Future of Farming

Debate between Jim Shannon and Mary Creagh

Wednesday 4th December 2024 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mary Creagh)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your very crisp chairmanship, Sir Roger. I pay tribute to all hon. and right hon. Members for whittling down what must have been very long speeches into very short, but none the less well-received and well-delivered, speeches.

I thank the hon. Member for Upper Bann (Carla Lockhart), not just for securing this debate but for her work representing her party here in Westminster as a spokesperson on environment, food and rural affairs. She well knows that agriculture is a devolved issue, but we are committed to working closely with devolved Governments as we work to support British farmers and boost the nation’s food security. My colleague Baroness Hayman is in Northern Ireland tomorrow, meeting with large food producers, the Ulster Farmers’ Union and Northern Ireland’s Agriculture Minister.

As the granddaughter of a Fermanagh beef farmer, I too have farming in my blood. The Minister for Food Security and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner), has many talents, but he has not yet acquired the skills of cloning himself, so I am here as a pale substitute for him today.

I thank all Members for the comments they have raised. We will never forget that farmers are the beating heart of our great country, and farming and food security is the foundation of a healthy and resilient economy, local community and environment. It is the hard work of our country’s farmers that puts food on the table and stewards our beautiful countryside, which is why, despite the difficult fiscal situation, we are maintaining the total level of Government support to farmers across the UK. For the devolved Governments we are removing the ringfence to respect the devolution settlement, and we are providing the same level of funding in 2025-26 as they are receiving in 2024-25. In England, we have committed £5 billion to the farming budget over two years, including more money than ever for sustainable food production. That enables us to keep momentum on the path to a resilient and more sustainable farming sector.

Environmental land management schemes will remain at the centre of our offer to farmers and nature in England, receiving £1.8 billion in the financial year 2025-26. What is more, we have announced that we will rapidly release £60 million through the farming recovery fund, which will support farmers, including those on family farms, affected by the unprecedented extreme wet weather last winter. Roughly 13,000 farm businesses, including family farms, will receive an exceptional one-off payment to help with severe flooding.

The Government are also investing £208 million to protect the nation from disease outbreaks that threaten the farming industry, our food security and, crucially, human health. All of that is part of the Government’s new deal for farmers. On a UK-wide level, we are working to cut red tape at our borders and get British food exports moving again—protecting farmers from being undercut by shoddy trade deals done by the previous Government. We will lower energy bills for farmers by switching on GB Energy, and introduce grid reform to allow them to plug their renewable energy into the national grid.

We will use Government purchasing power to back British produce so that half of our food in hospitals, Army bases and prisons is locally produced and all certified to high environmental standards. We will introduce a land use framework that balances long-term food security with nature recovery. Critically, we will introduce the first ever cross-Government rural crime strategy to crackdown on antisocial behaviour, fly tipping and GPS theft—a subject on which I have spent many happy hours in the Chamber.

I will address the agricultural property relief changes head-on. There has been a huge range of figures and analysis quoted on all sides. The Treasury’s figures show that 500 estates a year will be affected. That is based on the hard data of actual claims, a figure that is endorsed by the independent Office for Budget Responsibility. It includes the impact of APR, business property relief, nil-rated inheritance allowances, and other capital allowance. The Government have engaged and will continue to engage with the NFU, the CLA, the Tenant Farmers Association, MPs and other stakeholders on the issue. The reforms will not be introduced until April 2026, so there is still time for farmers to plan for the changes and get professional advice on succession planning.

[Jim Shannon]

My hon. Friend the Member for Upper Bann (Carla Lockhart) and I have both contacted the Ulster Farmers Union in Northern Ireland. We have spoken to John McLenaghan, the legal officer, who told us clearly that 65% of farmers in Northern Ireland will be impacted. With great respect, when I hear his legal opinion and the opinion that the Minister has just referred to, there is a chasm of difference. Somebody is telling porkies—I do not know who it is.

[Mary Creagh]

With any fiscal change, we look at the previous year’s figures to see what the impact will be. I am not going to get into the analysis around the figures—I want to make some progress. Those figures have been verified by our independent fiscal authority, the OBR.

We know that the current-use rules have been used by wealthy landowners to avoid inheritance tax, and currently the largest estates pay a lower inheritance tax than smaller estates. That is not fair or sustainable.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jim Shannon and Mary Creagh

Thursday 14th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mary Creagh]

I am aware of some serious incidents in my hon. Friend’s constituency, including one where a significant amount of rubbish was fly-tipped on a driveway near a school and pupils suffered bad health impacts. I am concerned that the carrier, broker and dealer regime that the last Government left is far too weak and not fit for purpose. I am actively considering how the regime can be reviewed, and I will be happy to meet my hon. Friend to hear her input.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is nice to see the hon. Lady back in the House and elevated to a Government position—well done. The Northern Ireland Environment Agency has revealed that it has cleaned up some 306 illegal waste sites in the last two years, with taxpayers footing the bill of half a million pounds—equivalent to 15 nurses’ wages. What discussions has the Minister had with the Minister in the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs back home in Northern Ireland about the cost associated with fly-tipping?

[Mary Creagh]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his kind remarks. I met his colleague from DAERA at an inter-ministerial group in September. I am aware of the concerns in rural areas about fly-tipping, which blights swathes of our countryside. I am working with the National Farmers Union and others through the National Fly-Tipping Prevention Group to promote good practice, including on private land. We know from the national waste crime survey that 86% of landowners and farmers have been affected by this terrible crime.

Sustainable Seas

Debate between Jim Shannon and Mary Creagh

Thursday 17th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mary Creagh]

Again, I appreciate the input of my hon. Friend and neighbour into the Committee and this report. He is right: we need to speed up our ambition. The scientists have warned us that we have 12 years to tackle climate change. It is no good putting targets in place for 2042—that is far too little, far too late. We heard about some of the interesting foreign policy discussions that are going on around Antarctica, particularly some of the negotiations with the Norwegians and the Russians. Clearly a lot of politics is involved in the oceans, and we have to be mindful of that.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

May I also add my thanks to the Chair, the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh), and the Committee for bringing this report forward? You were very clear that these must be quick questions, Madam Deputy Speaker, so I will be succinct.

I live on the edge of Strangford lough in my constituency. Ards and North Down Borough Council has managed to get a grant to carry out an environmental project at the mouth of the narrows of Strangford lough, where the ebb and flow of the tide is, to harvest the litter and plastic that flow through there. That might be a small project in the bigger picture of what we are talking about today, but small projects collectively make an immense difference in the long run. What assistance is there for councils across the whole of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to involve themselves in projects that, singularly, do not do a terrible lot, but collectively make a big difference? Can the hon. Lady tell me whether grants are available?

[Mary Creagh]

That sounds like an absolutely brilliant initiative from Ards and North Down Borough Council. I think that the hon. Gentleman also has an oyster fishery in Strangford lough, the produce of which I have enjoyed on several occasions. I am not aware of what funding is available, but I am sure that officials will write to him on that issue.

Horsemeat

Debate between Jim Shannon and Mary Creagh

Tuesday 12th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mary Creagh]

I do agree. The British food industry is a £12 billion industry, and hundreds of thousands of UK jobs depend on it. I know from talking to farmers across the country that they are trying to export their animals, including pigs to China, and various products all over the place, and that people are coming here to look at some of our excellent rare breeds of beef that work particularly well in particular types of climate. This is obviously a very worrying time for the UK food industry.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

The hon. Lady mentioned the upsurge in trade in local butchers over the past week. Some 30% of butchers across the whole United Kingdom had an increase in usage over the past weekend. Does she think that the traceability that is currently present within the whole United Kingdom—England, Wales, Scotland and, in particular, Northern Ireland—should be the key factor in our being able to have good products on the butchers’ shelves and in the supermarkets every week?

[Mary Creagh]

I agree that good traceability will be key to solving this crisis. I look forward to the Secretary of State putting in place robust measures with the entire food supply chain to make sure that this type of scandal cannot hit our industry again.

Yesterday the Secretary of State talked about inheriting the Food Standards Agency and our food regulatory system. He is right—he did—but unfortunately his Government broke it up in 2010.

Ash Dieback Disease

Debate between Jim Shannon and Mary Creagh

Monday 12th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mary Creagh]

No, I shall make progress.

We had a 15-minute briefing from the Secretary of State last Wednesday, for which I am grateful, and we discussed the spread of the disease with Ian Boyd, DEFRA’s chief scientist. A document containing 10 key scientific facts was produced last Wednesday. Bullet point 10 said:

“Wind-blown spores may be dispersed up to 20-30 kilometres, (high confidence)”.

I was therefore surprised at the briefing to hear that the infection had blown in on the wind across the channel and the North sea, even though the channel is 30 km wide at its narrowest point. I was even more surprised, as the week went on, to learn that it had blown hundreds of miles across the North sea to infect mature trees in Northumberland and Scotland.

The key scientific facts document is quite clear:

“Longer distance spread occurs via infected plants or potentially via wood products”.

That would explain the infection in the south-west that the hon. Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston) is worried about. However, it is politically inconvenient to have a disease which Ministers knew was in the country, with saplings left to infect their wild and mature cousins. I grew suspicious when I realised that the Forestry Commission's key scientific facts, published on Wednesday, changed over the weekend. Bullet point 10 now says:

“Wind-blown spores cause the disease to spread up to 20-30 km per year”.

The inconvenient fact that the wind blows the spores just 20 to 30 km has completely disappeared. A whole new fact, however, has emerged:

“On occasions, spores may disperse much further on the wind.”

However, unlike every other key scientific fact that is categorised as low, medium or high confidence, there is no scientific reference to back up this new scientific fact, because there is none. As yet, I have not seen any evidence to back up Ministers’ claims about the wind. The disease has moved slowly and predictably across Europe, yet now it has developed new powers to cross great seas on the wind.

Is an alternative scientific theory possible? Is it not possible that ash dieback has spread to mature trees in Northumberland and Scotland from the infected saplings that were planted out last winter and on which the fungus fruited this summer? It is certainly possible, and I would argue more probable than those gusts of wind.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Nurseries have indicated that hundreds of thousands of saplings that they imported from Europe came in because of the “chaotic and unpredictable” system of grants for tree planting on the UK mainland. Is the hon. Lady aware of that? If so, does she think that the disease and the reasons for its spread go much deeper than they appear to do?

[Mary Creagh]

One can argue about the system for woodland grants, but we would argue that it may be much cheaper to grow the ash saplings abroad, which is perhaps one of the reasons landowners choose to buy them from abroad. It is also perhaps why the Horticultural Trades Association wanted the Government to regulate back in 2009, so that there was a level playing field in the industry and so that it did not impose its own voluntary moratorium, allowing others to import cheaper saplings and undercut the market.

What happens next? The Forestry Commission has conducted a tree survey over 29,000 hectares, an area the size of Wales. It has sampled four woodland sites in each 100 square kilometres, giving us a rough idea of where to look next for the disease. As the surveys continue this winter, more disease sites will be found. I have a number of questions for the Minister. First, will he now review the scientific advice he has been given on other tree diseases? Does he have any plans to restrict trade in other species of trees on a precautionary basis? Does his import ban apply to resistant strains of ash species, which are now present in Denmark and, I believe, Lithuania?

Secondly, have the detection and management of the disease been hampered by the cuts to the Forestry Commission? Its budget is being cut from £47.5 million in 2010-11 to £36.2 million in 2014-15. Some 530 staff posts have already been cut and seven regional offices closed. Thirty-eight posts have been cut in Forest Research, with another 22 earmarked to go. These are the scientists and experts who lead the fieldwork on tree health, and they are in the front line in our fight against this disease. Will the Minister review their posts? What assessment has he made of the impact of his Government’s cuts to the Forestry Commission on tackling tree disease?

Thirdly, in 2009, at the request of my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central, the former Secretary of State, the Forestry Commission established a biosecurity programme board, bringing together the industry, NGOs, Forest Research, the Scottish Government, and the Food and Environment Research Agency. What has happened to that board? It appears to have met just twice—in November 2009 and July 2010. The minutes of the final meeting on the Forestry Commission website show that forestry staff had concerns about the Government’s publicity freeze and cancellation of much of the publication budget, yet I know from my discussions over the weekend that the board appears to have continued meeting informally. Was it affected by the re-organisation and cuts at the Forestry Commission?

The Secretary of State told the BBC last Friday that he is re-ordering his Department’s priorities and said:

“There will be some things we do in DEFRA now that we are going to have to stop doing.”

What are those things? And how does he know that not doing them is not storing up a fresh disease problem in the future in another area? Other areas of DEFRA will be quaking as they anticipate fresh cuts on top of the worst settlement of any Government Department.

What contact has the Minister had with councils that are in the front line of dealing with this disease? What advice has he provided to them about council parks? Should they be undertaking surveys of their own trees? The Local Government Association has informed lead officers, but nothing seems to be coming out of the Department for Communities and Local Government.