Agricultural and County Shows

Stephen Crabb Excerpts

Thursday 21st July 2022 Westminster Hall

[Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the importance of agricultural and county shows to rural Britain.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Huq. Thank you for stepping in today. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing the debate, and Members—I know many cannot be here—from all parties across the House and all parts of the United Kingdom for coming to support it, including the Members who have in their constituencies the Royal Highland Show, the Royal Welsh Show, which happened in recent days, and the Balmoral Show, which is run by the Royal Ulster Agricultural Society.

Britain has a long and proud tradition of agricultural and county shows. The 350 that take place a year fuel economic activity in our rural communities, and provide incalculable value to the societies that they celebrate. They showcase the very best of farming—a sector that contributes about £115 billion a year to the economy.

One reason I am so keen to talk about the subject is that the first show in England, I am reliably informed, took place in 1763 in my patch of North West Durham, in the town in Wolsingham. Since then, the shows have become central to the social fabric and economy of the parishes, villages and towns of North West Durham, and they have become wildly popular in modern Britain, with over 7 million people attending them annually. Agricultural shows span the length and breadth of North West Durham. They range from some of the largest fairs, such as the Wolsingham Show, which attracts tens of thousands of visitors to the town every year, to smaller ones, such as the historic Stanhope Show, which is over 180 years old. The very smallest, such as the Blanchland and Hunstanworth Show, right up in the north Pennines, celebrate some of the most rural parishes.

County Durham has a rich history of farming, stretching back thousands of years. The Normans enclosed large areas of it as the County Palatine of Durham back in the early middle ages. Around that time, some of the land in the rural north Pennines was cleared for farms, for mining and particularly for small-scale cattle raising and sheep farming on the hills. In the 19th century, people in Weardale often subsidised their work in the mines with smallholdings and subsistence farming.

Today, for places across County Durham and across the country, county shows still provide a strong link between that rich agricultural history and present day society. Although agriculture has fundamentally changed over the centuries, and county shows have evolved as well, the shows are still unique points at which our towns and villages can come together. Agricultural shows provide people with a unique opportunity to celebrate what makes our local rural communities so special. They incorporate a huge range of rural activities, such as dry stone walling, which I tried my hand at last year at the Weardale Show in St John’s Chapel, and sheep shearing, which I know many hon. Members are always keen to take part in.

Despite the huge diversity in attractions, animals and events on display, what the shows have in common is the local pride that they instil in people and in the small local communities they serve. I am thinking particularly of the fact that cattle are still very much at the heart of even the larger shows in my constituency, such as the Wolsingham Show. Having the winners paraded around the ground is very much the highlight of the day, even with the much broader attractions that are now on offer.

These shows enrich our local communities. They help to reinforce social cohesion, and are an invaluable asset to modern Britain. Unfortunately, as we have all seen, over the last couple of years covid put a stop to some of them. I was at the Eastgate Sheep Show back in May, which was able to go ahead for the first time since my election as an MP in 2019. This year, I hope to see people return en masse to our county and agricultural shows, to help our communities rediscover their social benefits. We all took those benefits for granted not that long ago, but we now realise just how important they are. I look forward to visiting the Weardale Show in St John’s Chapel, the Wolsingham Show and the Stanhope Show later in the summer.

Farms are intrinsic to the identity and image of rural Britain. Without them there would be no such green and pleasant land that we all enjoy. They play a really important part in ensuring that our rural communities are connected to our local towns. While farming practices have changed, meaning that we do not need huge proportions of the population working the ground and the land anymore, farms provide a symbol for many people in those small towns and villages, and a real connection with the land that feeds our nation and other nations across the world.

I would welcome any Member coming to visit my patch this summer. British tourism is incredibly important, and it is not just the agricultural shows themselves that are the driver. They also provide a real anchor for many other rural activities, particularly rural pubs, which I am a keen supporter of, as a member of the all-party parliamentary beer group, and the hospitality trade, which in so much of rural Britain was also hammered during the covid pandemic. I urge anybody thinking of travelling around the country this summer to anchor it with a rural show, and to spend some time in those rural villages too.

In the modern era, farms are at the frontier of so many environmental measures, with farmers committed to working as much as possible in harmony with nature, while producing sustainable and nutritious food and products from their land. I am glad that when we come back in September, the trade agreements that we have negotiated will be addressed on Second Reading, and I am glad that the Department has had the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 to ensure that Britain’s agricultural interests are looked after. The Government are driving forward changes to Britain’s agricultural sector, following our exit from the EU. I hope that environmental land management schemes will, over time, provide a real environmental link, while ensuring that good food production is maintained in the UK.

[Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

My hon. Friend rightly highlights the importance of agriculture remaining at the heart of the county shows that he eloquently describes. Does he agree that food production must remain at the heart of UK agricultural strategies? That does not mean that we are ignorant of the net zero challenge, and some of the environmental imperatives, but keeping British farmers farming and producing high-quality food must be the overriding goal.

[Mr Holden]

I agree with my right hon. Friend, and he is right to highlight that. It is true not just in agricultural farming but for our fishing industry, as I am sure his community would reflect. Nothing has brought that home more than what has happened recently overseas, and the knock-on impact on inflation and food prices here. There is also the security element, so he makes a valid point, which I will return to later.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Huq. I start by thanking and paying tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham (Mr Holden) for the intelligent and eloquent way that he set out the issues. It was an enjoyable speech to listen to, and informative as well. It is a timely moment to secure a debate on county agricultural shows in a week when, as my hon. Friend said, the historic county flags are flying around Parliament Square. It is delightful to see Pembrokeshire’s county flag among them.

The four-day Royal Welsh Show has been taking place this week. It is another great success, and it is great to see it back after the difficult covid years. It is a good moment for this debate, as we look ahead to the summer recess that is about to start. Many of us will be getting out and about in our constituencies, and going around our county shows. As my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham said, the smaller—often village-sized—shows are still an important part of the fabric of rural and agricultural life in the 21st century.

My county show—we refer to it as “the county show” —is the Pembrokeshire agricultural show. It is the pre-eminent county show in Wales. It is one of the last remaining three-day shows. Covid has been a huge interruption to the show. It is back this year in a two-day format, but I hope it will return to the full three days in future years. It attracts more than 100,000 visitors every year. It always falls in the middle of August, when there are thousands of tourists visiting the beautiful beaches and countryside of Pembrokeshire.

What we get at the Pembrokeshire County Show is an incredibly impressive shop window on agricultural and rural life in Pembrokeshire. It is not just about farming, although that remains at its heart. It also brings in other industries from the private sector, such as car and machinery dealerships. All kinds of voluntary groups and charities have stands. Myself and Conservative colleagues in the Senedd have a stand, and run advice surgeries. No other event in the Pembrokeshire calendar brings together so many people from so many different backgrounds to celebrate agriculture, farming and rural identity. The point that my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham makes about identity and cohesion in a community —that sense of community feeling—is really important. For us in Pembrokeshire, the county show is a great vehicle for expressing that.

It is the Pembrokeshire Agricultural Society that runs the Pembrokeshire show. I put on record my thanks and pay tribute to the team from the society, particularly the new chairman this year, Mansel Raymond. Those Members who have been involved in dairy issues may recognise the name from his time chairing the National Farmers Union dairy board. He is a very successful farmer in the community; he takes over from Stephen James, a previous chairman of NFU Cymru. They and their teams have done a fantastic job of keeping the Pembrokeshire Agricultural Society running during these difficult years of covid, getting it to the position where we can run the show once again this year.

The Pembrokeshire Agricultural Society was actually founded in 1784; it goes back more than 230 years. It was founded exactly at a time when the agricultural revolution was feeding into the industrial revolution, which my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham talked about. The founder of the agricultural society was one William Knox; he was not a Welshman but from Scotland, a relative of John Knox. He was a former Under-Secretary of State for America who found himself in Pembrokeshire. The society had some difficult years, but it was re-founded in 1901, specifically with the purpose of running the flagship county show every summer. That has happened every year since, and for the last 63 years it has happened at the Withybush airfield site, just outside Haverfordwest, which is of course the county town of Pembrokeshire.

It is a tremendous show, Dr Huq, and if you ever find yourself in west Wales in the middle of August, I hope you take some time out to visit the Pembrokeshire show. Indeed, I have seen many colleagues over the last 20 years, from all sides of the House, visiting the show when they have been on holiday in Pembrokeshire. They always have a great time.

For all the activities, the stalls and the fun, leisure aspects that tourists and visitors enjoy, at the heart of the show remains agriculture, farming and competition. There are livestock competitions and other types of contest. Farming remains at the heart of the show, which is a really key point that I want to stress, because farming is the backbone of rural life. Some shows around the country have morphed over recent years into more generic country fairs; they have a place and are fun as well. But for the county agricultural shows that we are discussing this afternoon, the key point is that they have farming strongly at their heart. As I said, farming is the backbone of rural life.

I chair the Welsh Affairs Committee, and it is great to see some colleagues from Wales present this afternoon. We recently completed an inquiry into the social and cultural benefits of family farms in Wales, taking into account the signing of new trade deals and some other trends in agriculture. I think that all members of the Select Committee would agree that maintaining vibrant farming is really important, not just for the economic benefits to rural communities, but for protecting something that is quite unique and special about our heritage. That has particular importance for us in Wales, where I think it is fair to say that the farming community is probably the most important vehicle for incubating and protecting the Welsh language, which of course goes to the very heart of our identity in Wales. All these things link together and come together very effectively in these annual agricultural shows.

In the report that the Select Committee produced on family farms in Wales, we highlighted a number of risks that I think it is important to put on the record. My hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham has already touched on them. We made the point about keeping farming principally about food production. There is also the point about tree planting in Wales. We observed as a Committee that more and more high-quality agricultural land is being purchased for tree planting in Wales. That represents an almost permanent loss of agricultural land for these activities. I have a particular concern that some of that land is being purchased by corporations with no real connection to Wales at all. They are, in my view, practising a form of greenwashing: it allows those corporates to say that they are offsetting their carbon emissions. I do worry. I worry about farming when farming is being pushed more and more away from core food production. I worry about farming when more and more land is being given over to tree planting. That of course has benefits, but when it means a permanent loss of quality agricultural land, that is a concern.

The Pembrokeshire County Show will be happening again this August. It is a fabulous shop window on our rural community. However, smaller shows are happening as well. We have the Nevern Village Show and the Fishguard Show. My local show is the Clarbeston Road Show, in the next village along from where I live. They all have their particular characteristics. They all have their local characters and individuals who give so much of their free time to volunteer and to make the show happen. Those people are the bedrock of our communities, and we salute them this afternoon.