Oral Answers to Questions

Geraint Davies Excerpts

Thursday 30th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Pow]

The simple answer is no. Clearly we look at all the World Health Organisation guidelines, but they are only there to inform the setting of standards; they are not ready-made targets. Being realistic, even without man-made emissions and all the measures we have set forward in our groundbreaking targets, PM_2.5 concentrations would still exceed the WHO guidelines—even the lower one—because we get these emissions from natural sources and also from other countries. The WHO guidelines would therefore be unachievable. I was heartened by my recent visit to Sweden to launch the Forum for International Co-operation on Air Quality, which shows we have to work together on this internationally.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

The chief medical officer, Chris Whitty, has just issued a report, with 15 recommendations, that gives a route map on how to achieve these targets earlier, including on indoor air pollution and wood burners. Will the Minister respond to that now, write in greater detail to me as the chair of the all-party group on air pollution, and come to a meeting to explain what progress the Government can make on these 15 objectives, so that we can make faster progress and save more lives sooner?

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank the hon. Member for that. I have met him many times on these issues, and I commend him for this work, but I have also met Professor Chris Whitty on this very subject. The hon. Member just needs to look at the forthcoming update of our clean air strategy. We are already working on many of the things that Chris Whitty has raised, and we have to get the Department of Health and Social Care to play its part as well.

Water Company Performance

Geraint Davies Excerpts

Tuesday 21st February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank my hon. Friend for those sensible points. To be honest, it is because of the monitoring this Government have put in place that we now know what is going on. Under the Labour Government there was virtually no monitoring at all: in 2016, some 5% of storm sewerage overflows were being monitored; that figure is 90% now, and by the end of the year it will be 100%. We will also have to monitor upstream and downstream of every sewerage overflow outlet, so we will know exactly what is going on, and unacceptable behaviour will be acted upon.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Water bosses are actively allowing more pollution, because they know it is cheaper to pay the fines than to put in the investment, mend the leaks and stop the sewage. When will the Minister introduce the higher fines of £250 million that the Environment Secretary has pooh-poohed, and take the Environment Agency’s advice to put directors in jail if they fail? Will she give an undertaking that the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill will not get rid of all the protections from Europe, so that we do not have even more stools in our rivers and on our beaches?

[Rebecca Pow]

If the hon. Gentleman had been listening earlier, he would have heard me say that we are consulting on plans to raise the cap on fines to £250 million, to make it quicker and easier to tackle enforcement. That will be a significant step, along with all the other measures we are taking, which I have clearly outlined, to hold the water companies to account.

Environmental Improvement Plan 2023

Geraint Davies Excerpts

Wednesday 1st February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Dr Coffey]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that. He is absolutely right to say that a lot of effort has gone into this review. That is quite right, because nature matters so much, not just to those of us who have a passion for it, but because it is critical to the global web of life.

This is not the first time that Liberal Democrats have put stuff out and it has been a complete load of the proverbial. I will make a point to the House more broadly about the chemical status of water. In the last decade, while we were still a member of the European Union, we added a particular type of chemical—it includes elements such as mercury—to the list of those to be considered in assessing the chemical status of water bodies. Before that, nearly every one of our water bodies had good chemical status. When that provision came in, none of our water bodies had good status. Exactly the same thing happened to countries such as Germany. This is a natural process, and we now need nature to heal and recover before we can get that status changed.

On the other aspects that are more within our control, we have pressed the case through our strategic policy statements and things such as the water industry national environment programme. We are getting water companies to really tighten up and clean up waste water treatments.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Yesterday I introduced the Clean Air Bill, which would require us to reach World Health Organisation air quality standards for PM_2.5 of 10 micrograms per cubic metre by 2030, in alignment with the ambition of the EU, which is achievable. Yet today, five years into the 25-year plan, the Secretary of State comes along, on the 10th anniversary of the death of Ella Kissi-Debrah, and extends that another 10 years to 2040. How many thousands of extra avoidable lives will be lost due to that? How many millions of children will have to go into hospital with asthma attacks because of that delay? What will she do to bring forward that target to 2030 in alignment with the EU? If we were still in the EU, thousands of lives would be saved, instead of which she is ensuring that thousands will die.

[Dr Coffey]

I am conscious of the hon. Gentleman’s passion on this and know that he has a long-standing interest in air quality, as do I. I seem to recall that, when I was first in the Department, the focus was on NOx, because we were in legal breach, but we are not in any legal breach now. [Interruption.] That is not the case either. It was I who pointed out to the various groups at the time that the thing that we should worry about is PM_2.5 because it affects everybody. I have long been passionate about this matter, which is why, with me in post, we introduced the ban on the sale of smoky coal and we got rid of wet wood as best we could, because that was the principal source of what was happening with PM_2.5.

As I have said publicly, I would have loved for the target to be 2030, but the powers of the Environment Act 2021 require me to believe that it is achievable. I am very sad that, in London in particular, we do not seem to be able to fix the problem. Many issues need to be addressed; we still have a problem in 14 out of 21 London boroughs. That is why I am very keen for the Mayor of London not to be doing all sorts of tokenistic things that make a marginal difference, such as the expansion of the ultra-low emission zone, but to be encouraging the councils to use their powers to inform people of the issues, so that we can really tackle that PM_2.5. If we can go quicker, the next time that we review the targets I will make sure that they are changed.

Oral Answers to Questions

Geraint Davies Excerpts

Thursday 12th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Dr Coffey]

More air quality sensors are being put in place across the country. The hon. Lady will know that it is a devolved matter in Wales, so that is for them. Local authorities are doing this already. What worries me is that too many local authority leaders, particularly in Greater Manchester and London, are dragging their heels about improving air quality. We need to ensure that all our local authorities have a focused plan on how we make that happen.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

3. What recent assessment she has made of the adequacy of the UK’s food security.

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

4. What steps she is taking to strengthen domestic food security.

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Dr Thérèse Coffey)]

The first UK food security report was published in December 2021, which showed that the UK has a highly resilient and diverse food supply chain. We produce 61% of the food we need in the UK, complemented by strong trade links, and that figure has changed little over the last 20 years. We also published the Government food strategy last June, setting out a commitment to maintain broadly the current level of food we produce domestically and boost production in sectors with the biggest opportunities.

[Geraint Davies]

On food security and fish stocks, Newcastle University believes the mass killing of crabs, lobsters and other crustaceans off the north-east coast is due to dredging ahead of the freeport, but the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has dismissed it as a natural event due to algae bloom and has set up an inquiry, with a secret panel meeting in private, despite the fact that the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee has asked for an open and transparent inquiry that is done independently. Will the Secretary of State commit to an independent evaluation of the evidence, to protect all our coasts from the massive destruction from toxic emissions ahead of freeports—

[Dr Coffey]

rose—

[Geraint Davies]

—from dredging.

[Mr Speaker]

Secretary of State, I will decide when you come in.

Animal Welfare (Kept Animals) Bill

Geraint Davies Excerpts

Monday 5th December 2022 Westminster Hall

[Justin Madders]

I am sure the Minister has noted my hon. Friend’s request; we look forward to hearing what he says on that. My hon. Friend’s point about Battersea Dogs and Cats Home is important, because it is coming up to Christmas, and there will unfortunately be people buying pets from abroad; that may not have happened if the Bill had already been passed.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend mentioned cross-party support; there is lots of it. However, does he accept that under the Trade (Australia and New Zealand) Bill, cattle in Australia can be moved for 48 hours without rest, and there is mulesing of sheep? Also, lots of pregnant dogs now come across from Ireland, are given a caesarean, and are then sent back; they keep going back and forth. There are all sorts of problems, particularly with border control, under the existing regime that give rise to animal cruelty. That should be sorted out. So it is not all a matter of cross-party support.

[Justin Madders]

I note what my hon. Friend says, and refer him to what the Dogs Trust and Cats Protection say: they note rampant abuse of the pets travel scheme by illegal traders; we need action on that. Laws that had the good intention of allowing families to take pets abroad are being abused to allow very young and pregnant animals to come to Britain for sale. I think everyone would agree, despite what my hon. Friend says, that those rules in particular need tightening up. No-one wants the UK market for pets to be flooded with unscrupulous sellers, commercially importing animals through the back door.

--- Later in debate ---

[George Eustice]

I very much agree with my hon. Friend. Indeed, I remember visiting Ramsgate and having to deal with that case, which was even worse than he describes, as Thanet District Council had to pay more than £2 million in compensation to the foreign company, which took it to court for trying to put in place a localised ban. That is the kind of thing that used to happen when we were in the European Union. We now have the power to prevent that happening, and that is why I urge my right hon. Friend the Minister for Food, Farming and Fisheries to work with us—with Conservative Members; we are all on his side—to ensure that the Bill is carried through Parliament. We only need about five hours for Report stage. I ask the same of Opposition Members.

[Geraint Davies]

Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that, because of the botched Brexit, we have ended up with a situation where we have been forced to have those Australian trade deals, which he has criticised, at a rapid pace, which will give rise to importing badly treated animals? The problems of pregnant dogs being brought over and abused on a great scale, which I mentioned earlier, is also a result of our not having the harmonised border control that we would have in the single market. The idea that we are better off is absurd.

[George Eustice]

I do not want this debate to drift too far into the historical question about leaving the European Union. Suffice it to say that I strongly disagree with the hon. Gentleman. I want us to have an independent trade policy, but I want us to take a more muscular approach to those trade agreements. I made that point some weeks ago. As I said, I hope that my right hon. Friend the Minister will find the time in the next few weeks to take this Bill through to Report.

National Food Strategy and Food Security

Geraint Davies Excerpts

Thursday 27th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Esther McVey]

I thank the hon. Member for joining in and adding that pertinent point.

We could not have this debate without talking about the high energy prices at the moment, with an increase of 400%, and what is happening to farms having to cope with those increased costs. For APS, this has resulted in reduced production of UK tomatoes and other foods, because the costs of production are not recovered through higher prices. Farmers must be mindful of passing on higher prices to customers—if they can, as the supermarkets and shops the food goes to will not accept them—so we must be mindful of how we support farmers.

That company has even developed a combined heat and power plant, which supplies 3 MW of power to Alderley Edge, and it uses the waste heat and the carbon dioxide from that to grow their crop. I wonder whether it can get some recognition that it uses carbon dioxide from power generation to produce food, because that would help it to offset the huge increases in energy cost. I know the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy is reviewing the move from the European Union energy trading scheme to the ETS UK equivalent post Brexit, but can the Minister liaise with his ministerial colleague at BEIS and give me the latest news on that?

Food production is essential for the delivery of the environmental benefits on which the Government plan to centre in their agricultural support policy, but unless we recognise the dual role of farmers as food producers and conservationists, we risk turning farmers into environmental contractors with little incentive to continue farming. That would do enormous damage to the jobs and communities that depend on farming, as well as weaken our food security. The strategy needs to be clearer in linking food production to action against climate change and enhancing the natural environment.

My final plea is for greater clarity on food labelling, so that the high standards of British food are known and recognised—so a shopper knows the quality of the produce and where it is from. Buying British and locally, for me that means buying from Cheshire, is important not just because of the high husbandry standards of UK food but the low transport mileage to get from field to fork. That low transport mileage is particularly important if we are concerned about the environment. As my beef and sheep farmers say, it is better to have high-quality beef and lamb from Cheshire than chickpeas from halfway around the world. [Interruption.] I thank Members for the cheers for that.

On food standards, it is important when the Government are negotiating and implementing free trade agreements to avoid undermining the domestic sector for farmers and growers and reducing standards. In its report on the UK-Australia free trade agreement issued on Friday 17 June 2022, the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee concluded:

“In practice it appears unlikely that food produced to lower animal welfare standards will enter the UK as a result of this deal.”

That is positive news, but my farmers are calling for greater transparency on food labelling. Like me, they believe in choice, but we only have choice when we have knowledge of what we are choosing and what we are choosing from.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

I sit on that Committee and we observed that the average size of a sheep farm in Australia is 100 times the size of one in Wales, and they practise mulesing—shearing the back- sides of sheep in a painful way without anaesthetics—and transport cattle for 24 hours. So there is a clear problem of British producers being undercut by inhumane welfare practices and massive intensity of production.

[Esther McVey]

That relates to the transparency that some people are calling for to know what they are eating and enjoying, to appreciate the difference in cost and the treatment the animals have gone through. Fair competition can only really come from accurate labelling and transparency on produce. The UK produces some of the best food in the world, with the highest standards of safety and animal welfare, and it is only right that people in this country know what they are getting.

Tatton farmers and producers are hard-working, dedicated to the sector, industrious and experts in their field, with many generations of experience. They want to help solve the food security issues that this country is facing, but along with this strategy, which goes some of the way, and along with awareness of what is happening around the world, more assistance is needed to help our farmers here and now with the problems the world is facing.

--- Later in debate ---

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

In 2010, when the Labour Government left office, there were 26,000 people getting food from food banks. By 2021, that had increased a hundredfold to 2.6 million, and that was before the Ukraine war. Now, one in four children and one in five adults—4 million children and 10 million adults—are in food poverty, in the sixth richest country in the world. That is a catastrophe. The number of people who are in food poverty, who cannot afford to eat nutritious food and who are freezing in their house, is much, much higher than it was during the pandemic.

I am a member of the Co-operative party and the Labour party. We agree with the right to food. The right to life is in the UN charter and the UN convention on human rights, and obviously an intrinsic part of the right to life is the right to food. I support Co-op party initiatives such as Healthy Start vouchers, and it is important that they be rolled out and index-linked to keep up with inflation, but we need much more.

The co-operative movement was started by the Rochdale pioneers to stop adulterated food. It is about food, and everybody should have the right to daily nutritional food. Winston Churchill famously said that the most important asset of a country is its health; a country’s health is predicated on having enough healthy food, and the reality is that people do not have enough money to buy healthy food after taking account of the housing costs and the heating costs that they face. Amartya Sen, a famous Nobel prize winner, wrote about famines: he was focused on the developing world, but he argued that famines are not about a shortage of food, but about the conjunction of high prices with low wages in particular communities, leading to starvation.

That is what we are now on the brink of seeing in Britain. High prices are coming in—yes, because of Ukraine, but also from Brexit. The price of imports is going down as the value of sterling has gone down. We have shortages in our own production: a quarter of our fruit is not picked, we have had a mass culling of 40,000 pigs and we do not have enough people to work in abattoirs. We have problems with food production locally and with sterling being further pushed down, which is driving prices up. Some of those problems were avoidable political problems.

Alongside high prices, we have low wages. Since 2010, we have had very low growth and pay freezes. In the previous 10 years under the Labour party, or certainly in the 10 years to 2008, the economy grew by 40%. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has shown that if that trend in growth had continued, average wages would now be £10,000 higher. The country would be much more resilient to the external shocks that are now causing this catastrophe of localised famine.

The Government need to act, and act quickly. They need to think carefully about how to manage the upcoming new Budget. I know everybody thinks the national insurance abolition idea is great on the face of it, but the reality is that it will give £7.60 back to the lowest 10% and more than £1,000 back to the richest 10%. At a time when half of people on universal credit are in food poverty, we need to think very carefully about how we sustain our people and about what is right and what is effective for our nation.

We have talked about the quality of our food, but the truth is that people in poverty are often obese because they have to resort to low-nutrition, high-fat, high-salt, high-sugar products that keep them going for a long time but are not particularly good for them. That is storing up a time bomb for the NHS of obesity, diabetes, heart attacks and strokes. Health inequality is a real problem for us. Famously, in a 2014 study of many countries over many years, the OECD found a relationship between inequality and growth, namely that less inequality means higher growth and a bigger cake.

Health inequality is also linked to income inequality. I look forward to the White Paper, but we need to be serious. We need to feed our people to get a productive economy and a fair economy that we can all be proud of. I am from Wales, and I am very pleased about the initiatives in Wales that are providing universal free breakfasts and are now rolling out universal free lunches. For all children—for all the adults who sign their children up—that will be free in Wales. Henry Dimbleby, whose strategy I very much welcome, has welcomed that. When questioned by the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, on which I serve, about universal credit and levels of payment to make food affordable, he said:

“That is beyond my pay grade.”

But it is not beyond the Government’s pay grade to realise what the issues are. If children have affordable, nutritious food, their performance is better, their life chances are better, future tax revenues are better and NHS costs are lower. From UK plc’s point of view it makes a lot of sense, quite apart from being morally right.

I spoke only this week to an online audience of student unions across Wales. That was one group, of course, and I am not saying that they are the only group, but as hon. Members might expect, they face high rents, they live in houses in multiple occupation and their food costs and energy costs have gone up. A large proportion of them have something like £10 a week or less to live on after paying for utilities. They cannot afford their student learning materials. More than 90% of them face mental health problems. There is a cost of living crisis, and they also face an uncertain future in the jobs market and the mortgage market. We need to think very carefully about that.

Finally, I turn to food security. Having invaded the Crimea, Russia is now producing 15% more food. We should think about our food security. The cost of fertiliser has gone up, and we are reliant on too much. Our home production should be organic. We need spatial planning. We need a proper plan so that we do not end up with another wave of austerity that costs 300,000 lives. Instead, we should focus on the opportunity to provide all our people with decent food. We need a healthy and productive economy that is more equal and fairer, and a stronger, greener future for all, but I fear that that will only come with a Labour Government.

Oral Answers to Questions

Geraint Davies Excerpts

Thursday 10th March 2022 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

1. Whether his Department plans to monitor levels of toxic air pollution around schools.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Jo Churchill)]

Air pollution is at a record low. However, we need to do more to protect the vulnerable, in particular, and drive cleaner air for all. Last year, more than £1 million was awarded to local authorities under the Department’s air quality grant for projects specifically aimed at children. Yesterday, we announced more than £11 million-worth of grants, across 40 local authorities, to improve air quality; several of these projects were focused on schools and their monitoring.

[Geraint Davies]

Vortex, a company in Swansea bay, manufactures high-quality, low-cost digital monitors—it has 500 across Hammersmith—which help to deliver local air quality schemes, with public support. Given that half a million children in schools are suffering from toxic levels of air pollution, will the Minister undertake to provide monitors across the country, to drive public opinion and better air quality, in accordance with World Health Organisation standards?

[Jo Churchill]

The hon. Gentleman is a very assiduous campaigner on this topic. Local authorities can choose to monitor outside schools, but it is often better to target resources at improving air quality generally. As I say, we gave £11.6 million yesterday, of which more than £1 million was also for education, following the coroner’s report on Ella Kissi-Debrah. I would, of course, be happy to meet the hon. Gentleman to discuss the issue further.

Environmental Land Management Scheme: Food Production

Geraint Davies Excerpts

Tuesday 1st February 2022 Westminster Hall

[Geraint Davies (in the Chair)]

Before we begin, I remind hon. Members to observe social distancing and to wear masks. I call Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown to move the motion.

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

I beg to move,

That this House has considered food production and the Environmental Land Management Scheme.

I begin by drawing attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests: I am an arable farmer. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I am delighted to have been able to secure this debate today on food production and the environmental land management scheme. I thank the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; the Minister for Farming, Fisheries and Food, my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis), who is here today; and the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow), for addressing us at the highly successful launch of the UK agriculture partnership at the Royal Agricultural University in the heart of my constituency last Thursday.

As more and more land is taken out of food production for environmental schemes, we face the dangerous consequences of becoming reliant on importing larger and larger amounts of food. In short, this debate is all about putting the “F” back into DEFRA. Food should be at the heart of ELMS policy and should be classed as a public good with public money under the scheme. I am aware of the 2021 UK food security report, but it is largely full of dry facts and we are looking for some policy to underpin it.

This is a timely debate because the Public Accounts Committee, of which I am deputy Chair, carried out a detailed inquiry into ELMS and published a report on its findings at the beginning of the year. Now that we have left the European Union, we have a once-in-a-lifetime chance to completely replace our agricultural support system with an ambitious post-Brexit agricultural policy that supports the Government’s ambitious 25-year environmental plan.

Our environmental policy should be joined up with agricultural policy that encourages sustainable food production here at home. Alongside sustainability, we need to help the agricultural sector’s competitiveness and resilience in the macroeconomic, trade and regulatory context. At the heart of ELMS are the changes to the mechanism for distributing funding—that was previously done via direct common agricultural policy payments—to a system that will launch fully in 2024, where farmers will be encouraged towards environmental and productivity improvements.

The Government have stated that all the objectives of ELMS will be delivered for just £2 billion. During our hearing last October, the Public Accounts Committee pointed out that that was a highly ambitious target. As we all know, there are three key elements to the project: the sustainable farming initiative for all farmers to be paid to manage their land in even more environmentally friendly ways; local nature recovery, for more complex and collaborative projects; and landscape recovery, for large-scale projects such as afforestation, rewilding and re-wetted peat.

However, there are clear structural and timetabling issues in ELMS implementation, because details are still not as comprehensive as we would expect by this stage in the scheme. It is not apparent what the aims, objectives or metrics are for supporting more than £2 billion of public funding, whether the schemes will provide good value for money, or how they will help in achieving the Government’s 25-year environmental plan and net zero by 2050. Some farmers are concerned about the practicality of implementing schemes on time. Because of the natural cycle of animals and plants, such schemes can take two years or more to implement, and that is why timely information from DEFRA is so vital.

The Government trialled the first phase of the ELMS programmes with the SFI pilot last year, from which they will draw information before they begin the scheme properly this year. In December, the Government produced a policy paper on how they will expand the scheme over the next few years, but that information is too late for farmers to change their plans. What is clear is that the scheme will require a huge amount of land. For example, the Committee on Climate Change has a target for 30,000 to 50,000 hectares of forestry to be planted every year between 2024 and 2050—an enormous amount of land.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I am delighted to have the support of the hon. Lady. Given the number of times that we have debated in Bristol and been at odds, to have her support is somewhat amazing. I was on a programme the other day agreeing with the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) as well, and I have never agreed with her before, either. The Whips must be getting worried that I might defect soon.

Even for a global trading nation—this goes to the heart of the point made by the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy)—shocks can expose real fragilities in any reliance on imports. The current severe spike in energy price is a result of an increasing reliance on imports; we became vulnerable to the global squeeze on energy and gas supplies last year, and going into this year. With technical and geopolitical issues impacting on supply across Europe, we have been hit hard for a number of reasons, including our storage capacity, which is one of the lowest in Europe, and our demand, which is among the highest.

Imports will always play a critical role in our food system, but I say to the Minister that the Government must take our own self-sufficiency more seriously. It is stagnating, and the public will not thank us if there is ever a world food shortage, prices rocket and supermarket shelves are emptied of certain commodities. Although the nation is encouraged to be healthier and eat more fruit and veg, our domestic production of those products falls below our potential. We are only 18% self-sufficient in fruit, 55% in vegetables and 71% in potatoes. The figures for veg and potatoes have fallen by 16% in the past 20 years, despite the sector demonstrating sustained investment. The entire economy is aiming to build back better and greener from the covid-19 pandemic. British farming can be central to that green recovery. We have a golden opportunity to place food security fairly at the centre of our food system and become a global leader in sustainable, high-quality food production.

The Government have a crucial role to play. Food security should be at the heart of Government policy, and there needs to be an annual system of reporting to Parliament to ensure that we do not allow our domestic food production to diminish. UK farmers are best placed to implement many of these environmental schemes, while at the same time maintaining the countryside to the high standard that the public have come to accept. I do not think the public are going to welcome the look of countryside that is going to waste growing brambles and shrubs. It feels highly counterintuitive to have such high environmental standards here that food production becomes unprofitable enough that we need to import more.

Not only does physically importing food produce greenhouse gases, but by relying on farmers from the rest of the world to produce food for us in the UK, we are simply exporting our environmental problems and responsibility to other countries with lower plant and animal standards. The public place real value on high standards of animal welfare, environmental protection and the climate ambition of British farmers. We cannot guarantee or enforce those high standards on farmers from other countries around the world. It would be morally unjustifiable for a UK farmer to be put at a competitive disadvantage by imported food with lower standards—a point made by the hon. Member for Bristol East.

The innovation I have seen from UK farmers throughout my lifetime, working towards ambitious environmental goals, has been incredible. The NFU has been working with its stakeholders to outline the policy mechanism for agriculture to reach net zero by 2040, which is a critical goal. I believe that the best way to reach our environmental targets is by supporting British farmers, not by making food production an unsustainable economic model.

The second of the key issues in the report from the National Audit Office—a highly respected institution—on which the Public Accounts Committee inquiry majored is that, without subsidies, most farms in England make an average profit of just £22,800 a year, after labour costs and investment, and a third of all farms would not make any profit at all. That makes the sector pretty financially vulnerable. For small and tenanted farms operating on wafer-thin margins, there is a real fear that many will go out of business. The consequence would simply be that the average size of farms would increase and the environmental benefits they provide would be lost. ELMS should provide advice and funding to help those small farmers diversify.

The future farming programme for England, which will replace the direct payments with a new scheme based on public money for public goods, will see small farms have their direct payments reduced from December 2021, and 50% will be lost by 2025. There is a real concern that some of the ELMS options will be completely unprofitable, given the amounts available, and too complicated; and that many farmers will simply not take them up, especially if they do not have the administrative capacity to negotiate the complicated bureaucracy. That could mean that only large institutional landowners, such as the National Trust or the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, benefit from these Government schemes. It would be quite wrong if such landowners received a bigger and bigger share of the agricultural subsidy cake when they provide less and less food each year. ELMS should have a part to play in protecting small, tenanted farms and upland farmers—I class small farms as less than 100 acres—alongside their significant environmental aims.

The final problem I would like to take up with the Minister is the average age of farmers, which is currently 59. My own farming situation has been discussed here; my farm is in north Norfolk, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Duncan Baker). I am delighted to see him here today and I have issued an invitation to him to come and visit my farm. I know from my own farming situation that my son, who is in his thirties, is much more adaptable than I am to new technology, which would have two key effects of increasing productivity and innovation. ELMS should have a structural element to help young people who wish to enter agriculture, particularly those who are leaving education, because agriculture tends to be a highly risky, capital-intensive business, combined with very low returns.

DEFRA is providing money to councils, landowners and county farm estates via the new entrant support scheme, to support young people joining the sector with access to land, infrastructure and support for successful and innovative businesses. My own farming business, to which I have referred, provides an opportunity for three different businesses to get on to the farming ladder. Chris is my long-term farming contractor; Ben runs a successful outdoor pig-breeding business; and we are currently discussing an arrangement with a lady who has a rotating ewe flock of sheep, to graze our increasingly over-wintered green cover crops. Existing farmers could do more to help young people into agricultural employment and business.

All in all, if farmers are to survive, they must produce better returns, either from increased productivity, Government subsidies or increased prices from the market. Otherwise, many will simply not survive. The consequence will be that the average farm size increases, employment in agriculture falls and social cohesion in rural areas is lost. The Government are formulating a new policy on ELMS, and we need to see much more detail before it is launched in 2024. I appreciate that a lot more was published at the beginning of the year, but I still do not get the full sense of where the Government’s aims for ELMS really are.

As I have said, we cannot become over-reliant on other countries to fulfil our food needs. We have the means to produce food here in more sustainable and smarter ways, but to do that we must support farmers across the country, and not make the industry so unprofitable that only the largest farms survive. The Government should be much more ambitious with their aim of producing food in the UK. Well over 60% of the food we eat should be produced by UK farmers. That would well and truly put the “F” back in DEFRA.

[Geraint Davies (in the Chair)]

I call the Member behind the green mask.

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[Luke Pollard]

I thank the hon. Member for his point. Whether it is a farmer in North West Durham, in Gedling or in the south-west, this matters. The Government are making a strategic error in their trade policy. I realise the Minister is not responsible for trade policy, and is merely the recipient of all the silage coming from the Department for International Trade in this matter, but the lack of a joined-up Government policy on food is part of the problem. We need to make sure that future trade deals match our agricultural policies, environmental policies and policies on rural employment.

All that speaks to what type of country we want to be. I think Britain should be a force for good. We should maintain high standards, support people entering those sectors, decarbonise and support nature recovery. We cannot do all those things if we do not have the information about what an ELM scheme will look like, if we rely imports produced at lower standards and if we lock ourselves into the risk of a supply chain spanning the world at a time of greater international instability. This is a really important debate; I congratulate the hon. Member for The Cotswolds on bringing it to the Chamber and I hope the Minister listens carefully to the speeches.

[Geraint Davies (in the Chair)]

To get everyone in, each speaker will need to keep to about six minutes. That is an advisory limit. I call Neil Parish, the Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee.

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[Derek Thomas (St Ives) (Con)]

It is good to see you in the Chair, Mr Davies. You were far too lenient on the EFRA Committee Chair, my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish), so well done; that shows great character and integrity.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) for securing this critical debate. How wonderful it is to talk about the countryside, our farms and our farming and food production! We are up in London, in the midst of all sorts of nonsense, but for those who are privileged, as I am, to live in one of the most beautiful—mine is the most beautiful—part of the United Kingdom, it is great, when we get back to the constituency, to get out in the morning and have all that disappear while we appreciate God’s great gift of the countryside. It is fantastic to be able to talk about it today.

The three core areas of ELMS are: supporting sustainable farming; the recovery of nature; and collaboration between landowners to deliver, as hon. Members have said, public money for public goods. West Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly are great examples of where much of that has already been done. There is an irony, in that farmers who have been delivering public goods for a long time may not benefit in the way that ELMS intends, as they have less far to go to get our countryside to where it needs to be.

It is a great privilege for me to visit farms across west Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly and see the good care and concern of farmers for the natural environment. They know it is the hand that feeds them. Many farms in Cornwall have developed the ability to produce food and energy. There was a time when Cornwall was the county that produced the most renewable energy on land in the UK. It also grows trees. I committed to planting 20,000 trees in 2020, and it was landowners and farmers who found pastures that were not productive for food, and who gave up that land so that the Woodland Trust, I and my volunteers could plant over 21,000 trees on it. I appreciate how long it takes for them to bear fruit, as it were, but planting trees is certainly an important part of managing our countryside; it has benefits for run-off and flood management, and is a good thing to do on balance.

We need to strike a balance between farming, food production and biodiversity. I hear comments—not necessarily from DEFRA, although comments can be misinterpreted—about the need to produce much less meat around the UK. That is most definitely true around the world, but there are examples on my farms where grazing and producing meat supports and enhances biodiversity. We need to be careful, in all messages from Government and DEFRA, to get the balance right. For promoting biodiversity and looking after many parts of our countryside around the UK, meat production is a positive and helpful thing, if done properly.

We heard about public money for public goods. I was delighted when the Secretary of State at that time came up with that expression. It reassured me that we were going to get the policy right and turn our backs on the common agricultural policy. There is an enthusiasm across farming for public money for public goods, but there is a frustration that it has taken so long to get the detail, and I worry that we might not be delivering what we set out to. Everything that has been said today pretty much agrees with what I am hearing farmers say.

On ELMS, as has been said, we need to ensure food is being produced. The first debate I ever had in Westminster Hall was on food security. At that time, we were producing around 54% of the food that we could produce in the UK. We have to increase that. We need to enthuse our farmers and, rather than bogging them down with red tape, give them a renewed passion and enthusiasm, and let them know that DEFRA and the Government are on their side when it comes to producing good, healthy food for our constituents to eat.

We learned in the pandemic that it was the local food producers that helped to address the food chain supply problems. Let us not lose the lessons we learned just two years ago. We must do whatever we can to cut through red tape and give farmers the enthusiasm to produce the food we need, and we must protect and value their knowledge. We have heard already about the knowledge of farmers. It is no accident that they produce food from the land they own or look after. It is an incredible art and a gift. It is years and years, or generations, of experience. If we do not get this right, we will lose them and that experience will not be passed on, which takes me to my next point. DEFRA and the Department for Education must get together and use ELMS, if possible, to promote careers in agriculture and food production in our schools and colleges, harnessing that experience and knowledge and giving young people the opportunity to have a job on the land.

We are concerned about mental health and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton said, particularly about mental health in farming. However, the countryside has an awful lot to contribute towards supporting people’s wellbeing and good health. We must look after soil security. The Climate Change Committee has talked about that. We allow our soil to wash into rivers and seas, where it is lost forever. We must be cleverer and use ELMS to stop that.

Although ELMS may encourage some farms to get things right, there is a danger that it will discourage others from engaging, and that they will work the land and the soil will be wrecked—it takes an enormous amount of time to recover soil. ELMS must deliver good soil health across the country.

Finally, we need to protect small farms. We have heard about landowners buying up parcels of land, and we are really seeing that in Cornwall. Small farms that are no longer viable are being snapped up by hobby farmers. They are maintaining a piece of countryside, but it is not as productive as it could be, and it is not supporting the opportunity to bring fresh blood into the industry. We must do everything that we can to support small farmers and to preserve small farms. We have to get on with that and not give in to those voices telling us to delay ELMS. Seize the day, get it right, and help our farms produce the food that we need.

[Geraint Davies (in the Chair)]

I call Richard Drax. If you could keep it down to five minutes, that would be helpful.

[Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies, and to follow my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas) and all colleagues who have spoken so clearly. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) for securing this important and timely debate.

In the short time that I have, I want to ring the alarm bell on behalf of hundreds of thousands of farmers across the land. What I am about to say is felt unanimously by farmers, including those in Dorset who I meet quarterly, and farming organisations, such as the NFU under the determined leadership of Minette Batters. I am most grateful to the Minister, who came down to Dorset at my behest and met our farmers. She has heard what I am about to say from the lion’s mouth, so nothing here will surprise her. Those farmers say, “None of us can see the logic behind much of the Government’s thinking—and this is a Conservative Government. It and its Ministers seem in thrall to the environmental and wildlife lobbies, which have a role to play, but are behind the push for this greener agenda, at the cost of food production.”

The Government have got themselves into a pickle. They are replacing the basic payment scheme, which is paid to ensure food resilience and affordability, with a system that offers taxpayers’ money to take land out of production, in part to improve

“environmental and animal welfare outcomes.”

The local nature recovery scheme and the landscape recovery scheme will see £800 million spent on replacing productive land for both crops and livestock with wildlife habitats such as peat bogs and wetlands, and nature reserves and tree planting.

We all love trees—I plant trees—but during the last election I think the Labour party promised to plant so many millions of trees that it worked out at about 100 trees a second. Common sense is what farmers are desperately calling for. The green mantra does not make sense. This narrow agenda implies that nature and farming cannot co-exist, but they have done so for generations. The words “food production” were not even in the first Agriculture Bill, so the mad path we are heading down is hardly a surprise. As my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds said, our food self-sufficiency has dropped from 78% in the mid-1980s to 64% now. Where on earth are the policies that we need to grow more of what we are good at and produce to the highest standards in the world? We are an island nation and in the face of any serious adversity we might not be able to rely on imports. Our island’s history should have taught us that basic fact many times.

What annoys farmers even more than the misguided green agenda is that the BPS, on which they have relied for so long, is to be removed before its replacement has been fully tried and tested. There are genuine fears that some farms, particularly in the grazing livestock sector—both lowland and upland—will simply not survive. The NFU predicts that 80% of them will become unprofitable. Those policies are a threat not just to the farmer but to the consumer. As the Public Accounts Committee stated in January, DEFRA has also

“not explained how the Scheme’s changes in land use will not simply result in more food being imported, with the environmental impacts of food production being ‘exported’ to countries with lower environmental standards.”

I join the NFU in calling for an urgent review of DEFRA’s future farming programme for England, including of the temporary postponement of direct payment reductions in 2022-23. I agree with the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron), who spoke with such common sense and who has repeatedly made that point. Those new schemes must be piloted because we cannot afford to see them fail. Farmers are crying out for secure, fit-for-purpose measures that will sustain food production while, of course, continuing to protect our countryside and all that lives in it. Reckless rewilding, pushed by those with the best of intentions but with little grip of reality, is a classic example of nonsense. Placing beavers in small Dorset rivers, for example, while no doubt pleasurable to see, will create havoc to river flows and banks and lead to flooding as dams are built and then, no doubt, protected by law.

The argument to subsidise farmers in some form or other—or not—is a live one. If the Government want to see farmers, especially the smaller ones, go to the wall, food prices and imports increase and our rural economy die, then end all support. There is a balance to be drawn, but farmers and food production must be given the priority they deserve.

[Geraint Davies (in the Chair)]

I hope to call the Front Benchers at 10.40, so I am sorry, Duncan, but you have four minutes. Over to you.

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[Richard Drax]

On a point of order, Mr Davies. I completely forgot to refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I am a landowner and farmer. I apologise.

[Geraint Davies (in the Chair)]

That is very kind of you. That is on the record.

Oral Answers to Questions

Geraint Davies Excerpts

Thursday 27th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice]

We have already planned this year to open the sustainable farming incentive. It will be open to all farmers and universally available. We have also increased the payment rates for countryside stewardship. Half of farmers are already in that, and we are encouraging the other half to join, too.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

T5. The Secretary of State knows from the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs that there are some 6.6 million people in food insecurity, with insufficient daily food of a nutritious standard. He also knows that food prices, energy prices and national insurance are going up, and universal credit is going down. Does he agree, therefore, that that figure will reach 10 million unless something is done, and will he meet me and the co-operative movement to discuss a plan, including to put the right to food into law?

[George Eustice]

Our food security review, which was published before Christmas, showed that we have the lowest spending on food as a percentage of household income anywhere in Europe. Overall, food prices in this country are stable and spending on food is low. However, there are challenges for certain individuals. That is why we have things like the holiday funding.

Food and Drink: UK Economy

Geraint Davies Excerpts

Wednesday 1st December 2021 Westminster Hall

[Geraint Davies (in the Chair)]

Before we begin, I remind hon. Members that they are expected to wear face coverings when they are not speaking in the debate, in line with current Government guidance and that of the House of Commons Commission. I remind Members that they are asked by the House to have a covid lateral flow test twice a week if coming on to the parliamentary estate. That can be done either at the testing centre in Portcullis House or at home. Please also give each other and members of staff space when seated, and when entering and leaving the room.

[John Stevenson (Carlisle) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the contribution of food and drink to the UK economy.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I am delighted that we have the opportunity to debate the importance of the food and drink sector for the UK economy. I also mention that I am the chair of the all-party parliamentary group for food and drink manufacturing.

During the pandemic, we rightly clapped and acknowledged the work and dedication of the medical staff, who did so much for the many people affected by covid. We rightly recognised the commitment of those who continued to work in supermarkets and the many drivers who ensured that the deliveries actually got through. However, there were many other unsung heroes in many different industries and sectors who also helped to ensure that our society continued to function and that life continued in a manageable way.

One such group was the food and drink manufacturing sector. Hon. Members may recall that, at the beginning of the crisis, there was some concern that our food shelves could become empty or the supply of food would be greatly reduced. The adage is that if there was no food available, it would not be long before there was a major crisis, panic buying and potentially something rather worse. That did not happen. Indeed, the factories, sometimes in very difficult circumstances, continued to produce the food and drink that we as a country needed. The deliveries continued to be made, the supermarkets were supplied, the shelves remained full and families continued to shop in the knowledge that there would be food to buy.

There was no panic buying, except—interestingly enough—of toilet roll and pasta, which to this day I do not understand. Nevertheless, that did seem to be something that exercised many people up and down the country, but even that was short-lived. We therefore have a lot to thank the food and drink sector for and, very importantly, all those who work in it. At the time, there was some recognition of their work, and clearly there was a greater awareness of the importance of the food and drink sector, of the vital need to ensure the supply of foods to shops, and of the overall significance of the sector to our society. In many respects, that awareness has sadly disappeared. I believe this is extremely unfortunate. We should be far more aware of the nature of the sector, how important it is, its many strengths, and also its weaknesses. This is about not just the basics in life, such as the supply of food, although that is extremely important, but the real and substantial contribution that the sector makes to our economy, both nationally and locally.

I have a few statistics and facts about the sector. The food and drink sector is the largest manufacturing sector in the United Kingdom. I am amazed at the number of people who are surprised by that. They often think that pharmaceutical, automobile or aerospace would be the largest manufacturing sector, but in reality the food and drink sector is our leading manufacturer.

It has a turnover of more than £104 billion, representing 20% of all UK manufacturing. It contributes over £29 billion to the economy, and directly employs over 440,000 people and thousands more indirectly. Think of the many brands, a large number of which are iconic and international—the very best of British products. Exports exceed £23 billion, going to more than 220 countries and territories, with a huge potential for much more.

We should also be aware of the contribution the sector makes to the local economy. It is often a substantial local employer, which has a significant impact on the performance and growth of local economies, and offers employment and training opportunities to local people.

My constituency of Carlisle is a prime example. Nestlé employs 400 people. It is the largest food and drink company in the world, a significant exporter and a purchaser of much of the milk that is produced by local farmers. The 2 Sisters Food Group employs nearly 1,400 people, and if I were to have a ready-made meal from Marks & Spencer, it would probably have been produced in the factory in Carlisle. McVitie’s, part of Pladis Global, employs nearly 800 people. Talking of brands, Carlisle produces the iconic Carr’s water biscuits and, of course, 6 million custard creams every single day.

These businesses make a huge contribution to the Carlisle economy and the wider regional economy. Think of the spending impact that 2,500 directly employed staff have on the local economy, and those are just the larger employers, as these figures do not include the many smaller businesses.

Indeed, the sector as a whole is incredibly diverse, with over 10,000 manufacturing businesses, most of which are small and medium-sized enterprises. In reality, there are very few large players, which can be both a strength and a weakness for the sector. It means it is a dynamic sector, with much innovation, but at times it also means that the voice of the sector is not heard as much as it should be.

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[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Geraint Davies (in the Chair)]

Order. I call James Daly first, as not everybody had previously indicated that they wished to speak, but we will make a note.

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[Geraint Davies (in the Chair)]

I will take the Front-Bench speakers at around a quarter past 5. I invite Navendu Mishra to contribute.

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[Dave Doogan (Angus) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I thank the hon. Member for Carlisle (John Stevenson) for calling the debate. Going to Strangford for the ultimate British Isles culinary experience? Well, we will see about that in the course of the next five minutes.

It is a pleasure to sum up the debate. We sometimes get those calls from the Whips where they rhetorically ask whether we would mind going to Westminster Hall to sum up a debate on anything from synthetic fuels to the shape of clouds, but this one is a shootie-in for a Scottish MP, much less the MP for Angus. I like to explain to English colleagues that if Kent is the garden of England, Angus is very much the garden of Scotland, and it is in that context that I will sum up.

Food and drink manufacturing is the largest manufacturing sector in the UK. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Carlisle, who secured the debate, for highlighting that point, because it is often lost in the noise of other, more prominent industries. There is a footprint of food manufacturing and production in every single constituency across these islands, and the sector contributes more than £120 billion to the UK economy. If that sounds good for the UK, we have bells on it in Scotland, because exports of Scottish food and drink make a vital contribution not only of many billions to the Scottish economy but therefore, for the time being, to the UK economy.

We export to countries worldwide: Scotland, with 8.2% of the UK population, delivers almost 20% of the food and drink exports—doing the heavy lifting once again. It is little wonder, with iconic produce such as Scotch lamb, Aberdeen Angus beef and Scotch whisky. I could go on—[Interruption.] You want me to go on, Mr Davies? Okay. I will add to that list Irn-Bru, haggis, shortbread, smoked salmon, porridge, Scotch broth and steak pie, and let us not forget that the iconic Skull Crushers sweets were invented in Scotland.

That is just Scotland’s produce, and I have not started on Angus—specifically our world-famous Arbroath smokies, of which I know the Minister is a fan, and the supreme champion of savoury pastries, the Forfar bridie. Looking around Westminster Hall this afternoon, I see a lot of potential Marks & Spencer customers, so let me assure them that their summertime Red Diamond strawberries from Markies come from Angus too, because Angus is the leading soft fruit producer across these islands—[Laughter.] That is uncontroversial.

Scotland delivers 80% of the valuable seed potato sector, and Angus is at the forefront of that, which is why McCain has its Pugeston facility in Angus. On the drinks side, to name just a few, we have Ogilvy vodka, made from potatoes in Charleston; the Gin Bothy up the road in Glamis; the Glencadam distillery in Brechin; and the Arbikie Highland Estate distillery at Lunan, not far from Lunan Bay Farm, which produces Scottish asparagus and pasture-fed goat meat just down the road from the lobsters landed at Ferryden. If anybody is looking for directions to Angus, I can provide them after the debate.

So it is all well and good, then? No, I am afraid it is not. Remember that seed potato sector? Thanks to the UK’s hard Brexit, the sector has lost not only its European Union market access, but its Northern Ireland market access. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) can no longer buy seed potatoes from Angus, and that is much to be regretted at both ends of the transaction. Neither can his farmers take their bulls to Stirling to be sold any more, because if they do not sell, farmers will have to pay to keep them there because they cannot take them home as they used to.

The jute sacks that seed potatoes need, which are imported from India and Bangladesh, were tariff-free while we were in the EU, but now they come with tariffs. That is a matter for the Department for International Trade to intervene on, but it seems unable or unwilling to do so. Similarly, I have asked the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office to intervene, along with Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Department for International Trade, on the proscription of pork exports to China—I know the Minister is aware of this—from the Brechin pork processing plant in Angus, and they are unable to help with that either.

It is interesting listening to right hon. and hon. Members today. If Hansard were to do a Wordle of today’s debate, the big word in the middle would be “labour”. There can be no doubt about the crippling labour shortages and how they threaten to undermine the great strides made in market development—[Interruption.]

[Geraint Davies (in the Chair)]

Order. We need to suspend for Divisions.

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On resuming—

[Geraint Davies (in the Chair)]

Right—I have had my Angus steak. Dave Doogan, to finish off.

[Dave Doogan]

Thank you, Mr Davies. Before we were interrupted, I was talking about the crippling labour shortages that threaten to undermine the great strides made in the market development and process efficiencies of the food production sectors.

Industry experts are being undone by Whitehall Departments and Ministers with little knowledge of, much less regard for, this industry, although I would not apply that to the current Minister, who will be answering today and—in my estimation, at least—gets the industry and has its best interests at heart. However, she is part of an Executive who are putting substantial problems in front of the industry.

In closing, I will mention the Home Office, with its arbitrary £30,000 figure, which has deliberately made it as difficult as possible for the industry to access those figures. The United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 is an extremely problematic piece of legislation, which does nothing to enhance the devolution settlement or relationships between the industries north and south of the border. I met with the National Farmers Union of Scotland this morning, which described a perfect storm coming down the road, and we need to protect this valuable industry at all costs.

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[Daniel Zeichner]

I see the Minister nodding. I wonder whether she could tip us off about when we might expect that.

We also need fairness within the supply chain. We have heard about the power of the retailers, and the imbalance of power. What we are seeing at the moment, I fear, is that although consumers may be benefiting from the price competition between retailers, they are just pushing the pressure down the supply chain harder and harder, which is not sustainable. Perhaps she could tell us something about where the Government have got to on those supply chain contracts, and on dairy contracts, the consultation on which was, of course, a while ago. She may need the opportunity to once again comment on competition laws, and suspension and relaxation, which has happened a number of times.

In the interest of time, I will not make any further points on farming and environmental land management, but we are hoping for some more information soon. Finally, I praise and thank all those in the British food and drink sector. We are fortunate to have a sector that can produce food to such good standards and to such excellent quality, and we cherish it. That is why we want a plan from the Government. We have repeatedly called on the Government to produce a plan for the sector: a plan for food, a plan to get to net zero and a plan to buy British. If the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings were here now, I would tell him, “There is a party that will do that!”, if he is dissatisfied with his own side. We want to get to a situation where people can buy our food with confidence as part of that strategy, but that strategy must also improve conditions for the workers throughout the sector who have given so much. There is plenty to celebrate, but much to be done.

[Geraint Davies (in the Chair)]

Over to you, Victoria Prentis. We need to end at 6.5 pm.

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[Geraint Davies (in the Chair)]

Hungry for John Stevenson to wind up—we need to end by 6.5 pm.