Farming

Josh Newbury Excerpts

Thursday 13th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Josh Newbury (Cannock Chase) (Lab)]

It is an honour to speak in this debate as a member of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee. I thank our Chair, the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael), for securing the debate.

The future of farming is not simply about keeping our fields green, livestock sheds full or supermarket shelves stocked, but about securing the future of our rural communities, protecting the environment and supporting the farmers who are the backbone of our nation’s food system. This Government inherited underspent farming schemes, resulting in hundreds of millions of pounds not reaching farmers’ pockets. A record 50,000 farms now use these schemes, and more money than ever before is being spent through the sustainable farming incentive and countryside stewardship.

The recent publication of the land use framework set out the changes and complementary use of land needed to achieve our environmental targets. Alongside support for the environmental land management schemes, the framework will help to drive improvements on food security, biodiversity, carbon emissions, water and air quality, and flood resilience. The Scottish land use strategy has shown that we also need clear policies to give certainty on how to deal with directly competing interests on land.

As we know, England is in the midst of a transition. If we are to make this transition successful, we must ensure that farmers are supported in this shift, ensuring new schemes are accessible, flexible and equitable. I welcome the progress the Government have made on freeing up bottlenecks in applications; as the MP for most of the Cannock Chase national landscape, I also welcome the extension of the farming in protected landscapes programme.

We know that any sector that does not have certainty in its workforce lacks certainty for the future. I commend the strides the Government have made on expanding apprenticeships across the UK, but our agricultural and land management sectors need to share in the benefits of that. Figures show that only 5% of the 285,000 people working in agriculture are under 35, and, with the twin pressures of climate change and global food insecurity, the next generation of farmers need to be equipped to meet the challenges of the 21st century.

Automation is another way of addressing these challenges, but the harsh reality is that smaller farms cannot shoulder the burden of the risk of investing in expensive new tech. There is good work being done on this, with 20 and 25-year agreements being signed with farmers to unlock long-term investment, which I hope will become the new normal. Without that certainty, farmers will not be able to do everything we want to see.

Lastly, I want to raise the long-term plight of abattoirs. It is not frequently spoken about, but while there were 2,500 abattoirs in the 1970s, there are now just 200, making it far harder for many farmers to keep their supply chains small and local, from farm to fork.

To bring my remarks to a conclusion, the reality is that for many, many years, our farmers have been worried about their future and the future of their sector. We need to ensure they feel confident that their concerns are being heard and addressed so that we and our farmers can achieve the world-leading ambitions we have for our agricultural sector.