Future of Farming

Perran Moon Excerpts

Wednesday 4th December 2024 Westminster Hall

[Dr Neil Hudson (Epping Forest) (Con)]

Thank you, Sir Roger. It is a privilege to serve under your chairmanship. I commend the hon. Member for Upper Bann (Carla Lockhart) for securing this important, forward-looking debate, and for highlighting the challenges facing our farming communities—not least their mental health.

In Parliament today, we have had the biosecurity debate in this Chamber, which I spoke in, the family farm tax debate that has just concluded, and this current debate. Three debates related to farming in one day show how important these issues are to this House, to our constituents and to the farmers who feed us and look after our precious environment.

[Perran Moon (Camborne and Redruth) (Lab)]

Will the shadow Minister give way?

[Dr Hudson]

I will not give way, I am afraid.

Hon. Members will all be aware of the ongoing situation with bluetongue virus, avian influenza, bovine TB and other diseases, of threats from outside the UK, from African swine fever to foot and mouth disease, and of the challenges that they pose to our livestock farmers, our economy and our national security. As I said this morning in this Chamber, biosecurity is national security. While I note that the Government have chosen to allocate £208 million for the transformation of the Animal and Plant Health Agency HQ in Weybridge, I urge the Minister to make representations to the Treasury to ensure that that HQ is funded in full. In 2020, the previous Government rightly committed £1.2 billion to start that off, but now we need the further full £1.4 billion to complete that critical national security measure.

It is vital that we also make use of new technologies to further build our national resilience against livestock disease, and to protect human, animal and plant health. The Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Act 2023, brought in by the Conservative Government, will help with that, in terms of disease resistance in plants and animals, and climate-resilient crop development. Likewise, wider innovation in machinery, horticulture, farming practices and sustainability are all positive processes.

The elephant in the room today is family farm tax, and we cannot have a debate in which we do not include it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mary Creagh]

With any fiscal change, we look at the previous year’s figures to see what the impact will be. I am not going to get into the analysis around the figures—I want to make some progress. Those figures have been verified by our independent fiscal authority, the OBR.

We know that the current-use rules have been used by wealthy landowners to avoid inheritance tax, and currently the largest estates pay a lower inheritance tax than smaller estates. That is not fair or sustainable.

[Perran Moon]

Does the Minister agree that it falls to this Government, following the abject failure and economic incompetence of the previous Government, to deal with the rampant speculative acquisition of farmland by closing the tax loophole that has been exploited for too long, and that if the Conservatives really cared about the future of farming, there would be more than one Conservative MP here, with the exception of the shadow Minister and the Chair?

[Mary Creagh]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, which sets out why the Government are better targeting tax reliefs: to make them fairer and to protect the smallest family farms. We believe that that is a fair and balanced approach that safeguards small family farms, while also fixing the public services that farming families rely on. Those families will be able to pass the family farm down to their children just as previous generations have always done.

I will quickly make a couple of other points. The hon. Member for Upper Bann mentioned Bovaer, the feed additive. We know that agriculture is one of our largest emitting sectors, and we consider that methane-suppressing feed products are an essential tool in the decarbonisation of the agricultural sector. Bovaer was approved by the Food Standards Agency in April 2024 for use in the UK as a feed additive. The authorisation process assessed evidence about animal health, consumer health and environmental safety, and the evidence that was provided to demonstrate the methane reduction efficacy of the product. Bovaer is fully metabolised by the cow and is not present in milk or meat, so there is no consumer exposure to it. I hope that reassures her about Bovaer.

I will also discuss the carbon border adjustment mechanism, which was mentioned by the hon. Member for Chichester (Jess Brown-Fuller). Its introduction, including on imports of specific fertiliser products, was announced by the previous Government in December 2023, but it will not come into force until 2027. It is intended to address carbon leakage, which is the movement of production and emissions from one country to another due to different levels of decarbonisation effort. About 70% of UK agrifood imports come from the EU, and fertiliser used by EU farmers will have already faced a carbon price. Many non-EU imports cannot be produced in the UK, so the Treasury expects that the impact on UK farmers will be modest and that there will be no material impact on food prices.

On capital grants, we have seen an unprecedented demand, and we will continue to process the applications that have already been received and accept new applications for woodland tree health grants. Capital grant plans and management plans are important to help Countryside Stewardship Higher Tier arrangements, protection and—