Upland Sheep Farmers

Debate between Rory Stewart and Glyn Davies

Tuesday 23rd April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Glyn Davies]

Again, I agree with that intervention and I feel certain that the agriculture departments in the three devolved countries and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs will be doing that very thing. I certainly hope so; perhaps the Minister will address that point in his response.

[Rory Stewart (Penrith and The Border) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is very generous in taking interventions. Does he agree that we need to put this issue in the much broader context of the very difficult time that sheep farmers are having in general? Across the Bailey and Bewcastle valleys in my constituency, there have been two years of horror with poached soil, fluke and the snow coming at the end of that. If we are to retain the fabric of small farms, which I think we would all like to do, we really need to think over the next two to three years of what kind of measures can be put in place—apart from the particular issue of snow—to preserve small farming for the future.

[Glyn Davies]

That is a very good point. Earlier I mentioned the description by the Prince’s Trust of the circumstances that we were experiencing before the snowfall. A number of elements, connected with the weather, the Schmallenberg disease and other issues, had combined to put the sheep in a very difficult position. The businesses of the farmers who were hit by the huge snowfall, however, have been put under real threat.