Sheep Farming

Robin Swann Excerpts

Wednesday 4th September 2024 Westminster Hall

[Robin Swann (South Antrim) (UUP)]

I thank the hon. Member for Hexham (Joe Morris) for bringing forward this important debate. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) has already indicated the Northern Irish interest in this subject and the fact that, as a rough calculation, 20% of the contributors are from Northern Ireland. We value the input of our agricultural and farming sector not just in Northern Ireland but across the United Kingdom.

Before moving on to the substantive subject of the debate, I will pick up on a topic referenced by the hon. Member for North Northumberland (David Smith): the next generation of farmers. As a past president of the Young Farmers’ Club of Ulster, I know that ensuring opportunities has been a challenge in the farming sector across all parts of the United Kingdom, and even further afield. We must ensure that the next generation of farmers has the opportunity not just to take over ownership of a farm or follow on a family tradition, but to enter into a profitable, future-proofed industry where they are supported by the Government here and back home in Northern Ireland.

As the hon. Member for Strangford pointed out, agriculture is a devolved issue. I know that our Government back home have looked at a number of new entrant schemes relating to the various supports that are out there. Unlike England, Wales and most of Scotland, we do not have the challenge with tenancies, but we do with the passing of land from one generation to the next, and inheritance tax and all those other additional problems, so there are commonalities and solutions that the Government can bring as well.

The hon. Member for Strangford obviously got the same briefing on numbers for our sheep industry as I did from the Ulster Farmers’ Union. There are just short of 1 million breeding ewes and more than 2 million sheep, so we actually have more sheep than people in Northern Ireland; that has been a proven statistic in this debate. There are 9,669 sheep farmers currently registered and, as has already been referenced, the industry makes a £109 million contribution to our economy.

What is glaring and needs highlighting in this place, given that we have established the importance and the contribution of our sheep sector back home, is that the future agricultural policy of our Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs does not mention sheep at all. It is important that the message that we realise that comes from today’s debate, and that that message gets to our Minister back home as well.

A sheep taskforce was established back in 2022, representing members from the Ulster Farmers’ Union, Ulster Wool, the National Sheep Association, the Northern Ireland Agricultural Producers Association, the Livestock and Meat Commission and the Northern Ireland Meat Exporters’ Association. They took it upon themselves to establish a taskforce with a number of key aims and targets, because at that point we were once again without an Executive and an agriculture Minister to support our farmers and our industries.

The sheep taskforce has produced a robust, evidence-based report that highlights the stimulus programmes and opportunities for the vision and the future of the sheep sector. That is the task they have taken on, and they have set themselves a strategic vision for the Northern Ireland sheep industry of being

“a resilient, vibrant and sustainable industry that uses leading edge technologies to deliver safe high-quality meat and wool through increased productivity while adding value by increasing carbon sequestration, reducing greenhouse gas intensity, and enhancing landscape biodiversity while maintaining the mosaic landscape of our hills and uplands and securing social cohesion.”

All those topics have been raised not just by the hon. Member for Hexham but by all the contributors who have spoken today. However, the Northern Ireland sheep sector faces specific challenges that are not replicated across the rest of this United Kingdom, but in which the Minister and his Government can play a part.

Our agriculture and veterinary industries are currently seeing major challenges in the future-proofing of the supply of veterinary medicines into Northern Ireland because of the protocol. That matter has been raised not just by the farmers’ union and farmers but by the British Veterinary Association. Anyone around here who has farmed and worked with sheep knows about the importance of regular dosing for the gut worm and all the rest of it, so access to medicines and veterinary products is crucial to the sustainability and the future-proofing not just of our sheep sector but of our agricultural sector in Northern Ireland in general.

Another thing that is possibly within the Minister’s remit is the ability to move livestock—I know the topic today is sheep, but I also mention cattle—between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the additional bureaucracy and challenges that farmers face in moving pedigree animals back and forth between not just sales but shows. I have a constituent who was present today for Prime Minister’s questions and who is here for this debate, and he has raised an important issue. He has pedigree cattle in Scotland at this moment in time that he has not been able to bring home to Northern Ireland since October because of bluetongue and the restrictions that have applied in respect of moving livestock even within this United Kingdom. Will the Minister look into that and see whether something can be done?

I do not want to finish on the challenges or the negatives, given the contributions that have already been made and that will be made. We have to look to the potential and consider the future-proofing of our agricultural sector in the United Kingdom. It is what this country was built on, it is what this country is based on and it is what we are good at. We produce good-quality food that we should be able to look to as the safe and sustainable food supply for the people of the United Kingdom. I thank the hon. Member for Hexham for moving the motion and look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Allister (North Antrim) (TUV)]

I thank the hon. Member for Hexham (Joe Morris) for bringing this important matter to the Floor. As has been clear from the contributions from Northern Ireland, sheep farming is a significant but, sadly, poor relation of farming because the lowest farm incomes in the farming sector arise among sheep farmers. That is an indication of an indisputable fact: what is needed in Northern Ireland, and particularly in a constituency such as mine, which has a lot of sheep farmers, is a sheep support scheme.

In Northern Ireland, we do have a beef support scheme —it is called the beef carbon reduction scheme—and we have a separate cow scheme. Those contribute to environmental enhancements on what used to be the single farm payment, now the direct payment. But there is no scheme for sheep farmers, and that is a lamentable failure on the part of the local Department. It has been sitting on a taskforce recommendation since early last year and has failed to move on that matter. Not only is that failure to move doing nothing to increase incomes, but it is going to decrease them. From 2025, sheep farmers farming only sheep are set to lose 17% of their basic payment unless they change to include protein crops and cattle. For many, that is just not possible, so there is an urgent need for action.

[Robin Swann]

The hon. Member talks about sheep farmers in Northern Ireland looking enviously on at beef farmers in Northern Ireland, but he will be aware that they also get to look across the border, where the Republic of Ireland Government have introduced a sheep support scheme that pays up to €17 to €20 a head. That puts our farmers in Northern Ireland at a further disadvantage.

[Jim Allister]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, but it is actually worse than that. Yes, we can look across the border and see the advantage, but the problem is that, courtesy of the Windsor framework and the protocol, Northern Ireland farmers are subject to the same rules and regulations but none of the benefits. Members should never forget that the laws concerning farming in Northern Ireland are not made in this place or in Stormont; they are made in a foreign Parliament to which we elect no one. That is the ultimate constitutional absurdity of the Windsor framework: we have created a situation where, in more than 300 areas of law, the laws are foreign-imposed—colony-like—on Northern Ireland. The laws concerning the whole agrifood industry are made in Brussels, and that is an appalling constitutional and economic affront.

Because we are subject to the European veterinary regime, we now have a looming crisis: come 2025, our veterinary medicines, which are produced in Great Britain, will not be permitted to enter Northern Ireland, and up to 50% of our medicines will be excluded from Northern Ireland. That is a serious challenge, which the last Government did nothing about and which I trust this Government will do something about. This Government will need to stand up with vigour against the European Commission and insist that every part of this country must be entitled to have the same veterinary medicines as the rest of the country. It is time that we shook off our shackles and insisted on that.

Of course, it gets even worse. As has been alluded to, movements of livestock from Great Britain to Northern Ireland are subject to every EU rule that applies. We therefore have quarantine periods of six months for those wanting to bring in livestock, and of 30 days for the host farm it is coming from. Why? Because that is what EU rules, which we have been left subject to—serf-like—insist on. To take sheep farming, farmers need to constantly improve the genetic line; they need to bring in new rams, but bringing one in from Scotland or Wales, which would be our traditional sources, is now nigh impossible because of these quarantine rules. That needs to be addressed.

There are other dimensions. Reference has been made to the fact that hundreds of cattle and other livestock have been stranded on this side of the Irish sea since last year and cannot be moved to Northern Ireland, due to EU rules about bluetongue. We have the ludicrous situation that someone who buys rams in France or cattle in Sweden or elsewhere can bring them straight through GB to Northern Ireland, but if they buy them in GB, they cannot bring them to Northern Ireland, because GB is said to be a bluetongue zone. Even though the livestock is, in many cases, being bought from Scotland, which has no bluetongue difficulties, it still cannot be brought to Northern Ireland. Why? Again, because of the absurdity that we are subject to EU rules.

This House, far outside the framework of farming issues, needs to get hold of the fact that unless we deal with the constitutional imperative of restoring Northern Ireland to the rules of this House and this country, and not of a foreign jurisdiction, we will have these problems, which manifest themselves in our farming industry in the way I have described. It is not just a multifaceted problem, but a multifaceted problem with many deep issues that need to be addressed. The last Government had no appetite to address them—in fact, they deepened the problems with their Windsor framework. I trust that this Government, who have inherited the ludicrous situation of Northern Ireland being a condominium ruled in part by laws made in the United Kingdom and in part by foreign laws in a foreign jurisdiction, will address this issue. We cannot go on like this. Neither our sheep farmers, nor any other farmers, nor our citizens should be living in a colony-like situation where we are ruled by laws we do not make and cannot change.