real terms. The Department for International Development budget is increasing and our contributions to the EU are going from £19.8 billion over the last five years to £41 billion over the next five years. My constituents are being asked to pay nearly £150 to fund the state broadcaster, even though they may never watch the BBC. I am someone who, because of my profession, looks at all the different channels and I occasionally have to watch the BBC, but I do not watch it any more than I watch the channels for which I have to pay to view or the adverts on ITV. My wife has one of those buttons that can be pressed to miss out the adverts. That seems to me to be wholly unfair, so I sit and watch them as that is the only way I can be assured that ITV will continue. My wife does not agree with me on that point, but then Mrs Bone does not always agree with me on everything.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
Will there be a special preservation order for “Test Match Special”, which really is part of the fabric of British life?
Mr Bone
That is a hugely important issue. According to my personal prejudice, “Test Match Special” must survive for ever, but the BBC cannot be trusted in that regard. Oh, no.
In my desire to be a new Conservative and a modern man, I bought a Saab biofuel car. There was a radio in it, and I tried to tune it. I understand that the new chairman of the BBC has never listened to Radio 1 or Radio 2 except when he has experienced difficulty in tuning his radio to radio 4. Would you believe it—when I tried to tune my radio to Radio 4 to listen to “Test Match Special”, I found that it was not on the dial! The BBC had removed it from medium wave and stuck it on long wave. The BBC cannot be trusted with “Test Match Special”. That is one of the respects in which the Bill would improve the position, and I thank my hon. Friend for raising the matter.
The Bill does not, however, concern only news programmes and sport. It also concerns other rather important matters. Since the introduction of the earlier Bill in June 2009, commercial broadcasters have cut current affairs and religious programmes and children’s entertainment. I think that if such programmes were made available to other broadcasters, we would be able to welcome their return.
I was going to give a very good example of why the BBC should not be allowed to have any money for its current affairs programmes, but I am conscious that time is moving on and I want to deal with the detail of the Bill, so I shall remove that little example. I will not go into it. [Hon. Members: “Go on!”] No, I will not allow myself to be encouraged, other than to say that it related to an occasion on which Mr Brown, the then Prime Minister, went to the European Parliament—I will summarise it very quickly—and Dan Hannan beat him up briefly in a speech. Whatever one may have thought about that occasion, it clearly qualified as public service broadcasting. Unfortunately, the BBC reporter decided to walk out and not to cover it, although he had been notified earlier that it would happen. Two million people tuned in to watch it on YouTube.
Mr Bone
My hon. Friend has gone back to the previous measure. Subsections (3) and (4) are not joined together; they are separate. Going back to subsection (3), I cannot imagine a situation in which there would actually be a referral, but it would not be for the NAO to refer. The Secretary of State would have to decide that a broadcaster had taken money from the licence fee pot for a commercially viable programme. That would be difficult enough for him to do, but if he were of that opinion, and I gave the clear example of “EastEnders” as a commercially viable programme, it would then be up to the NAO to make a commercial decision, not a decision on the content, on whether there might be market failure—whether that programme would not otherwise be commercially produced.
All that might be difficult and there are hurdles. First, there is the self-regulation that would prevent virtually any of these manoeuvres from having to take place. Then the Secretary of State would have to take a political decision, which would be difficult because he would not refer something to the NAO lightly. In the case of “EastEnders” or “Top Gear”, for example, the NAO would come to the conclusion that they were commercially viable and would be put on elsewhere.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
Would not “Top Gear” be deemed public service broadcasting? It is highly educational, telling people about the motor car and the workings of the internal combustion engine, and it exposes some of the falsehoods in elements of the green movement.
Mr Bone
It does all those things, particularly the latter, but I am afraid it is still a commercially viable programme, so, if my Bill were passed, there would still be a “Top Gear” on the BBC. There is no doubt about that. Therefore I think that I win and my hon. Friend loses on that point.
Mr Bone
My hon. Friend makes a good point. I made a judgment call. The issue was discussed in some detail with the Clerks when I was considering the drafting. If that were to happen, the Bill would have to be amended, either in Committee or on Report. The reason that we chose 1 January 2012—this relates slightly to a debate that we had earlier this week—is that the number of days for private Members’ Bills is very limited this Session. Instead of getting the 26 that we should have, we have only 17, which means that if the Bill is not further considered on one of those dates, it will be lost.
My hon. Friend makes a fair point about the situation in the other place. He also raises another good and important point; the last private Members’ Bills day is 20 January 2012, so perhaps there would be an argument for pushing the date in the Bill back to after 20 January 2012. I thank him for that, and I hope that his bid to be on the Bill Committee will be noted by the business managers. I hope that every Member who has spoken gets on the Committee.
The final provision is clause 3(3), which says:
“This Act extends to England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.”
I do not think that there is much doubt that the Bill, which affects the British Broadcasting Corporation, should cover the whole of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. In fact, I probably should have put “United Kingdom” in the subsection.
There is one clause that was not printed. We considered whether we had to print “notwithstanding the European Communities Act 1972”, but I was told that, unbelievably, the Bill is in no way affected by the European Union.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
My hon. Friend has missed one aspect of the Bill that is undoubtedly affected by the European Union legislation. That is where it suggests that payment should be made only for programmes produced in the United Kingdom. The European Union would come down on that like a ton of bricks.
Mr Bone
Ah! I should not have taken that intervention. My hon. Friend raises an interesting point that I may not have thought of. The Bill is certainly not a ploy to cause any trouble between the House and the European Union. I hope that we would be at one on the matter. In defence, all I can say is that when the Bill comes into effect on 1 January 2012, I do not believe that the United Kingdom will be in the European Union.
Sustainable Livestock Bill
Debate between Peter Bone and Jacob Rees-Mogg(13 years, 6 months ago)
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Jacob Rees-Mogg
I was talking about subsidies and how we cannot do what the Bill says because the French will not let us. They will take to the streets if we try to attack subsidies across the European spectrum. People in this country—Ministers and even Prime Ministers, with all the authority that Prime Ministers have—have not been able to wean the French off their subsidies. We may share a Navy with them, but we find it difficult to share subsidies so easily.
The Minister will also have a duty to look at
“the effectiveness of existing programmes”.
If he is not already looking at their effectiveness, he is an idler and should not be in his job. I know that the Minister is far from being an idler; he is well known for being one of the most assiduous Ministers in Her Majesty’s Government, and he is the friend of the farmers. He will, therefore, be doing that already, so we are back to a grand and jolly wish-list of nice-to-do things.
Let us review subsections (1) and (2) of clause 1, headed “Duties of the Secretary of State”, as if they were not a wish list, because that is the frightening alternative. If we are talking about measures that are grand and good and fine and dandy, this should not be a Bill, but if it is real and costed and expensive and a burden on farmers, we should oppose it as a Bill, because it would be ruinous for our agriculture.
Our farmers have had a terribly difficult time in recent years. The subsidy system has changed, and they have been hit by various disasters—none of them the fault of Governments, particularly, but disasters none the less. Tuberculosis in cattle has devastated dairy farming in North East Somerset. Where there used to be field after field of cattle, they have gone. The farmers have gone out of business. Where there were 10 dairy farmers, there is now one, or, if we are lucky, two. That is partly TB, partly foot and mouth, partly milk quotas and partly regulation.
Are we now to say to the few farmers who have continued—who have striven and worked hard—that all their effort is in vain because though they were scourged with whips before, now they will be scourged with scorpions? Perhaps the Bill should be renamed the Scorpions Bill for that purpose. If it is serious in its purpose and purport, it would be very bad for our farmers. It would place extra rules on them, and would make their practices subject to a higher standard of rules than applies to others.
I have already mentioned the chicken farmer in North East Somerset, in Burnett, and that fine family who attend to their chickens there. They are out-competed, day in, day out, by Thai production. Hon. Members may think that Thai eggs are not really what they want. They may feel that Thai chicken is not their cup of tea. It is not mine, certainly; it tends to be a bit spicy. We do not want to place further regulations on farmers in North East Somerset, Ulster, Scotland, Wales or the whole of the rest of England, or even Gloucestershire. We do not want to attach regulations to our farmers that will put them out of business. That would do nothing but help foreign farmers, particularly our European friends and sometimes allies.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I appreciate that sedentary comment of outrage from my hon. Friend. That is one of the issues, if the Bill is real. It applies also to increasingly onerous tests on food labelling. We already have bonkers food labelling regulations from the European Union. For example, if one buys a Parma ham and chops it up in Westminster, one cannot then sell it as Parma ham. The EU is so protective about food labelling for its friends that there are very limited things one can do. We do not have a system that is very onerous for our farmers, and nor should it be. We need to have a sensible balance that keeps farmers in business, and does not over-regulate them and destroy their livelihood.
If we are really going to change the subsidies, we must do so fairly. I was once a candidate for the seat of The Wrekin in Shropshire, where there was a sugar processing plant. The French decided, when they held the presidency of the European Union, that they would change the subsidies for sugar beet production. They abandoned that as soon as their presidency ended, perhaps not surprisingly. People made long-term investment decisions on the basis of that subsidy. It is therefore very unfair if the Government turn around and say that the subsidy we give you today and promise will be there for ever is gone tomorrow, because businesses cannot then invest.
I am against subsidies in principle. We want get to free trade in agriculture. That is a tremendously important ambition, but we have to do it in a staged process. Like alcoholics whom one cannot necessarily wean off the bottle straight away, one cannot wean industry off subsidies overnight. Industry expects those subsidies for the investment decisions that they make, reasonably and rationally, and it is tremendously important that long-term decisions are made.