Agriculture Bill (Fourteenth sitting)

Sandy Martin Excerpts

Committee Debate: 14th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 20th November 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Dr Drew]

I agree that there have been schemes such as Blue Flag, but the point is that that was not what farmers were principally paid for. Under the Bill, they will principally be paid to look after the environment in whatever way is deemed fit, and they will need an enormous amount of advice. New clause 19 would implement a mechanism for that.

The Committee has already discussed the areas in which farmers might need support. We have certainly discussed the idea of people advising on land management contracts, whether they come in from local government or whether farmers and landowners bring them in and pay for their advice. The difficulty is that this is all rather fluid and open-ended, so the new clause would give it some substance.

As the Minister says, the advice will be given on a one-to-one basis, but who is going to give it? At the moment there are not many people who can give such advice, and they are very expensive. One might have thought that land agents would be interested, but at a recent event I spoke to land agents who made it very clear that rural is not really where the money or—dare I say it?—the interest is, because they have moved much more into the urban sphere. That will no doubt cause some difficulties.

The new clause covers a range of areas in which there is a need for advice. We do not want to talk in an alarmist way, but this is really important. We are asking people to completely change their business organisation over a very short period. How they operate and, in a sense, their whole reason for being on the land will have to change. I am not implying that it will change completely for everyone, but for some people the change will be dramatic.

[Sandy Martin (Ipswich) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that if there is no duty to provide advice, there is a danger that smaller farms will be least likely to get the advice they need, since they cannot afford to pay for it? The ones that most need support are the most likely to lose out.

[Dr Drew]

Exactly. There may be less form filling than under the current arrangement, but it will involve some. It will also certainly involve inspection; otherwise, how can we guarantee that the public moneys are being used appropriately for those public goods?

That is the backcloth. As I say, I do not want to be alarmist but, sadly, as all those who have been involved with the land will know, the suicide rate among farmers and farm workers is very high. The rate is high because it is a very lonely occupation. It is also a very stressful occupation when people are losing money, which they often are. The arrangement will not necessarily solve that, because although it is transitionary they will lose money that in the past they have banked, guaranteeing that they can go forward.

On the suicide rate, we have all lost friends. I have particular regard for Gloucestershire Farming Friends, which my old friend Malcolm Whittaker set up many years ago. There are times when the organisation is inundated with phone calls, particularly when forms have to be filled in and people feel under incredible stress. We must be aware of that. I hope that the Minister will at least say something about what will be put in place, in a much more finite way than perhaps he has been able to so far. What people really want to know is, if they are going to make the changes, how they will be helped to do so.

On new clause 27, the Minister will not be surprised that I am going to say a little about smallholdings. He, like me, thinks that they are a wonderful part of British agriculture. The “Land for Heroes” scheme was put in place after the first world war, and people who had no other occupation were encouraged to take up smallholdings, organised largely, but not entirely, through county councils. Certainly over the past 20 years, we have sadly seen a decline in the smallholdings. They have been sold off, not necessarily in their entirety but in ever greater amounts of land. That matters because it is one of the few ways that younger people—certainly those without the means to buy land, or to rent it at the astronomical rents they are sometimes asked to pay—can get in.

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[Dr Drew]

That is the summation of the case. It is not something that we would say was anything other than a level playing field. Yes, we are stopping certain well-known establishments from selling foie gras.

[Sandy Martin]

If any one of the amendments proposed earlier today that were so fulsomely supported by the hon. Member for North Dorset had been carried, we would not have needed this amendment.

[Dr Drew]

Of course, and that is something that we will no doubt have to revisit on Report. We are not doing anything other than what we have done in this place. We banned foie gras in the Houses of Parliament. That is a decision, and one might say that it is freedom of choice, but we banned the production of foie gras in this country, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East said, because we see it as inherently cruel.

All we are saying is: “Let’s have a level playing field”. If we ban production here, why are we still allowing imports to a very small number of establishments that still condone something that we would put at the extremes of animal cruelty? It is not about animal rights; it is purely about animal cruelty. It is a terrible process and I am not going to upset the hon. Member for North Dorset by going through what is involved. I do not think anybody would say that is an acceptable way to treat livestock. If it is, why is it banned in this country?

I hope we will get support from the Government. This is one thing they could do, through legislation on animal sentencing or even animal sentience, whichever comes first. We do not have many opportunities to pass this type of legislation. It could be done by a private Member’s Bill but we know how uncertain that can be. That is why the proposal has been brought forward at this stage, and why we hope there is support. If not, the Government could at least say what their intentions are. This will not affect farmers in this country, because we have banned this practice. We just want a level playing field and we can now ensure that because we will not necessarily be part of the EEA.

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[Dr Drew]

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

Now we are moving on to pesticides. Now that we have dealt with animals, we can go on to crops. Again, in its own way this new clause would not radically change the Bill, but the pesticides argument is important. We are all obliged to move toward higher environmental standards—dare I say it, that is the whole point of the Bill. One way in which we will measure those higher environmental standards is in terms of less pesticide use.

I accept that this is a very divisive issue. On the one hand we have the Pesticide Action Network UK and on the other we have the Crop Protection Association, each with radically different views on whether we are doing the right thing already or we should move in a different direction so that we see much less reliance on pesticides. Certainly, the agro-ecological approach would be to look at how we can substantially reduce, if not remove, the reliance on pesticides.

That matters because the British public seem overwhelmingly to want us to have less reliance on pesticides. We have had the big debate on neonicotinoids; we also have the debate on other pesticides. At the moment, that has been abdicated to Europe, and Members of the European Parliament voted on whether glyphosate should be banned. In the end I think both Conservative and Labour MEPs chose not to ban it, but if we leave the EU the decision will be fairly and squarely back with the United Kingdom Parliament. We cannot pretend that this is not something that we will have to make our opinion known on, and that will be subject to future legislative requirements.

We are not asking for the end of pesticides or necessarily for a dramatic change in policy. We are looking for an indication from the Government that they intend to look, through the environmental payments, at how pesticide use will be measured and monitored with a view to reduced dependence. That is important because the Bill is all about soil quality and water management, and if we do not control pesticides, we might as well give up on both those things, because they will not happen.

Again, it is not just about our environment per se, but about the impact on ourselves—human beings. Those of us who were involved historically with organophosphates know that they are sadly still an issue; I still have people coming to me to say that they feel that was never properly investigated. I know that there are research findings.

[Sandy Martin]

Is it not part of the point? If we do the research and carry out deep investigations now, it is entirely possible that we will be able to be at the forefront of the new range of pesticides that are more environmentally friendly, rather than being dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century.

[Dr Drew]

Exactly. As I have made abundantly clear, we will get one chance to debate this in 50 years, because that is the likely length of time that this piece of legislation will last, if the Agriculture Act 1947 is anything to go by. These pieces of legislation do not come around very often, so we make no apology for bringing forward the debate on pesticides now. We are subject to correspondence on it and people want to know where we stand. I hope the Government are listening.