Environmental Land Management Scheme: Food Production

Duncan Baker Excerpts

Tuesday 1st February 2022 Westminster Hall

[Duncan Baker (North Norfolk) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Davies. As an MP representing a rural constituency that is predominantly agricultural, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) for securing this debate. I had to speak in this debate, because he farms not only in my constituency but in the very villages that I grew up in, so I would be in a lot of trouble if I was not here this morning.

In general, I am a great supporter of the Government’s ambitions with the new agricultural reforms. I get them and, as has been said, they have cross-party support in large areas. It is right to say, however, that there are some real concerns about them and our ability to produce our own food in a way that is not just sustainable to fit with the new ELMS, but profitable for our farmers to be able to make a livelihood.

It is natural that as we exit the European Union we will have some concerns as the new regimes settle in. There is a risk that the scheme will not work adequately, and we have heard this morning about the harsh reality and impact on farmers if that were to happen. They will, of course, diversify. If the balance is wrong, farms will not produce food in the way they currently do, preferring natural schemes instead. Our food security could diminish and we would import cheaper, lower quality food from overseas. That is a worst case scenario, but we have to get it right.

Rather than repeat many of the arguments which have been so eloquently put this morning, I want to focus my short comments on a different area, which is labour and skills, and the shortages that we have to address. Production, which is at the very heart of what we are debating this morning, will not be helped if we cannot get the very skills to be able to bring the harvest home.

The timing of this debate is very apt because on Friday night I met Norfolk farmers at an NFU dinner, where we discussed their concerns. The labour market and skills shortage that they face was by far and away their greatest fear. That is the huge area that they wanted to discuss, whether it related to fruit picking, pig production or turkey farming. Pickers, pluckers and butchers are all in short supply. That was the unanimous feeling across the industry. It was felt that the labour market can adjust, but not as quickly as the stringent rules that the Home Office is operating—note that I said Home Office, not DEFRA.

We have two problems. First—I have experienced this at first hand in my constituency recently and have spoken to the excellent Minister about it—it is simply not sufficient that only 30,000 workers will have temporary visas. There are strawberry growers in my constituency. Sharrington Strawberries requires—it will not mind me saying this—just 33 foreign workers. Pro-Force could offer it none—zero—out of its allocation of 7,500. When I pressed Pro-Force further, it said that it had already received 6,000 additional requests for visas on top of those 7,500.

Secondly, if one operates a scheme with just four operators, that is simply far too few for the 30,000—or even 40,000, with the extra 10,000—visas we are allowed. On behalf of Norfolk farmers from Broadland, South Norfolk and West Norfolk, we will meet the Home Secretary very soon to ask for some help.

To sum up, farming is the lifeblood for all of our constituencies. I am very grateful to the Minister. She has always been very helpful to me, whether on issues of pigs, potatoes, fishing or the like; it is very good to have a Minister who knows, from sheer experience, what she is talking about. I am sure that she is always welcome in North Norfolk, and quite possibly at the farmhouse of my hon Friend the Member for The Cotswolds.