Agriculture, Fisheries and the Rural Environment

Lord Colgrain Excerpts

Thursday 2nd November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Colgrain (Con)]

My Lords, I may be the only person speaking here today who has not had the pleasure of either knowing or working with the noble Lord, Lord Plumb. However, I know I speak for all those in the farming community who have not had the opportunity to meet and work with him in giving him a great vote of thanks for his wonderful representation on our behalf over many years. I refer to my interests in the register, in particular my farm in Kent.

Two significant trends affecting rural industries are visible over the last few decades. The first is the ageing agricultural worker population, now averaging in their mid-50s, and declining in numbers overall. According to a Eurostat 2013 survey, 83% of workers are aged 45 or older. The second, a partial consequence, is the reduction in the number of family farms, and the increase in size of individual units. The average unit in our part of the world between the wars used to be one farmhouse and two cottages—three families in other words, on 120 acres; now, such an acreage would not support one person. We have a serious labour crisis looming in the industry. The most spoken about relates to seasonal labour in the fruit and horticultural sectors, this being tied in with the availability of casual labour post Brexit. The less spoken about, however, is the more problematic, and we must do whatever we can to encourage and attract more people to the sector.

In as much as subsidies will continue post Brexit, we must ensure that we direct some of the funding towards education, not only at graduate level—Hadlow College being an excellent example—but also at younger age levels, as some of the previous HLS schemes were directed. This is not only to motivate more and better qualified candidates to see a vibrant and exciting career in the sector, but to introduce the wider public to the rural environment. I recall an article by the noble Lord, Lord Bragg, pointing out that some titles in the English literature curriculum were no longer really relevant, given that the average urban reader could not identify with the basic rural themes, let alone some of the terminology of the great works of the canon. Surely we can devise enough of an introduction to our rural environment and its industries for children of school age to overcome such a basic disadvantage.

We have been told that post Brexit, grants will be harnessed more closely to environmental benefits. We need sensitive discrimination between those areas that will never be financially viable in pure agricultural terms—hill farms, for example, and owners of grade 1 and grade 2 land, who frankly neither need nor deserve subsidies. There has been a suggestion that the size of holding might determine eligibility for grant aid; I suggest that land quality should a fairer determinant. In the same way, approval for solar parks should be given only to sites where mainstream arable or livestock cropping will never be commercially viable. Brexit presents us with the wonderful opportunity to rewrite the catch-all policies of the EC. At the same time, we must ensure that our animal welfare standards and food production quality control are not compromised.

My experience relates specifically to the south-east of the country. I am one of the minority who farms around the M25 corridor, where, with the proximity of London and the commuter belt, property prices remain the prevalent topic of conversation. Broadband and connectivity run property a close second, and given that diversification is a sine qua non for all business in the rural economy, the failure of Openreach to deliver on its promises and the inability of the Government to drive through a successful national broadband programme, is nothing short of a scandal. Tens of billions will be spent on HS2, yet there is neither financial resource nor political application to support rural industries with one of their most vital and basic currencies of competition.

Likewise with planning. The principle of utilising brownfield sites, as opposed to greenfield, for new housing demand is generally accepted. The same principle should apply to light industrial businesses, since there is little purpose in building new houses in the countryside without endeavouring to provide jobs nearby. The present planning regulation for brownfield sites, particularly in the green belt and areas of outstanding natural beauty, is inconsistently applied, remains prey to the vagaries of individual planning officers and is failing in the Government’s stated objectives. It is not surprising that local sentiment is often hostile to planning applications when confronted with the evidence of inconsistent and irrational local policies.

Opportunities in the rural economy should be legion. Increased productivity as a result of new crop varieties and mechanisation, extended growing seasons as a result of climate change and a reputation for producing high-quality food safely should give the rural economy the ability to compete internationally regardless of the outcome of Brexit. But we must provide a regulatory framework that is simple to understand and not costly to implement, which cannot be said by any stretch of the imagination of the current regime.