Farming

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

I thank colleagues for a full, excellent and thoughtful debate. I was delighted to hear contributions from new, young, Labour rural voices: my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Alistair Strathern) spoke well about some of the limitations of the SFI, and raised the issue of rural crime; and my hon. Friend the Member for Selby and Ainsty (Keir Mather) talked knowledgably about flooding issues. Although he is not in his place, we also heard from someone who is eternally youthful but not so new, my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel), who also touched on SFI issues. [Interruption.] Oh, he is here, just in time. He also discussed green skills and biodiversity.

We also heard thoughtful contributions from two former Secretaries of State, which I listened to closely, and an excellent introduction from the hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Sir Bill Wiggin). I thought there was a theme running through some of the contributions from Conservative Members, which was that not all is entirely well with Government policy. They made sensible observations about how long we have been waiting for the response to the Shropshire review, and about the demise of the horticultural strategy. A range of other criticisms were made, which I hope the Government will take on board.

I also very much enjoyed the characteristically optimistic contribution from the hon. Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman). I was not that far from his constituency last week, when, at the invitation of Labour’s excellent Keir Cozens, I went to Great Yarmouth to meet a group of farmers. Like many others, they have, I suspect, been following this debate with interest, because their issues and concerns are typical of those of many across the country. They want to farm in environmentally sensitive, nature-friendly ways, but they run businesses and they need to make a return—that point was well made by my hon. Friend the Member for Selby and Ainsty. That requires the right regulatory frameworks, appropriate support, and help where necessary. Frankly, that is not what they are getting at the moment. They look at the SFI and rightly warn that the money on offer for growing flowers is so tempting that many will take it—we are talking about whole farms. That makes no sense, not for food production, the environment or the Exchequer. We need flour as well as flowers—that is what needs to be sorted out, Minister, and quickly. So, too, does the fundamental flaw in the Government’s approach to the agricultural transition. They are spending large amounts of our money without knowing what they are getting for it. They cannot say they were not warned, but they pushed ahead regardless.

Halfway through the transition, the Government do not know whether their measures have improved the environment, or whether any progress is being made on reducing emissions. In addition, as the Farmers Guardian headline recently put it, we have “Farm Output in free fall”.

Those Norfolk farmers are frustrated by a whole range of Government agencies, and we have heard reference to some of the problems there from Conservative Members. Whether it be muddle over responses to flooding or endless frustration with local planning, these are issues that Labour has identified, and that are central to our plans to keep Britain farming. Farming is a hard business, and times are difficult. The weather is more challenging than ever, with sheets of water sitting on so many fields across the country. Too many farmers have had to endure the distress of witnessing the destruction of their crops or livestock due to those floods or, in some cases, the persistent shortage of workforce and labour. Although we are all relieved that the threat from avian flu has receded to some extent this year, I think we all know that had we faced bluetongue, which will continue to be a problem, or African swine fever at the same time, the already very stretched systems that the Government had in place would almost certainly have buckled.

As Members have said, we still have a supply chain contract system that we all know does not work for too many farmers. Stakeholders tell me that things are actually getting worse. I was in Hexham at the northern farming conference last year, where a point was strongly made that Labour’s Joe Morris recently reinforced to me: we have too many buyers taking too long to consider cost price increase requests, taking too long to pay invoices, failing to honour their original order and rejecting perfectly good produce because it does not quite fit some aesthetic criteria. That leads to appalling waste; one producer told me that he had to throw away 50% of the lettuces he grows. That is terrible for the environment, an insult to farmers, and deeply problematic when working people all over the country are struggling in a cost of living crisis to get a meal on the table. More than a quarter of all the food grown in the UK is never eaten, and this wasted harvest accounts for between 6% and 7% of total UK greenhouse gas emissions. That waste has been made worse by severe and persistent labour shortages, which the Government have been too slow to address.

It is therefore no great surprise that UK farmers are producing less and less of our food. As my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon North (Steve Reed) said, over 6,000 agricultural businesses have closed down since 2017. At the same time, as we have heard repeatedly, the Government have let farmers down on trade deals, opening the door to food produced to lower standards. Given all that, it is hardly surprising that a severe toll has been taken on famers’ mental health.

A Labour Government will resolutely back British farmers, reducing our reliance on insecure imports, supporting high-quality, local produce for consumers, and ending the shameful new reality we have come to almost accept: that there will be gaps on supermarket shelves. For Labour, food security is national security, and that starts with our new deal for farmers.

Labour will seek a veterinary agreement with the European Union that will get British food exports moving again and ensure standards are safeguarded. We will buy, make and sell more homegrown, sustainable, nutritious food. We will support farmers across the country through public procurement, and use the Government’s purchasing power to ensure that at least half of all food in our hospitals and prisons is locally produced or certified to higher environmental production standards. We will deliver price stability for farmers by establishing GB Energy, a new publicly owned energy company that will direct public and private investment to harness clean, homegrown wind, wave, solar and nuclear power. We will have energy independence, with 100% clean energy by 2030. That means cheaper energy for farmers and less volatility, which is vital to long-term businesses.

The Government seem to have taken forever to respond to Baroness Rock’s report on the tenanted sector, but we will inject a new urgency into that, as we will into finding ways to help new entrants into farming, because those young people are the future of the sector. We will support research and innovation, so that we can make productivity gains that have been elusive for too long in many parts of the industry.

We are committed to making the environmental land management schemes work. Frankly, the Government simply do not have a strategic approach to ELMS, or to the crucial challenge of balancing producing nutritious food, protecting nature, mitigating climate change and upholding animal welfare standards. They are failing on all these important fronts. The Government’s failure to deliver on their environmental targets means that their promise to protect at least 30% of our land, waters and ocean by 2030 is in serious doubt. The Climate Change Committee’s latest report makes grim reading for the Government. Emissions from agriculture are going in completely the wrong direction; they actually rose last year.

The Government have failed in their task of establishing a post-Brexit vision and framework for farming in this country. It will fall to Labour to pick up that mantle and create the land-use framework needed to meet the multiple demands made on our land in a more strategic way—to deliver stability that optimises the achievement of our social, economic and environmental objectives, and to enshrine food security as a key public good, backing British farmers while restoring nature and protecting the environment for future generations. That is the future for British farming, and it is a future with Labour.