Farming: Impact of Brexit

Lord Thomas of Gresford Excerpts

Thursday 21st July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Thomas of Gresford (LD)]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, on obtaining this debate. Her picture of 27 injured parties in a divorce fills a lawyer like me with considerable alarm.

We are lucky to have the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner, in this House. He bashfully declares his farming interests every time he speaks and one of these days, when I have a spare hour or two, I will read his entry.

For the last few weeks, most of politics has been beyond parody. Gilbert and Sullivan could do justice to the scene: the former head of Defra has been translated to the post of Lord Chancellor, responsible for the independence of the courts; and it is with a fine sense of irony, mingled perhaps with some contempt for farming interests, that in her place the new Prime Minister has appointed Mrs Leadsom, a lady who campaigned for the leadership of the Tory party on the basis of her experience in finance in the City since 1984.

In 2007, Mrs Leadsom demanded that farm subsidies be abolished. That would be good for food production and for the environment, and it would lay waste upland Wales. Then, in a Guardian interview before the referendum, Mrs Leadsom suggested that farmers with,

“big fields do the sheep, and those with the hill farms do the butterflies”.

Hello sky! Hello trees! Hello grass! Hello butterflies!

The average net farm income for all Welsh farm types, as estimated by the Welsh Government’s Knowledge and Analytical Services Department, declined between 2014 and 2016 by 25% to £13,000 per year. Such falls in income have already had catastrophic effects on the 60,000 people employed on farm holdings in Wales and on the vast numbers of secondary businesses which are reliant on the industry. In Wales, EU support amounts to £250 million per year in direct payments to farmers, together with a programme of investment of some £500 million over the 2014-20 period.

Before the referendum, Mrs Leadsom said:

“The UK government will give you the same money when we leave the EU”.

Yesterday, at the Royal Welsh Show in Builth Wells, George Eustice, the Farming Minister, told BBC Wales that the Government cannot guarantee that future agricultural support programmes will be as generous as current EU subsidies. Let us contrast that with his statement during the referendum campaign that Welsh farmers would get “as much support” as they currently do if the UK left. Brexiteers said, “We don’t need subsidies—the markets will provide”. Let us see whether Mrs Leadsom’s financial expertise can deal with the supermarkets which have no regard for the maintenance of the farming industry so long as they can keep prices down.

Now is Defra’s opportunity. We have taken control. Regulations—British regulations—can be tabled to support Welsh farmers—a new settlement, as my noble friend Lady Miller referred to it. Let us see what it does. How will it ensure that our agriculture is not undermined by cheap food imports from countries with far lesser environmental and animal health standards? That point was made very strongly by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans a moment ago.

Many farmers in Wales cussedly voted leave because of “red tape”—that is, EU restrictions on the use of pesticides and herbicides, passed in Brussels but confirmed by the Westminster Parliament in an attempt to protect the environment. Will this Government relax controls on chemicals and fertilisers in an effort to boost food production? What would be the impact of that on our environment, on the upland Welsh watercourses that feed into England and on the wildlife in our hills? The environmental impact would be enormous.

Of course, whether or not we remain in the single market in some form or other, the 40% of our farm production that we currently sell in mainland Europe will in any event have to comply with EU standards. The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, asked a very pertinent question: will the Government be represented when Phil Hogan has his review of the CAP in 2017?

Welsh family farms are not to be left to cultivate butterflies. They have a critical role to play in producing food to the highest standard. They have to face up to the challenges in upland areas of climate change. They are the custodians of the countryside. Their farms must never be laid to waste.