Farming: Financial Sustainability

Debate between Robbie Moore and Greg Smith

Wednesday 24th June 2026 Westminster Hall

[Robbie Moore (Keighley and Ilkley) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Turner. I thank the hon. Member for North Northumberland (David Smith) for securing this important debate.

I welcome the Minister to his place. His natural passion and enthusiasm for this vital sector is evident in the zero parliamentary mentions he made of farming prior to his appointment, despite his having been elected in 2017. Nevertheless, I wish him all the best. For the good of the sector, I hope that he gets out and engages with the farming community more than his predecessor, the hon. Member for Wallasey (Dame Angela Eagle).

This debate is about financial sustainability for the farming sector. Over the past two years, this Labour Government have continually pulled the rug out from under our farmers. We have had the sudden and unannounced closure of the SFI scheme, the rapid acceleration of delinked payments, the introduction of the family farm and family business tax, the jobs tax and, soon, the fertiliser tax. The result? Record farm closures under this Labour Government, and greater food insecurity than we have seen before.

Our farmers are fed up, worried and increasingly concerned about the future of their farming businesses and their livelihoods. I know that because, unlike the Government, the shadow DEFRA team and I have been out and about, travelling up and down the country, attending agricultural shows and speaking to farmers across the United Kingdom. We have been to the Royal Highland Show, the Royal Cornwall Show, the Royal Cheshire Show, the Lincolnshire Show, the Essex Country Show, the Balmoral Show in Belfast, and Cereals—just to name a few. The locations may vary, but the same theme comes out again and again: devastating cash flow challenges as a result of the fiscal decisions made by this Labour Government.

Unlike in other professions, income from agriculture can be volatile. Farm businesses are price takers, and the determinants of the prices they receive are out of their control. By the time the crops or livestock reach the market, prices may have dropped, but goods must be sold anyway. Income schemes such as the SFI are so important—but not in the Government’s eyes, with their chop-and-change approach. Under this Government, the schemes are not providing any reassurance or support to the majority of farmers. Last year, the Government closed applications for the SFI scheme with no warning, and yet again they have announced a budget that does not meet farmers’ requirements.

[Greg Smith (Mid Buckinghamshire) (Con)]

Would my hon. Friend agree that another uncertainty is coming down the path? The Climate Change Committee is asking farmers to reduce livestock numbers by up to 40%. That would devastate and make unviable so many farms—complete madness.

Digital ID

Debate between Robbie Moore and Greg Smith

Monday 8th December 2025 Westminster Hall

[Robbie Moore]

I absolutely agree that digital exclusion is a reality for all.

I ask everyone in this place and those watching at home, no matter their political persuasion, to imagine their worst ever Government: the one that keeps them awake at night and that they would march against in the streets. For many, I am sure that that will be this Government, but for some it may have been previous Governments. This single piece of digital infrastructure will hand that Government, whoever they may be, the key to our life. Once that digital infrastructure is set up, we cannot go back. Once digital ID comes into force, no political party can promise that its intentions will stay good forever. Put simply, an ID card gives the state permanent control, and I say no.

The slippery slope argument is so common in debates about civil liberties that it is almost a cliché, but once the digital identities infrastructure is in place, it will become so much harder for a well-meaning Minister to resist the idea that they can fix areas of public policy by tracking and controlling, at an ever finer level, how a population behaves.

[Greg Smith (Mid Buckinghamshire) (Con)]

We have a Government who could not even keep their own Budget under wraps. What hope do they have with our personal data?

[Robbie Moore]

That is exactly what a constituent of mine emailed me about—a constituent who voted Labour in 2024. They said, “If they can’t even control the leakage from the Government, how on earth can they control our data?”

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Robbie Moore and Greg Smith

Thursday 7th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)]

Research shows that PM_2.5 can be 3% to 8% higher in electric versions of heavier applications, such as buses and trucks, than in their internal combustion engine equivalents. Does my hon. Friend agree that, in order to get clean air and cut down PM_2.5, we need an eclectic future that embraces all technology and our great innovators, not just battery-electric?

[Robbie Moore]

As I have said, I will always welcome innovation when it comes to improving air quality, not only in transport but in the implications of industry and commercial operators. It is clear that, through the Environment Act 2021, the Government introduced the legally binding targets to reduce PM_2.5. We have a set goal to reduce exposure to PM_2.5 by 35% by 2040.

Local Authority Boundaries (Referendums) Bill

Debate between Robbie Moore and Greg Smith

Friday 24th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Robbie Moore (Keighley) (Con)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

As I have said in this place many times before, local representation matters. Individuals and communities need to have trust in their local authority, which is charged with acting in their best interest, regardless of which political party may be in charge at a local level. Residents need to be reassured that the framework, the model, the structure and indeed the geographical area that they are represented within has a local authority that has not only the capability, but the capacity to act in their best interest.

My Local Authority Boundaries (Referendums) Bill aims to re-empower local communities that feel completely disenfranchised and forgotten about by their local authority. I am lucky enough to be presenting this Bill to the House once again on its Second Reading, and why? I think it so very important that local people living within a community feel and know that their local authority has their best interests at heart, and residents know that through its actions and how it delivers the services it undertakes for them.

Let us not forget that local authorities have perhaps more influence on an individual’s or a family’s day-to-day life than any other level of government. We all know as MPs the weight of our postbags and the vast number of emails we all receive that strongly relate to local government issues, whether that be sorting out highways or potholes, putting in speed cameras or dealing with local planning policy, housing, schools, children’s services, adult services, bin collections, leisure centres, libraries, regeneration or driving local economic growth.

[Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)]

That was a powerful list of service areas that local authorities deliver for the good of all our constituents. Does my hon. Friend agree that within the spirit of what he is presenting, the boundaries question needs to go beyond local authorities and into other public sector bodies, such as integrated care boards, where our experience in Buckinghamshire, having been segregated from Milton Keynes, makes no sense whatever?

[Robbie Moore]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. We do not live within boundaries, so to speak, we live within communities, and that is why it is important not only that the local authority is best representing the community in which one lives, but that other organisations are, too, as he mentioned.