Checks on Goods Entering UK

Debate between Mark Spencer and Tim Farron

Monday 29th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sir Mark Spencer]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend’s tenacious campaign on behalf of her constituents and the port of Dover, but I hope she will not mind my drawing attention to the fact that these are separate regimes: goods coming in legally, via legal channels, with the right documentation will move to Sevington, but the port of Dover is the right place for Border Force to ensure that we are protected from illegal imports, and those checks will still take place. The conversations with the Port of Dover over funding continue, and we want to see Port of Dover continue to help to keep us safe and intercept any illegal imports that people may attempt to bring into the UK.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

Those of us from rural communities, particularly those like mine in Cumbria that had to live through the horror of the foot and mouth outbreak in 2001, know how vital it is to have biosecurity at our borders—but intelligently applied, so that we do not damage supply chains and have excessive red tape. Does this issue not shine a spotlight on the fact that we are now, sadly, increasingly reliant on food imports? Britain produces only 60% of the food we eat. Does that not remind us that the Government’s agricultural payments scheme, which actively disincentivises the production of food on good-quality, productive agricultural land, is extremely foolish and should be reversed if we are serious about our security as a country?

[Sir Mark Spencer]

I am familiar with the beauty of the hon. Gentleman’s constituency; as he knows, I was there on Saturday with the shadow Minister. He gives the figures for what we import in total, but for the food we can produce we are at 72%. The Prime Minister has also recognised that challenge, and we will introduce a food security index so that we can monitor this issue, to make sure that the Government’s policies do drive farmers to increase their productivity and their production. I have full confidence in the ability of our farmers to continue to produce top-quality British food, to continue to expand their productivity and to keep the country well fed.

Agricultural Tenancies

Debate between Mark Spencer and Tim Farron

Wednesday 24th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mark Spencer]

I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend and his Committee for their work. We want to avoid any such perverse incentives. We do not want to motivate landlords to take land from tenants for the purpose of, for instance, rewilding, or to remove them from the sector for any reason. We want to encourage a positive working relationship.

There are, of course, some challenges. If, for example, a tenant applies for a grant under our new slurry scheme to introduce physical structures that will last well beyond the length of the tenancy, the landlord will need to have some engagement in the process and to support that tenant. We want to open up these grants to tenants as well as owner-occupiers, so that tenant farmers can invest in their productivity as well as their sustainability and their ability to make a profit.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

I welcome and broadly agree with the review, and pay tribute to Baroness Rock and her team for their hard work. I am grateful for advance sight of the Minister’s statement, which also included much encouraging information. However, the Government have dragged their feet in responding to the review, and many of the policies that will affect tenant farmers have already been set in train, which is one reason why a mere 27 of the more than 1,000 farms in my constituency, roughly half of which will be tenanted, have taken part in the SFI so far.

I think the Government should stand rebuked by two particular elements in the review, and I should like them to look at those again. First, does the review not remind them to ensure that landscape recovery includes tenant farmers, and that the landscape cannot be gobbled up by water companies and large estates, which is what is beginning to happen? Secondly, given that many tenant farmers in Cumbria and elsewhere are upland farmers, does the Minister recognise that the intention of funding environmental schemes via the system of income forgone discriminates against the uplands and will force many hard-working tenant farmers out of the industry altogether, to the detriment of our environment and of food production?

[Mark Spencer]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his warm welcome for the report and our response, but I think that some of his characterisations are a little misplaced. Let me say first that in designing the ELM schemes we took account of the feedback we were receiving from those conducting the review. We were in possession of it when it was published some time ago, and we worked with the group to ensure that we were taking it on board. Secondly, of course we want to support upland farmers. We want to support all tenants, to ensure that they have the best possible opportunity to make a living, and to protect the beautiful landscapes that we see not only in Cumbria but in the south-west and other places with landscapes that matter to the British people.

Let me say this, gently, to the hon. Gentleman. He will be aware that the Liberal Democrats entered into the political game of trying to keep our farmers tied to the bureaucratic EU land-based subsidies by tabling a motion in the other place. Under that system, far too much time was spent on burdening farmers with complex sets of rules, and on debating whether a cabbage was the same as a cauliflower for the purposes of the three-crop rule. We have to move on to a different place, and that is what we are doing. The hon. Gentleman can play his political games, but we will look after those farmers and ensure that the system works for them.

Environmental Land Management Scheme: Funding for Upland Areas

Debate between Mark Spencer and Tim Farron

Wednesday 3rd May 2023 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Food, Farming and Fisheries (Mark Spencer)]

Thank you for that guidance, Mr Hollobone. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) for calling this important debate.

Farming is the lifeblood of our communities. I know at first hand the invaluable work that farmers do. They keep food on our tables, nurture our natural environment, improve our biodiversity, and protect the environment for future generations. It is only right that we take time to consider how best we can support our farmers —our custodians of the countryside—to run sustainable, productive and profitable businesses, and to ensure that there is an offer for all types of farms with our environmental land management schemes.

We recently announced detailed plans for the nation’s farming sector. Our environmental land management schemes have something to offer for every type of farmer, and we plan to introduce further offers and are updating others so that they can be more focused on producing the great food that we consume, and the environmental gains and climate outcomes that we want to deliver.

Upland farmers can take advantage of 130 actions through a variety of schemes. That is more than 60% of the total actions available to all farmers. The level of coverage is similar for farmers grazing livestock on the lowlands, arable farmers, and those growing horticultural and multiannual crops. Those actions are designed to work alongside farming practices, and to protect and enhance our most environmentally important sites.

In order to ensure that upland farmers can take advantage of what our schemes have to offer, we are making it easier for farmers to apply for paid actions. This year we have improved the application process, increased the rates and broadened the scope of countryside stewardship. That includes allowing agreement holders of higher level stewardship to take up countryside stewardship revenue agreements alongside their HLS. That will benefit farmers who already have an HLS agreement but want to increase their income from schemes by doing more on their land. We have introduced a new, fully improved online service for countryside stewardship mid-tier applications. That service is closer to the application process used for the sustainable farming incentive, which we know farmers find straightforward to use.

In the uplands, a number of farms are on common land, and we have designed the sustainable farming incentive so that it works for those farmers. Eligible single entities can apply for an agreement on common land, and they will receive an additional payment to help with the cost of administering that agreement.

There is more to our offer than countryside stewardship and the SFI. Upland farms can also apply to the landscape recovery scheme, which funds large-scale projects to produce environmental and climate benefits through bespoke, long-term agreements. The uplands were well represented overall in round 1; a majority of landscape recovery projects involved groups of land managers and farmers, including tenants, working together to deliver a range of environmental benefits across farmland and rural landscapes. Applications for round 2 open this year, and projects in upland areas are likely to contribute to the focal areas for that round.

For farmers in areas of outstanding natural beauty or national parks, our farming in protected landscapes programme provides funding for one-off projects. We have funded more than 2,400 fantastic projects, and earlier this year we decided to extend the programme for a further year; it will now run until March 2025. Farmers who have livestock can also get funding for a vet, or a team chosen by a vet, to visit their farm and carry out health and welfare reviews for eligible livestock. That is part of the SFI offer.

Additionally, we are offering grants to support animal health and welfare. The first round is open, and grants will go towards the cost of a list of items designed to improve the health and welfare of livestock. We are also funding free business advice for farmers through the resilience fund. More than 10,000 farmers have taken up the offer so far. I encourage all upland farmers to take advantage of that free service and find out what might work for them and their businesses.

The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale said that he welcomed ELMS and that he wanted to see the schemes go forward. I therefore find it strange that his party chose to vote against our new environmental schemes only a few weeks ago. His party voted to retain the old EU common agricultural policy, which to my mind was a vote against food security.

[Tim Farron]

I am happy to clarify.

[Mark Spencer]

Let me just finish the point. In my head, that was a vote against food security, given that the old area-based payments were specifically de-linked from food production in 2005 and have inhibited productivity improvements. I am happy for the hon. Gentleman to clarify why he chose to stick with the old common agricultural policy.

[Tim Farron]

At the moment, the BPS is set to be reduced by 35% this year. As I set out in my speech, one of the options, which would get farmers out of the mess that the Government have put them in, is for the Government not to make that cut this year, given that they clearly have not spent all that money on the environmental schemes, as they promised. That would be a way of keeping farmers farming, which is the best thing for food production and the environment. That money could have kept many people focused on environmental delivery, rather than either moving out of business altogether or choosing to intensify their farming. Both those things are happening on the Minister’s watch.

[Mark Spencer]

So the motion put forward by the Liberal Democrats was misworded, because its effect would have been to take us right back to the beginning of the process. It would have scrapped countryside stewardship and the ELM schemes. It was basically a vote against river restoration, because it would have ended all the funding to our environmental schemes. That includes 32,000 countryside stewardship schemes already in existence and signed up to by farmers, which would have disappeared if the motion had passed. It feels like a gimmick. We are in the business of delivery—of trying to help farmers move forward and improve our environmental output and biodiversity. The hon. Gentleman wants to play games, and I think that is really disappointing.

Let us look at what we have actually done. We have set out all the details of our farming schemes, which are designed to make farms profitable, resilient and sustainable food producers while protecting nature and enhancing the environment; we have announced an additional £10 million of support through the water management grant to fund on-farm reservoirs and better irrigation equipment; we made 45,000 visas available for seasonal workers in 2023 to increase productivity in horticulture; we launched the £12.5 million fund for robotics and automation to help with innovation in agriculture; we announced plans to regulate pig contracts to ensure fairness in the pig supply chain; we doubled the money for slurry infrastructure for farmers to £34 million through the slurry infrastructure grant; we have registered New Forest pannage ham under the geographical indication scheme; we have increased payment rates for farmers under countryside stewardship and the sustainable farming incentive; and we passed the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Act 2023, unlocking key technologies to improve UK agriculture.

That is a fantastic record of support for our farmers, but it is not the end of the process. We are very keen to engage with our farming communities and our farmers to support them. We will continue to listen to those farmers, engage with them and understand the challenges that they face. We will constantly review the process, and we will work with farmers to ensure that they continue to be profitable as well as to improve our environment and biodiversity.

[Tim Farron]

I asked a number of questions and I would be grateful if the Minister would answer them all, although he may not have to time do so verbally. One question I am really keen that he answers is whether his Department conducted an economic impact assessment on the transition from CAP to ELMS for upland farmers. Did that assessment take place?

[Mark Spencer]

We have consistently and constantly engaged with farmers through the development of the SFI. There have been a number of farmers on working groups, working directly with DEFRA to design the schemes to ensure that they work for farmers in a practical way. That is an ongoing process. Instead of saying, “At this moment in time, this is our assessment of this brilliant project,” we consistently and constantly engage with farmers in the real world to understand the challenges they face, to improve the schemes, to listen to their views and to support them.

We have had an interesting debate. We stand ready to help and support farmers on the uplands, the lowlands and the arable fields of the east of England wherever we can to continue to produce great food and look after our environment.

Question put and agreed to.

Food Security and Farming

Debate between Mark Spencer and Tim Farron

Wednesday 19th April 2023 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Food, Farming and Fisheries (Mark Spencer)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I start by drawing attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, and pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton) for securing the debate.

Farming is the lifeblood of our communities. As a farmer myself, I know at first hand the invaluable work that farmers do, putting food on our plates and caring for the environment and for nature. As we all know, farming in England is now going through the biggest change in a generation. It is an exciting time, but it is important that we get those changes right. We are phasing our subsidies so that we can invest the moneys in policies that work for farm businesses, food production and the environment. We have a unique opportunity to shape our policies to the needs of our farmers. I pledge that we will do exactly that, making sure that farmers are at the heart of everything that we do.

Here in the UK, we have a highly resilient food supply chain. We are well equipped to deal with disruption. However, farmers are facing challenges as a result of the global economic situation to which my right hon. Friend referred, including the illegal invasion of Ukraine, which is of course driving up the costs of fuel, fertiliser and agrochemicals, and that is why we have taken action to support them.

We have already split direct payments in England into two instalments each year to help with cash flow. We have committed to spend around £600 million on grants and other support for productivity, animal welfare and innovation over the next three years. We have provided 10,000 farmers with help and advice through the future farming resilience fund. We have moved the 25% tariff on maize imports from the US to help with animal feed costs and we have now passed the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Act 2023 to help farmers become more productive and to feed the nation.

Our high degree of food security is built on supply from diverse sources—strong domestic production as well as imports from stable trade routes. Recently, we saw in supermarkets some disruption to a small number of fruit and vegetables due to poor weather affecting the harvest in Spain and north Africa, where a high proportion of the produce consumed in the UK at that time of the year is grown. In that instance, we met the industry to assess the severity of the disruption. Item limits have now been removed, so we are in a much better place than we were at that moment in time. DEFRA has a collaborative relationship with supermarkets, retailers and suppliers, to get involved and to help minimise any disruption.

The Government recognise the importance of food security. We certainly did in the Agriculture Act 2020, and we will carry on monitoring that and ensuring that we monitor food security every three years. The first UK food security report was published in December 2021. We have committed to at least maintain current levels of food production under the food strategy, which set out what we will do to create a more prosperous agrifood sector.

When it comes to self-sufficiency, which my right hon. Friend referred to a number of times, we produce about 74% of the food that we can grow in the UK. Thanks to our farmers, we are almost 100% self-sufficient in fresh poultry and certain vegetables, and close to 90% self-sufficient in eggs. Further to that, we are 86% self-sufficient in beef, fully self-sufficient in liquid milk, and produce more lamb than we consume.

Sectors such as soft fruit, to which my right hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Strood (Kelly Tolhurst) referred, have seen a trend towards greater self-sufficiency in recent years. However, we do recognise the huge pressure on the sector. She has done a lot in this place to highlight the challenges faced in the soft fruit and food production systems, particularly in the county of Kent.

Let me turn to getting the balance right between the environment and food. Ultimately, putting food on the plates of people across the nation is the primary purpose of farming in this country and always will be, but if we want farming and food production to be resilient and sustainable over the long term, farming and nature must go hand in hand. Indeed, our new farming schemes invest in the very foundations of food security, from good soil health and water quality to climate resilience and an abundance of pollinators.

[Tim Farron]

This will be a short intervention—I apologise for being overly long before. In this transition period, where we appear to be phasing out the old subsidy scheme but trickling in the new ones, is the Minister seeing in his communication with farmers, as I do in Westmorland, some who find it hard and are thinking of giving it up all together, and some who feel that they cannot access the environmental schemes and therefore must increase their intensity of farming? I am sure it is not just happening in Westmorland. What can he do about that?

[Mark Spencer]

The hon. Member will be aware that last week I was in Cumbria talking to those very farmers. I think it is fair to say that with the sustainable farming incentive in particular, we have been through a trial period where we have been talking to farmers directly and taking their direct feedback on how those schemes work. We will roll out the latest phase of the SFI this summer and, as he has identified, as we move away from common agricultural policy payments and direct payments to this new phase, we want to make that as accessible as possible.

We continue to have conversations with farmers in order to support the very people he talks about. We can do that in a number of ways, such as, as I said, supporting farmers’ soil quality, improving their grassland and trying to help them to reduce their input costs. We can also give them access to capital grants to help make them more productive and efficient in their farming. It is an ongoing process. This is not a presentation saying, “Here are the new schemes and this is how it will be for 20 years.” Outside the EU, we now have the flexibility to listen to the industry, to work with the sector and to ensure that we can respond to its needs, so that we can keep ourselves well fed while continuing to look after the environment.

Let me turn to what we have done this year. We have provided farmers with extensive detail on the new schemes; increased payment rates in countryside stewardship to reflect the increases in costs; and introduced new, additional management payments for farmers taking environmental work through the sustainable farming incentive. We have accelerated the roll-out of SFI, with six new standards coming this summer—three more than originally planned —and we have announced that we are expanding our existing countryside stewardship scheme, adding about 30 actions to the 250 that are already available.

We will continue to broaden our offer and support thousands of farmers up and down the country with the schemes. We will continue to do everything we can to meet our three main goals of supporting viable farming businesses, maintaining food production at its current level, and achieving high environmental and welfare outcomes. My door is continually open to those conversations and discussions. We will continue to support our great British farmers and we will continue to ensure that our constituents are well fed with beautiful British food.

Question put and agreed to.

Poverty: Food Costs

Debate between Mark Spencer and Tim Farron

Wednesday 1st March 2023 Westminster Hall

[Mark Spencer]

Of course, we recognise that there are cost pressures throughout the whole food supply chain. That is why the Government are offering huge amounts of support to households to try to cope with that. However, we acknowledge that there are challenges—not just in schools but in the Prison Service, the NHS and many Government Departments. That is why we need to address inflation, which is one of the Government’s highest priorities.

We continue to work with food retailers and producers to explore a range of measures that they can take to ensure the availability and affordability of food. It would be remiss of me not to mention the recent issues that we have experienced with the supply of certain fruit and vegetables to supermarkets in the UK. We are continuing to engage with industry throughout this period, and I hosted a roundtable with retailers this week to explore with them their contractual models, plans to return to normal supplies and contingencies for dealing with supply-chain challenges. I have also asked them to look again at how they work with our farmers and how they buy fruit and vegetables so that they can further prepare for these unexpected incidents. In the meantime, I reassure hon. Members that the UK has a highly resilient food supply chain, which was demonstrated during the covid-19 response. It is well equipped to deal with situations with a potential to cause disruption.

I want to address the comments made by the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron). He tried to divide the House this evening on the statutory instrument that provides funding for ELMS. That is a real disappointment and a misunderstanding of the challenges that we face. In effect, he tried to keep English farmers tied to the EU’s bureaucratic and tiresome common agricultural policy by trying to shout down that legislation.

[Tim Farron]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mark Spencer]

I will give way in a moment. The hon. Gentleman made a point about wealthy people. Under the CAP, 50% of the budget went to 10% of landowners, and it did little to support food production or environmental improvements. With the new schemes, we are trying to ensure that nature works hand in hand with those who produce food.

[Tim Farron]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. He will know that all parties here are united in our support for the principles of ELMS, and we think that moving to public money for public goods is the right thing. I said on the record just a few moments ago that the CAP was one of the worst aspects of the European Union, and it is one of the few reasons to celebrate not being in it. The key thing is that the Minister’s party and the Government supported, proposed and promised £2.4 billion of ringfenced farm support. I am sure that he will confirm that that money is not being spent at the moment, because the basic payment scheme has been withdrawn and the new schemes are being taken up by a fraction of those to whom they should be available. That means he has broken that promise to farmers.

[Mark Spencer]

No, I absolutely stand by that commitment.  We will spend £2.4 billion of taxpayers’ money every year in this Parliament. If we fall short and spend only £2.3 billion this year, we will roll that forward and spend £2.5 billion next year. In rolling out those schemes, farmers clearly needed time to adjust, have a look at those new schemes and ensure that they could bid and understand the process that is taking place. It has taken a while to get those schemes right, but we worked with farmers to ensure that they were right. We have now rolled them out, and there are huge numbers of farmers bidding for capital grants on slurry and equipment, to enter into sustainable farming incentive agreements and get involved with countryside stewardship. That is the right thing to do and the right way to go forward.

I am conscious of time, Mr Dowd, because I want to give my hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield time to respond. I thank him for introducing this debate. The Government have a shared ambition to ensure that our food system delivers healthy and affordable food for everyone. I thank him and other colleagues for engaging in this debate.

Avian Influenza

Debate between Mark Spencer and Tim Farron

Tuesday 1st November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mark Spencer]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his three questions. First, we have moved the date for the compensation scheme to as early as legally possible, to try to assist farmers with the challenges they face. He mentioned the labelling of free-range eggs. The law currently allows 16 weeks from the second a bird is housed, before eggs may no longer be called free-range. We have a while before the end of that 16-week period, when eggs would have to be labelled as barn-reared. That can be done with a simple label to say the eggs are barn-reared, rather than free-range.

As with covid, vaccination will be the route out of this problem, but we need our best scientists to concentrate on developing an effective vaccine. We need to work with our colleagues across the European Union so that birds and products exported for food will be accepted into their marketplace, as well as keeping conversations open with retailers to ensure they are also happy.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

Twenty-one years on from foot and mouth disease devastating our communities in Cumbria, we are especially sensitive to not only the animal welfare consequences of outbreaks of animal diseases such as avian flu, but the crushing impact on people, livelihoods and the wider community. Will the Minister say more about the support he will be giving—compensation and other support—to poultry farmers directly affected and to those who will be indirectly affected by this hammering of their business, which puts their businesses at risk? Given that the Department has delayed imposing mandatory housing until next week, what evidence is there that this window could not now trigger panicked and unsafe practices, creating greater infection and increased misery for communities such as mine?

[Mark Spencer]

Clearly, the housing order came in following the best scientific and veterinary advice that we have, but I cannot reiterate enough the impact that improved biosecurity has on those units over a housing order. I recognise the impact that foot and mouth disease had in the hon. Gentleman’s part of the country and the mental scars it leaves on livestock holders. We have brought forward the compensation scheme so that cash flow is assisted. In bringing forward the moment at which the compensation scheme kicks in, we have also brought forward the moment at which the compensation is received in the bank account of the affected farmer. However, we cannot pay compensation for consequential losses further down the track. As a society, we will have to monitor and support those whose mental health is affected and address the impact that has on many, many families up and down the country.