Upland Farming

Debate between Rory Stewart and Anne-Marie Trevelyan

Monday 1st June 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Rory Stewart)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater and West Somerset (Mr Liddell-Grainger) for raising a subject of such importance, and indeed for his kind words. It is a very great privilege to have my first opportunity to stand at the Dispatch Box dealing with a subject of such importance. I apologise in advance for the fact that I am not accustomed to doing so. I am normally barracking Front Benchers from the Back Benches, and it is rather difficult to adjust to facing forward.

As my hon. Friend pointed out, upland farmers are the most powerful symbol of our most fundamental values. Their presence is a living reminder of the formation of the British landscape, with the relationship between humans and soils reflected in the very shape of our fell sides. The uplands are the creation of those farmers. As he said, it is their work that we are celebrating and from which we are benefiting, whether through tourism, ecology, poetry or painting. We see their legacy in the shape of every field and the angle of every dry stone wall. It is their children who support our schools, and it is they who support our rural roads and shops. The lifeblood of our rural communities depends on the upland farmer, and that is as true of Exmoor and my hon. Friend’s constituency as it is of Cumbria, the North Yorkshire moors, Northumbria, Dartmoor, the Yorkshire dales and the whole Pennine ridge.

Upland farmers face three unique challenges. As my hon. Friend said, those are, first, economics and incomes; secondly, bureaucracy; and, thirdly, environmental management. I would like to respond briefly to each of those in turn. First, I can absolutely reassure him that the Government understand the serious issues around farm incomes. The average income for upland farmers is about £23,900, but many farmers in our constituencies operate on incomes that are considerably lower. In my constituency, there are upland farmers on incomes below £16,000 a year.

We looked specifically at the data for my hon. Friend’s constituency and for Exmoor, and we found that the number of commercial farm holdings fell from 603 in 2009 to 510 in 2013. Now, there will be many reasons for that, some of which are to do with economies of scale, and some of which are to do with changes in agriculture, but I feel, and I think he will feel, that that is 100 families whose history, heritage, knowledge of the landscape and investment in the soil have been lost forever.

That is why I am proud that the Government have introduced some serious reforms to the way the basic payment scheme operates. For example, from 2015, we are equalising the payments for lowland areas and severely disadvantaged areas. The direct payment rate on moorland has almost doubled. That sounds like normal Government jargon, but it is not—it makes an enormous difference. Effectively, it means that lowland farms will lose a certain amount, but it will be a relatively small amount compared with the benefit for upland farmers. DEFRA estimates that the SDA rate will increase from about €200 to €245 per hectare, and the moorland rate will nearly double, from €35 to nearly €70.

That should make a significant difference to upland incomes, but the Department needs to be careful to study this. We must be sure that we look at incomes in the round. We are looking not just at the basic payment scheme, but at all the other forms of support and environmental incentive provided to these farmers. More needs to be done, and we must monitor the impact of the changes to be sure that they remain flexible and that we are attentive to any problems.

[Mrs Anne-Marie Trevelyan (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (Con)]

Can the Minister answer a question asked of me time and again by my farming constituents in north Northumberland, many of whom are upland farmers? How would the Government support our farmers if the nation votes to leave the European Union in 2017? That is a real concern, and there is a fear that there is no understanding in DEFRA of how the issue might be dealt with.

[Rory Stewart]

It is a great privilege to take a question from my hon. Friend, and I congratulate her on her maiden speech. As the representative of Berwick, she represents the epitome of the middleland—that wonderful junction between England and Scotland—and the upland farmers right the way along to the Kielder forest. It is vital that, whatever happens in the vote on the European Union, the Conservative party—indeed, all parties in this House, I hope—and this country continue to provide deep support for farmers. We will be able to do that only if we take some of the arguments my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater and West Somerset made and bring the public along with us. It would be dangerous, whether we remain in the European Union or leave it, if we ended up vesting our responsibility in the EU. We must take responsibility ourselves; we must say we believe in the support farmers currently get from Europe, and, whatever happens in the vote, we must continue to provide it, for all the reasons that my hon. Friend mentioned and that my hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mrs Trevelyan) raised in her question.

The second issue my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater and West Somerset raised concerned complex structures and bureaucracy, and I congratulate him on a most astonishing range of acronyms. It was a fantastic list of what we are all struggling with day by day. I am glad, however, that DEFRA has taken a number of steps to try to recognise how frustrating that bureaucracy can be. We hope that the new countryside stewardship scheme, which he mocked in his inimitable style, will provide a simpler, more robust method of delivering what we all want. We can see this, for example, in one issue that he raised: under-grazing and over-grazing. The countryside stewardship scheme is much more flexible at addressing that exact issue.

The third issue my hon. Friend raised—I am going to face the House rather than Mr Speaker; I apologise, I am learning my role here at the Dispatch Box—relates to the unintended environmental consequences of what we are doing. He used a very good example: the contrast between what is happening in Exmoor and what is happening in the North Yorkshire moors. He pointed out that differential growing rates mean the stopping of burning on Exmoor leads to much more growth of foliage and, in fact, damage to the environment. He is following a very distinguished tradition. That was pointed out by Charles Darwin in his seminal work, “The Origin of Species”. He stated that removing grazing and allowing grass to grow actually reduces the number of species on a given area of land. In other words, allowing that kind of understocking and not having burning in place may result not just in damage to farm incomes, but environmental damage.

That is why Natural England has, I am very glad to say, introduced flexibility around burning regimes. It has proposed allowing larger burn areas and more frequent burn rotations than would be found on sporting estates in the northern uplands. That will of course be key to farmers who do not want to be looking at a fell side that they will see as returning to wilderness and scrub, but it will also be vital for species such as the heath fritillary. I challenge my hon. Friend, if that is not happening on the ground, to please come back to us so we can look at it again, but Natural England has introduced those changes.

I would like to conclude by summarising some of the essential steps that I believe we now require to ensure that we have sustainable upland farming and sustainable upland communities.