Agricultural Sector: Import Standards
Debate between Caroline Nokes and Lee Pitcher(1 week, 4 days ago)
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Lee Pitcher (Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme) (Lab)
In Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme, agriculture is a key part of our local economy and our identity. The Isle of Axholme alone consists of 50,000 acres and is characterised by a mix of intensive agricultural land, including significant arable land, and a historical, unique system of open-field strip farming, particularly around parishes such as Haxey and Epworth. One farmer in Ealand categorically assures me that we have the best soil for growing the tastiest spuds in the world—so for the Burns night festivities this weekend, Madam Deputy Speaker, you know where to shop for neeps and tatties.
No one takes up life as a farmer because they want an easy time. Farming is hard. Farmers pour their heart and soul into their land; I know that from my wife’s family. I see it from my window at home: they are up before the break of dawn and out after the owls have emerged. My farmers meet the rules—they pay for assurance, inspections and traceability—but when the time comes to sell their crops, their meat and their products, they find that they are not on a level playing field. They are undercut by imports produced to lower standards at a lower cost. That is just not right.
Over the past year or so, I have spent a significant amount of time understanding the issue. I have been out with farmers in my constituency. I have visited farms across Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme, have attended roundtables with local farmers and have held surgeries. I have attended farmers’ shows, markets and fairs and have hosted several here in Westminster. I hope soon to meet representatives of Epworth and District young farmers club, which is raising money for the Yorkshire air ambulance and the Lindsey Lodge hospice. In the autumn, I will attend the first ever Isle country show. I have spent time listening directly to the concerns that farmers have raised. Today, I want to feed back clearly to the Minister what they are telling me and what we can do to support them. I will give some examples that they have shared with me.
Let us start with grain. Grain merchants can import grain that is not Red Tractor-assured. Too often, it arrives without the paperwork that we would expect for something that goes into our food chain. UK grain is grown to higher standards. That really matters, but our grain also costs more to produce, so when imports come in cheaper it drives prices below UK production costs. When UK-assured grain is then bulked out with imported grain, it makes a mockery of the premium that our farmers have earned through the quality of their production.
We can grow excellent potatoes in this country, yet we are seeing vast quantities being imported from as far as Portugal, simply to shave costs. That is madness when we factor in the distance, the carbon and the message that it sends to domestic producers who are doing the right thing day in, day out. It is the same story with beef. When we import beef produced to lower welfare standards at a scale that drives down unit costs, we are effectively punishing British farmers for maintaining higher welfare standards and traceability.
There are double standards on crop protection. Oilseed rape became far harder to grow successfully here after key plant protection products were banned, leaving growers exposed to pests such as cabbage stem flea beetles, yet imported crops can be treated with products that our farmers are not allowed to use. That is not a level playing field; it is a tilted one. I will keep repeating that point.
Finally, I turn to sugar. We have sugar beet growers close to processing plants in this country who sustain jobs and local supply chains, yet sugar cane can be imported from countries in which it has been treated with chemicals that are banned here, and then be processed in the UK. I am told that it then ends up on our supermarket shelves with packaging covered in a Union flag that implies British provenance.
I call on the Government to do three things for our farming community; I would love the Minister to respond if she can. We need stronger equivalence in our import standards: if a product cannot be produced here under the rules, it should not be able to undercut our farmers on our shelves. We need robust enforcement and paperwork checks at the border, because standards on paper are meaningless without compliance in practice. We need honest, clear labelling that protects British trademarks and gives consumers the information they need, not marketing that blurs the origin or standards of what they are buying.
UK farmers are frequently inspected, licensed and held to higher welfare and environmental rules. That approach delivers food that is safe, traceable and trusted. The least we can do is ensure that our trade and import regime rewards their efforts rather than undermining them. Let us help our farmers to plough their fields successfully in future by levelling the playing field for them right now.
Business of the House
Debate between Caroline Nokes and Lee Pitcher(1 year ago)
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Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
Order. May I encourage all Members to reduce the length of their questions by 50%, and then everyone will get in?
Lee Pitcher (Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme) (Lab)
Last Friday, I had the privilege of meeting those at the Foyer and Doncaster Housing for Young People to discuss how we can best support 16 to 25-year-olds who are homeless or vulnerably housed. Having experienced homelessness as a child, I know how challenging that can be, so I really welcome the measures in the Renters’ Rights Bill. Will the Leader of the House join me in congratulating organisations such as Doncaster Housing for Young People on their vital work and in praising the measures in the Bill?
Rural Affairs
Debate between Caroline Nokes and Lee Pitcher(1 year, 2 months ago)
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Lee Pitcher (Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme) (Lab)
I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.
Can Members imagine what it is like for someone to not be able to see, hearing water flooding into their home, not knowing where it is coming from, fearing how deep it might get, with no idea where the next escape route might be in the house? Can they imagine being a child who has previously become homeless due to flooding and lost their most treasured possessions, for whom just hearing a raindrop outside triggers their post-traumatic stress disorder and nightmares? Can they imagine being a farmer whose entire crop is lost to the impact of flooding? Can they imagine being a carer for a child on dialysis, knowing that when it rains they could soon be dealing with pumping out contaminated water from their own home while their child is having treatment?
For many, these situations are not unimaginable; it is their reality. That is not a surprise when flooding is the most recorded natural disaster on this planet. In 2023, 176 flood disasters were recorded across the world, a similar number to the year before, both of which are significantly higher than the average of 86 recorded in the 1990s.
One third of our planet is prone to flooding, and over five million people here in the UK live or work in flood-risk areas. Flooding is also a huge economic problem, as we have heard today. According to work by the Risky Cities project, Arup and other partners, the single biggest shock or stress that can affect the economy of 60% of the Rockefeller Foundation 100 resilient cities across the world is flooding. However, it is not just too much water; we are increasingly seeing the impact of too little water, or drought, and too dirty water, or pollution, impacting our rural and urban communities.
Water knows no boundaries, whether geographical, political or topographical. That is particularly challenging in countries such as ours where we have tried to make sense of the natural world and environment by creating frameworks and therefore putting boundaries in place. Water is complex. In many parts of the country, we could walk a kilometre alongside a watercourse and anywhere along that stretch someone might be impacted by flooding. The same water can pass along a river managed by the Environment Agency, into a culverted area managed by the local authority, through a farmer’s field with riparian ownership, back to the EA, into an internal drainage board-maintained ditch, through a water company pumping station, back to a sustainable urban drainage pond managed by the local authority, and so on. In that short stretch between here and Westminster bridge, we could have several hand-offs and handovers of that ownership of an asset by half a dozen authorities.
To be frank, if we ask any of my residents who I visited recently in Westwoodside in Axholme, a rural area, or the River Idle Flood Action Group in Bawtry, they will tell us that they do not care who owns the water, they just want that water out of their homes, out of their gardens, and out of their business premises. In fact, they do not want it even to get to the stage where it comes in in the first place.
The same water management principle applies to cleanliness, whether water is impacted from diffuse sources like the run-off from land, combined sewer overflows, trade waste, septic tanks or misconnections. The ammonia, E. coli, enterococci, nitrates and metals that impact our ditches, dykes, rivers and oceans come from many sources owned by many individuals and organisations. We all have a massive part to play in cleaning up watercourses, and the fact remains that we need to manage water across the whole catchment; that requires system thinking and it requires our rural communities.
A catchment approach is imperative in managing water across the whole water cycle and in leadership, both role model and visionary. Role model leadership involves acting now. We have seen how this Government have focused and taken swift action through the Water (Special Measures) Bill, which will start to tackle part of the challenge, setting up the flood taskforce, providing £60 million in the Budget for flood-related work with the agricultural community, and the biggest agricultural budget in history for sustainable farming.
Visionary leadership involves looking at long-term planning for resilience to flooding through adaptation and mitigation. It is the kind of vision that considers innovation through sustainable urban drainage and nature-based solutions, working with the land to create flood adaptation while improving soil effectiveness, reducing carbon and finding new commercial opportunities. I have seen examples that deliver a combination of these things, like farmers in Yorkshire planting pop-up rainforests. That visionary leadership should also consider education, new skills, behaviour change towards partnering and close working across all agencies. It is because of all the above that I welcome the Government’s action regarding the independent water commission, which will be the largest review of the sector since privatisation.
Nobody knows the land better than those who manage it, so I urge the Minister to continue to work closely with our landowners. Nobody is more passionate about the environment than our younger generations, so I urge the Minister to continue to work well with our Education Department around Skills England and the new opportunities for our rural areas. Nobody has more passion locally than our communities, who want to see improvements on their doorsteps. So may I finally urge our Minister to consider how to best work and co-create with our community groups—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
Order. I call the Chair of the Select Committee.