Direct Payments to Farmers (Legislative Continuity) Bill

Jim Shannon Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 21st January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

It is a privilege to follow the hon. Member for Eddisbury (Edward Timpson). I recall the Crewe and Nantwich by-election in 2008—the weather was quite nice, and I congratulate him on his first victory. I spent some time in Eddisbury in, I think, ’99 for the by-election, when Stephen O’Brien, his predecessor but one, was first elected, so I know where it is—there is a good chippy in Winsford, if I remember correctly. I genuinely mean it when I say that the hon. Gentleman was an excellent children’s Minister. This will massively hamper any rise he may subsequently make, but if the Prime Minister should be thinking of a reshuffle, he could look no further than him. I also thank him for paying tribute to his excellent and very principled predecessor, Antoinette Sandbach, my former hon. Friend.

Let me make a little confession. Some years ago, before Brexit was even a thing—back in the day when the Prime Minister thought it was madness to even countenance leaving the European Union—I said that I could see one advantage in the United Kingdom departing the EU: I could see how we could spend the common agricultural policy money better than it is often spent through the current system. That does not mean that I predicted that a future Government would spend it better, but I could see how they could—that is an important caveat.

The Bill is necessary and provides a modicum of certainty for farmers as we leave the European Union in just a few days’ time. It permits a small island of temporary predictability in a sea of uncertainty. It kicks the can a few yards down the lane, but it will do nothing to disguise the chasm that is opening up for farmers as we leave the EU. The Government believe that they have a mandate to “get Brexit done”, but nowhere is the nonsense behind that statement laid bare more than in the case of our farming industry.

I will tell the House what Brexit has done: according to the Secretary of State last week at the Oxford farming conference, it has done for the basic payments scheme—which constitutes 85% of the income of the average livestock farmer—starting in less than 12 months. It has done for free access for British farmers to their most important export market—90% of Cumbria’s farm exports are to the European single market. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer is to be believed, it has also done for our alignment with the single market and will therefore usher in a new era of red tape, costs on farm businesses and non-tariff barriers to trade.

The idea that a 12-month stay of execution for farmers equates to certainty is, frankly, laughable. Even if the Government were to make a commitment for the whole Parliament, anyone who thinks that even five years constitutes the long term in farming cannot be taken seriously.

The Government’s stated position—reiterated again at the Oxford farming conference—is that the BPS will be phased out over a seven-year period from next January. I am privileged to chair the all-party group on hill farming and I was very pleased to hear the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard), refer to the importance of hill farming to our country as a whole. In our view, it is a dangerous thing to start phasing out the basic payment when we have yet to clarify what will replace it: the ELMS—the environmental land management scheme—which will be available for some farmers in 2024, we are told, but not all farmers until 2028.

With all due respect, farmers lack confidence in Governments of all colours and their ability to deliver an as yet undefined new payment on time because they have consistently failed to deliver existing payments over the last two decades. Being told for certain that you will lose 85% of your income while being offered the dubious possibility that you might have something else in future is unlikely to get Britain’s farmers dancing in the street.

The Bill is a necessary one-year fulfilment of the obligations of the withdrawal agreement. It is not a real commitment to farmers. Even if the Government were to bodge together extensions of one year at a time for the inevitable slippage on the roll-out of ELMS, what does that do for the ability of farmers to plan for the medium term, let alone the long term?

Why does this matter? It matters because over the transition period of seven years, the Government’s plan will reduce Britain’s capacity to feed itself in the future. We think far too little about food security. Some 50% of the food that we consume is imported. Twenty years ago, the figure was more like 35%. It is an extremely worrying trend. If the ability of farmers in the UK to make a living and compete is further undermined, this situation will only get worse. That will be bad for the environment, for British farmers and for the security of our country, as we cut ourselves off from our most important trading partner.

We need to think of the bigger picture and the long-term impact. You can tick the boxes with legislation such as this and “get Brexit done”, but that is a slogan with a heavy price tag—a price tag that in the case of our farmers could be fatal. The production of food must be considered a public good, but it is certain that the loss of BPS with an as yet undefined replacement will see people leave the industry. Some will flee before it gets too bad, others will be forced out when they cannot make ends meet. To put it bluntly, if we are to deliver public goods through farming, we need to make sure there are some farmers left to deliver those public goods by 2028. Without those farmers, who will deliver biodiversity programmes? Who will deliver natural flood management schemes? Who will deliver growth and maintain the woodlands and peatland necessary to absorb CO₂? In Cumbria, including the lakes and the Yorkshire dales, who will maintain our footpaths and our rare historic breeds? Who will beautifully keep and present the landscapes that inspired Wordsworth and inspire 16 million people to visit us every single year?

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

This morning, the National Trust held an event downstairs. It was keen to show what it was doing on the environment. It has plans across its 500 properties to plant more trees and thereby be the lungs of the United Kingdom. There are many groups and landowners doing lots of things to help to tackle climate change.

[Tim Farron]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. Farmers are at the forefront of tackling climate change—they see the climate changing before their eyes, they are the eyewitnesses to our changing planet and the damage being done. In the uplands, in Cumbria and elsewhere, it is they who have the ability to help to protect the towns and villages from flooding by planting more trees, managing the land and more generally ensuring the carbon sink that will help to protect our planet. Without them, who will maintain the backdrop to the tourism economy in Cumbria, which is worth £3 billion a year and employs 60,000 people? Indeed, 80% of the working-age population of the Lake district currently earn their living there.

How can farmers be expected to invest in the long term if they can only look ahead one year at a time? Like most farmers, I accept that in the long term BPS needs to be replaced by public payment for public goods— no argument there—but “public good” needs to be defined widely enough for farmers to make a living, especially farmers in the uplands of Cumbria. I am not saying, therefore, that we should scrap ELMS and keep BPS forever, but I am saying that the Government should not delude themselves into thinking they can make radical change as seamlessly as they appear to think.

The Bill is necessary and we will support it—not just not oppose it—but it does not answer the need to pave the way for a new system. The Government cannot be permitted to do the bare minimum to fulfil the obligations of the withdrawal agreement, with no thought to the impact in real terms. The Government must protect British farming and therefore the environment—and therefore food security, rare breeds, heritage, landscape, our tourism economy—so will the Government now commit to transition arrangements that allow farmers to survive that transition? In short, I say to the Government: do not remove a penny of BPS from anyone until ELMS is available for everyone.

[Scott Mann (North Cornwall) (Con)]

I welcome the new shadow Secretary of State to his place. It is nice to have a fellow west country MP there and I look forward to working with him on the Agriculture Bill and the fisheries Bill and, importantly, on putting provisions on angling into the latter.

I am pleased to have been called to speak on Second Reading of this very necessary Bill. The Government’s manifesto commitment to invest £3 billion in our farmers and farming communities over the lifetime of this Parliament is to be welcomed. Continuity is so important to our farmers now, with all the uncertainty in the marketplace, and the Government have proved again that they are committed to our farmers and our farming communities. We are moving from a rather ridiculous system where people are paid for land rather than public goods. Farmers in the UK receive £3.5 billion annually in farming support under the common agricultural policy. More than 80% of the support is paid directly to farmers, based broadly on land and land management. A lot of that is taken up by hedge funds and other financial organisations, which receive an annualised income. We have to move away from that system to something that supports our farmers and farming industry.

The previous CAP had nothing in place for soil erosion. We lose 2 billion tonnes of top soil into our rivers every year. We need a replacement to ensure that that does not happen. There is very little in there about habitats, save for the rather dysfunctional element of pillar 2 of the CAP funding; very little about production, other than silly things about people having to grow three crops; and nothing about catchment farming. I hope we are moving away from a system where our farmers have to map their land. I have dealt with countless constituents who have brought cases to me where their topographical land management has been done from an aerial viewpoint and where the numbers the RPA says they have they do not actually have. Moreover, many of my moorland farmers have been waiting three years for payments under pillar 2—the higher stewardship element. That is unacceptable. We need to move away from the historic system to a better system.

What do we want from a new agricultural scheme? I am no expert, but I tend to listen to people who are. I have regular meetings with farmers in my constituency of North Cornwall. They are the custodians of the countryside and understand what they want from a future agricultural system.

[Jim Shannon]

The National Farmers Union has a clear idea of what it wants from the changes, and its sister organisation back home, the Ulster Farmers Union, of which I am a member, has the same ideas on going forward. The hon. Gentleman has mentioned the importance of touching base with our farmers and whose who own the land. How important is it that the Government listen to the NFU and the UFU?

Direct Payments to Farmers (Legislative Continuity) Bill

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Committee stage & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons & 3rd reading & Committee: 1st sitting
Tuesday 28th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hoare]

Yes, chalk land, just like the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk). I thank my hon. Friend for that sedentary heckle. It is more chalk land and therefore is predominantly, although not exclusively, arable.

Certainty is important because we are dealing with long-term planning. Do farmers have the confidence to ask lenders for money to buy a new piece of farm equivalent? Do they have the confidence or certainty to plant a certain crop? Some of my local farmers in North Dorset now grow milling grains for the German beer sector. Some of them are growing white poppies, the stalks of which are exported to Hungary for medical purposes—so that medical opium can be extracted to provide painkillers. If someone is going to put their herd or flock into a growth spurt, and if they want to see them calve and lamb, they want certainty that there is some basic underpinning to their sector. That is what the Bill does, which is why it is to be supported.

The huge scope for agritech is important, and I am certain that we will hear that echoed in the debates on the Agriculture Bill—this Bill and the Agriculture Bill are in effect two sides of the same coin. Again, the agritech sector needs certainty. There are productivity benefits and environmental benefits to it, so we must make sure that the sector, which is growing and really taking root in the UK, has the confidence to continue.

My final point is with regard to audit. Various Members have probed the Minister about the performance of the Rural Payments Agency and how, effectively, it will look. Some within the agency will be suffering from Stockholm syndrome, and they need to be freed from that and to be able to take a lighter touch. However, in reference to the point about the audit trail made by the Chairman of the Select Committee—I congratulate him on his recent election—we must not throw the baby out with the bathwater. The British taxpayer must be certain that the payments made to farmers are fair, needed and transparent. Therefore, let us make sure that there is a clear audit trail on this homegrown UK system, so that not only British farmers have confidence and certainty, but the British taxpayer has certainty that their money is being put to good purpose to support and to encourage agriculture, that vital mainstay of the British economy.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare). I congratulate the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) on his re-election as Chair of the Select Committee. He brings a wealth of experience to that position, and we wish him well in it.

I am very pleased to speak in this Bill Committee, both on direct payments and on the commitment that the Minister has given. As always, I am pleased to see him in his place. He understands agriculture, just as he understands fishing, for which he also has responsibility. We look forward to his co-operation with the Northern Ireland Assembly, and particularly with the Minister for Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs, Edwin Poots, who is my party colleague.

The agrifood sector is vital to the economy of Northern Ireland, and of my constituency in particular, whether we are talking about milk, beef, sheep, lamb, poultry or arable crops. Sustainability, to which the Minister referred, is critical to enable the agricultural sector to maintain its high food standards, and to gain through its partnership with the manufacturing companies.

[Neil Parish]

I am sure that my hon. Friend agrees that family farms are a structure that is to be found across the whole United Kingdom, but nowhere more than in Northern Ireland. This Bill and the future of agriculture are critical to Northern Ireland.

[Jim Shannon]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I agree wholeheartedly, and will go into that shortly.

I want to talk about the farmers who do well, the companies that work through them, and the partnerships that are established. Lakeland Dairies, which employs some 260 people, produces milk and powder and exports them across the world. There is also Rich Sauces, Willowbrook Foods and Mash Direct. Those are just four of the companies in Northern Ireland that work in partnership with farmers. Farmers with direct payments enable those companies to produce good products, which they sell across the world.

Farmers in my constituency and in Mid Down are ranked second for milk production across the whole of Northern Ireland. I declare an interest, Madam Deputy Speaker: I am not only a member of the Ulster Farmers Union, but a farmer, so I understand the importance to my neighbours of milk and the whole sector. I received correspondence from the Ulster Farmers Union, the sister organisation of the National Farmers Union. I welcomed the announcement from Her Majesty’s Treasury on farm funding for 2020, as it delivers on the commitment made by the Conservative party, and by the Minister. It is essential that Northern Ireland’s share of UK farm funding is maintained. It is my understanding that Her Majesty’s Treasury has confirmed to the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs in the Northern Ireland Assembly that the money will be rolled over from 2019 to 2020.

We hope that DAERA will be able to pay 100% of payments by mid-October. Has the Minister had an opportunity to discuss the nitty-gritty directly with the new Minister in Northern Ireland, and is there an understanding of how we will achieve the things that we wish to?

Getting a new Northern Ireland agriculture policy up and running by 2021 will be very ambitious, but I hope that the Government are up to the challenge. Last week, the Ulster Farmers Union’s beef and lamb policy committee met to discuss the priorities for the new Northern Ireland Agriculture Minister. The UFU’s hill farming policy committee will meet this week to look at its key priorities. I tell the Minister that because it is important that we work together, and that what is happening in Northern Ireland is mirrored by what is happening here.

--- Later in debate ---

[Luke Pollard]

I thank the Minister for repeating what he said in Committee of the whole House. There is cross-party support for the Bill but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) said, that does not mean that there are not some issues worth highlighting. As I said on Second Reading, I declare an interest in that I am a proud brother of a sheep farmer in Cornwall who farms rare breed sheep and is married to a beef farmer; in fact, they are both based just up the road from the Minister’s constituency.

We will not be opposing the Bill, but I need to add the climate crisis to the context that the Minister set out, because listening to the remarks of Government Members there seems to be a slight disconnect between what is in this Bill and the forthcoming Agriculture Bill, and what is in the notes that they are being given to read out. It is really important that we get this right. The Government are proposing moving from a system of supporting farmers via the land they own to a system of supporting farmers based on environmental land management and other environmental public goods. This will be a good scheme if delivered correctly. It is not a subsidy for productivity or food production. After listening to some of the speeches on Second Reading and today, I am concerned that not all Government Members have quite understood this, so I encourage colleagues to consult the recently re-elected Chair of the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, to whom I pass on my congratulations; it is always good to see Members from Devon in places of authority.

It is important that we get this right because if we are fighting on the wrong pitch, we cannot do a decent job of scrutinising the biggest fundamental changes to our agricultural system since the Labour Government’s introduction of the Agriculture Act of 1947. That is why we need to make sure that this is done properly.

The Minister could address elements raised by his hon. Friends and, indeed, by my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge, about the future of the Rural Payments Agency. The hon. Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) raised some valid concerns about the culture of the RPA. I commend the work of the officials there who have been working under immense pressure not only because of the potential changes how the CAP has worked but because their budget has gone down from £237.6 million when the Conservatives came to power in 2010 to just £95 million in 2017-18. If we are to change our agricultural system, the culture of the organisations that work in agriculture will also need to change, and that will need to be properly scrutinised and given time to bed in. It would be worth the Minister reconsidering our amendments that would have given Ministers slightly more leeway to look at that.

This Bill needs to be seen in concert with the Agriculture Bill. I appreciate that the Minister said that time is of the essence, and indeed it is, but time has not been of the essence over the past 14 months as Ministers sat on the Agriculture Bill, the Fisheries Bill and the Environment Bill. They have been taking it very easy, with a laid-back and pedestrian attitude. It is therefore somewhat cheeky but appropriate for the Minister to say in this context that parliamentary scrutiny cannot be delivered now because we have taken so long to get to this point. That excuse needs a bit more work, because we need to guarantee that Henry VIII powers are not being used disproportionately. I fear that in this setting they should have been used in a slightly different manner. We do need to get this right.

There are also elements of how we can support rare breeds, and other items that were discussed on Second Reading but were not mentioned in Committee and are still issues of concern for our rural communities—not only for hill farming, which I mentioned before, but for crofters, as raised by colleagues in the Scottish National party. We need to make sure that those specific types of farming are supported in any extension or new form of agricultural support. The Minister has a timeline whereby he wishes to reform agricultural support in the next few years or so, but by loading all the changes towards the end of that process, and not the start, we are giving our farmers notice that there will be considerable changes but not enough time to get it right.

The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) spoke about the importance of the ELM schemes and getting those right. This is a technical detail that I am not sure that everyone has been following. If we are to get this right, it is really important that the ELM schemes are properly scrutinised and given time so that we can not only see what the consequences are but improve them before there is a large-scale roll-out. The farming sector is willing to work with Ministers on this to get it right. We know that the “public money for public goods” approach is a philosophy that is supported by many in the farming communities, but we cannot have a new philosophy, a new approach and a new funding system implemented too fast without the proper time to bed it in and improve it to make sure that it all works. The Minister is speeding through this Bill when we could have the option of looking at whether the system needs to be extended for a further year in due course.

[Jim Shannon]

On the point about the importance of this transfer, does the hon. Gentleman feel that it is very important in terms our sheep markets, as the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) said? The hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards) referred to the 95% of lamb produce that goes out of Wales. In Northern Ireland the figure is 97%. With the changes coming in, it is very important that we hold on to the markets where we can sell that stuff in the meantime.

[Luke Pollard]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that comment. This goes to the heart of some of the debates that might transition into our discussions on the Agriculture Bill.

I want us to have a farming system that reflects the climate crisis, taking due cognisance of food miles and the carbon intensity of importing food from one side of the planet to another when our home-grown local produce is of exceptional quality and something that we can be very proud of. Speaking as a west country MP—indeed, the Minister is another—I think we need to recognise that the south-west creates some of the most fantastic foodstuffs in the country. Representatives from right around the country have their own produce that they can be very proud of. British produce is something that we should be very proud of. I encourage all Members to support buying goods with the red tractor logo to make sure that we take steps to encourage consumer behaviour in buying local.

That is really important, because in any future trade arrangements discussed in other legislative vehicles, we need to ensure that our UK farmers are not undercut. It is important that we set out what that means, because chlorinated chicken and hormone-treated beef are of concern to many people. This does not mean that UK farmers will be treating their chickens with chlorine or using antibiotics on an industrial scale as US agriculture does; it means that we will be allowing access to our market for food produced in that way. It is not the chlorine or the antibiotics that are the main concern—it is the fact that they are used in the first place because the animal welfare standards for those animals are so low. We will need to rehearse and repeat this argument as we get closer to Second Reading of the Agriculture Bill.

It is also important to set out that we need a fairer form of farm support that makes sure that our farmers get their payments on time. Improvements have been made but there is still more progress to be made. We need to support our farmers in decarbonising agriculture, partly by allowing our natural habitats to thrive. We must ensure that farm run-off does not pollute our watercourses, as we heard earlier. We must create a system where we are moving effectively and efficiently towards public money for public goods, not a form of farm subsidy.

This Bill completes a technical amendment that the Minister could, should and probably would have made a year ago, if he had been allowed to by the Whips. I am glad it has been done now. However, as we lead up to the Agriculture Bill, we must make sure that we have a system of farm support, and a debate, that is worthy of the importance of the high-quality, nutritious, locally produced, decarbonising food production that all our farmers and, indeed, our voters want to see.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Shannon]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron), who speaks passionately for his constituents. He talked about the importance of farming to his constituency and the high-quality products that his farmers produce. My farmers in Strangford produce equally high-quality food that goes all over the world. One example is a milk product that goes to Lakeland Dairies and then travels as far as China. The former International Trade Secretary helped to secure a contract with the Chinese authorities worth £250 million over five years for that product. That high-quality produce made in my constituency is so important.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

Does my hon. Friend accept that, while it is important that any payment system to farmers be directed towards protecting the rural environment, it is equally important that there should be no disincentive to produce high-quality food?

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Shannon]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his intervention and agree wholeheartedly with him.

Direct payments have made some really important environmental projects happen across Northern Ireland—projects that probably would never have seen the light of day and that tie into the Government’s policies on the environment and climate change. As I said to the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Ben Lake) earlier, it is not possible to stop those environmental schemes, especially where tree-planting is involved, because it is important that a number of organisations continue that work over time. The National Trust has made a commitment to plant trees in 500 of the properties for which it has responsibility. The Ulster Farmers Union and the National Farmers Union are encouraging their members to do likewise. It is vital to ensure that those schemes continue. We cannot remove a tree-planting scheme and turn the land back to agricultural land; it is not possible.

[Ben Lake]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. Surely this underlines the importance of ensuring that we get things right now, because as he just outlined, it is not easy to make up for any mistakes that are made.

[Jim Shannon]

Absolutely. The Government and the Minister have ensured today that the regional Administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are part of this project together. It is my hope that, under this Bill as it is coming forward, direct payments can continue. I would like them to continue long beyond that, but this process moves us towards where we need to be.

There is a very important point for Northern Ireland. The Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish), referred to this earlier, and I want to conclude with this comment. In Northern Ireland, we have a history and a tradition of small farms. My farm —the farm we have in our family—is only 62 acres. Farms are getting bigger now because they have to do so to move forward, but I think it is really important that this direct payment scheme enables small farms to be viable and makes them sustainable for the years to come. Many, myself included, probably across all of Northern Ireland, were reared on a farm of 60 or 70 acres, with their children going to school, and their whole life was sustained on that. It is really important for the future that Northern Ireland and those small farms can be sustained, be viable and have a future. We wish to have that future within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. We do not want to be any different; we want to be treated the same in Greyabbey, where I live, as in Gloucester or anywhere else.