Sheep Farming

David Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 4th September 2024 Westminster Hall

[David Smith (North Northumberland) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to make a contribution. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Joe Morris) for securing the debate and for his knowledgeable, thoughtful and heartfelt speech. There have been some great contributions from other hon. Members. I note that we have heard from the Members representing the largest constituency in England, the second largest—and now the third largest.

As in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham, farming plays a vital role in the community life, the economy, and the past and the future of North Northumberland. The very landscape that we view as quintessentially British has been shaped by farming—especially sheep farming—so it is integral to our vision for Northumberland, North Northumberland and the country as a whole.

We have around 2,000 farm holdings across Northumberland, and we are a proud and productive farming county with great produce and excellent conditions for growing and rearing. I recently met a farmer in my constituency from the Coquet valley, who farms both sheep and cattle, and he said that if he could choose to farm anywhere in the world at the moment, it would be in Northumberland—I could not agree more. Indeed, more broadly, the world record for wheat production by yield is currently held by a farm near Bamburgh in my constituency. The area has great conditions.

The suitability for farming in North Northumberland is true of sheep farming in particular. The climate and topography lend themselves well to sheep farming, especially hill farming, which we have heard about already. DEFRA estimates that there are approximately 457,000 sheep and lambs being raised in my constituency of North Northumberland. That is 3% of the national total.

We have touched on trade. The UK is the world’s sixth largest lamb producer, and third largest exporter. Brexit and some recent trade deals by the last Government have brought new challenges, as mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouthshire (Catherine Fookes), but the export of sheep and lambs must be part of the sector’s future. This world-class produce—by quantity and quality—is immense in North Northumberland and around the country.

We have also said that food security is national security. In the world in which we live, the United Kingdom must be as self-sufficient as possible when it comes to the staples of life, so we must produce as much of our food chain in Britain as possible. That would be good not just for our food security and health, but for our efforts to tackle climate change. In fact, sheep farming in particular has a strong cyclical benefit with regard to recycling carbon emissions.

The question is: how do we ensure that farming, and sheep farming in particular, flourishes into the future? I will suggest a few points that I have heard when speaking to farmers, especially tenant farmers in the Cheviot hills, the Coquet valley and all around North Northumberland. I do not claim to be an expert on the subject in any way, but I have tried to listen to my constituents and to present their points here.

The first point is that we need to encourage younger people—the farmers of the future—into sheep farming. That came across loud and clear from the farmers I have spoken to in my constituency. A common theme is the fear that the intergenerational link is being lost, and it is harder than ever to see where the next generation of farmers, especially sheep farmers, is coming from. There are many reasons for that, including the difficulty of the work for relatively modest financial gain, as we have discussed; the growing distance for many in our society from the land and knowledge of the land; and the lack of broad agricultural education, whether that be in mainstream education or even in some sector-specific agricultural colleges. Finally, many young farmers face difficulties in securing a tenancy—access to land is a real issue. What more can we and the Government do within our education system to give young people a taste of the land and farming and to draw them into that connection with the land?

Secondly, sheep farming is a good entry point into the broader world of farming, given its relatively low initial capital costs, but access to land and the affordability of tenancies is a key barrier. Will the Government to consider how the sustainable farming incentive can be used to sustain farming itself? Is there a way in which the SFI or other Government funding could be used as long-term loan finance, for example, to enable more entry-level farmers to get into sheep farming with a portion of the risk shared? Could landowners be given tax incentives to incentivise them to let land at more affordable rates? We need to think about how we can increase access to land in what we might call starter farms.

My third and penultimate point is that we need to make rapid progress on the overall funding subsidy settlement for British farming. I am regularly told by constituents that the uncertainty around the successor to the common agricultural policy and the basic payment scheme in the next few years—up to 2027 and beyond—is making it difficult for many of our farmers to plan in the medium to long term, and that is particularly true for sheep farming. For the Government to bring clarity to the future of farming, subsidy is key. Notwithstanding the strained state of public finances, overall I urge the Government to commit to at least the current £2.4 billion of funding for farming for the duration of the Parliament.

Fourthly and finally, it is so important to get the calibration in the SFI correct when it comes to the balancing of environmental subsidy and subsidy for food production. I am told that currently the scheme seems to make it much more financially attractive for farmers to take good-quality land out of production—for instance, to rewild or plant forestry, or to prioritise soil and nutrient management. Those are worthy and important aims that I support; however, we need to ensure that we choose the correct land for those purposes so that we can maintain adequate food production. A land use framework cannot come soon enough. I truly believe that there are Venn diagrams where all these worthy enterprises can come together; it is not necessarily a zero-sum gain.

However we proceed on all these issues, I am sure that all Members present agree that sheep farming makes a rich and important contribution to British farming and society, and we must do all we can to secure a flourishing future for it.