Food Security

Sheryll Murray Excerpts

Wednesday 6th January 2016 Westminster Hall

[Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas) on securing this very important debate. When I was first elected 10 years ago, we set up the all-party group for dairy farmers, given the perilous conditions that they were facing in Shropshire—all the difficulties that they were facing with supermarkets and the prices that they were getting for their dairy products and milk. An extraordinary number of MPs—290—joined the all-party dairy group, which made it the largest all-party group in that Parliament, and we had a very good secretariat.

[Mrs Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on his initiative at that time. Does he agree that we still need the good measures that were introduced in the last Parliament to help farmers to combat bovine TB with a roll-out of the badger cull, so that they do not face such hardship as in the past?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas) for securing the debate. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr McCabe. I am proud that we have quite strong Cornish representation here today, but we are also joined by my hon. Friends the Members for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski), for Hendon (Dr Offord) and for York Outer (Julian Sturdy), so the debate is not entirely Cornish led.

I was part of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee when it did an in-depth study into food security. The report was published in June 2014, and I have a copy here—I would be happy to furnish my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives with one if he has not seen it. During the production of the report, we received 50 written submissions and undertook five oral sessions. We left the House to conduct visits, and I was pleased to welcome members of the Committee to the world cheese award-winning Cornish Cheese Company in my own constituency. The report was very timely, as is this debate. It is incredibly important that we have enough for the people of the UK to eat. We must look at the changing global demand for food as population increases, at the impact of weather changes on production and at the dangers of disease.

The world and UK populations are growing. With the world population likely to hit 8 billion in 20 years, even on the lower UN projection, and the UK population likely to hit 70 million over the same time span, we have to prepare for extra demand. It is simple: production must increase, or people will go hungry.

I do not need to say today that the weather in the UK is changing. As we have all seen on our television screens, many people have suffered over the festive season, and my thoughts are very much with them, given what they have had to endure. However, with flooded fields and destroyed crops, we need to take these issues into account in any future plans.

We do not have to go back to Ireland’s potato famine to see the dangers of disease. We can all remember the haddock—sorry, the havoc—that BSE caused and that TB is still causing today. We can also look abroad to new threats. Only this week, a 26-year-old woman died from a strain of bird flu, and another woman is reportedly in a serious condition, according to health authorities in southern China.

I am keen that we back our farmers and fishermen and assist them by coming forward with solutions. That includes backing British production and the important Red Tractor labelling scheme. It is important to know that the food we buy comes from a trusted source. All products that carry the Red Tractor mark meet responsible production standards and are traceable back to independently inspected farms. The mark is the easiest way for consumers to be sure of the provenance of the food they buy.

We must do what we can to protect our producers. We must take steps to ensure that our route to production is disease-free, and we must take steps at our borders to help to limit the possibility of disease entering this country.

We must recognise the importance of food production when we look at flood defences—a priority that seems, possibly, to have been overlooked in the past. We must also look at the regulatory framework that our food producers operate under, much of which comes from Europe. I want to work to ensure the best deal for farmers under the CAP.

I want, however, to limit the rest of my remarks to supporting those other food producers—our fishermen. Speaking as an individual, and not as the chairman of the all-party group on fisheries, I would like to raise my strong concerns over the common fisheries policy and the disappointing result for my fishermen in south-east Cornwall of the latest round of quota negotiations.

If we are to have food security in terms of our fishermen, we must now vastly reform the common fisheries policy or pull out altogether. That is why I said at the start of my remarks that this is indeed a timely debate. I believe in the importance of food security; for our fishermen, that means fundamental change in the way that the rules under which they operate are put in place. It is vital that the Prime Minister recognises that in his negotiations with Europe. If that does not happen, we should vote to leave the European Union.

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr McCabe. I thank the hon. Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas) for calling this important debate. As he said on his website,

“we take future food security seriously, given that we are an island nation”.

Food security is a subject that lends itself to a focus on agriculture, but—rather neatly, as I am following the hon. Member for South East Cornwall (Mrs Murray)—I feel that as an island nation we should not forget in this debate the vital role played by our fisheries industry in providing food for Britain.

Fish is one of the healthiest sources of protein and a rare source of essential fatty acids, but fishing also sustains a significant industry, which employs thousands of people in coastal communities and at food processing sites across the country. To take perhaps a slightly different perspective from the hon. Member for South East Cornwall, people in the industry in my patch, Great Grimsby, tell me they are cautiously optimistic about the current state of the sector.

Not only does the fisheries industry feed people in Britain; fish exports are worth £1.6 billion a year to our economy. The industry has proved itself able to operate in a sustainable way. Fish stocks are up 400% in the last decade, allowing a welcome increase in quotas for 2016. This year fishermen will be able to catch 47% more haddock in the North sea, twice as much plaice from the channel and 20% more Celtic sea hake. While consumers have understandably been concerned about declining stocks in the past, people can now have their hake and eat it too. [Hon. Members: “Ooh!”] I know—but the hon. Member for South East Cornwall had a “havoc” and a “haddock”.

Many colleagues have rightly raised the challenges that agriculture and farmers face, but there are very few workers who have it tougher than fishermen. I would like us to regard them as the farmers of the sea. They can be out at work and away from their families for weeks at a time. The task itself is tough, dangerous and often not well paid. It is not surprising that it can be a tough sell to get young people to consider it for a career. The workforce are ageing, and there is a risk that the skills in the industry today will be lost. I have asked the Minister before, and I will ask him again, how the Government plan to address that. The industry needs a proper strategy to secure its long-term future.

[Mrs Murray]

Is the hon. Lady aware that the Seafish training authority does a lot of training for young fishermen, and in particular people who want to move into the industry? Perhaps she would like to contact Seafish to ensure that those courses are run in her constituency.

[Melanie Onn]

I believe that that was mentioned in the debate on fishing before the December break, and I feel that it needs to be expanded and heavily publicised, although the hon. Lady is certainly doing her part and assisting with that. I shall take her advice.