Rural Communities

Mike Reader Excerpts

Wednesday 7th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mike Reader (Northampton South) (Lab)]

I wanted to contribute to this debate to celebrate the brilliant food producers in Northamptonshire and across the UK, some of which you sampled on Northamptonshire Day, Madam Deputy Speaker. As chair of the all-party group for food and drink, I have seen first-hand how rural communities play a critical part in our supply chain, and set the standard for global food quality.

When preparing for today, I thought I might do as many Opposition Members have done: go and buy myself a fresh Barbour jacket and some shiny wellies, and film a social media video ranting about protecting farmers, completely tone deaf to the hammering that they got under 14 years of Conservative Governments. But no, I will be collegiate, Madam Deputy Speaker; instead, I will focus on supporting food producers, and particularly on how we support growth and prosperity in rural communities.

Many will know that my background lies in the construction sector. I am a proud yimby, and a supporter of this Labour Government’s necessary policies to correct the catastrophic and sustained failures of the last Government to “build, baby, build.” While many Opposition Members see development as a threat to communities, if they spent more than five minutes talking to farmers and rural landowners, they would know it is really important that we support sustainable development, which is critical to the prosperity of rural Britain.

[Jim Shannon]

I commend the hon. Gentleman. He is putting forward good points about agriculture and how the economy can build off it. Northern Ireland has £6 billion-worth of manufacturing and exports, and it is critical for it to do well, as well. One thing that holds us back is veterinary and medicines, and the Northern Ireland protocol. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that in order for us go forward with the rest of the United Kingdom, the Northern Ireland protocol should be addressed? Perhaps when the Minister responds to the debate she can give us some ideas on that.

[Mike Reader]

I am not familiar with the Northern Ireland protocol at all, but I am learning more about the SPS agreement in my role as the chair. I hope that Nick Thomas-Symonds will come to see us very soon to explain—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman knows better than that. He should refer to the right hon. Gentleman as the Minister.

[Mike Reader]

Sorry, Madam Deputy Speaker.

The farming productivity review is very clear: if we want a sustainable rural economy, we can do much more to unlock its potential. Planning is one of the areas that we can look to tackle. A farmer can spend millions of hours filling in mountains of paperwork to build new sheds, slurry pits or barns to support better welfare, but our planning system does not support our farmers, the livestock that they keep or the British public, who love what they buy from their supermarkets, butchers and cafés.

As set out in the paper “Yes In My Farm Yard”, which I delivered with the YIMBY Initiative and with support from the hon. Member for Glastonbury and Somerton (Sarah Dyke), we have identified some clear recommendations as to how the Government can help to reduce paperwork and speed up rural development; I will share a few of them. Through the permitted development regime, this Labour Government can put down instruments to improve part 6 of the regime by abolishing height and volume restrictions on land and machinery improvements.

We can change and expand class R regulations to improve anaerobic digestion and storage for digestates, which will help to enhance the circular economy for fertilisers, reduce our reliance on Russia and other states that we get our fertilisers from, and lower river pollution. We can also expand class Q regulations to natural landscapes to ensure that our farmers can build small, sensible and sustainable settlements for their agricultural workers, who in turn can protect these precious environments. Those are all practical steps that will help rural businesses to diversify and bring long-term stability to rural economies.

I am really pleased to see that many of the recommendations in our paper are broadly supported in the Batters review into farming profitability, which has also endorsed some of the policies in the paper. I encourage Ministers at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to work with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to bring forward these planning changes and let our yimby farming communities—or should that be yimfy farming communities?—say, “Yes In My Farm Yard”.