Cost of Living: Support for Farmers

Selaine Saxby Excerpts

Tuesday 12th July 2022 Westminster Hall

[Selaine Saxby (North Devon) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Alicia Kearns) for securing this important debate.

Devon is home to 8% of agricultural holdings in England—a full 514,000 hectares, of which 92,000 are in my constituency, which boasts 1,442 agricultural holdings. Our Devon farms are relatively small, with an average size of just 60 hectares, compared with an English average of 85, and that magnifies some of the challenges that they currently face. My local NFU details that, as small businesses and consumers, farmers are grappling with spiralling costs in both their businesses and households. Agricultural inflation is running higher than consumer inflation. DEFRA figures show that it is at 28.4% for all inputs in the 12 months to April 2022.

In north Devon, most farm businesses involve livestock of some sort or another. The welfare of those livestock is always a primary concern. Farmers are grappling with how to afford feed and bedding for the coming winter. Nearly all farmhouses are off the gas grid and rely on heating oil in the main, which has had massive spikes and is not protected by the price cap of the electricity market. Some farmhouses are listed buildings, so it is difficult to make them energy efficient. Farmers, like others in rural areas, rely on motor vehicles to get to shops, schools and other facilities. The massive increase in fuel costs has a higher impact on those who live in rural areas.

Although I do not think that the solution is to increase rural fuel duty relief—a very specific tax relief that applies only to Lynton and Lynmouth in my rural constituency, as it relates to the distance from the refinery —we need to look for affordable and green solutions to tackle our reliance on the fossil-fuel powered vehicles in more rural parts of the country. It is not right that one set of consumers should pay less for their fuel, as it distorts the market and results in people driving to fill up more than they need to. We need to ensure that the existing fuel duty cut reaches the pump—the Competition and Markets Authority is already investigating the matter—because doing nothing is not a solution.

I would prefer a further fuel duty cut, but until we are confident that it will reach consumers, we must recognise that it may not deliver what we wish. We urgently need better charging infrastructure to enable more of us to switch to electric vehicles, and to look at other creative ways of reducing the cost of transport. In my North Devon constituency, buses are few and far between, and are clearly of no help at all for the transport of livestock or crops.

I recognise that half the basic farm payment has been brought forward, but farmers need more. It is just a matter of cashflow management. For farmers, the uncertainty brought about by much change—new schemes coming onstream, no security of revenue streams, and such surging costs—makes leaving fields fallow preferable. At a time of food insecurity, we need to ensure that every piece of fertile land is used for sustainable food production. That is why I am so exasperated to find that a major national landowner has evicted an organic dairy farmer in my constituency to rewild the land. I know that we need biodiversity, and I support it, but it should not come at the expense of food production. We need sustainable farming, and I urge the Minister to fix rapidly those unintended consequences of DEFRA policy to prevent further evictions and ensure that our productive and fertile land is used appropriately.

[Alicia Kearns]

I thank my hon. Friend for her point about protecting good-quality agricultural land to feed our nation. It is absolutely wrong that we have so many solar national infrastructure projects going through the Government, but no national oversight of where they are all happening. Masses of our land will end up covered in solar plants, reducing our agricultural capabilities, not least in Rutland, England’s smallest county, where there is a proposal to cover good-quality agricultural land with a 2,100-acre solar plant—it will be built with Uyghur blood and slave labour, although that is another debate. Does she agree that there should be a national strategy on solar plants?

--- Later in debate ---

[Selaine Saxby]

I agree entirely. We need to work out how our land is used. We must tackle not only solar plants, but the issue of growing fuel where we could grow crops. We need to rebalance our land use to ensure that things are actually going in the right direction. I hope that we prevent further evictions.

I welcome the new support and investment schemes for our farmers—as do they—but many of the schemes are far too complex. The Minister has already met my local enterprise partnership and the NFU, which are seeking help to set up an advisory body to ensure that farmers do not have to write to their MPs to try to weave their way through DEFRA bureaucracy. I hope that the Minister will take this opportunity to help to secure the small amount of funding—just £250,000—that Devon farmers are asking for to test having an advisory board to help them through the transition from the old payments schemes to the new. We are dealing with so many small businesses, and that little leg up would enable them to achieve what they are driving for, and what we want them to achieve.

Can we also slow the pace of change between the new and old systems in recognition of the unique role that our farmers play at this time of dramatically increased energy prices, alongside growing concerns about global food security? We know that, in the main, energy prices are being driven upwards by Putin’s vile invasion of Ukraine, and we all support the investment into the war effort of our brave Ukrainian friends, but withdrawing one payment before its replacement arrives is counterproductive.

As I said in my maiden speech, farmers are the custodians of the countryside, and we need to look after them at this difficult time. Some farm-gate prices have jumped, but costs have also escalated beyond all recognition. We can all do our bit and support our farmers by buying British, which is high quality and locally sourced. We have dug for victory before. We need to look to do the same again and support our fabulous farmers to ensure they can do what they want to do—farm sustainably and improve our food security.