British Meat and Dairy Products

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Wednesday 28th April 2021 Westminster Hall

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (in the Chair)]

I remind Members that there have been some changes in practice in order to support the new hybrid arrangements. Timings of debates have been amended to allow technical arrangements to be made for the next debate. There will also be suspensions between each debate. I remind Members participating physically and virtually that they must arrive for the start of the debate, and Members are expected to remain for the entire debate.

I must also remind Members participating virtually that they are visible at all times, both to each other and to us in the Boothroyd Room. If Members attending virtually have any technical problems, they should email the Westminster Hall Clerks’ email address. Members attending physically should clean their spaces before they use them and as they leave the room. I also remind Members that Mr Speaker has stated that masks should be worn.

Members attending physically who are in the later stages of the call list should use the seats in the public gallery and move on to the horseshoe when seats become available, but please sit where there are microphones functioning.

[Selaine Saxby (North Devon) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered British meat and dairy products.

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Ghani. I am grateful to have secured this important debate at a time when there appears to be a growing disjoint between media coverage of farming and the reality of those of us who live among it. I hope as a baseline we can all agree that in order to survive we need to eat. In this country, we are fortunate that generally we can choose what we eat and where we buy it, albeit with factors such as price, availability and, especially, concern for the environment influencing our decisions.

Historically, there was far less choice in the food we consumed and our reliance on home-grown produce was significantly greater than it is today. If the pandemic has taught us one thing it is that it is good to be able to produce at home what we need, and we all need to eat. As a former fitness instructor, I know well how a healthy and nutritious diet is vital to ensuring that the body has the nutrients it needs not just to survive but to thrive. Those needs change at different points in our lives and according to our activity levels. If we are going to tackle climate change in a meaningful way, healthy bodies with healthy minds are best equipped to do that.

I am fortunate to represent North Devon, home to 475 NFU members, including 95 dairy farmers and 323 livestock farmers. I do not need to go far to find delicious, nutritious British food that comes from environmentally responsible sources. British meat and dairy are produced to some of the highest environmental and welfare standards in the world. Buying local can reduce the environmental footprint of our supply chains and incentivise sustainable farming. To take one example, according to the Government’s Climate Change Committee, greenhouse gas emissions from UK beef are about half the global average.

Since covid started, many of us have begun shopping more locally, and our local farmers have adapted and innovated to help their communities through the pandemic. In Croyde, in my constituency, the Heywood family have adapted their North Hole organic milk farm to sell through a vending machine to their local community. The milk is delicious and the vending-machine experience is a great way to link locals to their farm. Watching the fully robotic milking parlour is also an incredible experience. Those organic cows have a great life and their milk is highly nutritious. Dairy products contain high-quality protein, calcium, B vitamins, iodine and potassium. Dairy foods, such as milk, cheese and yogurt, are vital to bone health. Importantly, the greenhouse gas footprint of UK milk production is just 40% of the global average. There are 278 million dairy cows worldwide. If they were all as efficient as UK dairy cows, we would need only 76 million of them to produce the same amount of milk.

This week is Great British Beef Week, which this year is focused on recognising and highlighting British beef farmers and the work they do to support sustainable practices on their farms. Red meat is one of the richest sources of essential nutrients, such as iron, zinc and B vitamins, and a great protein source. It is also much lower in fat than it was 20 years ago. My local NFU chair, Daniel Balment, is the third generation on his beef and sheep farm near Brayford. Daniel maximises the grass that the farm grows well to convert to protein, as 65% of farmland in the UK is best suited to growing grass, rather than other crops. The UK climate is ideal for growing grass. Other crops could not be grown for food on many farms. That has to be factored in to maximising the output of our land.

Farmers have always been custodians of the countryside, and the Agriculture Act 2020 is potentially the biggest victory for nature and farming in a generation. Under the framework of public money for public goods, farmers will be paid according to the benefits they provide to the public—mostly environmental improvements—rather than on how much land they farm. Our British farmers are already committed to reducing their emissions and reaching net zero ahead of the Government’s 2050 deadline. This policy will go a long way towards supporting them.

Livestock provides us with healthy, fertile soil, beautiful landscapes—as my North Devon constituency is testament to—efficient water use, carbon sequestration, and unique, biodiverse wildlife habitats. The suggestion that reducing meat and dairy consumption is a solution to climate change is an oversimplification. As I said earlier, we all have to eat, and in general we choose what we eat. Much of the food on our supermarket shelves has travelled thousands of miles to get there and is not produced to as high a standard as it would be here in Great Britain. Many non-dairy or meat-free alternatives are shipped across the world to reach us, are less nutritious with less protein, are higher in saturated fat and are nowhere near as good for the environment as British meat and dairy. For example, products such as almond milk require 20 times more blue water—water from the normal water supply—than British dairy milk, which is much more reliant on green water from natural rainfall.

When choosing what to put in our shopping baskets—[Interruption.]

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (in the Chair)]

Order. The sitting is suspended for 15 minutes for a Division in the House.

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On resuming—

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (in the Chair)]

The sitting will continue until 4.08 pm.

[Selaine Saxby]

As I was saying, many non-dairy or meat-free alternatives are shipped across the world to reach us, and are nowhere near as good for the environment as British meat and dairy. Products such as almond milk require 20 times more blue water—from normal water supply—than British dairy milk, which is more reliant on green water, from natural rainfall. When choosing what to put in our shopping basket, we should look for the Red Tractor—the symbol of British farming. Buying locally and seasonally not only might give people a much better diet but will do significantly more to reduce emissions compared with the alternatives. We can all do our bit to work towards net zero, by buying local British produce to support our great British farmers.

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[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby) on setting the scene so well and giving us all an opportunity to participate. I am tempted to use a pun and say that I am pleased to have the opportunity to sow into the debate. I declare an interest as a member of the Ulster Farmers Union and as a landowner.

My constituency is a strong farming community, and all my neighbours are involved in the milk, sheep and other sectors of the farming industry. One of the major employers is a Lakeland Dairies factory. I am acutely aware of the challenges facing the sector. The fact that Northern Ireland faces additional challenges because of the insidious Northern Ireland protocol makes life on our side of the sea that wee bit more difficult. The hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) mentioned that, and I am sure that other Members will. I must again highlight the need for the triggering of article 16 and an end to the hard border in the Irish sea. That would definitely do away with all the problems that we face at present.

I am part of the movement that believes we can and must do better with the stewardship of our environment. However, there are few who know more about cause and effect in the environment than the farmers who live it every day. I want to speak for the farmer, the person who looks after and manages the land—who lives on and loves the land, and whose very blood is in the land he farms every day. We are increasingly coming across a movement that seeks to blame the farming industry for environmental issues throughout the world. What it claims is simply not the case. When the total 460 million tonnes of UK greenhouse gas emissions are broken down, cattle and sheep account for 5.7%. The whole of UK agriculture was responsible for 10% of the UK’s total emissions. When grassland sequestration is taken into account the figure for cattle and sheep drops to 3.7%. Let us look at the reality of the stats. The farmer is clearly not to blame. It is time to work with the farming sector. I know that the Minister does that every day of her life and we represent those areas in dealing with the farmers in our constituencies, because we are there to support them.

The hon. Member for North Devon referred to figures on the efficiency of the dairy sector. They tell us all about how well the British farmer does his job. Our farmers know their responsibility, and they live it daily. I want to speak for the farmers in my constituency, and those elsewhere, and commend them for their industrious endeavours.

I read an interesting snippet in the National Farmers Union briefing. It was a statement by Dr Trevor Dines, a botanical specialist at Plantlife, on the publication of Plantlife research:

“Early succession habitats like hay meadows and permanent pastures, grazed by the right amount of livestock at the right time, can support an astonishing 770 species of wild flower and are crucibles of biodiversity.”

Wow—that is something for people to take the time to listen to, and I hope they will. It continued:



“Nearly 1,400 species of pollinators and other insects rely on species-rich grassland for their survival and they, in turn, support a myriad of bird and animal life. Re-creation of these open habitats must be seen as a priority as urgent as planting trees.”

That is what farmers say and what they and landlords do every day of their lives—365 days a year.

I chair the all-party parliamentary group for eggs, pigs and poultry, and the British Egg Industry Council set up a petition on change.org, to which there have been some 20,000 signatures. Supermarkets should use British eggs for foods made in Britain and stop importing eggs. Research shows that, although consumers put their trust in British supermarkets to sell safe products and be transparent about their sourcing, supermarkets continue to use a significant number of imported eggs in pre-prepared foods. I think it is time that we all bought British Lion eggs. I am old enough to remember that advert on TV—“Go to work on an egg”. Well, every day of my life, I go to work on two eggs. Seven days a week, I have two eggs for my breakfast. Incidentally, I have noticed in the Members’ Tea Room that many others in this House do too.

A survey of 3,000 British shoppers on their attitudes towards the use of eggs and egg ingredients by major retailers showed overwhelming support for the increased use of British eggs. That is why I am backing British farming, which has never been so important. The British egg industry is worth over £1.07 billion per year, and employs 23,000 people both directly and indirectly.

I will conclude on this Ms Ghani; you have been very kind to me. We need to keep this vibrant industry vibrant, and we in this House have a role to play, not in enforcing unattainable goals, but in supporting and rewarding best practice, which is standard practice in farms in every corner of my constituency, and indeed in every constituency throughout this great United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (in the Chair)]

To get all the speakers in, I will have to enforce a time limit of under four minutes.

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[Cherilyn Mackrory (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Ghani, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby) for having secured this afternoon’s debate. As the MP for Truro and Falmouth in Cornwall, it is unsurprising that farming plays a huge role for people in my constituency, and this is a great opportunity to stand up for our many hard-working farmers, farm workers and local supply chains.

It is not surprising that the English MPs in the room this afternoon are mostly south-west and west country MPs. The National Farmers’ Union states that the south-west’s livestock farms account for almost a third of all the dairy and beef farms in England, and over a fifth of all the sheep and lamb. British red meat and dairy has a great story to tell, and farmers can be very proud of having some of the highest welfare and environmental sustainability standards in the world. What is better to eat than Cornish cattle that has been grazing in the sea air on beautiful pastureland, making wonderful beef, clotted cream, and beautiful Cornish ice cream in Callestick, for example, near Perranporth in my constituency?

The UK has the fifth lowest use of on-farm antibiotics across the 31 European countries, beaten only by the Nordic countries, and that is due to their climate of cold and dry weather, which stops the bacteria from breeding and therefore reduces the demand for antibiotics. The amount of antibiotics used on UK farms reduced by 53% between 2014 and 2018. We really are leading the world in how we look after our animals, and in our welfare standards. A number of steps are being taken on farms that are done in the best interests of the animals, and are in line with expert advice and veterinary guidance. I also congratulate the UK meat and dairy industry on its work on tackling emissions—we have heard from various Members this afternoon how we have been doing that. British beef and lamb are among the most efficient and sustainable in the world, due to our extensive grass-based systems.

Livestock plays a key role in maintenance, as we have been hearing, and in the enhancement of wildlife habitats. Biodiversity would suffer hugely if the UK population became vegetarian and gave up meat. There are several examples of where livestock is critical to the life cycle of wildlife: for instance, the large blue butterfly, which breeds in warm and well-drained grassland. Livestock plays a key role in producing the suitable habitat through grazing, and if we gave up meat, suddenly that would not happen at all.

I am always encouraged when shoppers look to buy local, sustainably produced meat and dairy products, and most retailers are now increasingly sourcing British products to meet this demand. The UK is around 85% self-sufficient in dairy production, as we have heard, and 75% self-sufficient in beef production. Significantly, more than 11,000 dairy farmers and more than 23,600 beef and sheep producers in the UK are members of the Red Tractor scheme, and when shoppers buy British red meat and dairy products carrying the Red Tractor logo, they can be confident that those products are produced to world-leading environmental and animal welfare standards for the whole length of the food chain, from farm to packet. The supermarkets are starting to move in the right direction. We have a huge number of farm shops in Cornwall, of which I would like to mention a few in my constituency: Cusgarne near Truro, Curgurrell near Portscatho, and Trudgian in Probus. Not only do they buy local meat, so people can literally see the animals grazing in the fields before they buy meat for their family to consume; they also support smaller producers.

The Minister will not be surprised that I am making a call to ensure that the same encouragement and clout from Government goes into buying British fish—she knew I was going to say that. This has been a very difficult time for Cornish farmers and fishermen, who rely on their local outlets as well as on the supermarkets. Another hon. Member spoke about supermarket price points; it is really important that farmers and fishermen make a good living out of this. I am not—

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (in the Chair)]

Order. You have gone over your time limit; forgive me, but we have to move on.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Ms Ghani. I congratulate my colleague and fellow south-west Great British Beef Week love-in leader, my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby). I speak not as a rural MP standing up for his constituent farmers, but as an urban representative for the city of Gloucester and its 100,000 consumers, and as the Prime Minister’s trade envoy for much of south-east Asia and its regional organisation, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. The two things come together very well.

I relate strongly to my hon. Friend’s calls to buy local. There can be no argument at all, at least among the six Gloucestershire MPs, that the finest beef is from Gloucester cattle—just as Single Gloucester cheese, made only from Gloucester cows, is one of our great cheeses. At this time of year, as all colleagues will know, a great round Single Gloucester cheese is normally to be found rolling down the steepest stopes of Coopers Edge in the great, globally renowned cheese-rolling competition pursued by 100-odd enthusiasts or lunatics. So yes, let us buy local and buy quality.

Let me focus on the export of British beef to south-east Asia in general and Indonesia in particular. Demand in Indonesia—a nation of 270 million people, predominantly Muslims—is growing by 7% a year, and 70% of the roughly £650 million-a-year market is imports, mostly from Australia and India, so there is an opportunity for us, but there are four questions. First, is there potential Indonesian demand for British beef? Secondly, is there potential export capacity here? Thirdly, is our halal certification process compatible with Indonesia’s legislation and approval process? Fourthly, is halal beef a sector that we want to pursue with other potential markets in Malaysia and the middle east? If that is all possible, we have an opportunity. We may need to pursue a free trade agreement to make our prices competitive with friendly Australian and Kiwi farmers.

As so often, these questions cross departmental boundaries, but the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Department for International Trade have worked closely on many issues. Today, in Great British Beef Week, I look forward to hearing the view of our excellent Minister on whether the enthusiasm and capacity of our farmers for halal beef exports are strong, and whether we can resolve the certification question.

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (in the Chair)]

Thank you, Mr Graham —that was mouth-watering.