Direct Payments to Farmers (Legislative Continuity) Bill

Debate between Caroline Johnson and Simon Hoare

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 21st January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dr Johnson]

I cannot promise that the Minister will visit, but I certainly agree that there is great importance in looking at the different size of farms and the different types of schemes that will be right for each different type of farming as we leave the EU. I will discuss that later.

It is noticeable that we are the party of farmers—of supporting farmers and rural communities. That is obvious today as we look around the Chamber and see how well supported this debate is on the Government Benches compared with on the Opposition Benches.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that one task of everyone in this place who supports British farming and agriculture is to make the clear argument, as she is, about the importance of the sector to an increasingly urbanised media, commentariat and, indeed, House of Commons? There are more urban MPs than there are rural. We need to make sure that the needs of agriculture in this country are well understood.

[Dr Johnson]

I could not agree more with my hon. Friend; he is absolutely right. I have a new map for my office wall that shows the constituencies by colour, as per the recent election result. It is noticeable that rural Britain is overwhelmingly blue in representation, because we are the party of the farmers. I am sure we will continue to make the arguments positively and that Ministers will continue to do the same.

Finance (No. 3) Bill

Debate between Caroline Johnson and Simon Hoare

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 8th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that not only has employment benefited but, since 2010, this Government have delivered a reduction of 661,000 in the number of children living in workless households—so over half a million young people are now growing up in a home where they are getting those lessons on the importance of work—and have also reduced the number of children living in absolute poverty by 200,000?

[Simon Hoare]

My hon. Friend helps me and my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury by amplifying the point.

I said earlier that I was born and brought up in Cardiff. One of my abiding memories was of my late grandmother, who was born in 1908, and what motivated her throughout the whole of her life. She was the daughter of Irish immigrants. When she was at school—a Catholic primary school called St Patrick’s in Grangetown —a teacher brought a child to the front of the class, theatrically held their nose, and said, “Boy, go home, you smell.”

I can remember, in different circumstances in the 1970s, my Catholic primary school in Cardiff called St Mary’s. It was the school that my mother had gone to as well. It drew from a mixed economic demographic. There was a family with three children—I can see them now. If I sound emotional on this point, it is because I am. I am emotional because I can remember—although this may sound entirely preposterous and pompous—how I felt as an eight or nine-year-old, as I was, seeing this family. The mother always looked underfed. The father always looked harassed to death. The children, one of whom was in my class, had a colour of poverty. They had a smell of poverty. Poverty has a smell about it. It has a posture about it. It says, “We are beaten.” At the age of eight, nine or 10, I can remember looking at my classmate and thinking, “What can I do?” I realised that I could do nothing apart from provide a bit of friendship and support, and I did it as best I could, as I am sure that anybody would.

But that impotence of an eight-year-old has disappeared, and I can now stand here as a 49-year-old—[Interruption.] Yes, only 49—I know. I have had a hard life—that is what I tell my wife, anyway. I burn with the sense of injustice that the hon. Member for Gedling expressed. We are all in a position in this place where we are not impotent—we can actually do something about this. If I thought that Her Majesty’s Government were not as committed as I am on this issue, I would be in the Lobby with Opposition Members, but I do not think that. I think that the strategy of the Finance Bill is right. Our values and our principles must shine through. I urge Treasury Ministers and other Ministers to talk a little more about the why of what we are doing in our politics and a little less about the percentages and statistics.