Jamie Stone
Main Page: Jamie Stone (Liberal Democrat - Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)Department Debates - View all Jamie Stone's debates with the HM Treasury
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Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. As Chair of the Petitions Committee, I am delighted to see such fantastic attendance at this debate.
I have two simple things to say. A week ago yesterday, I attended the farmers’ rally in John O’ Groats, at the other end of the United Kingdom. I was the only politician there. It was a cold, blowy day and the farmers and their tractors were out in force. I spoke to many of them and heard their concern. Even that far away from Westminster, it was exactly the same as we are hearing expressed in this debate: their fear of losing the farm.
That takes me to my second simple point. I was brought up on a dairy farm. Bought by my great-great grandfather, Donald Fraser, it was in the family from the early-to-mid-19th century—a long, long time—but due to financial circumstances, my father had to sell almost all of it. Today, my brother and I own the princely sum of two fields. Here is the point: not a day goes by that I do not look toward the fields we used to own, on the shores of the Dornoch firth, and wish that we still owned them.
The farm is in my blood. It is not like selling stocks and shares, or selling a holiday home in Spain; it is in the blood, it is in the family. Unless I were to win the lottery, I will never be able to buy back those fields. I am not likely to win the lottery and even then, land goes up in value. It is emotional, and that attachment makes it very different from other things one might own. This point has already been made, but once the farm is gone, it is gone forever.