Farming

Ian Liddell-Grainger Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Fay Jones]

My hon. Friend hits the nail on the head. What we are seeking to deliver is a combination of the two, certainly in England.

Farmers deserve that trust, and we have announced that we will deliver on our promise to cut the planning red tape that is preventing them from diversifying. In April we will introduce legislation enabling them to create bigger farm shops, commercial space and outdoor sports venues. Farmers have raised the issue of the often unfair pricing that they receive for their products, so a fortnight ago we introduced new regulations for the dairy sector, and we are also launching a review of the poultry sector. We will introduce similar regulations for the pig sector later in the year, with regulations for the egg sector to follow.

[Mr Ian Liddell-Grainger (Bridgwater and West Somerset) (Con)]

I hear what the Minister is saying, and she is making a powerful point, but in Exmoor we have a national park that stopped everything happening. We need to get the national parks under control. They will not allow farm shops, and they will not allow development. Sheep farmers on Exmoor have enough trouble as it is without being told that they cannot let holiday cottages, set up farm shops or apply for planning permission. Could we please make an exception for the national parks so that they can join the real world?

[Fay Jones]

I live in a national park as well, in mid-Wales, so I entirely understand my hon. Friend’s frustrations. The matter that he has raised will, of course, be one for Ministers in DEFRA and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, but I know that the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Robbie Moore), has heard his point.

--- Later in debate ---

[Fay Jones]

My hon. Friend is right. This is part of a three-pronged approach that Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is planning to take and we will continue to be led by the science. No country in the world has ever been able to grip the scourge of bovine TB without tackling the disease in wildlife. The science is clear: the tide is turning on bovine TB in England and a major element of this success has been the industry-led cull of badgers in affected areas.

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

My hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) was right to say that Somerset started the culls, and the intimidation I and others received at the time was appalling, but we weathered it. I say to the Minister and Members across the House that the cull worked because farmers led it. Farmers were absolutely determined to do it, having survived foot and mouth at the time I became an MP, and then having gone into TB. Farmers are responsible; they understand the countryside and understand what they are doing. Where TB and other things are concerned, I urge the House to give the farmers the benefit of the doubt. They look after the land and they manage it well.

[Fay Jones]

I could not have put it better myself. Culling is part of a three-pronged approach that DEFRA has taken to tackling bovine TB. Field trials for a new cattle vaccine and companion skin tests for bovine TB started in 2021 and remain ongoing.

If the Welsh Government had any ambition for farming in Wales, they would have the backbone of this Government and introduce a cull in Wales, but their weakness in the face of this issue is causing alarm and panic in the Welsh livestock sector. Instead of a cull, they have a First Minister who told them it was their fault. Labour’s Mark Drakeford told the Senedd that the disease spreads when farmers import infected cattle. This is despite farmers working desperately hard to maintain good biosecurity measures. This is a First Minister who also thinks that farmers are entirely responsible for poor water quality. The all-Wales nitrate vulnerable zone, introduced in 2021, is an unworkable piece of legislation that has done nothing to improve our rivers. Instead, it forces farmers to farm to a calendar, spreading muck only on certain dates—never mind the weather.

NVZs, bovine TB and the sustainable farming scheme are all examples of an ill-thought-out policy from a Government determined to set their face against farming in Wales. In contrast, the record of the UK Conservative Government is clear. Our plan is to invest in farmers, to change our approach and to protect food security. Meeting farmers face to face in north Wales a fortnight ago, the Prime Minister again made it clear that we have their back. This Government will always support and be proud of British farming.

I commend this debate to the House.

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[Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab/Co-op)]

I start by congratulating Tom Bradshaw on his election as president of the National Farmers Union. I am sure he will do a fantastic job, and I wish him all the best as he starts his new role standing up for our British farmers. He has big wellington boots to fill, of course, after the outstanding job done by Minette Batters over the past decade—I am sure the whole House wishes her the very best in her future endeavours.

Recent years have been very challenging for farmers: the covid pandemic; the Government’s botched EU withdrawal deal; Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine; and now war in the middle east. Each of these shocks has underscored how vulnerable our food supply chain really is, and how dependent we are on our great British farmers. Food security is national security. In recent years, British consumers have seen empty shelves in local supermarkets, while food prices rocketed by 19% at their peak last year. We need to get resilience back into the system, and at the heart of that must be a commitment to back our British farmers.

I had the pleasure of attending the NFU conference in Birmingham last month and the Oxford farming conference in January. Speaker after speaker made it clear that British farming is in crisis, and that farmers feel abandoned by this Government. Over 6,000 British producers have gone bust since 2017, and the agricultural workforce became a third smaller over the same period. Labour shortages mean that valuable crops have been left in the ground to rot.

The Royal Agricultural Benevolent Institution, the farming mental health charity, alarmingly reports that suicide rates among farmers are the highest of any sector in the UK economy, thanks to the huge pressures that farmers are now under. This is heartbreaking, and it should concern every one of us. The Minister for Food, Farming and Fisheries, the right hon. Member for Sherwood (Mark Spencer), is unable to be here today, but I am glad that he is focusing on working with stakeholders on an issue of such importance and magnitude.

Flooding was among the top issues raised at the NFU conference. Farmers have faced one of the wettest six-month periods on record, with many winter crops still not planted and others washed away or under water. Farmers need better flood defences. It is astonishing that so much of the allocated funding has not been spent over the past two years. I visited Retford in Nottinghamshire and was astonished to learn that, of the £11.7 million allocated for flood defences over the past two years, less than 0.5% of it has been spent.

There is a severe failure of co-ordination between central Government and the agencies responsible for getting spades in the ground to dig out the drainage systems, to build the flood barriers and to plant trees upstream to help the land hold more water.

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

The shadow Minister is making some interesting points. I have probably had more flooding on the levels than anyone in this House. One of the biggest challenges we face is the intransigence of the Environment Agency and Natural England, which are quite impossible. The hon. Gentleman makes a powerful point, but one of the reasons we are finding it difficult to build up the defences, to clear out the rhynes and ditches, and to maintain the clyses and dams is that the Environment Agency and Natural England will not give way on making every single thing impossible.

I have been waiting for a barrage in Bridgwater since 2014. We really must break this logjam. I gently say to the shadow Minister that we are all on his side if he can help to do it.