Farmers

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Wednesday 8th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I have been absolutely determined to facilitate much more access to the countryside on my brief watch in this post, but the truth is that we could spend ELMS 20 times over on different schemes. We have a crisis of species decline and are one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world. We therefore have to use ELMS to do that. There are many other things that we could be and are doing, but I want us to focus on how people want to access the country. Some people do want to walk right round the coast of England but some just want to walk out of their town on a circular route. I want to ensure that we are working with farmers and landowners to deliver for those sorts of people as well.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, the Minister mentioned incentivising farmers. I would like to know how he thinks that the Government are incentivising farmers when they do environmentally unfriendly trade deals with places such as Australia, which come in and undercut our farmers’ produce on animal welfare and environmental value?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

We have a firm commitment that, in all trade deals, we will not compromise on environmental and animal welfare standards. We also have to recognise that, if you are going to bring food right across from the other side of the world, there is a carbon price to pay for that. We want to make sure we are favouring local food, produced sustainably by British farmers, and that is what we are working to achieve.