Agriculture Bill (Fifth sitting)

Thangam Debbonaire Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 5th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 25th February 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Daniel Zeichner]

I am grateful, Mr Stringer. I am also grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for making that point. One difficulty we have in discussing the Bill is that the philosophical underpinning is somewhat absent. These big questions of what agriculture is for, and whether we are going to have a future, sustainable agricultural system, trouble many of us. As I said earlier, those issues do not go away. He made a very strong point, which many Opposition Members will return to, about the danger of effectively moving the environmental harm elsewhere. That is a key sticking point, which I suspect will be returned to on many occasions.

We want to ensure that we can manage a transition. I would like to see us get to a much more sustainable system. I hope that the discussions we are having provide a structure to allow people to make that transition. The danger is that it becomes more expensive, as the right hon. Gentleman pointed out.

We may move to lower levels of food production in this country. That is a matter to be debated. Provided the standards elsewhere are good enough, from our point of view, it would not necessarily be the case that we would want to maintain the current levels. We will come to that when we discuss food security, no doubt. It is always tempting to say that we should continue as we are, because that happens to be where we are now. Looking ahead, do we think the world is safer than it was or not? Those are the questions worth asking.

Returning to discussion of the amendment, many of us would like to see much more local, sustainable production. People worry about food miles involved. Having rehearsed these debates in the past, I am sure there are transport experts in the room who will point out that it is not simple. Not being far away geographically does not necessarily produce a lower carbon footprint.

Those are matters that people rightly want to discuss and challenge. There is no better person to challenge those than my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East, who displays a passionate knowledge. She has been bending my ear on this issue for the best part of two decades. [Interruption.] Sorry. That was when my hon. Friend was a very young person.

As is often the case, people are proved to be right. I am not sure that when my hon. Friend was embarking on those points two decades ago, everyone would necessarily have agreed or given her the space to make those points. She has been proved right. It is important to pursue the matter in the amendment. I take the Minister’s point that it might be possible to secure some support through the environmental land management schemes. Without wanting to sound like a broken record, it would have been a lot easier if we had had further detail on that earlier. That is why I think it is reasonable for us to keep pressing.

I understand that the Government did not have entire control over the political agenda in the past couple of years, but this has been done in the wrong order. The food strategy is really important, and we welcome it, but it just seems to be the wrong way round. The food strategy should be set first, followed by discussion on how to achieve it. We are in the curious position of trying to second-guess what is going to happen. Given that it may well be set in stone, as this is a key moment in agricultural policy, and may have to stand the test of time for 40 years, it is difficult to approach the matter in this order.

I fully appreciate what the Minister said about tackling poverty. From our side, every opportunity to tackle poverty is worth pursuing. It is a striking feature of too many parts of our country that the opportunity for people to eat healthily has been withdrawn from local communities. Sometimes, it is all very well to point the finger at individuals, but individuals can only choose from the choices that are offered to them. Ironically, it is not only in cities—in many villages and rural communities we have seen the absence of local shops. Of course, the market will do what the market will do unless we intervene.

Labour strongly believes in intervention. Where there are market failures, we want to respond to our constituents’ rightly held view that if there is no fresh fruit and veg in the local shop—as is too often the case—they are left with unpalatable choices because, as demand falls, it is hard for shopkeepers. What should we do? The amendments would give us the opportunity to provide support. I know that would not be welcome to market fundamentalists, and it might not be the most hyper-efficient way of producing food goods, but it produces something bigger, which is a public good—our people having access to the food that they deserve.

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way, particularly as I am here in my capacity as a Whip today. Does he agree that the time will come when people will look back on the Bill as a lost opportunity? We have not grasped this—the point of agriculture, as many farmers, including Members opposite know, is to grow food. Is this not the time to tackle food poverty?

[Daniel Zeichner]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. There is considerable enthusiasm in many communities to grasp that opportunity, if it is given. Many communities do not have the resources necessary to do it themselves, without some external help and support. This is exactly the opportunity to do that.

I will touch on the Minister’s initial discussion of how Environmental Land Management schemes may operate. We are all enthusiastic and want them to work well. I have rather enjoyed the images that the Secretary of State has occasionally conjured up of a cosy chat around the farmhouse table. I caution the Conservative party—I think country suppers got it into trouble in the past. Members opposite may want to reflect that not all farms are the same. I have often noticed over the years that the kind of farms I have been invited to are wonderful, astonishing places—the crème de la crème of our system. Not all farms, in my experience—I go back to my days as a rural district councillor in Norfolk—are like that. For many farmers, it is tough. As we know from the statistics, they are barely eking out a living in some places. I have never been entirely convinced that all those farms would be quite so welcoming to the agri-economist turning up to have a discussion. From their perspective, it may feel a touch intrusive, if they are told to make changes that they will find very difficult.

My cautionary note is that this may work well for some. I was challenged by the NFU to visit a farm in Cambridge, which my team originally thought would be a challenge. It turned out that we have a wonderful farm on the edge of Cambridge doing some fantastic work through many of the existing agri-environmental schemes. I am sure it will do very well under the new system. My worry is what happens to farms in other places that will find this much tougher.