Direct Payments to Farmers (Crop Diversification Derogation) (England) Regulations 2020

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

I congratulate my noble friend on bringing forward this much- needed emergency measure. I join him in thanking the farmers for working through what has been a very difficult time, including a pandemic, to put food on our plates.

I applaud the investment that the Government have made in forecasting for extreme weather events. My noble friend referred to the background to this measure as one of severe flooding—not least, may I say, in North Yorkshire and the whole of the Yorkshire region. Yet now we find ourselves in a time of potential drought. Will he update us on the research and continuous fore- casting that is done, so that in future extreme weather events farmers may be better prepared for where the deluge might fall? The game changer came, as was recognised in the Pitt review in 2007, when we saw weather events that we had never seen before—in particular, deluges of rain falling in one place and not moving on, making farming extremely difficult.

While looking ahead to the Agriculture Bill, I welcome the environmental and greening aspects of the measure before us today and recognise that this currently amounts, as my noble friend said, to 30% of farm incomes. Will he give us an assurance today that future provisions will have an emphasis on crops, livestock and other food production, particularly in view of food security and self-sufficiency? At no time has that been more important than now, when we have seen all the difficulties of the Covid-19 virus.