Direct Payments to Farmers (Crop Diversification Derogation) (England) Regulations 2020

Lord Wei Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wei (Con)]

My Lords, I too, like other speakers, welcome the continuation of this policy. We are in difficult circumstances as a country. Certainly, the floods, which seem a long time ago now, had a major impact, of which we need to take account. Given the time, I have only a couple of questions for the Minister.

First, given that, in addition to the floods, we are now in the midst of, and coming out of, lockdown—supply chains have been impacted and there is an uncertain picture over the coming year or so—how will this measure evolve? In particular, how do we ensure that we are prepared for what might be coming later in the year to support farmers and their livelihoods—not just to remove some regulations but to proactively enable them to weather the storm, as it were, that is coming? They are already facing that storm in terms of growing the food and I welcome that they will have more ability to focus on one crop if they need to. There is then the question of how they can get that to market and whether there is demand for that crop.

We will hear more, I suppose, in the announcements tomorrow and over the coming weeks, but what measures are being taken to ensure resilience generally throughout the agricultural ecosystem? What technology do we need and what can we do to stimulate and even pay for innovation in agriculture so that we are more resilient and less exposed to whatever it is, be it the weather, Brexit or pandemics? We need to ensure that we have, as far as possible, a sustainable, self-sufficient agricultural economy.