Climate Change: Support for Farmers

Lord Taylor of Holbeach Excerpts

Thursday 23rd January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach (Con)]

My Lords, this may be a Question for Short Debate, but the right reverend Prelate has attracted a fine speakers’ list which includes many of my noble friends, and I am delighted to follow my noble friend Lady Shephard.

Noble Lords will know of my interest through my family’s business, and I am delighted that the right reverend Prelate has given us the opportunity to discuss one of the many issues creating worry and anxiety among farmers and growers. What he perhaps does not know is that Taylors grow both overwintered cauliflower and broccoli, double-cropping it with summer planting under a Lincolnshire cropping agreement—so, unlike some occasions when I speak here, I know of what I speak today.

The right reverend Prelate has read of the shortages expected this spring. That flies in the face of the company that plants, harvests and markets the crop on our farm, which agrees with me that it is a long time since the crop looked so good. However, the point that this Question raises is valid, for the labour to harvest those crops in early spring is hard to find, and the acreage may well be correspondingly reduced.

We are right to talk in this debate about climate change or unpredictable weather, for undoubtedly this has been a very difficult time for farmers and growers as they face the consequences of flooding. Defra issued a very useful press release addressing the issue on 7 January, following a meeting with the Environment Agency’s chief executive, Philip Duffy. But causes and consequences were perhaps better illustrated by the Lincolnshire Free Press of 14 January, which told of a farmer I know who has been waiting 12 months for the Environment Agency to repair a bank that topped in the Storm Henk overflow due to badger damage.

The Black Sluice pumping station was decommissioned some years ago on the grounds that it provided no benefit for people and their houses. Now, the Black Sluice Internal Drainage Board has noted that had the pumps been working, they would have got rid of half a million cubic metres from the swollen South Forty Foot Drain and saved my friend’s farm in the Bourne Fen area and properties in Boston from flooding.

The lesson is clear: the Environment Agency must get its priorities right, and the Government, if they want plentiful supplies of wholesome British produce, must ensure that the agency has the funds to do so.