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Cherilyn Mackrory Excerpts

Wednesday 15th September 2021 Westminster Hall

[Cherilyn Mackrory (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Theo Clarke) on securing this debate and giving us the opportunity to highlight our farms. What a fabulous showing we have on the Government side, particularly from south-west colleagues. It is great to see.

I will not repeat what others have said about how brilliant our farmers are and how well they are doing in very difficult circumstances. I just want to put on the record my thanks to all the farmers in Truro and Falmouth, many of whom I have met over the past year, and some of whom I met only a couple of weeks ago. I want to raise a couple of points, from the horse’s mouth, that came out of that discussion. I know that Committees are doing an awful lot of work on the trade deal, and I think we can do better on our communication to farmers; that is where we are falling down.

The farmers had particular concerns about beef carcase imbalance, and thought that any import of cheap food is wrong. They came at it at a very different angle from what I have heard today. They think it is morally wrong that we sell cheap meat to people. People on low incomes should not have to be forced to choose the cheap meet; everybody should have the best-quality meat at a reasonable price. That was the angle they were coming from. They were not trying to be protectionist.

The farmers said that labelling is key. I mentioned that we have lots of work going on on that, and they were very supportive. It is not fair that people get poor-quality or not enough information, so hopefully we can do more on that. From the horse’s mouth, those farmers believe that the Red Tractor system has failed and should be scrapped. They think that there are too many audits on farmers and that there should be one simple standard to follow to allow farmers to concentrate on what they do best.

The farmers also mentioned public procurement. They think there is no reason why we should not be doing that, now that we have left the EU. There are many major purchasers in public procurement—we have mentioned schools and hospitals—and we should absolutely be concentrating on British and sustainably produced produce. When feeding our children and our most vulnerable, why would we not want to give them the very best?

However, I want mostly to talk about daffodils—sorry, I got in first. This is a huge issue in Cornwall, and one that is racing towards the end of the clock. When can export our daffodils to the US and the middle east, and they are worth more than £100 million to our economy—hon. Members may come up with other figures. If the Treasury is listening, that is 20 million quid in VAT receipts. At the moment, we do not have anyone to pick them and we are facing a massive brick wall when it come to the Home Office. Please, Home Office, listen to our plea! I am afraid that when I speak to the Home Office about this—I will be quite strong and robust—it tells us that this is now a Department for Work and Pensions issue, and that British people can be recruited to do the job. They cannot. We heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford a story about picking strawberries. Growers can put a plea out to thousands of people, and in the end, after two weeks of work, they have got nobody left.

There are different solutions to that. I would like to see an extension of the seasonal agricultural work scheme. It is time limited. The season is from January to April—it is very exact. It cannot be mechanised, and British people will not and cannot do that work. We have to come up with a solution. That is a plea not to DEFRA, which I know is on side, but to the Home Office, to do something about it. Otherwise, we will see all those daffodils rotting in the fields.

In addition, there needs to be a focus on encouraging the young generation into farming, from abroad and also at home. One suggestion was made particularly for daffodil pickers, although it could also be used for a wider agricultural recruitment scheme. At the moment, there are 5.6 million people with European settled status, and people from outside the EU, who cannot come back to the United Kingdom to work, purely because of quarantine rules. Can the Government look at paying for that quarantine so that we can get agricultural workers back into the field?