Biotechnology and Food Security

Simon Hart Excerpts

Wednesday 12th January 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mr Spencer]

I am grateful to you for your intervention, Mr Streeter.

World energy prices are very much linked to the issues that we face. The simple fact is that the price of petroleum directly affects the price of agricultural fertilisers and pesticides and has a knock-on effect on them.

Energy production itself requires land usage. Erecting a wind turbine takes out land that could be used for agricultural food production. The erection of a refinery takes land out of agricultural food production and uses it for industrial purposes. More importantly, as we move towards sustainable energy sources, such as bioethanol and biodiesel produced from rape seed, we will be using agricultural crops to produce those biofuels, taking land out of food production and putting it into energy production. That might seem like a wonderful, modern technology and a wonderful, modern thing to do, but when my grandfather started farming in the 1930s, 30% of his land was used to produce oats, which were the energy source for the horses that he used to pull the ploughs. There is, therefore, nothing new in farmers using land for energy production. What has changed, however, is the number of people we have to feed and produce for. The changes will be quite dramatic, and we need to make sure that we have technologies available to assist us.

The Government’s chief scientific adviser, Sir John Beddington, said:

“by 2030 we need to be producing 50% more food. At the same time, we will need 50% more energy, and 30% more fresh water.”

Those are dramatic statistics. If we are to solve such problems, we really will have to set our stall out and meet those challenges. I hope that we all recognise that there are enormous challenges out there.

[Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend on the way in which he is putting the case. One area of influence that has not been touched on is the UK media’s attitude to some of the topics he has discussed. Does he have a view on whether their attitude, particularly to developing technologies, has been a hindrance and has impacted negatively on our farmers’ ability to meet the challenges he has set out?

[Mr Spencer]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. What he says is true, and the purpose of today’s debate is to have a much more mature, science-based, focused discussion, which looks at the facts rather than the hysteria. My hon. Friend will recall headlines such as “Frankenstein foods”, which do nothing to inform people, and only make them scared of new technologies. To a certain extent, that is human nature. I stand here today unsure myself as to whether these new technologies will assist us. My point, however, is that we need to have the debate, to look at the facts and to explore the opportunities to see whether they offer a solution to the problems we face.

The human race has always been scared of new technologies. If we went back in history to the first time a surgeon suggested doing a heart transplant, we would see the furore that that caused. It was very dramatic to take a heart from one human being and transplant it into another human being. That was quite scary at the time, but it is now run of the mill. As a Member of Parliament, I am lobbied by people who say that we need to improve organ donation and to make sure that we are all informed about it. The technology is accepted and warmly embraced.

To an extent, we are going through the same debate with stem cells, because people are concerned about them and about whether they can assist us. Of course the human race is sometimes scared of change, but we have always been quite adaptable. In the end, we get there, we embrace technologies and we make use of them. That is why we have been so successful as a species at looking after ourselves.

I want to draw attention to Sir Norman Borlaug, who won a Nobel peace prize for his work in changing wheat varieties and improving the way in which we feed ourselves. Many Members have mentioned the fact that we have been able to feed ourselves since the second world war, and we have done a very good job of that. Sir Norman Borlaug was the lead figure in the field. After the second world war, wheat yields were very low. As part of a long and painful process, Sir Norman used a paintbrush to cross-pollinate different varieties of wheat. He was able to take the correct strains from one variety and put them into another. That made the wheat yield vastly more per acre. It also made varieties shorter so that they did not fall over. As I said, we were able to feed Europe; we were able to keep what is now the European Union well fed. That process took a long time. We are talking about tens of years to make advancements in the science.

I am led to believe that genetic modification can speed up that process of genetic change. We have been doing such things for a long time. We have been changing the genetic make-up of those varieties through the long and laborious process of cross-pollination. Genetic modification can speed up that process and lead to advances that will reduce the disease susceptibility of those varieties and make them easier to grow and more drought-resistant. That has to be a good thing. At this stage, it is worth recognising that the genie is out of the bottle. Countries such as the USA, Canada and Brazil are using these technologies. Those crops are being grown in other parts of the world, where technological advancement is starting to move faster than it is here.

It is suggested that yields could increase between 6% and 30% using the same amount of land. If we were able to harness that technology, we could increase yields by 30%. Given the figures and the global changes that we are experiencing, even that degree of advancement might not be enough to keep us all fed to our accustomed level. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) mentioned fertilisers, a subject that will prove important as we move forward. Imagine a technology able to produce a wheat variety that had the same root structure as lucerne, which is nitrogen-fixing. Lucerne—and clover, which is very similar—takes nitrogen from the atmosphere, absorbs it into its leaves and produces nitrates in its root structure.

Intensive Dairy Farming

Simon Hart Excerpts

Tuesday 14th December 2010 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Phillips]

My hon. Friend is correct. The real point is that the price pressure that has come down from the supermarkets, whether through intermediaries or those responsible for purchasing milk production, has been so great that many farmers have been driven out of business, and those who remain in business, however efficient they are, are effectively driven to a point where the costs of production are almost equal—and sometimes greater than—the price that they are being paid for their milk.

The Government will have to grapple with that problem in a way that the previous Government did not. I venture to suggest that we would not be having this debate if we paid our dairy farmers a proper price for their milk, because there would be no need to consider super-dairies.

I have already made it clear that every farmer I have met is concerned more for the welfare of his or her stock than is generally accepted, yet the proposals for mega-dairies undoubtedly give rise to legitimate concerns about the welfare of farm animals. Although the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Minister, in his previous utterances, are correct to say that the most significant influence on welfare is the stock keeper, rather than the system, that statement depends on the existing status quo and, with regard to the proposals for Nocton and other mega-dairies, might not take into account potential future developments in the industry.

Future intensive dairy farmers, if we are to go down that route, will have to comply with existing welfare legislation for their animals, a point that I look forward to hearing the Minister confirm. Those animals will need space to move around in and adequate bedding, and all the other regulations for the existing dairy industry will have to be complied with. If we are to go down that route, there is no reason to believe that farmers would not treat their herds as well as the vast majority of small dairy farmers currently treat their own. It would not be in their interests to mistreat their animals, and I do not suppose that that would happen. However, it is equally clear that very large dairies require better monitoring, and different—much more stringent—animal welfare guidelines, and I hope to hear the Minister confirm that.

The point is that although poor welfare can occur in both intensive and less intensive systems, the evidence available from the United States and various other jurisdictions plainly shows that intensive systems are more predisposed to increasing the risk of poor animal welfare. Intensive milk production models are driven almost exclusively by volume; they demand high yields from cows to cover their inherently high set-up and operating costs. The relentless pursuit of more and more litres of milk to reduce the unit costs of production can take its toll on health and welfare, which is what concerns so many people. The toll on health and welfare can reduce the longevity of animals and place pressure and stress on them.

Experience from overseas, as I have indicated, is not promising. The driving up of milk yields through intensive selection has come at the well-documented expense of animal welfare, so the real fear is that mega-dairies in this country would do nothing to address the lameness, infertility and other health problems that already affect too large a proportion of Britain’s existing dairy herd.

However well cows are kept while indoors, it seems to many to be wholly unnatural to keep them inside all year round, and I understand those fears, although it is fair to say that that happens in some colder parts of continental Europe. Not allowing cows outside to graze during the grazing season seems to many to savour of battery farming, someone that this country set its face against a long time ago.

We must not ignore the fact that a lack of access to pasture concerns many people and is often responsible for animal health problems, which I do not exaggerate, as I am sure the Minister will accept. A review carried out by the European Food Safety Authority in 2009 concluded that zero-grazing systems give rise to a higher incidence of various health problems in animals and reduce their capacity to engage in normal social interactions. That concerns many farmers and many consumers when they turn their minds to the question.

Dairy farming has been part of this country’s agricultural economy for many hundreds of years and is part of our rural heritage, as it is in my constituency. That is partly why the reduction in the number of British dairy farmers is of such concern to so many of us. The numbers are frightening: in 2000 there were 23,286 registered dairy production holdings in England and Wales, but today the number is 11,233.

Many of those farmers have gone out of business for reasons to which I have already alluded—they cannot get a good price for their milk and too often have to sell at below the cost of production. I accept that intensive dairy farms could provide economies of scale and allow for greater mechanisation, which would start to reduce those trends, but I hope that the Minister will accept that that must naturally come at the expense of smaller operations.

To put it another way, although such economies of scale are great for the owners of intensive dairy farms, they sound a further death knell for many smaller producers. Although many people say that they would prefer to purchase their milk from smaller producers, there is, as the Minister knows, no requirement to label the origin of milk, a fact that supermarkets know well and wish to see continue.

[Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

On my hon. and learned Friend’s previous point, is he aware that a number of auctioneers across the UK are simply not taking bookings to sell milking cows until well into next year because there is such a backlog of farmers going out of business and trying to sell their dairy cows?

--- Later in debate ---

[Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

I join in congratulating my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Stephen Phillips) on securing this debate. Any discussion in this building about the plight of rural communities, in particular the agricultural aspects of it, is encouraging.

If I may, I would like to start with some of the economic context which my hon. and learned Friend mentioned, and quote some figures. I do this as a brother-in-law of a dairy farmer, the son of a dairy farmer, and the husband of a dairy farmer’s daughter—hon. Members will get a general idea of my position. At present—admittedly, this is only one set of figures—farmers are producing milk at a loss of between 1p and 2.5p per litre. The dairies sell their products for a profit in the region of 4p to 5p, yet certain supermarkets—I shall try to be careful about naming them—are selling at a profit of 22p a litre. That is the economic context which my hon. and learned Friend mentioned. I absolutely agree with him that the buying public, if they were aware of the muscle that is applied by supermarkets, would greet that knowledge with a certain amount of disdain and, indeed, disgust.

Let me take that a stage further. One supermarket prides itself on paying its suppliers a rather higher price—about 28p a litre. If the truth was known that only 800 suppliers—some 10%—qualify for that price, the public would raise an eyebrow. In addition, the supermarket in question does not fork out that extra amount itself. Instead, it has insisted on the middle man at the dairy negotiating a more stringent price with the supplier. What did the dairy do? The dairy froze its payments to farmers who are not providing that supermarket, which meant consequentially that their price was reduced. Although that supermarket is obtaining good public relations for distributing press releases talking about fair trade for farmers, it has not been impacted on at all. Yet all those farmers who are not lucky enough to provide that supermarket chain have been penalised. That is the actual, factual economic context behind this important debate. That is why—there is no other reason at all—we are looking at the prospect of super- dairies, if that is the right expression.

I want to inject a degree of measured middle ground, if I may. It is obvious that, increasingly, farmers recognise that scale is the only way that they can make money. I am not talking about making large sums, but about making sufficient money not to go bust and to be able to invest in new technology, which is not just desirable for milk production, but is required by law in the current economic and legal climate.

I represent an area of west Wales in Carmarthenshire, in probably one of the largest milk-producing areas in the UK, where there is a significant problem of tuberculosis in cattle. Fortunately, that is a debate for another day. I am aware, through my constituents, that there is an attraction to housing cattle indoors as far as possible, because doing so reduces the risk of infection from TB and enables farmers to bulk buy feed and bedding materials. Hon. Members will be aware that feed has never been more expensive than it is this year.

It is also clear that production on a larger scale reduces the chances of pollution. We are all aware, sadly, of the incidences of pollution as a consequence of leaking slurry tanks and the like over the years. Fortunately, there has been a decrease in such instances, partly because of housing measures that people have put in place and are increasingly under pressure to implement.

There is an argument, whether it is proven or not, that indoor milk production reduces the carbon footprint of particular farms. Other hon. Members will no doubt expand on whether that is a compelling argument.

I am not trying to justify or promote large-scale dairy production; I am simply trying to set out what my milk-producing constituents see as an essential consequence of the supermarket grip on the industry, and saying that they regard themselves as being much more likely to be able to invest decent sums in modern technology—we have heard about anaerobic digesters—under such conditions than they would be able to under any other system.

[Roger Williams]

My hon. Friend is generating an interesting point of view, which is that we need a range of dairy farms, from small and medium-sized ones to larger ones. The hon. and learned Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Stephen Phillips) said that there is a welfare code for dairy animals. Perhaps animals kept in larger units might need a different approach under the welfare code, because they will be kept in different circumstances.

[Simon Hart]

I agree. There is no greater expert on this subject than my hon. Friend.

I want to return to welfare concerns. The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Robert Flello) made an interesting intervention on whether dairy production would be encouraged to move from its traditional countryside location to brownfield sites. Although there is a danger of that happening, I am not as convinced of it as he is. There is more to dairy farming than milking cows; there is young stock, dry cows and sick and lame animals that cannot be housed indoors. There will always be a need for animals in green fields. I do not think that we want to assume that milking is the only part of the process and that dairy farms can be located anywhere in the UK. It is not quite as simple as that.

When we discuss animal welfare in this context, there is a gulf of difference between reality and perception. My hon. and learned Friend mentioned legitimate concerns. I am always wary of legitimate concerns unless they can be backed up by evidence. The Department is assessing the welfare implications of indoor cattle. We Members of Parliament, particularly those representing agricultural areas, would be well advised to be a little bit cautious about talking about legitimate concerns until we know that there are legitimate concerns to be cautious about.

It is important to remember, in considering the scale of milk production, that thin, lame or ill cattle can be segregated in bigger herds, whereas in normal circumstances, in small-scale production, they can be prone to bullying by other animals in the herd. Being able to do such things on a larger scale, there is an argument, which I accept is unproven, that says that welfare standards can be improved. In other words, big is not necessarily bad. I suspect that we are all aware of small dairy producers—the sort that we are trying to champion—whose welfare standards are not as good as larger, slightly more industrial units, to use an unattractive term.

We have to be cautious about assuming things and being led by the nose—I am not suggesting for one moment that hon. Members are—down the road that says that big is bad and that the only kind of high-welfare milk production is undertaken by small producers. We know that that is not so. We need evidence to hand before we make judgments in that regard.

I welcome this debate, which has been waiting to be heard and which has huge consequences for the rural economy. If the Government get this wrong—I am not suggesting that they might—there will be massive social and environmental consequences and it will be hard to be put things back together.

Hon. Members have mentioned economic circumstances, but tracing this issue to its source it comes back to a simple question. How do we deal with the stranglehold of the supermarkets over our dairy industry? It is not the fault of farmers, the planning system or the Government; it is the fault of supermarkets, which are putting short-term gain at the top of their agenda, at the risk of putting the UK dairy industry either into terminal freefall or being exported.

We need to impress on the supermarkets the importance of this matter. A demonstration by Welsh farmers outside Asda in Chepstow tomorrow will express this view. I said that I would not name a supermarket, but now I have. It is a sad day when any section of the agricultural community is subject to such pressure, because the long-term downstream consequences for the rural community as a whole will be devastating unless we get this right.

--- Later in debate ---

[Glyn Davies]

I heard that the original Nocton proposal was for 7,000 cows. Once we reach 1,000, the principle is much the same—we are dealing with a big unit in which the animals are housed for almost the whole time. That is a different way of producing milk. I accept my hon. and learned Friend’s point.

Let us go into the reasons for not doing it. The first was in the more significant part of my hon. and learned Friend’s introductory speech: the driving out of small farmers as a result of the economic conditions that the larger farmers might create. I am not sure that I accept that reason. When I was milking 70 cows, I was accused of driving out small farmers. That was the position then. In truth, a person hand-milking seven cows was just not economic—that was the reason for stopping the business. In those days, the 70-cow unit was economic, but we reached a stage when it was not.

Small farmers will be and have been going out of business—we heard the numbers earlier. That has happened and will continue, irrespective of the large farming unit. I do not think that there is a direct correlation between the two issues.

[Simon Hart]

We are in danger of muddling two things, one of which is the size of the unit. Plenty of farmers have gradually crept up from seven cows to 70, from 70 to 170 and, in my family’s case, from about 100 to 400. Is there some cut-off point, above which they should not be allowed to go? That is one of the issues we are discussing. The other issue is whether it is appropriate to be milking cows indoors 365 days of the year. We are in danger of confusing the two issues.

[Glyn Davies]

Several issues are probably involved, so I want to make my second point, which is that we might want to resist the development on welfare grounds. We can include housing for 365 days a year as a welfare issue. Even with a seven-cow herd, the animals were indoors for six months of the year. Being indoors is not particularly unusual. I think that the application for a 1,000-cow unit in my constituency proposes that the animals should be indoors for almost two thirds of the year. I suspect that the application for the 7,000-cow unit proposed having the animals indoors, apart from the followers, for 12 months of the year. What we have to keep at the core of our thinking is high welfare standards, and we must be guided by science or we shall lose the argument in the end.

[Mr Edward Leigh in the Chair]

I do not accept that it is necessarily more difficult to meet welfare standards with a large herd than with a small herd. I know that some people will disagree, but I just do not think that the large size of a herd is a proven reason for that. In fact, we can argue a little bit the other way, because for a large herd, there will almost certainly be professionally trained staff, and a large unit will be able to afford to keep them professionally trained. It will be able to do the training that smaller units cannot. A large dairy unit will almost certainly have an ongoing relationship with a veterinary surgeon, who will call in regularly. The smaller units do not have that. Most farmers with herds the size of mine considered themselves to be veterinary surgeons. We were not willing to pay what I thought were excessive bills at the time—we did it ourselves. I think that we shall find that the welfare standards in large units will be very impressive, and if they are not, they will not get permission.

There are many other, environmental reasons why one might want to refuse an application for a large unit, and I think that planning authorities should be willing to turn down applications, unless they meet their exacting standards. The application in my constituency is within view of Powis castle. The local planning authority will have to consider that issue. The Environment Agency will have to examine all the implications for the environmental impact. All such issues will have to be considered by a planning authority before approval is secured.

I want to deal now with the public resistance element. During my eight years in the National Assembly for Wales, I was a huge enthusiast for organic farming and farmers’ markets. We should continue with that, but we have to persuade people to come and buy from these units. The reality is that most customers—consumers—will buy where the price is cheapest. The supermarkets will drive down the price, and unless British farmers produce the product, they will import it. My hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet (Mr Gale) made a very good point about exporting a problem. That is exactly what might happen in the dairy industry unless we deal with the matter. In relation to public resistance, we need a balanced and open mind and a view based on scientific knowledge.

I want to appeal not only to my hon. Friend the Minister but to everyone who participates in the debate—because it will be an ongoing debate; the issue will not be dealt with in the short term—not to take an instinctive view. Mine might be one of antipathy. We must examine the science, because in the end that is what will rule the decision. If we in this House are to have an impact on the issue, we have to present the facts and have an influence, we hope, on the purchasers, which are mostly supermarkets. Only the Government can do that now, because supermarkets have reached such a state of dominance in the market. By taking a balanced approach, we may well have some influence and, while not necessarily returning to the image of my childhood, staying rather closer to it.

Shoreline Management Plans

Simon Hart Excerpts

Tuesday 30th November 2010 Westminster Hall

[Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

May I start my short submission by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) on securing this debate? I confess that until I saw the debate title in the Order Paper, I did not realise that there was a shoreline management plan for my part of Wales, a point that was reflected upon by others this morning. That is all the more embarrassing because 60% of my constituency is a variety of shoreline. That is a great asset most of the time, but not when it comes to parliamentary boundary reviews. That, however, is a debate for another day.

The coastline is probably the single most important feature for the tourism industry in south-west Wales. Indeed, I slip into the conversation the fact that National Geographic magazine says that it is the second most beautiful coastline in the world. It beats Suffolk and Devon, and even Essex, to that coveted title. Although erosion is not a particular problem in my constituency, management is. For my constituents, the shoreline is not only beautiful and spectacular cliff. It also has beach, marsh and wetlands, as well as estuaries, and balancing the conflicting interests of agriculture and tourism is a constant battle. It is a battle for everyone, including the Pembrokeshire national park, and that has to be reflected in the management plans.

Not many people know this, but before becoming a Member I spent a little time working for the Environment Agency in south-west Wales as an official valuer. One of my earliest jobs was to value the sea wall between the Severn bridge and Trostre steel works in Llanelli. Those who can picture the map of south Wales will realise that it covers pretty much the entire coastline. I made one stupid decision and one sensible one. The stupid decision was to walk every inch of it; the sensible decision was to base my fees not on value but on time. That was just as well, because the capital value of such an asset is £1. Who would want to accept the liability?

That is a serious point. The wall was a hugely important physical feature for the Environment Agency, but it was also important to everyone who had an interest in the estuary. The problem for the agency was that every time one crossed a local authority boundary or a legal boundary between farms, or even when one crossed into a new wildlife trust area, the rules changed. It was impossible to have a cost-effective and cohesive policy for the sea wall along almost the entire stretch of coastline. The upshot is that it was not managed properly, and people’s businesses and livelihoods were put at risk.

We are of course sympathetic, as other Members have mentioned, to the point about the ever-increasing pressure on the wildlife asset. However, if there was ever an example of how these things pan out in reality, it is the Cardiff bay barrage. Significant sums were spent on giving migratory wild fowl preferment over the interests of farmers and residents. However, as soon as the barrage was constructed, nature adapted particularly successfully, as it often does, to the changing circumstances. Twenty years on—that is about the right time scale—there is no evidence whatever to suggest that there was a detrimental impact, particularly on migratory wild fowl in the area. The Cardiff bay barrage is a living example of a management process that involves a lot of physical alteration to the coastline, but which has no adverse effect on wildlife. We need to take careful note of the fact that it is possible in such circumstances to have your cake and eat it.

I want to revert to the point about liability and the legal point. As we proceed with the plans and with future shoreline management, we could give local authorities greater responsibility for taking such matters into account through the planning system. In addition, the legal profession may not have been particularly effective in one or two cases when it has come to undertaking searches on behalf of people purchasing properties adjacent to shorelines, to future management plans, and to attempting the impossible task of second-guessing the effects of nature over a long period.

Sustainable Livestock Bill

Simon Hart Excerpts

Friday 12th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Nuttall]

I thank my hon. Friend for that point. It seems to me that there are many groups—and I will mention this later—who have supported the Bill and led their supporters to believe that it will bring about what they have been campaigning for. However, if any of their supporters had actually been sent a copy of the Bill, I fear that they would be very sadly disappointed, because it is silent on the specifics of those campaigns.

[Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend have a view on why almost no land use or agricultural organisation in the whole of the UK is enthusiastic about the Bill?

[Mr Nuttall]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen and wherever for that good point. The people most closely connected with farming in this country, while they support the aims of the Bill’s sponsors, do not support the Bill itself. We have to ask why that is.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Nuttall]

Any farmer will tell us that an unhappy—if we can use that term—animal does not produce milk.

[Simon Hart]

I hesitate to interrupt my hon. Friend again so early in his speech, but is he aware of any peer-reviewed or emerging evidence to suggest that animals kept in sheds in any number are somehow at a disadvantage compared with those that might not be? It would be interesting to hear what evidence exists for that, other than hearsay, and what sounds to me like a slight Disney-fication of the problem.

[Mr Nuttall]

The National Farmers Union would say that there is no disadvantage and no evidence that larger-scale dairying or housing has a negative impact on the environment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ian Paisley]

The hon. Lady can take that up with the Minister if she wishes. However, it is unrealistic to claim that, as we drive from the north of Scotland to the south of Devon, all that we will see in our countryside are huge sheds, inside which are animals that will never see the light of day. That is preposterous. It will not happen. It is a scare tactic that undermines the promoter’s good intention.

[Simon Hart]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that milking dairy cows is only one part of the dairy industry? Farmers also have calves and young stock, and produce beef—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. We are in danger of going into a general debate. This is not a general debate—we must stick to the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

May I apologise for chancing my arm with my earlier intervention, Mr Deputy Speaker? I shall have to find another opportunity, when you are not looking, to make the same point.

Let me join in the general feeling in the House by congratulating the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Robert Flello) on introducing the Bill and the debate. It is always good to have a lengthy debate in the House about rural affairs, particularly in quite measured conditions. I should start by declaring a bit of an interest because in the 10 years before my election to the House I was involved in the largest European group with an interest in rural affairs—the ever-excellent Countryside Alliance. I mention that because this issue is all about people, and Members of this Parliament and others sometimes forget that there is always a consequence for communities, individuals and jobs, as the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) accurately stated. I shall restrict my comments to those issues and I hope that the House will forgive me for not going into quite as much detail as my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) did in dealing with different aspects of the Bill.

I want to start by bigging up our farmers because in the past 20 years they have sometimes got a pretty bad press, and undeservedly so. Farmers, particularly those in my area and members of the Farmers Union of Wales, of the National Farmers Union Cymru and of the Country Land and Business Association, have been at the vanguard of sustainable land use and food production for longer than it has been fashionable to talk about those issues in this House, and they do not often get the praise they deserve for their fantastic work in producing good-quality food and maintaining the landscape as we expect to find it when we visit the countryside.

[Mr Nuttall]

When my hon. Friend has had discussions with farmers in his constituency, have any of them ever expressed a desire for more direction from the Secretary of State on how to do their job?

[Simon Hart]

I think that my hon. Friend probably knows the answer to that question, which is, of course, no—but not in an aggressive sense. Farmers simply want a chance to compete on a level playing field not only with other farmers across Europe and the world but with other industries in the UK. This is not about special pleading, but about their pleading to be treated in a similar manner to everybody else. The Bill contributes to a suspicion that individual Members of Parliament want to do things to agriculture rather than for it. If there has been a long-running problem it is the latent suspicion hanging over everything we do that we act in our interests rather than those of farmers.

[Kerry McCarthy]

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that there is a trade-off here, given that the UK agriculture industry benefits from billions of pounds-worth of subsidy from UK taxpayers? Do not the taxpayers who are not involved in the farming industry have a rightto express an opinion on how farming is conducted? If they think it important that higher environmental standards are met, that is a perfectly valid point for them to make.

[Simon Hart]

Yes, I do agree. That is perfectly reasonable and the evidence clearly shows that nobody in agricultural food production would disagree. Indeed, people in the industry have been making such points for longer than the hon. Lady or I have. This is all about fairness, to use a word that is also becoming rather fashionable. On that point, our countryside and industry are the envy of Europe not because of politicians but despite them. My hon. Friend the Member for Bury North, who has just left his place, accurately raised that issue in his intervention. We have to be careful that when we pass legislation that affects rural Britain, particularly agriculture, we do not create a more complicated and therefore less competitive agriculture industry, thereby failing to achieve the benefits that the supporters of the Bill have quite reasonably set out to achieve.

[Sarah Newton (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that much of the subsidy to farmers that the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) mentioned is for benefiting biodiversity, for stewardship and for taking great care of the environment being farmed?

[Simon Hart]

I do, and that is a very visible shift in subsidy policy that has taken place over the past 10 or 20 years. Instead of subsidy of food production simply for food production’s sake, we have moved much more towards environmental stewardship. The point I was trying to make was that we should not assume for one moment that environmental stewardship is not taken extremely seriously by farmers across all aspects of agriculture, not just food production; they value environmental stewardship and have been part of it because they feel that that is their duty, not only to their farms but to the community. That has always been the case, yet that gets lost in these debates. Somehow, there is the underlying view that we have to make farmers take environmental stewardship seriously. That is not the case. The farmers whom I know take it extremely seriously. The only barrier between them and successful environmental stewardship has generally been politicians, not a desire to make money at the expense of the environment.

If I were to shine a bright light on the Bill I would point out that surely any decent Secretary of State of whatever party would automatically insert into their thinking, if not their legislation, all the checks and balances that we are told are now so essential that they have to be enshrined in law. I have to ask why, over the past 13, 15 or 20 years, successive Secretaries of State at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and its predecessor, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, did not do that as a matter of routine.

I recall the creation of something called the Rural Advocate under the previous Government. I am not even sure, to my great shame, whether he still exists, but his job was to oversee a sort of rural-proofing exercise to ensure that any legislation—not just that sponsored by DEFRA, but legislation from any Government Department —passed the test as far as rural communities were concerned. My criticism is that perhaps the Bill takes far too narrow a line of attack, at this stage, at any rate.

I want to move on to the vexed question of sustainability. It is difficult to define it as accurately as we might like in this debate. I suspect that it is tempting for Members, particularly new Members, to resist the chance of objecting to anything that has “sustainability” in the title, because we may somehow be seen as regressive or as dinosaurs if we do.

As far as the Bill is concerned, most of us have come under heavy bombardment over the past few weeks from various pressure groups, some of which have had more compelling arguments than others. Three particular people have pushed me as close as I was happy to go towards supporting the measure. One was my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith); I value his opinion on every subject, but we cannot quite agree on this one. I was subject to some late-night lobbying yesterday from Mr Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, but even his persuasive argument, including the promise of a River Cottage hamper for Christmas if I changed my mind, was insufficient. I should also mention the fantastic efforts and unique lobbying skills of Mr Stanley Johnson, who is up in the Public Gallery today, but even the combined heavy bombardment from those three expert individuals, whom I respect greatly, failed to convince me that we are anywhere near defining sustainability as well as we might, for the purposes of the Bill becoming an Act.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

I agree that sustainability is a much abused word, but does my hon. Friend not agree that sustainability involves economic, social and environmental concerns, both in this country and around the world?

[Simon Hart]

I do, and we sometimes forget that there is a strong social and economic ingredient in that definition; it has been missing so far in this debate. I am sure that the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent South will tell us that we have got that wrong, but I have seen nothing, in the hundreds of e-mails that we have had so far, to convince me that the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley (Henry Smith) has been properly addressed.

It is odd that the Bill focuses purely on livestock production. It seems obvious that if we are to talk about sustainable farming, we should not restrict ourselves purely to livestock. I am not convinced that the Bill has been properly considered in that respect. To pluck one example from the sky—no pun intended—let us consider poultry production. It seems odd that we have not properly examined the argument that intensive poultry production has less of an adverse carbon footprint than extensive poultry production. That has not been addressed, nor had consumer purchasing habits until the hon. Member for North Antrim raised them. There is a reference in the Bill to rural resilience. I do not know what that is, in the context of the Bill, but I do know that it is something with which I have been extremely familiar for 10 years. The resilience of the rural community is far from being a satisfactory excuse to increase the burden of regulation on the rural community. We cannot possibly simply depend on the resilience of our friends in the livestock industry for the purposes of the Bill.

We have not discussed in any great detail the Bill’s possible adverse effects on livestock producers. There was one reference, and only one, this morning to profit—a sort of dirty word, it seems, when we talk about sustainability. Unless there is profit in farming, and unless there is the sort of profit that enables farmers to invest long term as opposed to short term, then there will be no sustainability of any sort—no environmental sustainability, no social sustainability and no economic sustainability. There was a famous bumper sticker in America a year or so ago, which quite simply said, “No farmers, no food”.

We overlook the sustainability question and the long-term profitability of farming at our peril. While there has been a bit of a debate about intensive dairy units and what number of cows constitutes unacceptability, it seems interesting that, at long last, there are people out there who are prepared to consider investing several million pounds in UK agriculture. We have been striving for generations to persuade people to do that. The moment somebody comes up with a cost-effective way of doing so, we fall on them like a pack of wolves and try to stop them. We have got to be careful about being carried away by a scare story.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

As I listen to the hon. Gentleman, I wonder whether he is talking about the same Bill as I have been looking at. One of its central themes is to try to reduce dependency on imported meat and the risky practices that happen outside this country. I thought that that was a major defence of British farming and I am surprised that he does not support that.

[Simon Hart]

I think we are reading the same Bill, but it strikes me as odd that, of 1,000 livestock producers in my own part of west Wales, not a single one has written to me suggesting that I support this measure—not one.

[Steve McCabe]

The hon. Gentleman should have explained the Bill to them.

[Simon Hart]

Does the hon. Gentleman wish to intervene? I suspect that the sponsors of the Bill are responsible for explaining it to the people whom it affects. My earlier comments about having to be careful that legislation is not seen to over-regulate our farming industry, and thereby make it less competitive, must be taken seriously. In the hon. Gentleman’s favour, I would say that the aspirational elements of the measure are to be commended. It is fair to say that there are a number of Members across the House who might not be able to support the Bill today, but who support its aspirational elements, particularly local procurement for institutions such as the NHS and the Ministry of Defence. Indeed, I think the Conservative party manifesto said that we would pursue such a measure. Perhaps the Minister could expand on that. Equally, as we have heard, farmers have signed up enthusiastically to a number of environmental schemes, with the possible exception of Glastir in Wales, which has proved to be a bureaucratic nightmare, unlike its excellent predecessor.

To conclude, I want to deal with the question of balance. With all these things, it is difficult to strike the right balance between encouraging and generating economic sustainability in the farming industry which, in my opinion at any rate, leads to environmental sustainability, and the interests of those who wish to use the land for non-agricultural or non-food production purposes. It is difficult to strike the right balance between those who have a duty to produce good-quality, affordable food and those who maintain sensible, measured and worthy considerations. Perhaps my greatest concern is that the Bill does not seem to strike that balance. Although it rightly puts the focus of responsibility on the Secretary of State and on the politicians, it does not deal with that in a way that, if enshrined in law, would be fair, reasonable or balanced. It is good to see a measure that regulates us rather than farmers, but it is not quite in the right condition yet. For that reason, for anybody who has a real interest in striking that balance and in supporting the desire of rural communities to be economically, socially and environmentally sustainable and responsible, it is impossible, at least on this occasion, to support the measure.

Oral Answers to Questions

Simon Hart Excerpts

Thursday 4th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

4. What steps her Department is taking to assist the farming industry to become more competitive.

[Anne Marie Morris (Newton Abbot) (Con)]

13. What steps her Department is taking to assist the farming industry to become more competitive.

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr James Paice)]

The Government are determined to help our farming industry play its full role in the food supply chain by clawing back markets lost to imports and by increasing exports. We are therefore changing the whole culture of regulation to one of trust rather than one of threat. We provide investment assistance under the rural development programme and we are working with the industry on knowledge transfer, skills development and sustainability issues.

[Simon Hart]

I thank the Minister for his answer. Will he reassure members of the Farmers Union of Wales, whom I met earlier this week, that he is making progress on the creation of a supermarket ombudsman?

[Mr Paice]

As my hon. Friend knows, the legislative aspects of that issue relate to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, but I assure him that I am in close contact with my colleagues. We are determined to press ahead with the supermarket adjudicator, as recommended by the Competition Commission a year or so ago.