Farming: Impact of Brexit

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

Thursday 21st July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I would like to thank the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, for tabling this debate. I also add my congratulations to the Minister on extending his “round peg in a round hole” status.

During the referendum, I spent a great deal of time driving round the south-east of England in a Remain campaign minibus. I could not help but be aware of the numerous Vote Leave billboards that covered the farming hedgerows across the region. Therefore, a few days after the result was announced, I was perplexed to watch a series of news interviews with farmers at the Kent County Show, all of whom were expressing major concerns about their future livelihoods with the loss of EU subsidies and the loss of markets for their produce. It clearly had not taken long for the penny to drop. And quite right too, because the future outside Europe is inevitably going to be tough for the farming community—there is no point in pretending otherwise.

Those who campaigned for Brexit have already committed our repatriated EU payments several times over. Indeed, if some are to be believed, it is all going to go to the NHS anyway. So farmers will have to get in line and compete with some pretty powerful lobby groups in order to win back anything like the payments that they have enjoyed up until now. As has been referred to, the new Secretary of State’s statement that she believes all farming subsidies should be phased out will cause added concern.

We need to be clear about the scale of support that farmers have recently been receiving. At the current time, 55% of UK income from farming comes from CAP support. In 2014, the UK received over €3 billion for CAP basic payments to farmers. In September 2015, the EU agreed an emergency aid package for dairy farmers hit by falling prices. The UK received more than £26 million of that, the third-largest amount of all EU states. It is not pessimistic but realistic to assume that these funds will not be protected in a post-Brexit UK budget.

It is not just about the money; it is about the legislative framework too. Farming life is currently governed by thousands of pieces of EU legislation—I am sure that farmers would like to see the back of many of them. However, at the same time, that legislation gives us, as consumers, certainty about issues such as environmental protection, food safety and animal welfare, which there will be considerable pressure to maintain.

However, the real challenge for farmers will be the decision about whether we are allowed to remain in the single market, with its 500 million customers. At the moment, 73% of the UK’s total agrifood exports are to other EU countries. Seven out of the top 10 countries to which we export food, drink and feed are in the EU. Meanwhile, our EU partners are currently making it clear that we cannot pick and mix the single market rules, so we cannot have access to the single market without also respecting the free movement of EU citizens. If this becomes a deal breaker, farmers will need to find new markets for their products outside the EU in a very competitive world.

When we debated this issue the other week, the Minister mentioned export successes such as Scottish beef, Yorkshire forced rhubarb, Kentish ale and Suffolk cheese. Of course, we would all want to celebrate those and other food export successes, but it would be hard to envisage a successful future based purely on those niche, specialist high-end products.

A number of noble Lords mentioned the free movement of EU citizens. Again, farming is an area where the benefits of access to EU seasonal labour are very real and hard to replicate. Unless we can resolve this issue and guarantee a future labour supply, there is a very real danger that crops will remain unharvested and even have to be ploughed back into the soil, along with parallel rising food prices.

The challenges of Brexit to UK farmers are intense and real. No wonder they are worried. What they want now are guarantees and certainty so that they can make plans and long-term investment decisions. I hope the Minister is able to provide at least a timetable for resolving these issues today so that farmers can begin to map out their future in a post-European world.