Agricultural Transition Plan

Greg Smith Excerpts

Monday 30th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice]

I think I have explained at the Dispatch Box several times the cause of the confusion that there might have been. It is because people are trying to compare a seven plus three year—a 10-year—EU budget with a five-year parliamentary term that we have set for the current budget. We cannot compare two entirely different timescales for a quantum of sum of money.

[Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)]

For transparency, I remind the House that my wife’s family are farmers in receipt of subsidy. I warmly welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement and, as we set our own trade policy for the first time in decades, have enormous optimism for the future of British farming. It is also the case, though, that farmers face a great deal of uncertainty as demonstrated by the weather conditions that led to a particularly poor 2020 for so many. With that in mind, will he outline when the detail of the sustainable farming incentive and other bridging schemes will come forward so that farmers can have certainty as they plan for the future?

[George Eustice]

We will be publishing more papers in the new year on some of the more specific elements of scheme designs, including the voluntary exit scheme, which we mention in the paper today. As I said earlier, in the first six months of next year, we will be consulting on the design of the sustainable farming incentive.

Oral Answers to Questions

Greg Smith Excerpts

Thursday 25th June 2020 Commons Chamber

The hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire, representing the Church Commissioners was asked—

[Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)]

What assessment the commissioners have made of the effect of live streaming church services on the number of people taking part in church services.

[The Second Church Estates Commissioner (Andrew Selous)]

I am pleased to be able to tell my hon. Friend that more people have been taking part in church services during lockdown than ever before. The national weekly service of the Church has been viewed more than 5.2 million times, with 21.5 million related social media posts, and a third of the people watching Archbishop Justin Welby’s Easter day service were under the age of 34.

[Greg Smith]

Parishes in the Winslow benefice in my constituency are seeing 400 to 500 people take part in virtual services each Sunday and about 100 each day in midday-ish prayer. Given the extraordinary number of people who have either connected with the Church for the first time or reconnected with it virtually, what plans do the Church Commissioners have to set aside funds to continue this excellent work?

[Andrew Selous]

I am delighted to learn about the increase in church attendance in my hon. Friend and neighbour’s constituency. It is not unusual. The Church made a significant investment in a new digital communications team in 2016 and we will continue to make sure that we provide a good digital offering. The experience of my hon. Friend in Winslow has been widely shared by churches across the country. Some 1,600 people are currently attending an online alpha course at one of our churches, and 3.3 million people have now watched the UK blessing worship video on YouTube, put together by Gas Street Church in Birmingham.

Zoos, Aquariums and Wildlife Sanctuaries: Reopening

Greg Smith Excerpts

Thursday 11th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Pow]

I hear what my hon. Friend says and that has been noted. I also get the message loud and clear that there are calls for a wide range of other wildlife enterprises, including farm parks, and places such as the Cotebrook Shire Horse Centre and Crocodiles of the World near Witney, to open.

[Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s commitment to looking at the matter again. I double underline the urgency for the Green Dragon rare breeds farm in my constituency, where the animals are now getting fed only as a result of the local community’s generosity in making food donations. If the animals do not get that food urgently, I fear that they will be put down.

[Rebecca Pow]

That is noted. The exact scope of easing restrictions is being discussed as we speak. We will consider whether other outdoor animal attractions can open safely in future and at the same time. Clearly, many larger zoos face real long-term issues. Discussion about that is also ongoing.

I thank all the zoos and aquariums that played such a key role in the discussions with DEFRA, particularly in highlighting the crucial animal welfare implications. Thanks must go to BIAZA and our hard-working DEFRA team. I also thank my colleague Lord Goldsmith for all his work. He has kept me fully informed of what is happening.

I want to assure colleagues that weekly meetings will continue with the chief executive officers of the largest charitable zoos and aquariums, so that we are fully aware of the situation. I am also happy to meet my hon. Friend the Member for Romford to discuss his further thoughts and ideas, which he has clearly been thinking on very much.

In closing, I want to reiterate—

Flood Response

Greg Smith Excerpts

Monday 10th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Theresa Villiers]

I will be very happy to meet the hon. Lady. The situation in relation to the Ouse is indeed still very serious, but I reassure her that significant numbers of flood defences have been built over recent years. As I said in my opening statement, we fully recognise that there is more to do, particularly as the climate is changing and extreme weather events become more common, but a huge amount of effort has gone into delivering flood defences, and more is on the way.

[Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)]

Recent months have led to a very difficult start of the season for many farmers, particularly arable farmers forced into exceptionally late drilling. Given that farmers are likely to be very badly affected by these latest floods, what reassurances can my right hon. Friend give me that farmers will receive the support and assistance they need?

[Theresa Villiers]

So often, farmers are the victims of flooding and the providers of heroic help to others who are also affected by flooding. We will be working closely with the farming community in the days ahead to see what assistance can be given.

Agriculture Bill

Greg Smith Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons & Money resolution & Programme motion
Monday 3rd February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker; it is a pleasure and a privilege to follow three such eloquent and powerful maiden speeches.

I had originally intended to make my maiden speech on 15 January. However, something much more exciting happened at 1.30 in the morning that day, when my wife gave birth to our second child, Charlie. With your indulgence, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to thank the wonderful NHS staff at Stoke Mandeville Hospital for the care they gave my wife and Charlie. Most importantly, I would like to thank the 37,035 electors of the Buckingham constituency who voted for me in December. I will work tirelessly to repay their trust, determined and principled in my advocacy of all my constituents’ concerns.

As with all of us, my being here today is only possible due to the support I receive from those nearest to me—not least my incredible wife, Annalise, for whose support and patience I will remain forever grateful, plus our three-year-old son Jacob, who does not understand why Daddy is not around so much. I hope he will read this in Hansard one day and understand just how much of my daily motivation comes from him.

I also pay tribute to the dedication of my predecessor, John Bercow, who served Buckingham for over 22 years. During the campaign, many local residents remarked on how assiduous a constituency Member of Parliament he had been—a trait I seek to emulate. However, I am certain John and I would have clashed, certainly in more recent years, over our views on Britain’s membership of the European Union. As someone whose first interest in politics was sparked by horror at the treaty of Maastricht, it is with particular pride that I have been elected as part of this Conservative majority, mandated to get Brexit done, and to be making my maiden speech in the first debate since our country became an independent nation once more. As we forge a brave, new, outwardly-looking path in the world, I look forward to playing my part in supporting this Government’s positive agenda, on the side of aspiration and opportunity, low taxes and high wages, delivering world-class public services and spreading free markets across the globe.

The 335 square miles of the Buckingham constituency are as beautiful as they are dynamic. From the medieval market town of Princes Risborough and the oldest recorded parish in England of Monks Risborough, the market towns of Winslow and Buckingham accompany over 100 vibrant, community-spirited villages and hamlets, too many to mention here today. Steeped in history, Stowe, Ascott House and Waddesdon Manor all add to the rich heritage of the constituency—not to mention the Prime Minister’s country gaff, Chequers. We have a rural economy, where farming is so important, but that is coupled with manufacturing, retail and new, high-tech industry and jobs in our enterprise zones. The University of Buckingham, under the leadership of Sir Anthony Seldon, is the largest single employer. In an era of our universities having a reputation as seedbeds for left-wing radicalism, I was delighted to discover the Hayek library in the centre of its new Vinson building, complete with the country home of the Institute of Economic Affairs. And it is an absolute personal pleasure, as a motorsport fan since I was eight years old, to represent roughly half of the iconic Silverstone circuit. As an aside, going completely off topic, is it not time that the greatest living British sportsman, with six world championships and counting, should be recognised with a knighthood in our honours system?

My constituency faces threats on multiple fronts: HS2; the Oxford-Cambridge expressway; and over- development, not least from the outrageous, expansionist plans of Labour-run Milton Keynes. One of my early mentors in politics, a former Member of this House, the late Eric Forth, once said to me that the most powerful question in politics is simply “why?” So let me put it this way: why would we take people’s homes, cut their farms in two, blight the landscape, destroy 108 ancient woodlands and risk the chalk streams of the Chilterns, all for a 60p return on every pound spent and no benefit to my constituents, when other solutions exist? It is my passionate belief that our countryside is the defining feature of our United Kingdom. There may be those who believe it is somewhere to occasionally go for the weekend, and what does it matter if we build over it or slam a new railway through the middle, but they are wrong, for when it is gone, it will be gone forever. Nor should our countryside ever be treated as just the bit between the towns and cities, for we are dynamic, home to thousands of successful rural businesses, big and small; many of which, but by no means all, grow and rear the food everyone needs and enjoys.

Turning to the Agriculture Bill, I must declare an interest, in that my wife’s family are farmers, in receipt of subsidies. I have learnt so much from a real hero of British farming, my father-in-law, not least because at family dinners he only has two settings: silence; and talking about farming. It is extremely welcome that this Bill now recognises the central aim of food production. Freeing our farmers from the CAP is one of the major benefits of leaving the EU, but unwinding from decades of bureaucracy and building a system that properly rewards quality food production and the enhancing of our biodiversity is not straightforward—to give that classic countryside answer to the city dweller who stops to ask directions, “I wouldn’t start from here.” This Bill gives certainty, and I welcome it. But as the clock is against me, I cannot better conclude than by quoting Margaret Thatcher’s closing words in her speech to the National Farmers Union in 1986:

“There is an independence and a stability in farming upon which Britain depends and which Britain cannot afford to lose...Agriculture means so much, our farming future must be assured.”