Cost of Living: Support for Farmers

Michelle Donelan Excerpts

Tuesday 12th July 2022 Westminster Hall

[Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Alicia Kearns) on securing this important debate on farming and our farmers. She made an eloquent speech, but she was far too kind to our Government. I intend to highlight some of my concerns to the Minister.

I very much enjoyed a young farmers’ event in Much Wenlock, which I visited the other day, just on the border between my constituency and that of my right hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne). I met so many young Salopian farmers who were at the conference. I saw the energy, dynamism and conviction they all have, and it gave me real hope for the future of farming, bearing in mind how thriving Shropshire young farmers are and the tremendous work they do and continue to do.

I campaigned for Brexit to ensure that regulations and rules affecting our farmers were made here in Westminster, not in Brussels. As the Minister knows, farming is very different in each of the 27 European Union countries. Clearly, the one-size-fits-all system under the common agricultural policy has failed spectacularly, in particular for our farmers here in the United Kingdom. Now, we are freed from those regulations, so the Minister and the Government are solely responsible for the regulatory and taxation framework affecting our farmers.

The opportunities are vast, but I am not satisfied that the Government are doing enough to support our farmers. I say that from the great deal of feedback that I received from my local Shropshire farmers. More than that, the Government are not turning this industry into one of the most exciting opportunities for young graduates and young people looking for work. In 2002, the Labour party abolished the Ministry of Agriculture—I am not sure why, but perhaps the representatives of the Labour party might explain why—but we now need a new Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, and that is why I am speaking in the debate.

I have sent a message to all the candidates standing to be the next leader of the Conservative party to ask whether they will commit to creating a new Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, and to a dedicated Secretary of State sitting at the Cabinet table, responsible for farming, responsible and accountable to the NFU and to farmers, and someone who can be challenged here in the House of Commons on all aspects of agriculture.

I pay tribute to the Minister. All my interactions with her have led me to believe that she is not only very efficient, but highly capable and knowledgeable about agriculture. However, she is not a Secretary of State. I would like her to be a Secretary of State—she would make an outstanding Secretary of State. We need that voice for agriculture round the Cabinet table.

We have all the attributes of being one of the most highly efficient and productive agricultural countries in Europe. We have some of the best agricultural institutions in Europe, one of them in Shropshire—the Harper Adams college. We are extremely proud of that extraordinary, world-beating institution in Shropshire. I hope the Minister will agree in her winding-up speech to come before too long to Harper Adams to see the work taking place there. We have the talents of young farmers and arguably some of the best soil conditions in Europe and the best climate conditions to turn this country into an agricultural superpower in Europe, unconstrained by the dead hand of EU bureaucracy. But that is not happening and it needs to change.

I met the other day the new chair of the EFRA Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Sir Robert Goodwill), and we had a one-hour online call with my association chairman, who is involved in agriculture. I am extremely pleased that the new chair of the EFRA Select Committee has an agriculture degree himself. I wish him every success in holding the Government to account.

[Michelle Donelan (Chippenham) (Con)]

Skills and education not only help people get on in life, but help drive forward our agricultural sector and really turbocharge it and make sure that it is fit for the future. Colleges such as Lackham in my constituency are right at the front and centre of that. Will my hon. Friend pay tribute to all land-based colleges across the country?

[Daniel Kawczynski]

I will of course join her in paying tribute. We are all seeing her meteoric rise up the ranks of the Conservative parliamentary party, and I will pay tribute as long as she takes the message back to the Cabinet that we need a Secretary of State for agriculture.

My association chairman, Mr David Roberts from Halfway House, runs GO Davies, Shropshire’s largest agricultural feed and seed merchant. He has been bending my ear almost on a daily basis about fertiliser costs and the security of production in the United Kingdom. He is not satisfied by the responses that we have had to date. We have been tabling a lot of written parliamentary questions on the issue. As others have said, ammonium nitrate has gone from £200 per tonne in 2021 to over £900 per tonne today. Fertiliser plants in the United Kingdom have closed and others are vulnerable.

I shall say something now that I have not said before in my 17-year career as a Member of Parliament: we need to nationalise the plants. I never thought that as a Conservative I would call for the nationalisation of anything. I am normally highly opposed to the concept of nationalisation, but I agree with the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders). Bearing in mind how extraordinarily important food security is becoming—the consequences of the war in Russia are only just starting to have an impact—and how vulnerable the plants are, I fundamentally believe the Government have a responsibility to take control of the plants, nationalise them and guarantee the future security of fertiliser production in the United Kingdom.

I am running out of time, but, finally, I concur with the sentiments about mental health. We here in the House of Commons benefit from the health and wellbeing team that can help us at times when we suffer mental health problems. We do not have that support across many rural areas, and I am extremely concerned about some of the anecdotal evidence I have heard about mental health problems and increasing suicides in farming. We should celebrate our farmers and our British agriculture, and I look forward to hearing what the Minister says in her wind-up.

Oral Answers to Questions

Michelle Donelan Excerpts

Thursday 26th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Michelle Donelan (Chippenham) (Con)]

4. To ask the right hon. Member for Meriden, representing the Church Commissioners, what assessment the Church of England has made of the Government response to the consultation on out-of-school education settings.

[Dame Caroline Spelman]

Following the publication of the findings from the Department for Education’s consultation on out-of-school settings, I am pleased to say that the Government have sharpened their focus on tackling risks associated with unregulated out-of-school settings and have come up with proposals that are far more proportionate for use. The Church of England has welcomed this.

[Michelle Donelan]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is essential that the Government combat radicalisation, but in a way that does not mean the state encroaching on the realm of religion or crossing the Rubicon in a way that could one day lead to the assessment of Sunday schools and the like?

[Dame Caroline Spelman]

Of course, the Church of England completely underlines the importance of tackling radicalisation, but the original proposals might have caught education in out-of-school settings such as Sunday schools, where teachers are subject to Criminal Records Bureau checks—as everybody in this place who has ever taught in one will know—and domestic premises used to teach children out of school have to be inspected too. The new proposals are proportionate to use and have been welcomed by the Church of England.

Oral Answers to Questions

Michelle Donelan Excerpts

Thursday 14th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

7. What steps her Department is taking to reduce energy bills for (a) businesses and (b) households.

[Michelle Donelan (Chippenham) (Con)]

8. What steps her Department is taking to reduce energy bills for (a) businesses and (b) households.

[The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Andrea Leadsom)]

The best way to deliver lower energy bills for businesses and households is to have a robust and competitive energy market. There are now over 40 energy suppliers in the domestic retail energy market, which is up from 13 in 2010, and independent suppliers have over 17% of the dual fuel market. Competition is improving, but we are not complacent, and we look forward to implementing the recommendations from the Competition and Markets Authority’s final report on the issue.

--- Later in debate ---

[Michelle Donelan]

What steps does the Minister plan to take to improve the effectiveness of the energy supply market to help small and large businesses to expand in Wiltshire and across the country?

[Andrea Leadsom]

The CMA has said that the energy sector for larger businesses is competitive, but it has put forward some strong and sound remedies for microbusinesses to prevent automatic roll-overs without a business’s consent and to improve online quotations, competition and the service available to microbusinesses.