Food and Farming: Devon and Cornwall

Clive Betts Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd February 2022 Westminster Hall

[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

Welcome, everyone, to this morning’s sitting. I am still asked by the House of Commons Commission to remind hon. Members to observe social distancing and wear masks—that, apparently, is still the guidance and advice.

[Sir Geoffrey Cox (Torridge and West Devon) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered food and farming in Devon and Cornwall.

I am most grateful and delighted to have secured this important debate on food and farming in Devon. It is good to see so many of my colleagues from Devon, and it is very good, if I may say so, to see some honorary Devonians this morning: the hon. Members for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron). It is a particular joy to see them so interested in food and farming in Devon. Of course, many of the themes on which we will touch will be of common interest to those whom they represent and so, speaking for myself and, I am sure, all my colleagues, we are delighted to see them.

I should say straightaway that I own farmland in Devon and derive an income from it. Although I do not myself currently farm the land, it is eligible for some of the schemes that I will discuss today and therefore it is possible that I might benefit from them.

A prosperous and flourishing agriculture in the United Kingdom is in the national interest—I do not imagine that that is a controversial statement in this company. It is not a dispensable or superfluous activity. Recent international events have confirmed, in the most dramatic way, that food production, and more specifically food security, is of increasing national importance and should be a vital Government priority. It does not need much imagination or foresight to see that, for some time now, we have been living through a new and unstable phase of international affairs. The effects of pandemics, wars—threatened and actual—and climate change are thrust upon us with every news bulletin. We cannot take for granted an uninterrupted international supply chain and an endless stream of imports.

On Monday this week, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence observed that the impact of a Russian invasion in Ukraine—now already in action—would be to remove access to the breadbasket of the world. It would have the most deleterious impacts upon vulnerable states and nations throughout the world. Similarly, the gradual erosion by climate change of fertile and cultivable areas of the world, increasing regional tensions, confronts us with a growing threat to the interest of this country in ensuring a constant and adequate food supply to its people. Perhaps not for a very long time has it been so critical that our domestic agricultural policies—under our own exclusive control again after 45 years—should be got right. That is no doubt why the Government sensibly included a legal duty on Ministers, in devising the financial support schemes, to have regard to the need to encourage the production of food and to report each five years to Parliament on food security.

However, agriculture in Devon and Cornwall, like farming all over the country, faces a time of great unpredictability and uncertainty. It must adapt to the major implications of the Agriculture Act 2020 and of changes in our trading relationships after our exit from the European Union.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the right hon. and learned Gentleman on initiating the debate. It is specifically about food and farming in Devon, but, as he rightly said, when it comes to farming, Northern Ireland is comparable. Does he agree that, while farmers in my constituency and across Northern Ireland have recently had a reported rise in income, their outgoings will far outstrip their income, and that, if any modernisation or diversification is to take place, the Government need to step up and implement funding streams that can be allocated to those who need them most, UK-wide? The right hon. and learned Gentleman and I discussed this before the debate. He and I understand well that our Minister in Northern Ireland has grasped the important issue of farming—I know that the Minister here has done the same—but does he feel that whatever happens in Devon, the same should happen in Strangford?

[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

I thought the hon. Gentleman wasn’t going to make a speech this morning.

[Sir Geoffrey Cox]

You might say that, Mr Betts; I couldn’t possibly comment. What I can say is that I agree with the hon. Gentleman: the commonality of interests between farmers in Devon and Northern Ireland is obvious and clear. Northern Ireland is an important part of the United Kingdom. It is important for farmers throughout our great country that these policies should be got right. Now is not the time to take unnecessary risks with our capacity to grow food and sustain the nation, but the time to seize the opportunities the moment brings.

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[Sir Geoffrey Cox]

I completely agree that fairness within the supply and the price chain is vital. I think we have lost some momentum that we gathered a few years back with the enactment of various measures that this Government took in trying to create greater awareness of these matters within the industry and the price chain.

The hon. Gentleman has pointed out one further aspect of what I am attempting to convey. What we need is a conviction at the heart of Government of the importance of British farming. I do not doubt that the Minister herself has that conviction. I do not doubt that the Secretary of State, who is a valued colleague of ours in the south-west, has that conviction. I sometimes doubt that, at the centre of the Government’s councils, that conviction is always as persuasive and influential as it should be. I simply say again: at a time when we are confronting another dictator on the borders of Europe, how much more evidence do we need that food security should be a crucial priority at the heart of Government policy making?

If farmers felt that policies were being designed in our post-Brexit world to lift them up and help them make the most of the market, I have no doubt that they would seize those opportunities with alacrity. They were told that regulation would be handled differently and would not, as so often is the case, stifle farmers with bureaucracy and penalisation, but that there would be—I quote from the transition plan—a “new, more effective approach”. Well, someone appears to have forgotten to send the memo to the Environment Agency. Its new guidance on the farming rules for water has caused widespread dismay about the spreading of muck. I understand that dairy farmers are being visited today and told that they must build more storage for their slurry and invest in their farms—investment that they can ill afford at the moment, and even if they can afford it, they are frequently refused planning permission at the instigation of Natural England.

Again and again I hear the same of other agencies like Natural England, whose chief executive I have invited to a summit meeting on Dartmoor later this year to discuss its relationship with working farmers on the moor. We must see this fabled new approach manifested in the everyday experience of farmers. We must take the freedom that our departure from the European Union has conveyed upon us and create the light-touch, unbureaucratic approach for which the farming community is yearning. We must also see the sums promised for investment in on-farm productivity materialise, increase, and be simple to access and draw down.

Perhaps it is too lugubriously pessimistic to remind oneself of the ill-fated Rural Payments Agency and the long history of misery that its performance in administering the area-based payments so often caused those who had to deal with it. Perhaps it is too easy to believe that the administration of these new, as yet undeveloped and unfledged schemes will suffer the same fate in execution as they have appeared to in design. There are more hopeful omens: all is not doom and gloom, as I know the Minister will tell us. The countryside stewardship applications have been simplified, the rates have been increased and—lo and behold—there has been a 30% increase in the uptake of that scheme. Nobody rejoices in that fact more than I, but as the Minister will accept, it is not by itself enough. I hope she will give us this morning greater grounds for hope than, I am afraid, my more pessimistic observation produces at the moment.

This is not just a question of the observable facts. Sometimes one must rely on one’s intuition, and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs so often seems to wear an air of defeatism and lack the foresight, conviction and urgency that the situation demands. If they do not feel they are getting a fair audience at the heart of the councils of government, I understand that. That is why each one of us sitting here this morning can play our part in lending strength to my hon. Friend the Minister’s elbow and that of her boss, the Secretary of State. We stand here at their side, urging them on, willing to play any part—willing to march, to organise and to express solidarity with the team that we send into battle to fight the British farming corner in the Cabinet and the Government. In that fight she can count on my loyal, steadfast support.

I cannot, I am afraid, touch much more on optimistic and encouraging notes, because I must now turn to the topic of pigs. The Minister knows that pig farmers have suffered acutely from the effects of the pandemic. I have had correspondence with the Secretary of State on this pressing issue. The measures taken by the Government have been welcome, but inadequate to prevent a silent catastrophe on pig farms in Devon. Barely a quarter of the 800 visas for butchers have been taken up. The situation on the farms is just as desperate as when I first corresponded with the Minister last year—indeed, more so. One such local farmer has written to me just this week to say that even after culling hundreds of animals,

“we have 2,700 fattening pigs here whereas we would previously only have had 600 weaners and 650 newborn piglets. We have had to make significant investment”—

they have spent over £100,00—

“into adapting buildings to house all these much larger pigs, as well as buying two new bulk bins to store the extra food and also having to install extra feeding equipment. Meanwhile the cost of animal feed has continued to rocket. The financial burden is immense. The stress of this situation is terrible.”

Thus writes a farming family from Langtree, in Torridge in Devon.

Just yesterday the Irish Government followed other Governments, including Northern Ireland and Scotland, by announcing a hardship fund to allow flat-rate payments to farmers who send more than 200 pigs to slaughter each year. The week before last, there was a crisis meeting with the Minister. I would be glad to hear the progress that the Minister is making in this emergency—and it is an emergency.

There is a silent catastrophe going on in pig farms not only in Devon and Cornwall but throughout our country. The issue requires urgent action. The national interest demands that the Government place food security and agriculture in this country at the heart of their policy making. Surely, as the party of the countryside, we cannot stand by while farming—the very sinew of our rural communities—withers away. Of course adaptations to economic circumstances and modern requirements are necessary but, as the uncertainties and perils of world events remind us with acute and ever-growing force, the neglect of our domestic capacity to feed ourselves would be an omission for which the British people will, rightly, not forgive us.

[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

Slightly out of order, I call the Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, who I know has to return to a Select Committee meeting.

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[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

Four hon. Members want to speak, so that gives them about seven minutes each to allow the wind-ups to start at 20 minutes to.

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[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

Next to contribute is Anthony Mangnall. I remind Members again to limit speeches to seven minutes, or else the last speakers will not get as much time.

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[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

I call Luke Pollard to speak; I appreciate that he has not been here for all of the debate, but he apologised to me on arriving and gave me a very good reason why he was late.

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

Thank you for calling me to speak, Mr Betts.

I thank the right hon. and learned Member for Torridge and West Devon (Sir Geoffrey Cox) for his speech. The Cabinet and the courtroom’s gain has been our loss in years of farming debates, because what he said here is the argument that Labour Members have been prosecuting against the Government for many years. If only we could have afforded his counsel and his wise words along the way! We might then have been more successful in persuading the Government to back British farmers with actions, not just words.

I declare an interest: my little sisters are farmers in north Cornwall. They have had a tough time in the past few days, as have farmers right across the country, coping with Storms Dudley, Eunice and Franklin. I thank them and all farmers for looking after our rural communities, and especially the farm animals that have been rather blown around in the past few days.

I back British farming. We need to buy local more. Devon and Cornwall produce some of the finest food in the world. We should be enormously proud of the production and the methods, as well as the stewardship of the production of the brilliant food that comes from our region. If we are to make it real, we need buying British to be a headline Government policy that is actually implemented and reported on each and every year.

I support the measures that my neighbour, the hon. Member for South West Devon (Sir Gary Streeter), proposed on growing British more. I have advocated for such a policy from the Front Bench, and I am sure that the shadow Farming Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner), will do so in a moment. We could aim for a target of 75% by 2040, to match the NFU’s net zero target, but we need to look seriously at how we do this. This is not “dig for Britain” nostalgia, but a hard-headed investment in our rural communities. It is a job creation exercise. At times of international instability, food security is a national security issue, and we should be unafraid to call it that.

Far too often in the past few decades, food policy has been exported and privatised through the supermarkets. We need to take back control of food policy, and talk about high standards, proper wages, proper decency and the environmental gains. We have not been doing that, but I hope the Minister will listen to the cross-party concerns raised here. Whatever colour rosette we wear at elections, the argument is the same: the Government have not been seizing the opportunities presented by Brexit to make a fairer, decent, greener and healthier farming system for our rural communities. They need to do so.

I worry that the opposite is true. I have spoken about this before, and I do not apologise for saying it again: I think there is a Government strategy to reduce the number of farmers in our country—to have smaller farms aggregated into larger farms, with more use of technology, gene editing and more industrialised methods. That may work in the east of England, but it does not work in the south-west. One practical reason is that our small country lanes will not be able to cope with larger farm machinery going through there, but actually, the preponderance and concentration of small family farms, not with huge acreage, but with a passion and a stewardship of the countryside that we should be celebrating, needs to be preserved.

It is not possible to have growth in British production at the same time as the Government are signing trade deals that undercut our farmers. Those deals send the message to farmers, whether Ministers think it is accurate or not, that their industry and the value they create is not worth it—the Government will sell them out in hopes of a trade deal. The Australia trade deal is the model that all future trade deals will follow, and it is a betrayal, baked into a trade deal that the next Government will not be able to wriggle out of. This is a generational betrayal of British farming, and we should be unafraid to call it out.

The south-west is a brilliant place for farming. We have some brilliant farmers in our region, which produces more food than Scotland and twice as much as Wales. In our region, agriculture contributes twice as much to the economy and generates twice as many jobs as it does in the average English region. The agricultural sector in the south-west directly contributes £1.6 billion to the national economy and employs 60,000 people. In Devon, agriculture and food production accounts for 13% of the county’s economy—almost double the national average. The renaissance in farming that we require needs to be shared right across the country.

I share the concerns raised by the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) about environmental land management schemes. They are not working in the way they need to. There is not the clarity or the confidence that farmers need if they are to undertake them. Nor is the sustainable farming incentive working. The Government need to look at the system again, because confidence in it has not been created.

Like Plymouth Argyle against Chelsea, DEFRA was off to a winning start at first. Rewarding farmers for public goods was a good principle that enjoyed cross-party support: the problem is that the practice does not match the ambition that we first came out with. I want DEFRA to be stronger on this, because there is a real case, which has been advocated on a cross-party basis, for looking again at phasing down direct payments and the speed with which they are being phased down. We need to make sure that our farmers are not being forced out of business, because there is a genuine risk that if they are forced out of business, our countryside—that immense rural fabric, that green and pleasant land that we so value—will be eroded. The second home penetration into our rural communities is a real issue. We need a concentration on first homes, not second homes, but those communities are being hollowed out. It is unaffordable for many people to live in rural communities; it is unaffordable for many people to work on a farm in a rural community, because they cannot afford to live there. That issue also needs to be addressed through a proper long-term plan.

The final thing I want to say is about tenant farmers, because the implications of the Government’s changing agriculture policy are felt the most by those farmers, who do not have security of tenure of their lands or ownership opportunities. We know that absent landlords are putting up rents for tenant farmers. We know that tenant farmers, in particular, face the toughest time when it comes to making their businesses work, and I would like the Minister to make a specific effort to build up support for tenant farmers and make sure that the measures she is introducing do not inadvertently affect them. We have an amazing farming sector in the south-west, and I want that to continue, but to do that, we need the Government to do different things from what they are doing at the moment. Having the soundbites, but not the action, will not achieve that, so I hope the Minister listens to the cross-party agreement on what is going wrong and what should be happening in its place.

[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

I call Simon Jupp. I will start the wind-ups at 10.39, so I ask the hon. Member to make sure he keeps his eye on the clock.

[Simon Jupp (East Devon) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Betts; that is much appreciated. I also thank my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Torridge and West Devon (Sir Geoffrey Cox) for securing this morning’s debate.

The south-west, particularly Devon and Cornwall, is proudly at the centre of the UK’s food and farming industry, as we have heard this morning. Our whole region is proud of the produce we produce: we should shout about it far and wide, and perhaps we do not do enough of that at the moment. We are an integral part of the UK’s agricultural and economic output and employment. It does not need saying that the value of farming output in the south-west was £4.1 billion in 2019, which is an incredible figure: more than Scotland, and more than twice as much as Wales. Two thirds of all dairy products exported from the UK to the US are from the south-west, even though the south-west is home to just one third of England’s cattle—that is a really interesting statistic.

Devon’s farmers play a key role in the life in the county that I grew up in and am proud to represent a part of. Many residents of our county get a snippet of this at the annual Devon County Show, held in my constituency of East Devon, but all year round, farmers are the custodians of our countryside. They create new habitats, protect wildlife, produce the raw ingredients that feed our nation, and export that food around the globe. As diverse businesses, they offer accommodation to tourists and visitors coming to the best bit of Britain. Almost 20,000 people work in the food and farming sector in Devon: that is 13% of the county’s economy, compared with 8% nationally. As my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall) has highlighted, the south-west also has a major fishing sector, with the region totalling 10% of all fishing output, second only to Scotland.

Overall, I support the Government’s position of maintaining high UK food and animal welfare standards, and shifting from the bureaucratic EU cap towards ELMS that will improve our environment and encourage consumers to buy British. However, since being elected I have spoken to many farmers in my corner of the south-west, East Devon, as well as the National Farmers Union and others. I always insist to them that the Government should be in listening mode, but that communication must go both ways, and it does not always feel that way. Farming is a seven-days-a-week job, and those farmers deserve to be productive, successful and profitable. While Britain is now free to independently strike new trade deals across the world, that should not come at the expense of high-quality and popular produce from East Devon that rightly deserves our support.

Some of the best British food and produce is also the cheapest: it is seasonal, it is local, and it has not travelled across the planet to get to our shelves. We are still awash with local greengrocers, corner shops, farmers markets, fishmongers and butchers across vast swathes of the south-west, and they need our support more than ever. We cannot afford to lose them from our towns and villages and, crucially, neither can our local farmers. That is why I share the concerns of my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) about food standards. I am pleased that the Government listened and took the UK’s high standards off the table of any trade deal. I particularly welcome the Government’s setting up the Trade and Agriculture Commission to advise on and inform trade policies and deals. The commission is crucial, and it must continue to play a crucial role as we continue to take advantage of our newfound freedoms after leaving the European Union.

However, clarity for our industry is needed sooner rather than later. Farmers in my constituency believe there should be a clearer direction on the environmental land management scheme and on how payments for farmers will be measured following the end of the single farm payment. They believe that, at its heart, ELMS should keep encouraging farmers to produce food if we are to maintain 62% food self-sufficiency in the UK, and that the quota could and should be increased. Over recent years, one of the advantages of subsidised farming was that it gave the Government an element of control over farming. However, if payments are viewed as not worth the hassle, farmers will be more inclined to do their own thing. The benefits of the scheme, with all its good ideas, will not be felt and the positive impact, as intended, will not happen.

As we have heard, some farmers feel under increasing pressure from the Environment Agency, with farming rules for water making some farming systems unviable. There could be better practicalities surrounding the rules that should ultimately keep farmers making the best use of their manures. I am acutely aware that the Government should look to encourage the food and farming sector to recruit from the domestic workforce, with better pay and conditions wherever possible, now that we have left the EU. It is a theme that has been repeated throughout this morning’s debate. However, sustained efforts by both the Government and the industry to encourage interest in such a career are long overdue, and the skills gap is a problem now—not in a couple of years’ time, when the training has been completed. Places such as Bicton College in my constituency do a great job at helping to turn the situation around, but for many farmers it is too little, too late.

Although the seasonal visa schemes for the poultry industry helped plug the acute gap last year, I hope DEFRA can work this year with the Home Office on a long-term strategy for the food and farming workforce. One of the farms in my constituency produces the best turkeys in Devon—I would say that, wouldn’t I? If it becomes clear again that it cannot get turkeys from farm to fork this Christmas without foreign labour, the Government must act quickly to help and not leave it until the last minute. The temporary visa scheme, which did not have many people sign up to it, represented a failure to back our farmers. Crucially, farmers need as much notice as possible.

The south-west is known not only for its food, but for its drink. It would be remiss of me not to mention the thousands of acres of orchards across the west country that produce some of the world’s best cider and perry, which I have been known to enjoy from time to time—in moderation, of course. They support around 11,500 jobs. Recognising and supporting apple and pear growers is vital to protecting those world-class products, and I welcome the Treasury’s measure in the Budget to cut the duty on draught beer, cider and sparkling wine. That is an example of how the Government have listened to our industry, but we can go further and faster.

Following the comments from my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes, it would be remiss of me not to talk about DEFRA and its hopeful move to Devon. South Devon is perhaps a little far—I suggest East Devon might be a more important and prominent part of our county.

Food and farming can continue to go from strength to strength, but the industry needs to have certainty in order to survive and then thrive. I am not sure it currently has that. People care more than ever about what is on their plate—the pandemic showed us that. We already produce the best. Let’s make sure we keep the skills and expertise to keep it that way and grasp all the opportunities ahead.

[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

I thank right hon. and hon. Members for their co-operation. The Front-Bench speakers will have 10 minutes each.