Dairy Industry

Debate between Simon Hart and Neil Parish

Wednesday 5th November 2014 Westminster Hall

[Simon Hart]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. Of course that is right, and it is why we need to look at the relationship between producer and processor and between processor and retailer.

My third point, which I was getting to, is that added confusion is provided by the fact that there are so many different contracts for so many different things, written in so many different ways, making it difficult to find any body of farmers of any significant number who have a consistent contractual relationship.

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

It is absolutely right for my hon. Friend to be having this debate. British dairy products and milk are the best in the world, and we need to promote them more. The dairy farmers are paying some £7 million a year in levy, but the money is not getting out there to promote milk properly. Milk, cheese, yoghurt and all other dairy products need to be promoted more. We need to get the money out to the industry to get milk promoted.

[Simon Hart]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, but I might press on now and not take quite so many interventions, because I will cover many of the points that are being made. I fully accept, however, that people will wish to write their press releases soon, so I will try to be as generous as I can.

The industry recognises that overproduction is a problem and affects price. That is a given. The industry also recognises reduced demand as a result of changing buying habits in China and of Russian sanctions. As a consequence, we are in for what one newspaper described as a long period of low prices, without any indication of what those low prices might bottom out at or of how long is “long”. Analysts are already pointing to considerable uncertainty.

There are those, although not—I am glad to say—many of them, who think that all of that can be dealt with through efficiencies in farmers’ production methods. As we have touched on, however, the short notice that people get about their milk prices cannot necessarily be offset by instant cost reduction measures or alterations to milk production methods. Some such alterations might take one, two, three or even more years to take effect, while the price reduction has an instant effect, so that is a simplistic way of addressing the problem.

An additional problem, which I suspect many Members who represent more isolated parts of the UK feel, is that there are limits to the diversification programmes that farmers can enter into. It is not always possible for people to open a suite of holiday units or a farm shop, because they might be two or three miles off the beaten track, have significant planning problems to overcome or be on a tenanted holding, the landlord of which may have a different view of the sort of developments that can be undertaken.

Local Government Finance (Rural Authorities)

Debate between Simon Hart and Neil Parish

Monday 11th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Neil Parish]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention because that is precisely the point. Rural areas are often leafy and green, and it does not appear, on the face of it, that there is any deprivation there, but there is. In rural areas people often have lower wages and so even those who are working find it very difficult to pay high levels of council tax. He makes a good point.

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

My hon. Friend will be depressed to learn that I am confused already, because we are talking about rural areas and urban areas, yet I am not aware of any line on the map that distinguishes between the two. Could he, or could the Minister, explain precisely how the difference is defined?

[Neil Parish]

My hon. Friend makes an interesting point, because one of the arguments is about how we define what a rural authority is. Under the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs definition some rural authorities are 80% rural and some are 50% rural, whereas the DCLG has one overall view: it has added everybody together and called them rural authorities. That is one of the problems we are facing.