Oral Answers to Questions

Nick Smith Excerpts

Thursday 2nd March 2017 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice]

My hon. Friend makes an incredibly important point. Wight Marque celebrates the Isle of Wight’s brilliant range of food, from locally produced milk to a vast array of fruit and veg. It is a great example of how a little public money and the support of partners can really celebrate the provenance of our local food.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

Farmers are facing a critical shortage of seasonal labour, and some are afraid that our food will rot in the ground this year. The Government have been asked to reverse their decision to scrap the seasonal agricultural workers scheme, and Ministers say that they are reviewing the issue, but can a decision please be made as a matter of urgency?

[George Eustice]

While we remain members of the EU, we still have free movement, and fruit farms and farmers can still source their labour from countries such as Romania and Bulgaria. We are aware that some have raised concerns about agricultural labour after we leave the EU, and we are listening carefully to their representations.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nick Smith Excerpts

Thursday 13th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. Lots of farmers have been affected by the challenges we face in this first year of the new, more complex common agricultural policy scheme. A number of farmers —several thousand—had to go through a reconciliation process where we had to match some of the land-use codes they had with the land maps, which caused some complexity. I believe that the issue has now been resolved, but if she has any specific cases that are still a problem I am happy to meet her to discuss them.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

Given the recent discovery of a livestock strain of MRSA in British meat products in UK supermarkets, what action is the Secretary of State’s Department taking to stop the emergence of resistant bacteria? Will she increase support to UK farmers on the use of antibiotics in meat production, to address real concerns about food safety and exports?

Oral Answers to Questions

Nick Smith Excerpts

Thursday 7th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call Nick Smith.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

Cheers, Mr Speaker. [Laughter.] I am glad that the food unit is showing success. However, while the Secretary of State boasts about her support for British food, DEFRA headquarters sources almost half its food from overseas, and other Departments are falling even further behind. Why is DEFRA not ensuring that Departments back our great British food?

[Elizabeth Truss]

We absolutely are ensuring that Departments are backing British food. For example, more than 90% of the dairy products sourced by the Government come from the United Kingdom. There are, of course, some products, such as coffee, that we cannot yet produce in the UK, although now that we are able to produce our own aubergines, tomatoes and chillies, I am sure we are not far away from that.

Tenant Farming

Nick Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 10th May 2016 Westminster Hall

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I thank the hon. Member for Wealden (Nusrat Ghani) for her strong introduction to the debate. I also thank colleagues who have intervened and made contributions. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) spoke powerfully on tenant farmers in Ulster, and the hon. Member for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach) emphasised the difficulty of high levels of rent for farmers, particularly in the north-west.

Tenant farmers are often the ties that bind together agriculture in the UK. They deserve peace of mind and security so that they can make their living in a fair and environmentally sustainable way. It is vital that the Government take a long, hard look at the relationship between landlord and tenant. With their upcoming 25-year plan, they could either usher in a new era for tenant farming or leave too many high and dry.

I appreciate the strong views of the Tenant Farmers Association and its campaign. It is rightly defending its members from abuse from landowners and from uncertain futures. I equally note the Country Land and Business Association’s position that some of the ideas suggested to protect tenant farmers may lead to reduced land stock. That is why the Government’s food and farming plan is so important. They must gather the evidence needed and bring in the right measures to make the tenant-landlord relationship a positive one.

The Farming Minister has said that longer tenancies for farming businesses are important to provide security, investment and growth. Will he tell us what the 25-year plan will do to help tenant farmers and landlords? For instance, county council farm estates are an increasingly painful issue for tenant farmers which the Government need to address. Herefordshire Council has become the latest to sell off its estates—land that provided a good entry point for young farmers. Unfortunately, the council has committed to selling that land, evicting 42 tenants in the process. The Landworkers’ Alliance said in April that 219 farms had been sold by councils since 2010. As the Farming Minister described those sales as a tragedy, will he detail what long-term steps the Government are taking to support and protect those vital estates and their tenants?

Another area the Government need to protect is the environment and the role of the tenant farmer as a steward. Farmers incentivised to invest will work on better land and choose long-term health over short-term gain. That is why I was pleased to see a statutory instrument passed recently that widened compensation for tenant farmers for soil improvements. If we recognise that good stewardship is bolstered by secure tenancy, why has DEFRA separated its plans for the environment from its food and farming strategy? Will the Minister assure us that those plans will be closely integrated in what the Department hopes to achieve?

One such mechanism for the good care of land is the much trumpeted countryside stewardship scheme, yet last year’s effort was branded “not fit for purpose”, with farmers complaining about large amounts of bureaucracy and an IT system that failed to deliver. Only 2,314 applications were made, but 8,000 had been expected. The Government say they have made efforts to make the scheme more attractive and workable this year, but those measures will count for nothing if there is not a vastly improved take-up. Will the Minister give us an early indication of expected take-up for the scheme and whether it will match last year’s target?

Tenant farmers need peace of mind and land tenure that helps them build their business. They need county councils that work with the TFA and the NFU to develop an estates strategy that helps young farmers get a head start. Finally, they need a Government who deliver on their promise of a countryside stewardship programme that works.

UK Dairy Sector

Nick Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 20th April 2016 Westminster Hall

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr Williams) for introducing the debate and the many colleagues who have intervened and made contributions this afternoon. Time is short, so I cannot mention everyone, but the hon. Gentleman certainly gave a great cri de coeur for dairy farmers throughout the country, as well as for the steel industry in Wales—I thank him for that.

With the global market in flux and farm-gate prices on the floor, the UK dairy industry is in danger. Some farmers are being paid less than the cost of producing the milk, which is unsustainable. Only last month, thousands of proud farmers felt that they had no other choice but to march on Whitehall and ask for change and for support. The Government must listen to that call. Bodies such as Dairy UK are saying there are no quick fixes, although the Government recognise that a package of support is needed to help save the industry from collapse. However, despite promising much in the face of pressure from the industry, there is still no sign of respite.

The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee report listed many recommendations that I hope the Government will make good on. It talked about a futures market for dairy. Will the Minister make it clear when such a market will be established properly?

The British public have consistently proven that they back a “buy British” principle, but dairy in the UK still lacks country of origin labelling. The Farming Minister has been unable to get the EU to bring that forward, despite the EU approving similar branding on a vast swathe of other products. Meanwhile, he has written to supermarkets to encourage them to display the British flag on British dairy products. That code, however, is voluntary.

On exports, sector leaders such as Dairy UK have called for the development of new markets where we can showcase the quality of British products. It looks as if there may be good news on red meat and the USA this week, but will the Minister detail the results of talks with other countries about their importing our dairy products? All such suggestions are long-term goals, and that is understood, but where is the progress on those key issues?

The NFU and farmers have joined Labour in calling for the Groceries Code Adjudicator’s powers to be toughened up. The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee has published a report calling on the Government to consider extending the GCA’s remit. The Committee wants it to incorporate both direct and indirect suppliers. Will the Minister confirm that those concerns will be taken into account when the GCA is reviewed later this year?

[Jonathan Edwards]

As the hon. Gentleman is aware, in Wales many of the powers relating to Government intervention are devolved and, to date, the Welsh Government have decided to pursue a voluntary code of practice in this sector. Does he agree that it is about time that the Welsh Government began to look at statutory intervention, and not just leave it on a voluntary basis?

[Nick Smith]

That may be helpful and I certainly think it is worth looking at.

The problem of delayed payments has come up too, with the high-profile failure of the Rural Payments Agency system this year. That money is a vital lifeline, given the struggles in the dairy marketplace, yet a Public Accounts Committee report revealed a payments fiasco. The Government must accept their part in a failing IT project that may have landed us with a £180 million annual fine from the EU. Money that could have gone to British agriculture will now be thrown away. The NFU says that that the RPA should be making 90% of payments by the end of December each year. Will the Minister give assurances that that target will be met in future years?

Finally, I welcome the deep analysis done by the NFU on the implications of a UK exit from the EU. The analysis showed that every Brexit scenario resulted in a large drop in income for farmers. Will the Minister join me in recognising that for dairy farmers, staying in the EU is vital for the trade and support that it provides to the industry?

[Simon Hoare]

The situation is worse than the hon. Gentleman seems to suggest. Right hon. colleagues on my side of the House—although not on my side of the European debate—told us last week that all the money we spend on the EU would be spent on the national health service. My reading of that was that that equals no subsidy and no support to agriculture anywhere in the United Kingdom.

[Nick Smith]

I need to move on to allow the Minister to come back on the problems and issues that colleagues around the Chamber have raised.

The UK Government have recently failed to support an important EU funding stream for our dairy industries, so I would like the Minister’s response on that issue.

In conclusion, the Government must make good their promises on a futures market for dairy and country-of-origin labelling, give a proper boost for British dairy exports and put the RPA on track. They must speak with one voice about the value of the single market and the value of EU funding for British dairy farmers.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nick Smith Excerpts

Thursday 17th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

I compliment my hon. Friend on his teeth. We have been working hard on Government procurement. One hundred per cent. of the milk that Government Departments buy is British, as well as 98% of the butter and 86% of the cheese. I am pleased to inform the House that, from April this year, all 30 million cartons of milk supplied to Her Majesty’s Prison Service will be British.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

Derbyshire authorities found that 60% of takeaway ham and cheese pizzas contained neither ham nor cheese. To protect public health and give confidence in the food we eat, when will the much trumpeted but little seen food crime unit be given the teeth it deserves?

[Elizabeth Truss]

The food crime unit has been established as per our commitment and is operational. I am sure it will be looking into cases such as that one.

Bat Habitats Regulation (No. 2) Bill

Nick Smith Excerpts

Friday 5th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

I associate myself with the Speaker’s remarks earlier following the sad death of Harry Harpham, the MP for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough. Like many colliers, Harry carried himself with strength and dignity, and we will miss him greatly.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) on the selection of his Bill today. Bat numbers have been in a downward spiral over the last century. The loss of roosting sites and insects from pesticide use sent the bat population into a sharp decline. The habitats directive was an important mechanism aimed at halting this decline, and I am pleased to say that as a result bat numbers have stabilised and even increased in recent years. That is down to the hard work of the public, private and voluntary organisations involved in bat conservation. Together, they have ensured the directive’s success.

Dark, quiet buildings are a natural roosting spot for bats, and it is true that churches are a target. A nationwide survey concluded that one in six contained bats. It also concluded, however, that the number of bats was small and that congregations might not even be aware of their presence. Indeed, a separate survey by the Bat Conservation Trust showed that only 12% of churches expressed any concern about their presence. Having said that, urine and droppings can create problems, and in large quantities, they can make a church unpleasant to use and damage historic fabric.

The Bill, however, ignores the many measures being taken by organisations such as English Heritage and the National Churches Trust to help mitigate these issues. Plenty of advice is available on how to manage buildings, including churches, that contain bats. Most of this is offered free of charge and can even involve visits to affected areas. Indeed, if this requires a monetary contribution, public and non-governmental organisations can fund it for important sites. Furthermore, a Heritage Lottery Fund bid is currently being prepared by a partnership that includes the Church of England, Historic England and the BCT. The hon. Gentleman mentioned that earlier, and I hope, like him, that it is brought forward soon. Those actions are to be applauded and are an example of the system supporting itself without the need to remove vital protections.

In conclusion, there is no reason to water down the important legal protections for bats, and I urge the House to reject the Bill.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nick Smith Excerpts

Thursday 4th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice]

I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart), the floods Minister, has heard what the hon. Gentleman has said, and will be willing to meet him to discuss his concerns. My hon. Friend has already had many meetings with the many Members who have been affected by winter floods.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State says that DEFRA wants to be able to spend more on flood defences by reducing the millions paid in penalties to the EU every year. However, the National Audit Office says that the Rural Payments Agency fiasco could cost the country a whopping £180 million a year in penalties. Can the Minister confirm the most recent estimate of the amounts that are being paid to Brussels in fines, rather than being spent on British agriculture and dealing with flooding?

[George Eustice]

The “horizontal” regulation that governs the disallowance system has been changed, and the penalties that the Commission can charge, and their frequency, have increased. That is the issue of concern in this instance, rather than any particular issues involving the rural payments system. I repeat that we are spending £2.3 billion a year on flood defences, and have provided £200 million to help people to get back on their feet after the most recent episode.

Basic Payment Scheme

Nick Smith Excerpts

Thursday 28th January 2016 Westminster Hall

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. I thank the hon. Member for Wells (James Heappey) for securing the debate, and I also thank colleagues who have intervened and made contributions.

We have just heard a farmer’s deep lament, and the Minister has been pursued across these green fields today by his Back Benchers. The basic payment scheme is a bedrock of our agricultural industry. About 87,000 farmers and businesses depend on the payment to balance the books, to ensure workers are paid and to keep the bills from piling up. It is an important income when farm gate prices are low.

The Government wheeled out a new IT system to handle the payments for 2015—a system they were so confident in, it was hailed as a “digital exemplar”. Instead, it is a failed system that has cost the taxpayer millions, threatened us with hundreds of millions in penalty payments for years to come and put the livelihoods of many hard-working families at risk.

I have been talking to farmers since the Rural Payments Agency started making payments last autumn. They are worried and face mounting bills while they wait for money that the RPA refuses to give them a meaningful deadline for. How have the Government responded? They have been telling farmers to take out bank loans for which they will put in a good word—clearly a case of double standards, from a Government who were previously very keen to talk about paying off the credit card. One family farmer, who admitted to me that their bank overdraft was teetering at the edge of its current limit because of the lack of payment, put it like this:

“I believe that through no fault of their own, farmers deserve better.”

That is a powerful and sobering message.

Farmers do not deserve an IT system, designed to give them peace of mind, that stalls in such a spectacular fashion. The latest National Audit Office report was damning about a project that spiralled £60 million over budget; saw four leaders of the flagship system in just 12 months, with too many changes in direction; and saw top management embroiled in deep rifts that put stress on staff and led to childish squabbles and confrontations. The system failed so badly that pen and paper applications had to be introduced at the last minute. When I challenged the Minister at the Dispatch Box on why his Department had not got a grip, he talked up its intervention after the IT failure.

Staff have been working tirelessly since March to get applications finalised. Their Stakhanovite, round-the-clock efforts should be commended, but my question is simple: why did key Ministers not intervene sooner still to make sure that this IT project worked, so that the whole sorry debacle was avoided?

Farmers are paying for these mistakes, but all of us may soon be doing the same if the situation results in penalty payments to the EU. The Financial Times reported this week that Britain is facing £180 million worth of fines a year over failure by the RPA. The Secretary of State told the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs this week that one of DEFRA’s major savings could be to reduce those penalties in future. It intends, as the Secretary of State said, to

“stop paying out money in fines that we could be putting into farms, environmental stewardship and flood defences.”

To test that point, with DEFRA budgets being slashed, does the Minister have an estimate of the amount of disallowance that will be paid as a result of this year’s failings?

In the short term, however, the Department must concentrate on ensuring that farmers get the money that they need as soon as possible. The farmers I have spoken to echo the NFU’s concern that there is a “fog of confusion” about when farmers will now receive their money. When I and colleagues warned the Government that thousands might be left without their basic payment for months, we were confidently told—I have heard this phrase already this afternoon—that the “vast majority” of payments would be made by the end of January. I am sorry to say that unless the Minister has much better news for us this afternoon, the “vast majority” target set by his boss has been missed by some margin.

In recent weeks, I wrote to the RPA chief executive because I was concerned that the target could be a problem. Unfortunately, that concern has proved to be the case. In a letter from the RPA chief executive today, I found out that 61,300 of 87,000 farmers have received this vital payment; £850 million of the allocated total fund of £1.43 billion has been handed out. That means that just under a third of farmers will not have received their payment and that 40% of the money remains unpaid.

Farmers will feel rightly let down by DEFRA Ministers’ hyperbole. This will be a kick in the guts for many. To put it in context, 95% of farmers in last year’s scheme were paid on the first day possible. Will the Minister now put farmers’ minds at rest and say when the target of the “vast majority” of payments will be reached? Can he put a firm figure on what a “vast majority” even is?

The new basic payment scheme IT system has been useless. Consequently, increased payments to Brussels look inevitable. Many farmers have been let down, so who is going to take responsibility for this sorry tale?

--- Later in debate ---

[George Eustice]

Sorry, yes, I meant by the end of the month—I am sorry if I said by the end of March. We will have a final batch, which will take the figure probably above 75%, but it is not certain; that is still being worked on now.

We should highlight the fact that we worked quickly to get the dairy support fund out. It went out earlier than expected in the middle of November to help hard- pressed dairy farmers.

[Nick Smith]

I was just listening to the Minister’s comments. Will he confirm whether he thinks that the “vast majority” is 75% of farmers? Is that the definition he is using?

[George Eustice]

We could agonise over the definition of “vast majority”, but as far as I am concerned, “over 60,000” is a vast number of applications and a vast amount of work has gone into processing them.

We should recognise what has been done on the entry level and higher level stewardship schemes. Again, we had a difficult start because of the paper application process, but 97% of applicants have now had their first instalment and 60% have received their second instalment a month earlier than normal. We have made progress, but there is further to go.

Some people will ask why we cannot just pay and why things are so complicated. As the hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber said, there is a good reason for that. Under regulations and law, the EU requires certain inspections and verification to be carried out. The truth is that we tried to get the Commission to relax those requirements to enable us to expedite payments this year, but it refused. We cannot make those payments from the EU until those various checks and the validation of claims have been completed.

A number of hon. Members referred to communications. In November, we wrote to around 15,000 farmers whom we anticipated would not be paid by the end of January. The two primary groups are some 4,700 farmers with common land—I will come back to them—and around 9,000 farms that had inspections of one sort or another.

A number of hon. Members mentioned part-payments. We considered this, but we ruled it out and I will explain a couple of reasons why I think that we were right. Scotland has decided to make part-payments. It has 3,500 farmers and, according the latest figures I have seen, around 18% of them had received a part-payment of 70%. Compare that with this country where 70% of farmers have received everything. That is a better position to be in. Had we taken a decision in November at the end of last year to start chopping and changing plans again and messing around to try to get part-payments out, even fewer farmers might have received them, never mind receiving full payment.

Agricultural Holdings Act 1986 (Variation of Schedule 8) (England) Order 2015

Nick Smith Excerpts

Monday 11th January 2016 General Committees

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms Buck. I thank the Minister for his speech.

This amendment to the Agricultural Holdings Act 1986 looks to widen the range of improvements for which an agricultural tenant can be paid compensation at the end of their tenancy. The order recognises the broader range of animals that can be kept on a farm, such as llamas and alpacas. It also recognises the value of manure and soil improvements applied to the land and provides compensation no matter how the improvements were obtained.

Labour broadly welcomes the order, as it ensures that tenants receive a fairer deal for their efforts on the land. In addition, any measure that encourages stronger stewardship and care in farming at all stages of the tenancy must be welcomed. Importantly, stakeholders have told me that they believe an uplift payment will be an incentive for tenant farmers to prioritise environmentally and socially responsible farming practice.

There has been a worry that, as tenancies wind down, farmland will be left to degrade. The order will help to address that problem. I will, however, note points that I hope the Minister can answer today.

I understand that the consultation on the proposals raised several concerns about the definition of “improvement” and whether that could be too broad a term and open to interpretation. For instance, a landlord may not think that an improvement to the land made by the tenant is an improvement at all, because it would not benefit any new tenants in the future. As arbitration can be an expensive process, can the Minister assure us that the Government will monitor the level of any disputes that arise as a result of the changes and, if there are many disputes about what an “improvement” is, act accordingly?

Finally, how will the Government work with the Tenancy Reform Industry Group—TRIG—to disseminate information about this change across the sector?