Intensive Dairy Farming

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Tuesday 14th December 2010 Westminster Hall

[Glyn Davies]

Several issues are probably involved, so I want to make my second point, which is that we might want to resist the development on welfare grounds. We can include housing for 365 days a year as a welfare issue. Even with a seven-cow herd, the animals were indoors for six months of the year. Being indoors is not particularly unusual. I think that the application for a 1,000-cow unit in my constituency proposes that the animals should be indoors for almost two thirds of the year. I suspect that the application for the 7,000-cow unit proposed having the animals indoors, apart from the followers, for 12 months of the year. What we have to keep at the core of our thinking is high welfare standards, and we must be guided by science or we shall lose the argument in the end.

[Mr Edward Leigh in the Chair]

I do not accept that it is necessarily more difficult to meet welfare standards with a large herd than with a small herd. I know that some people will disagree, but I just do not think that the large size of a herd is a proven reason for that. In fact, we can argue a little bit the other way, because for a large herd, there will almost certainly be professionally trained staff, and a large unit will be able to afford to keep them professionally trained. It will be able to do the training that smaller units cannot. A large dairy unit will almost certainly have an ongoing relationship with a veterinary surgeon, who will call in regularly. The smaller units do not have that. Most farmers with herds the size of mine considered themselves to be veterinary surgeons. We were not willing to pay what I thought were excessive bills at the time—we did it ourselves. I think that we shall find that the welfare standards in large units will be very impressive, and if they are not, they will not get permission.

There are many other, environmental reasons why one might want to refuse an application for a large unit, and I think that planning authorities should be willing to turn down applications, unless they meet their exacting standards. The application in my constituency is within view of Powis castle. The local planning authority will have to consider that issue. The Environment Agency will have to examine all the implications for the environmental impact. All such issues will have to be considered by a planning authority before approval is secured.

I want to deal now with the public resistance element. During my eight years in the National Assembly for Wales, I was a huge enthusiast for organic farming and farmers’ markets. We should continue with that, but we have to persuade people to come and buy from these units. The reality is that most customers—consumers—will buy where the price is cheapest. The supermarkets will drive down the price, and unless British farmers produce the product, they will import it. My hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet (Mr Gale) made a very good point about exporting a problem. That is exactly what might happen in the dairy industry unless we deal with the matter. In relation to public resistance, we need a balanced and open mind and a view based on scientific knowledge.

I want to appeal not only to my hon. Friend the Minister but to everyone who participates in the debate—because it will be an ongoing debate; the issue will not be dealt with in the short term—not to take an instinctive view. Mine might be one of antipathy. We must examine the science, because in the end that is what will rule the decision. If we in this House are to have an impact on the issue, we have to present the facts and have an influence, we hope, on the purchasers, which are mostly supermarkets. Only the Government can do that now, because supermarkets have reached such a state of dominance in the market. By taking a balanced approach, we may well have some influence and, while not necessarily returning to the image of my childhood, staying rather closer to it.

[Mr Edward Leigh (in the Chair)]

Order. I want to allow time for the winding-up speeches, so I will call Neil Parish now, but he must finish his speech, please, within five minutes.