Oral Answers to Questions

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Thursday 9th May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

2. What steps he is taking to support farmers.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

5. What steps he is taking to support rural farmers.

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Steve Barclay)]

Food security is more important than ever, which is why we need to back British farmers to keep putting food on our tables, while protecting the environment. We are supporting farming with £2.4 billion of annual spending, an average boost of 10% for the sustainable farming incentive payment scheme, and new rules to ensure that farmers get a fair price for their products.

[Steve Barclay]

My right hon. Friend is right to focus on the importance of drainage boards, particularly in Lincolnshire. He knows that I have a particular constituency interest in the adjacent area. We have announced £65 million of funding, and the Minister for water, my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Robbie Moore), will make further announcements on that shortly. We are looking more widely at the huge pressure on farming from the wet weather, particularly in areas such as Lincolnshire. There has been a 60% increase in rainfall—these have been our second wettest six months—and we are looking at a series of easements, particularly with regard to SFI, to ensure that farmers get their payments.

[Jamie Stone]

On behalf of my party, I too wish Phil, the Head Doorkeeper, a very happy birthday.

As the Government know, we grow the very finest seed potatoes in the far north of Scotland. They are particularly good because, relatively speaking, they are virus free. That is probably because of the northerly latitudes where they are grown. I happen to know that farmers in Europe are crying out to get hold of these seed potatoes. I ask the Government to do everything in their power to ensure that the potatoes go where they are needed and wanted.

[Steve Barclay]

The hon. Member makes a valid point in terms of both the quality and the desirability of the products to which he refers. The Minister for Food, Farming and Fisheries is engaging actively with the EU on that specific point, and I am sure that he will update the hon. Member on it.

UK Food Security

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Tuesday 19th March 2024 Westminster Hall

[Sarah Dyke]

I agree that there needs to be a balance between food production and housing supply. My view is that we need to ensure that housing is developed.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Further to the point that the hon. Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter) made, many farmers in my constituency feel that, although rewilding is a fashionable concept, perhaps it goes a little too far, and we need to be more imaginative when deciding what can be rewilded and what should be kept and maintained in the same way, when not used for housing, for growing excellent British food.

[Sarah Dyke]

I agree that we need to balance food production with ensuring we protect our precious environment. Farmers obviously have a key role to play in that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jamie Stone]

Farmers in my constituency have made the point that when a carbon capture audit is done of a farm, the value of grassland in holding and storing carbon is underestimated. That should be looked at again in the overall audit of these farms, which could help in turn to support the growth of excellent beef on our farms.

[Robbie Moore]

Having been involved in the agriculture sector for my whole life before entering this place, I know just how important pasture and grassland are to carbon sequestration. When we are rolling out environmental land management schemes, it is important that the benefits of pasture land through carbon sequestration are taken into account. That is why the reforms that we have introduced, through coming out of the common agricultural policy, are so important to supporting a highly productive sector that is environmentally sustainable.

In addition to the sustainable farming incentive, the farming investment fund and the farm productivity innovation funding will further improve farm productivity. Our schemes will ensure our long-term food security by investing in the foundations of food production, such as healthy soil, water and biodiverse ecosystems. Backing our farmers is so important, which is why the Prime Minister and the Environment Secretary announced a range of measures at the National Farmers Union conference to boost productivity and resilience in the sector, including the largest ever grant offer for farmers in the coming financial year, which is expected to total £227 million.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Thursday 19th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Dr Coffey]

As my right hon. Friend knows, I know that area well. I used to live in Whitchurch, which has the River Test flowing through it. We are making progress with our chalk stream action plan, but he will also be aware of the amendment that the Government agreed to work with Viscount Trenchard on and which is now part of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill, which I hope will become an Act very soon.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

Some of the finest seed potatoes are grown in the north of Scotland. Right now, the seed potato farmers are worried sick, because a lot of their crop is below water. That also poses a question mark over the supply of seed for next year. I know that this matter is devolved, but as the Minister is a farmer will he put the maximum encouragement in the direction of the Scottish Government to please help the farmers?

[Mark Spencer]

The hon. Gentleman has done that with his question. I do not diminish the effect that the rain is having on the seed potato crop; once seed potato is under water for more than a week it will probably be destroyed. Scottish seed potatoes are some of the finest seed produced anywhere in the world and I encourage him to seek contact with the Scottish Government to get them to help.

Import and Sale of Fur

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Tuesday 27th June 2023 Westminster Hall

[Giles Watling]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention, although we seem to be on a repeat cycle as I shall refer to those very issues later in my speech. I think he will be glad to hear my remarks.

Such health problems are widespread on fur farms and are the result of the grossly inadequate conditions in which the animals are forced to live. Investigations by organisations such as Humane Society International, to which I am incredibly grateful for its support during my preparation for the debate, repeatedly show the mental suffering of those wild animals, including a high frequency of stereotypical behaviours such as pacing and rocking as well as self-mutilation and cannibalism. Despite what the fur trade might like consumers to believe, there is no such thing as humane fur farming. Industry-led assurance schemes of high welfare fur farming permit a wide range of cruel practices, including the use of battery cages and cruel traps, such as leg-hold traps and even drowning traps for beavers.

At the end of their tragic lives, mink are typically gassed to death—veterinarians tell me that that is aversive to them, which of course it is, and that it causes suffering, which of course it does—while foxes and raccoon dogs are mostly anally electrocuted. Sickeningly, investigations, including one by Humane Society International in 2020 in China, show that animals are crudely beaten to death with metal poles and even skinned alive.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

The hon. Member is making a fine speech. What brought the issue home to me was something that happened at school when I was 14 or 15. Our physics teacher, Mr Thompson, took an amber rod and showed us that rubbing it would produce a positive charge, but what he rubbed it with shook me to the core. It was a pussycat skin. He had a box of skins. He said, “It is all right; they came from abroad.” The hon. Member mentioned wild animals; that was a domestic moggy, somebody’s cat. That is what put me right off. Like the hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan), I have had numerous messages from constituents on the subject.

[Giles Watling]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. He is absolutely right: it does not matter where these skins come from, we should take it very seriously and consider legislating heavily against it.

Could fur production be made humane? The simple and truthful answer is “no”, because the fur trade’s economic model remains completely reliant on battery cages. There is no humane alternative to the fur trade’s model of intensive confinement. When the Governments of Germany and Sweden brought in laws requiring that foxes be given digging substrate and, in Germany, that minks be provided with swimming water, the respective segments of the industry in those countries closed down, as it was no longer economically viable to meet the requirements of those sensible laws.

It is not only animal protection organisations, such as the HSI and the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, that are calling time on the fur trade. The former CEO of the British Fur Trade Association, Mike Moser, who was mentioned earlier by the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Nadia Whittome), resigned after 10 years defending the fur trade. In September 2020, he publicly pledged his support for the Fur Free Britain campaign to ban fur sales in the UK. It is worth reading his statement again:

“Over time I realised that whatever soundbites we devised to reassure consumers, retailers and politicians, neither welfare regulations nor any industry certification scheme, would ever change the reality of these animals being stuck in tiny wire cages for their entire lives.”

That is a good point, well made. An estimated 95% of fur traded—the majority—is from animals kept on fur farms.

Let us move on to wild animals. Wild animals trapped for their fur suffer different but similarly awful plights. In countries including the USA and Canada, such animals are frequently caught cruel leg-hold traps that have been banned in the UK since the 1950s. Animals such as coyotes and racoons can suffer for days in those traps before they eventually succumb to the elements or dehydration or are killed. Horrifically, it is not uncommon for animals to rip or chew off limbs in a bid to escape. Such suffering is impossible to imagine, all for the purpose of a sentient creature ending up as the trim on a jacket hood or fur cap.

The case against the cruelty of the fur trade is straightforward. Less commonly understood, perhaps, is that fur farms can act as a reservoir for viruses and present a risk to public health, as the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards) mentioned earlier. More than 480 fur farms across Europe and north America have been affected by outbreaks of covid-19 over the past three years, with six countries confirming spillover events from fur farms back to humans. Some 20 million animals were culled to protect public health, but mink farming continues in several countries across Europe and beyond.

An outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza on a mink farm in Spain last autumn further raised pandemic fears, with virologists from Imperial College, London, writing that it is “incredibly concerning” and “a warning bell” for humanity. A recent statement by the World Organisation for Animal Health warns:

“Some animals, such as mink, may act as mixing vessels for different influenza viruses, leading to the emergence of new strains and subtypes that could be more harmful to animals and/or humans. Recently reported infections in farmed mink are a concern, because infections of large numbers of mammals kept in close proximity of each other exacerbate this risk.”

By importing animal fur, we are importing cruelty, and we are facilitating a trade that could very well be the source of the next pandemic.

Lastly, let me outline briefly a final, compelling reason for the Government to act to end the UK fur trade: its sizeable environmental footprint. A new report published by Humane Society International has found that among the eight materials considered, fur from minks, foxes and racoon dogs had the highest air emissions, greenhouse gas emissions, water consumption and water pollution per kilogram. The carbon footprint of 1 kg of mink fur was found to be 31 times higher than that of 1 kg of cotton, and the water consumption in fur production was found to be five times higher than that for cotton, with a kilogram of fur requiring a staggering 29,130 litres of water. The fur trade is bad news for animals, bad news for human health and bad news for the environment. An import ban, as they say in the vernacular, is a no-brainer.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

By means of an intervention, I have already said what I said about my teacher, Mr Thompson. The main point I will make is that that was then. I am quite old; that was an education in the late ’60s, in the hands of Scotland at Tain Royal Academy. Things change over time. That is precisely why the hon. Member for Clacton (Giles Watling) made the speech that he just did: things change and human opinions change. If someone talked to my three children, they would find the whole idea of the fur trade or breeding any animal to kill it by some ghastly means simply to have its skin, as has been outlined, abhorrent. There is a sense of decency out there, and I am proud that our country is saying what it is saying, and it has a lot more to say. We await the Minister’s response with great interest.

There is a sort of moral high ground. We are a nation of animal lovers, which is precisely why my constituents have been in touch with me in the way that they have. I take this opportunity to put on the record that I thank them for saying those things. I hope that we can spread the word to other nations that it is absolutely out of order to do what the hon. Member for Clacton told us about. We have only one planet together, and we are all—pretty much—sentient beings.

I have a much-loved pet cat at home called Hattie, which gives my wife and myself great pleasure; the same is true of everyone who has a pet, or, indeed, if I look out the window and see a blackbird hopping about or just a wild animal. In my constituency, we are blessed with an enormous amount of wildlife, from deer to badgers to otters, and even the occasional roving beaver, so I am led to understand. We all love that, and it makes our lives worth living.

This is a short contribution, but I sincerely thank the hon. Member for Clacton for raising the matter today. It is an honourable cause, and well done to him; I hope his constituents will see the good work he does.

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

Like the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone), I did not plan to make a speech this morning, but I take the opportunity to congratulate both the hon. Member for Clacton (Giles Watling) on introducing the debate and the other Members who took the time to participate.

We are a number of nations—four nations—of animal lovers. Since we are mentioning pets, I do not think my own pet has been on the record before, so I will ensure that I mention Wee Jean, who, in 2019, won Westminster Dog of the Year—so I will get Wee Jean on the record.

[Jamie Stone]

I will just point out that several years ago my cat Hattie was runner-up for the Cat of the Year award.

[Carol Monaghan]

I thank the hon. Member for that.

On a more serious point, we rarely have constituents getting in touch—in fact, I never have—to say “Can we keep fur imports? Can we continue doing this?” On almost everything, we usually get constituents getting in touch on both sides of the debate, so we can say that in this case the issue quite clearly has the support of the public. Many high-street brands have already banned fur, and I believe that Marks and Spencer, H&M and Adidas have all taken a stand against it. There is no reason why we need it, because there are perfectly acceptable alternatives.

I mentioned Canadian bears—I think I said the Canadian brown bear, but I meant to say the Canadian black bear, whose fur is used for hats. There are alternatives. Last year, a group brought an alternative into Parliament and said that it had been tested under lots of different conditions. The group felt that it was just stubbornness and refusal to give up tradition that meant we were continuing to use real Canadian black bear pelts for hats. We need to move on. There is no reason to be doing this.

One thing the hon. Member for Clacton did not mention was foie gras. It is a cruel method of production for a luxury food item that really is not required.

I will mention one other thing. Just a few months ago, the hon. Member for Crawley (Henry Smith) successfully introduced the Hunting Trophies (Import Prohibition) Bill and got the support of the House. That was a real show of cross-party strength on an issue, and I think we can do the same for fur. I thank the hon. Member for Clacton once again for bringing forward this issue, and I look forward to other Members’ contributions.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Thursday 30th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[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.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

8. What steps she is taking to support rural farmers.

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

11. What steps she is taking to support rural farmers.

[The Minister for Food, Farming and Fisheries (Mark Spencer)]

Agriculture is a devolved issue, and is the responsibility of the Scottish Government. Our farmers produce some of the best food in the world. In England, our environmental land management schemes are now open for them to access, and we will pay farmers to deliver positive environmental outcomes. We will also support the production of great British food, healthier soils and more pollinators.

[Jamie Stone]

For the record, may I say how surprised and disappointed I was that the lady who was offered the Rural Affairs job in the Scottish Government turned it down because, as it is reported, it was seen to be a demotion? I was born on a farm. My local farmers and crofters are vital to the economy of my constituency. All over the UK, it is about feeding the nation.

On the subject of feeding the nation, there is increased movement of cattle from Scotland to England. I will not go into the reasons why that is happening, but it is happening, and the Minister will know that. Does he agree that a universal electronic tagging scheme that matches the whole of the UK, perhaps including Northern Ireland, would greatly facilitate this sort of sale of livestock?

[Mark Spencer]

I thank the hon. Member for his question. Obviously, I work closely with Mairi Gougeon in the Scottish Government. She will probably be disappointed to have been re-offered her job, despite its being offered to somebody else, but we will continue to have a positive working relationship there.

The hon. Member is right to highlight the fact that co-operation across the Union is best for UK agriculture and best for UK food production. I think systems for moving cattle between Scotland and England need to flow as quickly and as easily as possible, so that that marketplace works efficiently for farmers on both sides of the border.

UK Food Shortages

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Thursday 23rd February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Dr Coffey]

I am conscious of what my hon. Friend says. Industrial glasshouses in particular are an emerging industry, not a long-established one, and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will always be looking to consider who should be eligible. We will continue to make the case for why we think this is an important sector. I am conscious that there is a significant scaling back, recognising other issues, such as the wholesale price of gas which has fallen, and we expect to see a reduction in energy prices coming through.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

I am concerned that these food shortages will impact on school meals. Should we be looking to give free school meals to far more children in England, just as Scotland and Wales already do?

Oral Answers to Questions

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Thursday 23rd February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Trudy Harrison]

I reassure the hon. Lady that I whole- heartedly agree with her on the value of wetlands. I recently attended the Slimbridge Wetland Centre with the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust and saw for myself how beneficial wetlands can be. In direct response to her question, the responsibility in DEFRA lies with me. I look forward to meeting her to explain exactly how we are creating more wetlands and how nature-based solutions will feature throughout our net zero and other strategies.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

5. What steps she is taking to support rural farmers.

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

10. What steps she is taking to support rural farmers.

[The Minister for Food, Farming and Fisheries (Mark Spencer)]

Our environmental land management schemes are now open to farmers. The schemes collectively pay farmers to deliver climate and environmental outcomes alongside food production. We continue to evolve those offers, recently updating the countryside stewardship payment rates and bringing forward six new sustainable farming incentive standards.

[Jamie Stone]

The right hon. Gentleman is, I know, a horny-handed son of the soil, so he will know that some of the finest seed potatoes are grown in Easter Ross in my constituency. Many of those seed potatoes are in turn sold to English farms in Lincolnshire and suchlike—I might say that is one benefit of the Union. May I press the Minister to tell me what support can be given to those farmers in England to encourage them to grow more spuds such as Maris Pipers and hence to buy more seed potatoes from the farmers in my constituency?

[Mark Spencer]

I draw attention to my declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, but I join the hon. Gentleman in paying tribute to Scottish seed potato producers. They are undoubtedly the best seed potatoes available anywhere in Europe, and I know that is recognised throughout the industry. That is why we are supporting farmers across England to continue to grow great British potatoes based on Scottish seed potatoes.

Agriculture: Sustainable Intensification and Metrics

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd February 2022 Westminster Hall

[Julian Sturdy]

I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman. Soils play a hugely important part in the wider metrics of agriculture. Knowing the Minister very well, I know that she shares a passion for soils, so she might touch on that in her response.

Early action by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to make gene editing regulations more science-based and proportionate, which realigns our approach with that of other countries such as Australia, Japan, Brazil, Argentina and the United States, is a positive and welcome first step. I am pleased to see that coming forward in a statutory instrument at the beginning of March, I believe—perhaps the Minister can clarify that.

Members of the APPG for science and technology in agriculture led calls for the Government to take action on that issue during the passage of the Agriculture Act 2020, and we are grateful to the Minister for listening and responding to those calls. Access to precision breeding tools will bring new opportunities to keep pace with demands for increased agricultural productivity, improved and more efficient resource use, more durable pest and disease resistance, better nutrition, and improved resilience against climate change.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

The hon. Member is making an excellent speech and I am in complete agreement with his points. I was brought up on a dairy farm, and in those days the Milk Marketing Board secured a price floor for milk. Today, I would suggest to the hon. Member that we have a problem in that the price farmers can secure could undercut everything to which the Member refers. Does he agree that one of the opportunities of Brexit is that it gives Government the power to examine the issue and consider support mechanisms, so that people do not leave farming altogether?

[Julian Sturdy]

I completely agree with the hon. Member that we have to ensure that we protect our farming communities and that people do not leave farming. It is so important that we have expertise both on the land and within the sector to make sure that opportunities are there for future generations. The Government must make that clear in their future agricultural policy, and I will touch on that shortly, because I have concerns about its direction, which is, I think, what the hon. Member was referring to.

When we talk about gene editing, we must ensure that future farm policies embrace and support the use of all the new, innovative technologies. Like many others in the sector, I am concerned about the direction of travel of the Government’s future vision for agriculture. As I just said, I am concerned about where future policy is going. We cannot afford to be complacent with something as fundamental as food security. The global food supply and demand balance remains as precarious today as 11 years ago, when Sir John Beddington’s Foresight report urged Governments to pursue a policy of sustainable intensification in agriculture to meet future food needs in the context of population growth, climate change and the finite national resources of land, water and fossil fuels.

Last year’s “Agricultural Outlook 2021-2030” report by the OECD and the Food and Agriculture Organisation warned that, with 8.5 billion mouths to feed by 2030, a business-as-usual approach will fall short of achieving sustainable development goal 2 on zero hunger by 2030. The report also highlighted the critical role of public and private sector research and development investment in enhancing productivity on existing farmland to alleviate pressures and bring more land into production. We have a responsibility to optimise our capacity for sustainable, efficient food production and to not offshore our food system’s impacts to regions of the world that are more vulnerable to the production-limiting effects of climate change.

Concerns are mounting that, without clear vision and a definition of what is meant by “sustainable agriculture”, the UK is at risk of sleepwalking into its own food crisis. Writing in Food Policy, Robert Paarlberg of the Harvard Kennedy School recently highlighted the transatlantic policy tensions between the EU’s farm to fork strategy, referring to the plans to expand organic farming, reduce synthetic chemical use and reject modern biotechnology and the United States’ approach, which is to emphasise agricultural innovations based on the latest science, articulated through its global coalition on sustainable productivity growth.

Last September, I wrote to the Prime Minister, urging the UK Government to sign up to that coalition, which was established by US Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, to demonstrate that farmers can adapt to and adopt environmentally friendly and climate-smart farming practices without sacrificing productivity. I did not receive a reply from No. 10, so I ask the Minister: will the UK Government join other countries, such as Australia, Canada and Brazil, in signing up to the global coalition for sustainable productivity growth? Will the Minister explain where the UK sits in terms of the agricultural policy tension described by Robert Paarlberg?

Last year, the all-party parliamentary group on science and technology in agriculture held a meeting on the subject “Whatever happened to sustainable intensification?” It included contributions from leading UK experts in the fields of crop science, agricultural economics, rural policy and conservation science. The meeting highlighted serious concerns that current farm policy development lacks scientific rigour, and that policy focus on sustainable intensification has diminished.

We were reminded that DEFRA responded to Professor Beddington’s foresight report by initiating the sustainable intensification research platform, or SIP. That is a £4.5 million, four-year, multi-partner research programme to investigate the challenges of securing the optimum balance between food production, resource use and environmental protection. However, while the concept of sustainable intensification and the scientific rationale that underpins it remains as relevant and urgent as ever, the outputs, recommendations and advice generated through the DEFRA SIP appear to have been quietly shelved and forgotten.

The weight of scientific evidence points to a need to optimise production on existing farmland. Professor Andrew Balmford, a conservation scientist at Cambridge University, told the all-party group that the most effective way to keep pace with increasing human demands for food while protecting habitats and preventing further biodiversity loss is through high-tech, high-yielding production on land that is already farmed, mirrored by explicit policy investments and regulations to make sure that other land is set aside for nature.

[Julian Sturdy]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. I thought he was about to call for DEFRA to come to his constituency; I would argue that York would make a fantastic location too. The principle of DEFRA moving out of London and into the wider farming community, where our food production is based, makes perfect sense. I completely agree with him.

It turns out that sustainable intensification is also the most efficient way to meet climate change objectives, through the increased opportunities for carbon sequestration and storage. The Government must, as a matter of urgency, revisit the policy focus on sustainable intensification as the most effective way—perhaps the only way—to feed an increasingly hungry warming planet. If the term “sustainable intensification” has fallen out of fashion, as DEFRA’s chief scientific adviser, Professor Gideon Henderson, suggested to us recently, then by all means call it something else. However, above all else we must be guided by the science—the science that DEFRA itself has funded.

I am genuinely concerned about a shift away from science and evidence-based policy making in the Department, towards an over-reliance on voluntary and campaigning non-governmental organisations to support the Government’s vision for sustainable agriculture. Nowhere is that more apparent than in DEFRA’s approach to the issue of sustainable metrics in agriculture. While Gideon Henderson suggested to us in January that the Government are a long way from having a mature policy on metrics, correspondence that I have received on this issue from DEFRA Ministers suggests that one particular model, the Sustainable Food Trust global farm metric, is firmly embedded in the Government’s thinking. Not only is the Sustainable Food Trust an activist pro-organic NGO that openly campaigns against technologies that the Government are seeking to enable, such as gene editing, but the model itself is designed to reward less productivity and more extensive farming systems by favouring a whole farm or area-based approach to measuring resource use and the ultimate environmental impact.

Again, Professor Balmford told the all-party group that making meaningful sustainability comparisons between different farming systems would require an assessment of resource use and external impacts per unit of food produced, rather than a per-area-farmed basis. Professor Paul Wilson, an agricultural economist at the University of Nottingham, who leads the Government’s farm business survey programme, agreed that an area-based approach for sustainability indicators such as carbon footprint or greenhouse gas emissions is flawed in principle, and that there needs to be a clear reference point in terms of the amount of food produced to have any relevance.

Professor Wilson also led the metrics component of DEFRA’s SIP, which again does not appear to be feeding into the Government’s thinking. This included a huge amount of work on sustainability metrics and indicators, including the prototype development of a farmer-friendly data and benchmarking dashboard allowing producers to access and compare their performance against those indicators and against a weighted averaging of their peers.

The all-party group has long advocated for the need to embed data science and sustainability metrics at the heart of a policy agenda focused on securing the optimum balance between food production, resource use and environmental impact. We believe that access to metrics capable of objectively and consistently monitoring that balance will be essential to set targets and measure progress for sustainable, efficient production, to develop coherent research and development programmes, to understand and advise on best practice throughout the industry, and to provide meaningful information to consumers about the sustainability impact of each unit of food produced, whether that is a litre of milk or a bag of potatoes.

In addition to my earlier questions about whether the UK will sign up to the global coalition for sustainable productivity growth and where the UK sits in terms of the agricultural policy tension described by Robert Paarlberg, I will conclude with two final questions to the Minister. To be fair to her, this is not quite her brief, but I know that she has great knowledge in this field, so I look forward to her response.

First, in view of the concerns I have raised, will the Minister agree to submit the global farm metric model to a process of independent scientific scrutiny and validation with leading academic experts in the field? Secondly, will she commit to facilitating a joint roundtable with our all-party group to take forward discussions on the development of robust and meaningful metrics for sustainable agriculture?

[Jamie Stone]

I am aware that the hon. Member is reaching his concluding remarks. I would be less than honest if I did not say that farmers in my constituency have raised an eyebrow at the concept of wilding, which is very fashionable at the moment. I wonder whether he has anything to say about that. Should that perhaps also be included in any roundtable discussion?

[Julian Sturdy]

I thank the hon. Member for bringing that up. I could say a lot about wilding, if I am brutally honest; that could fill another debate on its own. I return to the point that I made early in the debate: current farmland needs to be used to produce food in the most effective and productive way possible, but also in the most environmentally friendly way, and unfarmed land needs to be used to protect and preserve the environment. I am fundamentally against the principle of wilding productive farmland because I think it would lead to a food security crisis. We have to very aware of that. There has to be a balance struck between producing food in an environmentally friendly way to feed a growing global population and enhancing our environment. We can achieve that, but a balance has to be struck between the two. From what we are hearing from DEFRA, I worry that that balance is out of kilter at the moment.

Fisheries Management

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Tuesday 13th July 2021 Westminster Hall

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Charles. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) on securing this highly important debate—one that is very important to my constituents. As an aside, I have to say that I am personally very grateful that my right hon. Friend is where he is, because he has a considerable knowledge of fisheries from his constituency and that is very helpful to me. I do not have as great a knowledge, which is why I am glad that he is where he is.

I want to use three examples to underpin what I am about to say. The first is that of a gentleman whom I have mentioned before in this place. I had a conversation with him this morning. He is Mr William Calder, the owner of Scrabster Seafoods—the Minister and I have spoken about this gentleman. Today, Mr Calder has put it to me pretty starkly by saying that the cost of getting a 30 kg box of fish, such as monkfish, to his market in Brittany has just about doubled, and that is really eating into his business. It is a local business that employs locally, and it has been in existence for some time. By coincidence, yesterday he had an email from one of his hauliers, saying, “I am really sorry. Because of the situation and the way business has dwindled a bit, we are going to have to up our prices to move your fish from A to B.” Then there is something that I have mentioned several times: every hour and every day of delay cuts into the product being sellable at the end of it all, because absolute freshness is key. So that is Mr William Calder, my good friend, and anything that we can do to help him would be very welcome indeed. I shall return to him in a couple of minutes.

The second person I want to mention is my friend Mr Peter Sinclair, whom I have mentioned to the Minister before. He is the owner of a fishing trawler called the Reaper, and he has made the point to me that a boat owner is more likely to be inspected if they are British than if they are a foreigner. By means of a freedom of information request, my party has established that the stats say that a British boat owner is five times more likely to be inspected than a French or Spanish owner, which is not good.

That takes me to my third gentleman, who has had considerable newspaper coverage, not least in the Thunderer—The Times. Mr Ian Mackay is the skipper of the Loch Inchard. At the beginning of June, he rightly highlighted a most unfortunate incident—the sort of incident that my right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland has referred to—whereby he went to his fishing ground expecting to be trawling, only to find that French boats, and sadly some boats flying the British flag, had established long lines. That meant that they pretty abruptly told him to get out of it and that he could not trawl, because he would damage their fishing gear. Eventually, after much aggressive toing and froing, he established an area of the ocean where he could trawl, but that sort of aggressive behaviour is simply not on.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland said, where is this going to end? Mr Mackay had boats cutting across his bows. We could well end up with deaths at sea, and that is something we cannot possibly countenance. I return to Mr Peter Sinclair, who has suggested to me that we should look seriously at some form of penalty for boats that have indulged in that sort of behaviour. Possibly an effective penalty would be to ban them from landing their fish in a British port. That would need to happen only once, and they would soon learn their lesson.

If we could have a meeting with the Minister, that would be very helpful indeed. I compliment the Minister on having had conversations in the past—I give credit where it is due—but promises were made to the fishermen about compensation and trying to sort out the problems, so I echo others’ call for a roundtable meeting involving the industry. That would be best. I have mentioned Mr Sinclair, Mr Mackay and Mr Calder because I know them personally from face-to-face discussions. If we have a roundtable discussion, it is absolutely important that they are at the table and are not just being spoken to remotely by an agency. I am afraid that Marine Scotland can seem a little remote in the way that it deals with fishermen. I am not aware that it has too many face-to-face conversations. I hope I am wrong in that; if I am wrong, I apologise, but that is the impression I get.

For your amusement, Sir Charles, I come from fisherfolk from the Black Isle on the highland side of our family. I think I might be the only Member in this place who actually once worked in a fish factory—I spent a winter in the Faroe Islands. We are a maritime nation. Salt is in our blood. Fish is good for the health of the nation. For hundreds of years we have taken our fisherman very seriously and we feel we owe them a debt. Now is the time for us collectively to pay that debt to them and show just how much we value them. They are brave people doing a difficult job. We do not want their lives to be made any worse.

EU Trade and Co-operation Agreement: Fishing Industry

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Thursday 14th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice]

I can assure my hon. Friend that we are working daily with industry to identify specific granular problems that are presenting themselves and then working with authorities in France to ensure that there is a common understanding of what is required so that we can speed up the passage of these goods.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD) [V]]

The fishing industry is absolutely crucial to my constituency, and right now, as we have heard, it is in dead trouble. Everyone in the Palace of Westminster knows my stance on Brexit, but I am of a practical frame of mind, and I would like to offer my help to work with Ministers and with the industry to try to get this problem sorted, because that is what we must do. My right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) has made the offer of a roundtable discussion between the Government and industry. May I support that plea? Finally, financial compensation is going to be utterly crucial if the industry is to survive in remote parts of the UK like my constituency.

[George Eustice]

We are having roundtable discussions with the industry formally twice a week and are in conversation with it daily. We have helplines set up at the Animal and Plant Health Agency in Carlisle to tackle any of the technical issues that vets might have. We also have meetings with colleagues in this House to take on board any of the individual issues that they are receiving. I make this offer to any Member of this House who has a constituent bringing up a specific issue: do feed that back to us so that we can address the problems.