Baroness Harris of Richmond
Main Page: Baroness Harris of Richmond (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Baroness Harris of Richmond (LD) [V]
My Lords, I am sure we will hear from the Minister how Defra will take our farmers to the sunny uplands during the agricultural transition plan rollout and move us as far away as possible from the European Union and its hated farming policies, but in my part of the world, up in north Yorkshire where we have more sheep than people, there is considerable anxiety about just how effective the Government’s model is going to be.
Most of us would not argue against the environmental land management scheme as being a good thing—nor would we argue about giving grants to improve productivity, especially around animal welfare and that catch-all word “sustainability”. But the questions farmers here are asking are, when negotiating the Australian trade deal, did the Government calculate what impact importing meat might have on UK meat producers? Sheep farming is a mainstay of farming in the Yorkshire Dales. In relation to the stated aims of maintaining our landscape for tourism, leisure and encouraging wildlife, are the Government simply relying on making payments to keep the landscape as it is now, without considering how best to support and maintain the market for sheepmeat? Will sheepmeat imports be subject to the same production standards as meat from farms in Yorkshire? If not, what steps will the Government take to compensate Yorkshire farmers?
Basic payments have accounted for around 60% of profits for farmers over the last five years; they urgently need to know how that will be replaced. A plethora of complicated new schemes is being offered, one of which might mean that farmers decide to sell off land and move to producing renewable energy. One firm has already signed up more than 500 additional renewable sites, 80% of which are on UK farmland. Indeed, one is proposed on a contentious site close to my town’s boundaries. Farmers complained bitterly of the huge amount of paperwork and form-filling when we were members of the EU; will they not be hit by even more of it now that we have “taken back control”?