Agriculture

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown Excerpts

Monday 13th May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sir Mark Spencer]

I thank all hon. Members who have contributed to today’s debate. I also thank the Secretary of State for being in his place to demonstrate his support. Two former Secretaries of State turned up in the Chamber to offer their support, and I pay tribute to my right hon. Friends the Members for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey), and for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice), for their measured contributions to today’s debate.

As we have said, it is vital that we continue to gradually move away from untargeted subsidies, as planned. Such payments have inhibited productivity improvements, and are fundamentally unjust. Our farmers deserve better. Applying reductions to delinked payments means that we can fund our other farming schemes. Our new schemes are designed to support farmers to be profitable and resilient, while delivering improved environmental outcomes and supporting sustainable food production.

In January, we announced the biggest upgrade to our farming scheme since leaving the EU. We will be adding up to 50 new actions for which farmers can be paid on their farms, which means that there will be more choice than ever for our farmers, and our increased payment rates ensure that they will be rewarded fairly under our environmental land management schemes. There are a wide range of schemes, grants and advice that farmers can access right now, and I encourage farmers to take advantage of these offers, which will support their businesses in both their profitability and their environmental footprint. For example, our new schemes are providing support to farmers to help them reduce costly artificial imports and increase their productivity.

Food production is, and always will be, the primary purpose of farming, but delinked payments are not about food production. Instead, we are investing in our new schemes, which support farmers to produce food sustainably alongside improving the environment. The vast majority of land in the sustainable farming incentive continues to produce food. The Government take food security very seriously.

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way, and I apologise to the House for not being present at the opening stages of this debate; I was in the Public Accounts Committee. I also declare my interest as a working farmer. Does he agree that there is a danger in this system that if farmers’ incomes get squeezed, it is the infrastructure that is likely to suffer? Will he make sure that there are sufficient incentives in the new scheme for farmers to invest in infrastructure—in cattle barns, in grain stores and in drainage? These sorts of things are likely to suffer and therefore productivity could also suffer.

[Sir Mark Spencer]

I am grateful for that intervention. That is why we are offering grant schemes for such infrastructure projects. For example, there will be grant schemes to improve on slurry infrastructure, on calf housing and on beef housing, to make sure that we not only invest in that infrastructure, but do it in a way that is sensitive to our environmental and animal welfare footprints. That is exactly what we are trying to achieve. While I am talking about infrastructure, it is also vital to the rural economy that we support things such as local abattoirs to ensure that they are there for the future. We have introduced the abattoir support scheme for those small abattoirs, to make sure that that infrastructure is in place to support the farming network as we move forward.

The Government take food security very seriously. Underlining our commitment to improving food security, at the National Farmers Union conference this year the Prime Minister announced the introduction of the annual food security index. This underpins the three-yearly UK food security report. Applications under our 2023 sustainable farming incentive already cover over 2 million hectares of land. The scheme has already had a higher uptake than in the first few years of countryside stewardship and is on track to achieve a higher uptake than the first year of environmental stewardship. We know that 81% of farmers that took part in research rated the existing sustainable farming incentive offer positively, which is an increase from 51% at a similar point in the pilot. This shows that we are listening to farmers and making improvements to the scheme so that it works on the ground for those individual farmers. We are making even more improvements in our 2024 offer.

Turning to some of the comments, it is worth noting that there is consensus in the House that this is the right thing to do. There was some criticism, and some political points were made by the Opposition, which is entirely their right, but this Conservative Government are backing our farmers, improving food security and protecting the environment. Let us take a moment to look at what is happening in Wales. The Leader of the Opposition was clear that the Welsh Labour Government were a blueprint for what they would do in the UK if they got into power, but if Welsh Labour’s approach was applied to England, an estimated 20,000 farms would be forced out of business. That would be a complete catastrophe for the rural economy and for farming in England and would detrimentally affect food security in the UK. In Wales, Labour politicians have suggested that farmers hit by TB should simply go out of business. We on this side of the House will never turn our back on farmers that face those challenges. We will always be there to support them and make sure that we back them. Following that blueprint would take us back to square one. This instrument is essential so that we can fund our schemes that support farmers to be resilient and sustainable over the long term, and I commend it to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That the draft Agriculture (Delinked Payments) (Reductions) (England) Regulations 2024, which were laid before this House on 16 April, be approved.