Back British Farming Day

Anthony Mangnall Excerpts

Wednesday 15th September 2021 Westminster Hall

[Anthony Mangnall (Totnes) (Con)]

I start by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Theo Clarke) on securing this debate. If Jeremy Clarkson’s farm show on Amazon has proved anything, it is that farming is not an easy career choice. Even for those who present car shows, it is still incredibly difficult to turn a profit. That is the interesting point about the debate that we are having today—the difficulties that the farming community face, both now and in the future, and the opportunities that are being presented to us outside the European Union. I believe that there are significant opportunities for farmers outside the EU. Not least, as has already been referred to, is the point about public money for public good. The ELM—environmental land management—scheme has huge potential, but it has the potential to work only if it works in conjunction with farmers. Across the House, both here and now and in previous weeks, I have heard from many colleagues that the ELM scheme is already looking too difficult, that there is not enough information about it, that the schemes are too complicated to even apply for and that the variety of funding schemes are also too difficult, so if I may make a plea to my hon. Friend the Minister in the short time that I have, it would be to ensure that the co-operation with farmers is far greater than it currently is.

There have been interesting pinch points in the two years since I was elected as a Member of Parliament in which I think DEFRA has taken the wrong approach. I am thinking of the animal transportation consultation, the badger culling consultation and, now, the new rules for water. Those have all antagonised the farming community to a significant degree and they make farmers think that the Government are not trying to work with them. As the Chair of the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish), is here in the debate, let me say that I will be writing to him to ask whether his Committee could inquire further about the rules on water and the difficulties that they will pose for farmers across the country. If anyone would like to join me in writing that letter, please see me afterwards.

There are huge opportunities. I should declare my interest as a champion of regenerative agriculture in the Conservative Environment Network—and, indeed, my other half is someone who worked in that field. There are new opportunities to see how we can farm, so that this is not just preaching about do-goodery when it comes to climate change, but is about how we can lower people’s costs to produce more productive food. Whether that means no-till farming, regenerative agriculture or looking at how we grow non-monocultured crops, the opportunities are very much there.

A number of colleagues have referred to the point about trade. I serve on the International Trade Committee, and we do scrutinise the deals that are being signed. I think there needs to be more co-operation between the EFRA Committee and the trade Committee, so that when deals are struck, they can be reviewed together. I will be pushing for that and I hope that there can be more debates in the Chamber of the House of Commons. But as my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Chris Loder) said, there are already pieces of legislation in place under the sanitary and phytosanitary standards that require a vote in Parliament for any changing of the standards. It is worth bearing that in mind.

We have a fantastic opportunity in this country, through our trade deals, to export our world-class produce to new markets. We should embrace that and see the opportunity it presents to embolden our farmers, not reduce them. Of course there should be caution, but let us make sure that we can also open those new markets.

Finally, there is a huge opportunity in our schools to talk about seasonal variety and how we farm on this land. We are doing ourselves an injustice when we fail to teach about farming in our schools.

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[John Nicolson]

Unlike the majority party in Northern Ireland, we opposed Brexit. We thought it was going to be a disaster, and we opposed the Brexit agreement. I know the Democratic Unionist party has suffered considerably electorally since the results of their folly in supporting Brexit have been gauged by the Northern Irish electorate.

The UK-Australia trade agreement, when it was signed, was yet another blow for UK farmers. The UK Government, in their desperation to sign anything that might make Brexit appear less of an ongoing calamity for the economy, agreed to a terrible deal with Australia. I guarantee that champagne corks were being popped in Canberra the night that deal was signed. According to NFU Scotland, it was

“a slow journey to the Australians getting unfettered access to UK markets and with no guarantees that the promises of other safeguards will address the fact that very different production systems are permitted in Australia compared to here in the UK.”

[Anthony Mangnall]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way on that point?

[John Nicolson]

I will make some progress, if I may. The deal as a whole will deliver one 200th of the benefits of the EU over the next 15 years, and is worth only 0.01% of GDP. That causes two problems for farming. The first is the fact that Australian livestock farms will mean that farmers in the UK who operate on a much smaller scale will not be able to compete on price. On the price issue, in the UK we pride ourselves on high animal welfare standards. The same cannot be said of the Australians. The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals chief executive Chris Sherwood warned that it is legal in Australia to mutilate the rear end of sheep, while chicken can be washed with chlorine and almost half of cattle are given growth hormones. That is a shocking record of animal welfare.

[Anthony Mangnall]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[John Nicolson]

I will pursue my point for a moment. Although the Prime Minister assured us that hormone-induced cattle will not come to the UK, we all remember he also promised at the last election not to increase taxes.

[John Nicolson]

Let us see. Many of the assurances we were given on Brexit have proved very different in reality. Climate pledges were secretly dropped from the deal. Paris agreement temperature goals never made it into the final deal after pressure from the Australian Government. For 0.01% of GDP and to get a post-Brexit win, global Britain ditched essential climate change goals in the lead-up to the most important international climate summit in years.

[Anthony Mangnall]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way on that point?

[John Nicolson]

I will pursue my point. I have already taken two interventions and there is a limit to how many I can take in a speech. The impact of global warming on temperature and weather will be felt most acutely by those in the farming community. The Australian deal sets a worrying precedent for trade deals going forward. If any future deal with the United States throws farmers under the bus as much as the Australia one did, many more farmers will struggle.

I cannot finish without mentioning the litany of complaints from the hon. Member for Stafford about Brexit labour shortages and food rotting in our constituency fields. The hon. Lady sounded shocked, as indeed she should, at the appalling waste. But it is hardly a surprise. Once upon a time, right-wing tabloids and Brexiteer MPs assured us that, post-Brexit, townies would be jumping on trains to the countryside, filled with “Pick for Britain” zeal, and would return ruddy-faced from their exertions in the fields. It was never going to happen. It has not happened; Brexit has led to chronic labour shortages, and we on this side of the House clearly warned that that would happen. So please, let us not affect surprise at the clearly foreseeable consequences of Brexit.

We in Scotland have a choice; farmers, and the rest of us, have the option of re-joining the European Union as part of an independent Scotland and to have free movement once again. Farmers play such an important role in society, and I am proud to back them. I wish the UK Government would do the same.

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[Daniel Zeichner]

No, I will not give way because I want to give the Minister plenty of time to answer these difficult questions.

We have heard a number of Conservative Members attempt to big up the Government’s shaky position on trade. I think that in their heart of hearts they know that no one trusts the Prime Minister on this. They know full well that the Australian trade deal has sold out British farming, just as it sold out the climate talks, and just as any future trade deals they make are likely to.

[Anthony Mangnall]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Daniel Zeichner]

No, I am not going to. When the outlines of a possible deal were announced, it was Labour who stood firm with farmers and demanded that the Government did not compromise on our high environmental, animal welfare and food standards. That is what backing British farming really looks like.

Sold out on trade deals, and also sold out on basic support; it is not backing British farming to slash farm support and pretend that environmental payments will somehow fill the gap. This is just as we predicted in our lengthy debates on the Agriculture Bill, as some Members have already mentioned. With the clock ticking, the new payments are still in the process of being designed, tested and piloted, way behind schedule. We predicted that it would be hard—none of this stuff is easy.

The Minister and I have discussed this on many occasions, and she challenged me to go and see for myself. So, I did. I went on a summer tour to Yorkshire, to Northumbria, to Exmoor; I met those who were doing the trials, and I found brilliant, inspiring and lovely people working really hard. The lessons were clear; it is complicated. It is a good thing to do—I support ELM and the principle of rewarding farmers for environmental improvements—but these schemes are too complicated and inflexible.

The sustainable farming incentive was a panicky fix that might plug some of the gap for some, but in so doing, I was told on the ground, it also risks undermining ELM in some cases. The life support that has kept Britain farming for many decades is now on a timed exit. It will expire, and I feel it will take a good many British farmers with it. That is what I heard, not just from those pilots but from the other areas I visited—from farmers in Norfolk, Cambridgeshire and the midlands at the Great Yorkshire Show.

It is not just me saying this; it is farmers saying it. An excellent report published today by the National Audit Office shows that DEFRA has lost the trust of the farming industry, citing the low take-up of the new schemes. I exhort Members to look at an excellent paper produced by DEFRA last week, the “Farmer Opinion Tracker”. The very first figure, for the number who

“understand Defra’s vision for farming”,

shows that it was just 10% in 2019. Well, guess what? After two years of Government effort, it is now 5%. If it was not so serious, it would be funny. There is more in that report: 40% of farmers are

“not at all confident that their relationship with Defra and Defra agencies will develop positively in the future.”

So, there is not a lot of confidence.

These cuts in support will have profound consequences for rural areas. We calculate that rural England stands to lose more than £255 million this year as a result of the cut, putting as many as 9,500 jobs at risk, and that is in just one year, with a 5% cut. By 2024, it will be 50%. It is huge: not backing British farming—slashing British farming.

Then, to complete the hat trick, there are the labour shortages. We have heard a lot about that. It is not backing British farming to take out the pool of workers who not just farming, but the whole food system has depended on for years without a proper plan to achieve that transition. It is not just me saying that; listen to every voice across every sector. We know the problems, which are well documented: people not being able to get to Nando’s; the milkshakes at McDonald’s. We have heard about the crop pickers and the meat factory workers, as well as the lorry drivers, and about the huge pressure on vets.

I have to say, I am astonished that I have not heard anything from the Government Benches about what is happening on pig farms and poultry farms. It is Labour, it seems to me, now speaking for them, because the birds and pigs are packed up on—