Dairy Industry

Linda Riordan Excerpts

Wednesday 5th November 2014 Westminster Hall

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mrs Linda Riordan (in the Chair)]

Order. Because of the number of Members wishing to speak, with the authority of the Chairman of Ways and Means, I am imposing a time limit of five minutes on speeches. I remind Members that interventions should be short. Depending on how many Members wish to speak, I may later reduce the time limit.

--- Later in debate ---

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mrs Linda Riordan (in the Chair)]

Order. Unfortunately, because of the number of hon. Members who still want to speak, I am reducing the limit on Back Benchers’ speeches to three minutes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mrs Linda Riordan (in the Chair)]

Order. Quite a number of hon. Members still wish to speak. I intend to call the Opposition spokesperson at 3.40 pm. If remarks are kept brief, I will get in as many Back Benchers as I can.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Geoffrey Cox (Torridge and West Devon) (Con)]

I want to make a few swift points in the time available to me. First, it seems to me that much of the problem that we are all addressing today could be helped by a general elevation of farming in the priorities of Government. I would like to see a Secretary of State for Agriculture sitting in the Cabinet. It is time to see that innovation, which would send a clear message to the farming community throughout our constituencies—like my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath), I speak as a representative of a west of England constituency. The fields and pastures of Devonshire are synonymous with the finest dairy produce in the world. That community would like to see, if at all possible, a seat at the highest table being attributed to the ministerial representatives of farming and agriculture.

If we started to think about the dairy industry as a strategic industry that contributes to food security in this country, and an industry that should be spoken for at the highest table, in Cabinet, the message would be sent throughout the processing industry and the retail industry that the Government were at last attaching to the dairy industry, and the cattle and livestock industry as a whole, the priority that they deserved.

I agree with right hon. and hon. Members about the methods and techniques that need to be adopted. We cannot do much about global commodity prices, but we can do quite a lot about the domestic market. We can strengthen the voluntary code, which is important, and we should be considering making it a compulsory code, as the Select Committee is. It is clear from the review by the MSP, Mr Fergusson, that that code could do a lot of good. We need it to be extended, and the Government need to fight and encourage people to adhere to it.

I would be failing in my duty if I did not also mention the crisis of bovine TB, which prevails throughout Devonshire and elsewhere. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will say something about the need to ensure that the TB eradication strategy is implemented in full. When I was a child, I was told that the animal kingdom was divided into two sorts of animals: the vertebrates and the invertebrates. As it is with the animal kingdom, so it is with Departments of State. I hope that the Minister will prove himself to be a member of a vertebrate Ministry that will discover its backbone.

[Mrs Linda Riordan (in the Chair)]

With less than two minutes, I call Tessa Munt.

[Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)]

I will make very few points, because most of the points have been made already, but it seems a great shame that the advantage of power is all held by the retailers and processors. One thing that I welcome is what has been done by Farmers For Action. Its protests have generated publicity. That sort of thing gets on to the news, and those protests have always proved peaceful and, certainly in my area, have taken place with the agreement of the police. I particularly welcome the move that Farmers For Action has made to produce stickers, posters and leaflets that it will distribute outside supermarkets so that the customers, who are the end of the line, can connect the dots and understand the difficulties faced by the producers, who are at the very beginning of the line. Asking farmers to plan when they are being offered prices that are well below the cost of production seems desperately unfair. I will leave it there, but I endorse everything else that has been said today.

[Mrs Linda Riordan (in the Chair)]

Mr Drax, would you like 45 seconds?

[Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)]

I would be delighted to speak for the last few seconds. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart) for securing the debate. I will briefly speak up for Mr Rob Vearncombe, a dairy farmer from Kimmeridge, which is a beautiful place in my constituency. As fast as I can, I will list the points that he wanted to make directly to the Minister and the Government.

First of all, Mr Vearncombe thinks that the recent milk price cuts will have a devastating effect on the dairy industry in the medium to long term. In the short term, he believes that the industry can ride the storm for six to eight months because of the higher prices that have been achieved. For a dairy farmer who produces 1 million litres a year from 125 cows, the fall in milk prices represents a loss of about £35,000 a year. Colleagues have already mentioned such vast figures, and I do not believe that the public understand that 1p off, or added to, the price of milk makes a vast difference to the bottom line for a farmer, particularly a small one.

There is a huge variation in how farmers produce milk. There are high-intensity systems, and there are low-intensity systems such as those common in New Zealand, and the public do not understand the cost implications of the different systems. The type of land is a large factor.

Mr Vearncombe says that variations in milk price have a dramatic effect on profitability. He claims that farms that are achieving 35p a litre have been “poached” by supermarkets to supply directly, with strings attached—

[Mrs Linda Riordan (in the Chair)]

Order.