Queen’s Speech

Baroness Byford Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Byford (Con)]

My Lords, I am glad to be taking part in today’s debate on the gracious Speech, which links together home affairs, local government, energy, the environment and agriculture. It is the prime responsibility of any Government to defend and keep safe its people and feed its citizens. My main focus will be on agriculture. I should again remind the House of my family’s farming interests.

First, I wish to touch on local issues. I welcome the move to local approval of onshore wind farms. Large-scale developments that justify their existence on the basis of serving large numbers of households and enterprises have commonly been sited outside the large conurbations. For example, reclamation sites and large-scale incinerators are to be found in cities but much urban waste disposal is located in the countryside. The same is true of wind farms. I wonder whether the main reason they are banished is that they would upset too many people in the cities, although, if they were closer to the users of their power output, their efficiencies would be greater and would bring greater rewards to people locally.

Secondly, I support the Government’s moves to make it easier for those in rented accommodation to buy their homes. However, I listened with great interest to noble Lords’ contributions today and I will look very carefully at the details of the housing Bill when it comes before us. Ownership confers rights and responsibilities and tends to strengthen the sense of community in an area. However, in rural areas there are few if any large blocks of flats and social housing tends to be of the semi-detached or short terrace variety. Can the Minister tell me whether the Government have plans to ensure that any of those homes bought under their new right-to-buy proposal will attract a presumption against, for example, knocking two into one because obviously one would then lose yet another house in those areas? Will the Government allow for property bought under this legislation that comes up for sale within a given period to first be offered to the original owner at the original sale price, adjusted for any change in condition and movement on the house price index? I wonder, too, whether the house sales might have any restrictions on them; for example, looking particularly at rural needs. The noble Earl, Lord Lytton, spoke about needs or demands and he was quite right to do so because the whole point of these houses is to enable people to continue to work in rural areas.

If I might make another point on that, and particularly on the housing associations, over the years landowners have given and continue to give the value of their land to those housing associations. I wonder what the future will hold for that practice if people realise that actually that will not fulfil the original intention, which was made when the landlord gave original approval. As I say, I wait to see the detail of the Bill because we are still uncertain how that will work.

Turning to agriculture and horticulture, the food and farming industry is hugely important. It employs some 3.6 million people and was worth some £12.8 billion last year. It is crucial to the country’s economy. But we still produce only around 60% of our indigenous food and yields have not grown in the way that they might have done. As a consequence, we rely heavily on imports. I am glad that the Conservative Party manifesto included,

“a 25 year plan to grow more, buy more and sell more British food”.

We look forward to this strategy being launched before the end of this year.

Food remains the UK’s largest manufacturing sector—16% of the total—and the farming industry is the bedrock of that growth. But agriculture faces many challenges, both in individual sectors such as dairy, which has already been mentioned, and more generally, such as with European restrictions on the use of pesticides. Currently, however, the largest challenge is surely the failure of yet another attempt to computerise applications for farm payments. The difficulties affect all farmers, whether they head up a large estate or eke out an existence on a few hectares. I sympathise with them all—we are getting there—but I am particularly provoked by the plight of the small family enterprise, where every keystroke takes time away from the land, the animals or the farmer’s family. The accounts of difficulties are legion. The farming press is full of tales of completed applications that simply did not arrive with the authorities, even electronically; of others that arrived but were muddled with unrelated data; and, worst of all, of hours of labour at a keyboard that result in the failure of the transmission and the loss of all the data input with such care. But the use of science and technology is key to the future development of agriculture. This has been highlighted by other colleagues so I will cut my remarks, bearing in mind the time, but it is a huge challenge.

The other big challenge the industry faces is the whole question of global commodity volatility, which is a major challenge for all industries but particularly agriculture. I wonder whether the Government will take further the manifesto proposition to,

“allow farmers to smooth their profits for tax purposes over five years”,

rather than the current two years, which would give greater financial stability.

There are other ways in which the Government have made—and, I hope, will continue to make—a difference. Key to that is rural broadband. It affects all rural businesses. Earned recognition and a single farm inspection scheme would make a huge difference. The capital investment allowance is also a bonus, as is the support for some 50% of our small and medium-size businesses, which are based in rural areas. There is much more but I am well aware that my well-constructed speech has had to be torn in half today.