Oral Answers to Questions Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Martyn Day
Main Page: Martyn Day (Scottish National Party - Linlithgow and East Falkirk)Department Debates - View all Martyn Day's debates with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
(3 years, 5 months ago)
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George Eustice
I always advise people to look at what I actually said, rather than at the Twitter attacks on what I might have said. I never said that specialist sheep farmers and crofters should diversify into beef; I explicitly said that some of the 7,000 mixed beef and sheep enterprises might choose to produce more beef and less lamb if the price signal suggested that they should.
Martyn Day (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (SNP) [V]
The Scottish Seafood Association has joined other food and drink leaders with a recent letter to the Prime Minister. The message is clear: tariffs mean enormous damage to our industry, and that is on top of covid losses of an estimated £3 billion. So when will the Minister reveal details of the financial support that is so clearly desperately needed?
George Eustice
Tariffs on fish, particularly the fish that we export, are typically far lower than on many agrifoods. The average tariff on the shellfish that we export is about 8%. Obviously, we would prefer there to be zero tariffs on all goods, and that is the offer that the Government have made to the European Union—in both directions—but the fishing sector generally recognises that, if it needed to pay tariffs, it could pay those tariffs, and the European Union would have to face higher prices.