Environmental Land Management Scheme: Food Production

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Tuesday 1st February 2022 Westminster Hall

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Davies. I congratulate the hon. Member for The Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) on securing the debate and on outlining so successfully the problems that face us. In particular, I am pleased that he endorsed many of the positions that Labour Front Benchers took two years ago when the Agriculture Bill was discussed. We very much wanted annual food security reports, and for food to be a key priority. The Minister will remember the lengthy discussions that we had on the Bill.

We genuinely want ELMS to succeed. I was pleased that the Minister offered me the opportunity to go to look at some of the tests and trials, and I thank some of the people who showed me the 23 Burns project in Northumberland—Louis Fell in particular—the Barningham Estate, and Alex Farris, the Exmoor national park conservation officer. From those conversations I learned that there are people who are putting a huge amount of effort into this—they have a passion—but that the scheme is also very complicated and bureaucratic. Most of all, I came away thinking that the scheme is not going to work for everybody. For some people, it will work, but what about everybody else?

There have been lots of reports, including the PAC report and the National Audit Office report. I will not repeat all the criticisms that have been made, which are well known. It is certainly the case that a proper impact assessment for ELMS, as the NFU has called for, should be done soon and quickly.

I have some very specific questions for the Minister that repeat some of those that I raised two years ago. We are now into the scheme. We heard the excellent speech that my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) made about the money that farmers have lost this year. We know how much has been cut, but how much has gone back to the frontline, rather than lost in bureaucracy, in producing reports and all the rest? The Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) pointed out, very expertly, as always, that not only is money coming and going; the scheme is costing farmers money. How much is it costing them, at a time when farming margins are so very tight?

Why are we facing those problems with ELMS? There is so much agreement: we want to tackle the environmental crisis, and overwhelmingly people in the sector want to see farming conducted in a more sustainable way. What is the problem? I will explain it. I know that not everyone loves “Countryfile”, but it had a very balanced report on the issue this week. The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs was there, looking very dapper on his farm. When asked how many farmers would still be in place in 10 years’ time, he could not possibly say.

That took me back to a conversation that I had with a farmer in Cambridgeshire. When he last did the forms, they came back saying that there was a mistake—that he had got the numbers the wrong way round, putting 1692 instead of 1962. He said, “No, it was 1692 when we started here.” The point is that farmers have been there a long time, over many generations. I know that the world moves faster now, but I put that question to the Minister: how many farmers does she expect to be here in 2030? I think that the Secretary of State expects far fewer, and that is why he set up the scheme to help people out.

My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport, the Chair of the Select Committee and the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) made exactly the same point: this is an attempt to clear out British farming for market fundamentalist reasons. That is the fundamental difference between Opposition Members and some Government Members. I do not think there is unanimity among the Conservatives. Being a market fundamentalist explains why, when we had the food security report at the end of last year, the Secretary of State was an agnostic. In fact, I do not think I have heard the Secretary of State commit to the NFU’s 60%. Perhaps the Minister will do that today.

[The Minister for Farming, Fisheries and Food (Victoria Prentis)]

indicated assent.

[Daniel Zeichner]

I am glad the hon. Lady is committed to it, but that is not what the Secretary of State indicated. That goes back to a point well made by the hon. Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax), whom I do not normally find myself in agreement with. He was absolutely right about the first iteration of the Agriculture Bill, which did not forget food by accident. It forgot food because those who are driving the agenda do not consider it to be the prime purpose of farming in this country any more. That is a fundamental difference.

Of course, the Government have not only managed to upset a huge part of the farming sector. They are also failing to satisfy the environmental sector. I will not go into the internal dispute in the Conservative party, but let us look at some of the outcomes. I commend the House of Commons Library for its excellent briefing. The fact that it is such a lengthy briefing and many people struggle to get through it tells us something about the nature of these schemes. If we look at the ELM outcomes on page 34—we are finally beginning to see something from the Government on what this might lead to—we see that it mentions 6 megatonnes of CO₂ and just 10% of agricultural emissions. If we are trying to tackle a climate crisis, that is not nearly enough.

If we look at the response from the environmental organisations—we could go all over the place to find these, but page 49 of the Library briefing has a good little selection of responses from the Wildlife Trusts, the National Trust and others—we see that they, too, are disappointed. I am sorry to say to the Minister that she is disappointing both sides.

I do not have much time—I could speak for a long time because I feel passionately about this issue—but I will raise a couple of extra points relating to tenant farmers who seem to have been put in a particularly difficult position. Of course, George Dunn and the Tenant Farmers Association are very powerful advocates. They keep making the same points, and they strongly argue that farm business tenancies should be included in the Agriculture Act 2020 provisions, because they are worried that tier 2 and 3 ELMS tenants will not have an automatic right to be a part of it. Perhaps the Minister will say something about that.

I am conscious of time and I want the Minister to have a full opportunity to respond. On the points about uplands livestock farmers, if we look at the Library briefing and information provided by the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board, we see that the figures are terrifying. Given the amount of money available—this goes back to the point made by the Chair of the Select Committee—people will not take up these schemes if they find that implementing them costs almost as much as what they would get back from them. On the fine margins—I heard the point about grain barons in the east—many of the farms even in the east of England are also marginal without farm support, so this cuts rights across the country.

In conclusion, there is another way, and that is to be firmly committed to making, buying and selling more in Britain. That is the Labour party’s position, and I suspect it is a position with which large numbers of Members of other parties agree. That is a fundamental difference of view. We are not market fundamentalists. We do not think we can just leave it to the market and that trade deals and food will come from elsewhere. We believe that the other way is sensible for this country, for many of the reasons that we have all rehearsed today. As my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport has argued, it is a national security issue as well. We are absolutely committed to that. If we start from that position, we can and will make the schemes work.