Common Agricultural Policy

Bob Stewart Excerpts

Monday 7th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Neil Parish]

My hon. Friend is right to a degree, but is it right that the most productive land across the whole of Europe, including in East Anglia, should get the highest payments, given that farmers there can make the most from that land? We must have some balance in the process. We have talked about the uplands tonight, and there is no doubt that upland livestock farmers struggle. In my view, it could be argued—my right hon. Friend the Member for South East Cambridgeshire will probably jump out of his seat—that some of those farmers in East Anglia, Cambridgeshire and elsewhere across the country who can grow very good arable crops, perhaps 10 tonnes of wheat per hectare, could see just a little bit of those payments move uphill. That is what we are trying to do, but I think that we probably need to do a little more. There is an argument there, but I think that we need to ensure that we support farming in those marginal areas, which is more difficult.

We must also ensure that in the end we deliver a policy that encourages food production. It is great to support the environment, but we must remember that in the uplands and on a lot of the permanent pasture on the hills it is the cattle and sheep that will keep farming as it is. It was not put there by God; it was put there by farmers. We must remember that it is the farmers who look after the countryside. We must remember that in order to support them, we must ensure that they have an income. We have to spread that as far and wide as we can.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

On this, my 65th birthday—

[Hon. Members]

Hear, hear.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Spencer]

Retire!

[Bob Stewart]

Certainly. Will my hon. Friend enlighten me as to whether we have any control over how we allocate the CAP in England, or is that decided in Brussels?

[Neil Parish]

First, I congratulate my hon. Friend on reaching that great age. There are—dare I say it?—others in the House who have reached an even greater age. He asks a difficult question. We are limited by how much of it we can decide ourselves, as a lot is decided by the European Commission and, finally, the Council. As my right hon. Friend the Member for South East Cambridgeshire said, it is very difficult to change things at that stage. We can tweak some of the environmental schemes a bit—there are the odd things we can do—but in the end we have to go along with much of what is in the policy.

Overall, the CAP overall should be moving towards a simpler system, but we are not getting that. We should be weaning farmers off more and more public support, but I want that to happen across the whole of Europe. As the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire said, there are many different types and levels of payment. Margaret Thatcher said, “Don’t buck the markets”, but that is exactly what we do. We have all sorts of different levels of payments across the whole of Europe and then expect farmers to compete in a single market, which is almost impossible. More and more of the subsidy should be phased out, and farmers should increasingly stand on their own two feet. We should make sure that we get a decent price for food and use biotechnology to produce even more food so that in the end we can feed the growing population.