Agriculture: Dairy Farmers

Lord Framlingham Excerpts

Monday 22nd February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, clearly we will be looking at all things. However, the truth is that we are not in a position to start setting prices; that is market driven. We have global overproduction at the moment, and that is the plain economics of it. But we are going to look at all these things and we want to see whether there are ways in which the dairy farmer can be assisted. We think that the dairy farming industry should be more joined up, so that there is strength in its negotiations. Clearly, we want to make sure that supermarkets understand that it is very important to sustain the domestic dairy industry.

[Lord Framlingham (Con)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that it really is quite ridiculous that the price of a bottle of milk is often less than the price of a bottle of water, bearing in mind the real difficulties that our dairy farmers are now suffering? Will he, as he has already referred to, put real pressure on the retailers and supermarkets to see what they can do to help this industry that is in such dire straits?