British Meat and Dairy Products

Bob Seely Excerpts

Wednesday 28th April 2021 Westminster Hall

[Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Ghani. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby) on organising this debate. In the four minutes that I have I want to talk about agriculture on the Isle of Wight and then discuss with the Minister, through you, Ms Ghani, how we can use the Agriculture Act 2020 for the benefit of all of us, but very much for the Island.

I have noticed that a lot of us are talking about carbon and being responsible about animal rearing, but can we not use some of the incredible science in our country to breed cattle that produce less methane and—dare I say it?—pass wind less? Then we might have less of a carbon problem. I just put that out there. Perhaps the Minister will think about that. I am happy to suggest the Island for a pilot scheme. It would be great. We have lots of fresh air on the Island, anyway, and would have even more so with that idea.

The Island has a fantastic reputation for producing some of the best food in Britain, although, clearly, there is a lot of stiff competition. Briddlesford farm makes some of the best feta outside Greece. Calbourne Classics makes some of the best yoghurt in the country. I am yet to taste better fillet steak than that produced by Andrew Hodgson in the beautiful Bowcombe valley, and Queen Bower Dairy regularly produces fantastic soft cheeses and blue-veined cheeses. Isle of Wight tomatoes are very well known, to say nothing of all the lobster, crab and asparagus that we produce.

However, as the Minister knows, because she has been kind enough to discuss this with me, we have some issues. Living on an island, I perhaps share some concerns with the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael). Orkney has an abattoir. we do not. Our abattoir closed down a couple of decades ago. To take cattle for slaughter is an extra £70 per head of cattle. I am therefore very interested in the mobile abattoir scheme that the Minister discussed. I know it is being used in Gloucestershire at the moment. We would be extremely interested in having that on the Island because it would be extremely useful and valuable and would help to create a circular economy so that not only could we have a more sustainable agriculture on the Island by reducing the costs of slaughter and potentially make it more competitive, but it would make it more competitive when sending to the mainland as well because of that Isle of Wight brand.

In a similar vein, we would be keen to explore the use of grants for other shared things for items on the Island such as tanker and extra milk storage facilities, new grain storage, central fertiliser storage, animal feed milling facilities, and box erectors. All those things can make Isle of Wight agriculture not only more profitable—that is almost the wrong word—but can add more value to what we do. We would potentially keep more profit on the Island. As various Members have said, when people go to a supermarket they buy stuff that may be produced here or elsewhere in the European Union. I share the calls for better food labelling, because I will always try to buy local if I can.

The more that we can produce a local economy, so that Gloucestershire becomes even more proud of its produce, likewise the Isle of Wight, Kent and Sussex, that is the way that we can help local agriculture, and almost compete among ourselves. We keep forgetting, as has been pointed out, we have some of the most extraordinary food production in the world. Sometimes we do ourselves down and think that something that comes from Italy or France is better, when often it is not. I hope it will continue to be the case that we can push and get more value for UK produce. I will leave it there, but I look forward to discussing these matters with the Minister in due course.