Sustainable Livestock Bill

Martin Horwood Excerpts

Friday 12th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Nuttall]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen and wherever for that good point. The people most closely connected with farming in this country, while they support the aims of the Bill’s sponsors, do not support the Bill itself. We have to ask why that is.

[Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)]

The Rare Breeds Survival Trust, which has connections with livestock and farming, thinks that the Bill is a good thing and may promote a local feed industry, which could help to protect British farmers from fluctuating feed commodity prices. Does the hon. Gentleman not welcome that?

[Mr Nuttall]

I welcome the fact that there are groups such as the Rare Breeds Survival Trust, which works to maintain historic breeds and to promote organic farming. There is nothing wrong with that, and I appreciate the fact that it supports the Bill’s aims. However, my hon. Friend will agree that it represents a relatively small part of the farming community.

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[Mr Nuttall]

The National Farmers Union would say that there is no disadvantage and no evidence that larger-scale dairying or housing has a negative impact on the environment.

[Martin Horwood]

One local farmer in Gloucestershire told me of one very specific disadvantage: such practices would undermine the reputation of British farming for good animal welfare and, therefore, damage the British farming brand in general.

[Mr Nuttall]

That is a comment from one individual, and individuals will have their own views, but I suspect that it is not the majority view. I shall make a little more progress.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Robert Flello) on being so successful in the ballot and on bringing the Bill before the House. As he knows from my interventions and from a private conversation, I am not entirely in favour of his Bill, but I do congratulate him on securing this debate. It is important because it has brought the issue of agriculture back to the House and given us the opportunity to have an important discussion about where we want one of our most important producing industries—indeed, our critical producing industry—to go. This industry puts food in the bellies of our people and will determine the health of our nation, and this is an important debate for those reasons.

One of the best things that we do as a country—whether in England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland—is produce high-quality, traceable, nutritious food that is also profitable. We should be proud of that fact. We should encourage the industry and do everything we can not only to sustain it but to develop it and to ensure that the food that is produced in this nation is some of the best in the world and, indeed, the envy of the world.

We, and indeed the Minister and the Government, face a real challenge in ensuring that that happens, because there are many pressures on our food producers and farmers. We should do all we can to promote their livelihood and their industry. We should not succumb to siren calls to change our practices unless we are utterly convinced that those changes will perfect and develop further an industry that is crucial to our people.

We need to put into perspective some of the points that have been made about our industry. The livestock sector—beef, dairy, pig, poultry and sheep production—contributed £2.3 billion to agri-food output in Northern Ireland in the last year for which figures were available. Of that, approximately 72%, or almost £1.65 billion, was sold outside Northern Ireland. That means that we run a very successful export industry, and it is called the food industry.

We should be careful about doing anything that changes the careful balance in our marketplace. The Bill could affect that balance detrimentally. I do not believe that that is the intention of its promoter, but it could be the effect. We should remember that more than 20,000 people are directly employed in the agri-food sector in Northern Ireland alone. Tens of thousands more are employed across the rest of the United Kingdom.

What are the devolved Government of Northern Ireland and, by extension, the other devolved Governments across the United Kingdom doing to ensure that we address some of the matters that have been brought before us as a result of the Bill’s trajectory? The Climate Change Act 2008 is already in place, and action is being taken. Indeed, the Northern Ireland Programme for Government has a target for a 25% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in all sectors in the next 15 years.

[Martin Horwood]

The hon. Gentleman may not know that the Climate Change Act relates to emissions in this country and cannot possibly make any impact on, for example, deforestation in Argentina and Brazil. This Bill is designed to do that.

[Ian Paisley]

I accept that point and I will discuss it when I deal with that aspect of the Bill, which, I believe, reflects the promoter’s gut instinct.

Our stakeholder group in the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development was formed at the end of July last year and wishes to consider how best to reduce greenhouse gases in the agricultural sector in Northern Ireland while remaining competitive in the marketplace. Our devolved Government have already taken several steps to address the issue, and I know that that also applies to the other devolved regions and to central Government in Westminster.

Do we need more legislation? Parliaments have a propensity to legislate when there is no need to do so. We should be careful not to load more bureaucracy—legislation for legislation’s sake—on to industry and the production of food. That is a key reason for my opposition to the Bill.

Given that work is already under way genuinely to address the problems, there should be no need for more legislative interventionism. Indeed, it would create additional bureaucracy and be less effective in delivering the necessary meaningful improvements and have an adverse impact on the agri-food industry.

There are three tests that the Bill must pass. The first is the economic sustainability test, which I believe it Bill fails. As I said, about £20 billion-worth of food is produced in the United Kingdom, and the Bill would force the Government to try to compel the new, ongoing common agricultural policy negotiations to change the subsidy rules so that every hectare of farm land in the United Kingdom would have to receive an increase in subsidy of between £100 and £200. For the life of me, I do not see the current European Union increasing food and farm subsidy in the current CAP negotiations. I wish that it would; it is not a realistic prospect, yet that needs to happen for the Bill to be effective. It will not happen in 2013, and we would therefore be arguing for something that is detrimental to the economy.

Production-limited support is contrary to World Trade Organisation regulations. If something is contrary to the CAP and WTO regulations, the likelihood of our getting an increase in the subsidy is small. The cost for farmers of having to purchase in a particular way in order to produce in a more carbon-efficient way would mean an additional burden and would be detrimental to the industry. Ultimately, who will lose? The farmer will put his hand in his pocket again and spend the money, but you, Mr Hoyle, I and the consumer will lose, because food prices will go up. Instead of good-quality, traceable food at a reasonable price, we will have more expensive food. The consumer will ultimately lose out.

What will the consumers do? They will do what all the polls tell us: they will buy not the high-quality food that is produced in the United Kingdom but the cheap, imported food, which will flood into the United Kingdom, further damaging our agricultural sector. In the past few years, we have fought against cheap meat from Brazil. If it is made even more accessible to our markets, when our consumers go to Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Asda, they will fill their trolleys with cheap Brazilian imports. Why? Because they are cheaper, and that is what will drive the consumer. We should realise that. I do not agree with the hon. Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) that such prices will make us want to become vegetarians or vegans; they will just make us want to buy cheaper food. That is a genuine downside to the Bill, so it fails the economic test.

The Bill also fails the social test. My constituency is made up of lowland and hill farming, and there is a certain shape and scope to our land. A previous contributor described it as God-given beauty. It has been shaped by the grazing habits that farmers have introduced. Under the Bill, that would change. It will become more expensive to graze our animals on the uplands because it will be more expensive to import the food for them. The shape of our land would therefore change dramatically, so the social impact would not be as effective as the Bill suggests.

The Bill also fails the environmental test. It would use the sledgehammer of environmental protectionism to crack a nut. The entire UK agriculture industry is responsible for only 7% of our greenhouse gas emissions, and our emissions have already fallen by 21% since 1990.

John F. Kennedy memorably said:

“The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie… but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.”

We have heard some myths today which should be debunked. The Bill has an admirable aim to stop deforestation, but it will not do that. The House could pass the measure and say, “We want to stop deforestation,” but the Bill will contribute nothing to that aim. Indeed, its very publication contributes to deforestation because it needs paper. We must recognise the myth.

Another myth is that livestock will be raised indoors—that we will drive through our land and see great big silos and sheds where our livestock is raised. However, when I drive through my constituency, I see cattle and sheep in the fields.