Oral Answers to Questions

Nick Smith Excerpts

Thursday 12th September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Steve Reed]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There are all sorts of ways in which farmers have felt very let down over the past 14 years, and that has contributed to the tragic situation today in which we have the lowest levels of confidence ever recorded in the farming sector. Our new deal for farming is intended to start to sort part of that out.

My hon. Friend referred to trade deals that undermine farmers; they are furious about that, and at the National Farmers Union’s Back British Farming Day reception yesterday farmers made that clear to me again. We have ruled out any future trade deals that undercut and undermine British farmers in the way the previous Government’s Australia and New Zealand trade deals did.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent and Rhymney) (Lab)]

May I support your thanks to Terry Wiggins, Mr Speaker? He has been a great servant of this House and is a lovely bloke.

The Conservative complaints about support for farmers are a bit lame. Has the Secretary of State had the opportunity yet to work out why there was an underspend of over £100 million in the agricultural budget last year?

[Steve Reed]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. Opposition Members are asking me today about budget decisions that they know cannot be announced before the Budget, when presumably they are aware—because the statement has been laid—that they underspent the previous budget to the tune of £130 million. It is not that they were not warned about this either, because while we were in opposition we were making points, as were farmers, about underspends and the desperate need to get that money back out to the farmers who needed access to it. We will review the situation, find out exactly what went wrong and publish that information as soon as it is available.