Oral Answers to Questions

Tim Farron Excerpts

Thursday 19th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

My hon. Friend is extremely knowledgeable in this area and his input will be extremely useful when it comes to our consultation. He is exactly right that this is a unique opportunity to create a policy that works for us, not for 28 EU member states. That is exactly what we will be consulting on and what we will be delivering.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

Happy birthday from me, too, Mr Speaker.

I wonder whether the Secretary of State or, indeed, the chairman of the Rural Payments Agency would tolerate waiting 13 and a half months for their salary cheque to arrive, yet that is what 50 hill farmers have had to do as they wait for their December 2015 single farm payments. Hundreds more waited up to a year to get their payments. They have been told that in the 2016-17 year they will be at the back of the queue to receive their payments if they farm on the commons. Will she commit to ensuring that those 50 are paid immediately, and will she also commit that those commoners, those hill farmers, who were at the back of the queue last year will be at the front of the queue this year?

[Andrea Leadsom]

I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman is just not apprised of the facts, which are that there are very few—[Interruption.] No. The hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) shouts 2,000 from the Front Bench, but people have received a payment and there are some challenges to those payments that are awaiting settlement. I would like to say to the hon. Gentleman that the RPA, under Mark Grimshaw, has strived to settle all outstanding claims. There are people challenging them, understandably, but that is what it is. Everybody has received a payment, apart from a very small number where issues such as probate are concerned, or where there are legal or inspection challenges. This year, many commoners have been paid across the board and we are up at 92.8% of payments so far, which is a good achievement compared with last year.

Flooding

Tim Farron Excerpts

Tuesday 5th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

The Communities Secretary is here and I am sure he will take those points on board. The national planning policy framework makes it very clear that inappropriate development on floodplains should be avoided, but ultimately this is a decision for local people to make, as is the case throughout the planning system.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

I thank the Secretary of State for an advance copy of her statement, and for her activities and efforts, and those of her Ministers, over the Christmas period. They have not gone unnoticed. In paying tribute to the emergency services and voluntary outfits across the country, in particular mountain rescue services, we in Cumbria stand in solidarity and sympathy with all those in Yorkshire, Scotland and Lancashire who have suffered the brunt of this flooding.

It is a month today since Storm Desmond hit Cumbria, and there are many unresolved issues on which I wish to press the Secretary of State. The A591 north of Grasmere to Keswick remains closed, destroyed and impassable. Will she make this a national strategic priority and ensure that it is reopened as quickly as is humanly possible? The cost to Cumbria of infrastructure loss will be £500 million. Will the Government commit to fund every penny of that to make sure we get back on our feet? Will she commit to whole-system flood prevention measures, including the restoration of the River Kent flood defence scheme, which is currently shelved?

[Elizabeth Truss]

The A591 is a national priority. Highways England is working on that to restore it as soon as possible. That is extremely important. The Transport Secretary is here today, so I am sure he has taken that on board. Similarly, we will be looking at the funding of other infrastructure. The wider solutions are a priority for the Government, and the Natural Capital Committee is looking specifically at that. We are now developing our plans for the environment on a river basin and catchment basis. That is the way we look at the environment. We are not looking at it in silos of flooding, biodiversity or farming; we are looking at it altogether, as a single plan.

Climate Change and Flooding

Tim Farron Excerpts

Tuesday 15th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

Of course that is one of the options that we are considering, but it would take seven months for the money to arrive. What we have done, within a week of these terrible floods occurring, is make £51 million available to give immediate relief to households and businesses in Cumbria and across the north that have been affected. The Chancellor announced last week that we were supporting households and businesses in affected areas.

The hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) asked about accommodation. We are anxious to ensure that accommodation is available to those who have had to leave their homes, and we are working closely with local councils to ensure that they have every resource that they need for that purpose. Divers are assessing the bridges so that they can be opened as soon as possible, and diggers are clearing roads. We are doing all we can to ensure that Cumbria is up and running as soon as possible, and is open for business as soon as possible.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

The Secretary of State has rightly pointed out that great efforts have been made to clear the roads. As she will know, the A591 connects the north and south lakes at Grasmere and Keswick, and its closure has effectively ruined the tourist industry on both sides of that divide. The Royal Engineers did a great job in clearing up the mess, but they left yesterday. Would the Secretary of State be able to invite them back to rebuild the road quickly?

[Elizabeth Truss]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. The A591 is a critical artery for tourism and for local residents to get about. It is now passable in a 4x4 vehicle, but we are working on getting it fully up and running as soon as possible, and the Department for Transport is working closely with the Cobra team to ensure that that happens, because it is a priority. I am pleased to say that the west coast main line was up and running as quickly as possible. Nearly all the 169,000 households and businesses whose power was cut off have been reconnected, although a small group of fewer than 50 need extra work at flooded properties. The Environment Agency has been assessing what more can be done, and has been moving in heavy equipment to clear rivers.

Our priority must continue to be public safety. Although 84 flood warnings have been removed in the last day or so, further flooding could occur as a result of rain falling on saturated ground. I urge people to keep up to date with the latest situation through the Environment Agency’s website and other news sources.

I know that this is of no comfort to those who have suffered, but the flood defences in Carlisle and Kendal successfully defended more than 100,000 households and businesses and prevented them from losing their power supplies. It is important for us now to consider how we can further improve resilience in our country.

The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change is working to ensure that we have long-term energy security, and that we tackle dangerous emissions. I think that she has shown massive leadership over the past week. Hers was an historic achievement in Paris, and I think that Opposition Members should applaud her for showing such leadership at an international level. I see that some of them are acknowledging her leadership; that acknowledgement is particularly welcome from the former Climate Change Secretary, the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband).

[Elizabeth Truss]

We have already made a major change. Rather than allowing a stop-start in flood defence spending, we have, for the first time, laid out a fully funded six-year programme to give communities the certainty they need. I shall say more about that later, but I was in the middle of praising my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change. She has done a fantastic job, and I think that that needs to be acknowledged. She has achieved an international climate change deal that will bring about a level playing field—it is very important for countries across the world to contribute—but she is also making sure that we deal with customers’ bills at home. It is right for us to improve our economy, achieve economic growth and reduce carbon, and my right hon. Friend is showing how that can be done.

[Tim Farron]

rose—

[Elizabeth Truss]

I have already given the hon. Gentleman an opportunity to contribute. I want to make a bit of progress now.

Under this Government, there is a long term-plan for economic and energy security, part of which involves improving our resilience and investing in flood defences. Extreme weather events are becoming more common. There have been devastating floods in Cumbria, Lancashire, Northumberland and elsewhere, and there has been record rainfall. Water levels in our rivers have been more than half a metre higher than they have ever been before. Yesterday, during my second visit to Cumbria in a week, I went to Appleby and Threlkeld, where I met residents, Army volunteers, and others whose work has been tremendous during this rescue effort. I saw the sheer power of the water, which had washed bridges downstream, but I also saw a huge amount of spirit and resilience among the Cumbrian people.

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[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

Colleagues from all parts of the House are rightly praising the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change for her role in Paris. I do not have time to go into that at great length, except to say that she did indeed play a blinder, as did this country as a whole. However, it is very difficult to stack up her signing the agreement in Paris with her slashing subsidies for renewables, ending the green deal and privatising the green investment bank. The Secretary of State is perhaps, if she will forgive me, the José Mourinho of environmental politics—impressive on the international stage, woeful domestically.

Climate change is clearly not an esoteric matter, although some would consider it to be so. The impact on my constituency, throughout my county and on other places is very real. The impact on the families who will be out of their homes at Christmas—the hundreds upon hundreds of children who are not able to look forward to Christmas at home—is utterly heart-breaking. I want us to think, first and foremost, about the human cost. Among the things that I am seeking from the Government is additional support for Cumbria’s health and social services to support mental health provision and counselling for people in desperate, desperate need.

I praise the response not just of the emergency services, which have been absolutely fantastic, but of organisations such as Kendal Cares and the churches in the south Lakeland area. The response can absolutely reassure us about human nature, as people who had lost almost everything went next door to help people who had lost absolutely everything.

The scale of the floods needs to be put in a numerical sense. PricewaterhouseCoopers reckons that the cost of the floods to Cumbria is £500 million. Therefore, the Government support of £50 million, although welcome, is clearly nowhere near enough. In the few moments available to me, I will set out why we need additional support and ask for it.

There are some who will dismiss people who are uninsured or underinsured as feckless. They are not feckless; they are penniless. Very often, these are people who could not afford insurance in the first place or who could afford only insurance that was cheap and, therefore, inadequate. There are many people who live in areas that flood regularly and who, therefore, could not get coverage in the first place.

The £500 grants from the Cumbria Community Foundation are utterly welcome and I praise it, but £500 will not get people far if we consider what we would lose if the ground floor of our homes flooded—all the white goods and all the other things we need to make life possible. We need support so that the £500 can be increased significantly.

We need to recognise that the £5,000 per household that the Government are promising is for flood prevention in the future, not to help people who have lost significant amounts of money right now. That money should be delivered to people in Cumbria right away and directly.

I reiterate my comment about the A591. To those who heard the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs say earlier that it was passable in a 4x4, I say that I was there yesterday and it could just about be passed on a bicycle. It is not true.

[John Stevenson]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that one of the priorities in the long run, beyond the work on the A591 and Pooley bridge, must be to invest in and renew our road infrastructure in Cumbria?

[Tim Farron]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. He is doing an excellent job for his constituents in Carlisle. He is right that the investment now will help the county in the long run. I ask the Government to invest in making sure that the A591 is rebuilt and reopened in a matter of weeks, not months, because the current situation is devastating for the local economy.

There is also a plan on the table from Cumbria Tourism that the Government need to provide funding for right now. There is a short-term, immediate strategy—as in, today—to boost the economy up to Christmas through a marketing campaign and a medium-term campaign to make sure we get back on our feet.

Other parts of the Lake district have been hugely hit. The village of Staveley has been cut in two by the closure of its bridge. Again, we need support for that in weeks, not months. Likewise, the bridge that connects the two communities at Backbarrow, which was lost six years ago in 2009, is closed again and needs investment straight away to make sure it is reopened.

It is important that people get the message, and that the Government get out the message that Cumbria is open for business. I was in Grasmere yesterday. I cannot think of a more Christmassy place to be at this moment, but equally I cannot think of a quieter place. People are not going there because they think the place is closed. It is not. Please go there. Please will the Government get the message out that that is what people need to do?

I have a quick note about farmers. I am very concerned that the Government are planning to close the Lyth valley pumps in June. I was there yesterday and we cannot allow that to happen. Will the Government commit to funding the pumps beyond the end of June? Will they also commit to help farmers who have lost stock in tragic circumstances up and down the county? They must recognise that much of the money that goes into keeping the Lyth valley dry is about protecting infrastructure, which the hon. Member for Carlisle (John Stevenson) mentioned. The A590 is often flooded as a consequence of that farmland not being drained, so the pumps are important for infrastructure too.

I want to make a final point about the long-termism that is needed. We often hear the phrase “long-term economic plan”. The problem is that we had an autumn statement recently in which the Chancellor pulled out of his hat lots of white rabbits, but none of those white rabbits were for the Department of Energy and Climate Change, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs or the Department for Communities and Local Government. The three Departments that we desperately need to be on the frontline to protect people in Cumbria are massively denuded. We have local authorities—South Lakeland District Council, Cumbria County Council and others—working very hard and doing a very good job, but with about 20% less people and resources than they had six years ago. It is therefore vital that the Government commit to providing the £500 million that PricewaterhouseCoopers has identified so that we can rebuild our communities, support our damaged people and communities, get people back in their homes, and do so quickly.

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[Tim Farron]

rose—

[Rebecca Pow]

rose—

[David T. C. Davies]

Thank you! I have been waiting. I will give way to the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) because I always prefer to give way to the Opposition—it is more fun.

[Tim Farron]

All Members of the House appreciate scepticism, and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman’s scepticism is sincere. The problem is that if he spreads that kind of nonsense, he provides people with an excuse not to take action, and gives comfort to those who want us to do nothing about the biggest challenge facing humanity.

[David T. C. Davies]

I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s kind words—I think—but I am just trying to raise questions. If he wants me to go to my constituents and try to sell policies that will push up their energy bills and make it more likely that some of those in the manufacturing industry will be out of work, I must have answers to questions that have not yet been provided. Why has there been no warming since 1997? Why is there no correlation over the past few hundred years? What percentage of 0.8° is down to natural factors? Those questions are important. Of the CO₂ that has gone into the atmosphere, why has nobody queried the fact that less than 5% is man-made? People talk about CO₂ as some sort of pollutant, but it is a perfectly natural gas and most of it is generated naturally from the earth and the sea.

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[Amber Rudd]

Several other Members have made the same suggestion. All I can say at this stage is that I hope various Ministers will continue to consider it, because I share the hon. Gentleman’s admiration for all the effort and work that the fire and rescue services have put into helping people.

Over the next six years, we will invest £2.3 billion in flood defence. That is a real-terms increase on the £1.7 billion that was invested during the last Parliament. The hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) made some helpful suggestions about future spending on mitigation, while the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith) called for more support. I remind the hon. Lady that £60 million has already been invested in flood defences to protect Fleetwood. More than 200 schemes are currently being constructed in England, and we will deliver on our manifesto commitment to provide better protection for 300,000 more homes.

[Tim Farron]

rose—

[Amber Rudd]

I know that the hon. Gentleman recognised the enormous effort that had gone into support for Cumbria, and that he made some additional suggestions, which I will certainly pass on to my right hon. Friend the Chancellor.

[Tim Farron]

I can help the Secretary of State to find some of the sources of funds that would partly satisfy my requests. Her right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said earlier that one reason why a bid might not yet have been made for EU solidarity funds was the fact that they would take seven months to come through. Will she confirm that Commissioner Cretu made clear today that 10% of any award from the solidarity fund could be provided immediately to help us to carry out work such as the rebuilding of the A591?

[Amber Rudd]

I have been reliably informed by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs that the Department for Transport is already dealing with the matter, so the hon. Gentleman may well see some action in that regard.

Dairy Industry

Tim Farron Excerpts

Wednesday 4th February 2015 Westminster Hall

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley (Mr Evans). Dairy farming is integral and vital to the economy, culture and landscape of Cumbria. Across the UK, over the past four Parliaments, we have seen a more than 50% drop in the number of dairy farm holdings and a more than 10% reduction in milk-producing capacity because of the lopsided, counter-productive, unfair and unfree market.

It is an outrage and a great shame that it has taken this crisis to prove right those of us who wanted the Groceries Code Adjudicator to have more powers and more teeth. We should have got it right at the beginning, but the power to fine is right. As my hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute (Mr Reid) rightly said, we should ensure that the adjudicator can look beyond the direct relationship with supermarkets to the indirect relationships, because that is where farmers are being done over most regularly and most heinously. We must look at the processor monopoly within the market, too, and consider putting the code of practice on a statutory footing.

I challenge the notion abroad that, somehow, the supermarkets are using milk as a loss-leader, which is not the case. Nearly 50% of the average price of a litre of milk in the supermarket goes into the supermarket’s pocket. There is room within the supermarkets’ profit margins to deal with this situation, and we must not let them hide behind the idea that this is all about world commodity markets when it is not. Poverty and hardship is now rife among dairy farmers. The inability of dairy farmers to reinvest in their future and their stock is now commonplace, and we see the loss of family farms on at least a daily basis.

John Maynard Keynes once said:

“Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.”

That is absolutely the case within the farming and dairy sectors, and we must recognise that we have to save the supermarkets from themselves before they completely lose the producers on whom they rely. It is an outrage and an irony that we can go down a supermarket aisle to buy Fairtrade coffee and tea from Nicaragua and Colombia, but down the next aisle, getting the milk to put in that tea and coffee, we find milk ripped from the hands of a Cumbrian dairy farmer for less than it cost them to produce. We are passionate about fair trade for farmers from Colombia, but equally passionate about fair trade for farmers from Cumbria.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tim Farron Excerpts

Thursday 27th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice]

I meet Ministers from the devolved Assembly regularly. Most recently, I met last Monday the Scottish Minister responsible for farming and fisheries. We did not discuss this particular issue, but when the final report is published we will discuss its findings. We have had some discussions about the interim findings, and further discussions are taking place at official level.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

Does my hon. Friend recognise the potential threat to our domestic food supply presented by changes to the common agricultural policy, particularly with regard to food produced in the uplands? If so, what plans do he and our Government have to protect, or ensure that there is a decent successor to, the upland entry level scheme?

Oral Answers to Questions

Tim Farron Excerpts

Thursday 9th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice]

The right hon. Gentleman is referring to the interim report by Professor Elliott. We will look at all his recommendations and respond to the final report when it is published later this year.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

Farmers in Cumbria and elsewhere have their hands tied by excessive restrictions, such as the six-day movement rule. Given that the Government agreed in full to the recommendations of the Macdonald report two years ago, when will farmers in this country see them put into practice?

[George Eustice]

It is difficult to remove the six-day movement rule because it was a key measure that was brought in to combat the spread of diseases such as foot and mouth. We are clear that we want to get rid of unnecessary regulation, but we do not want to do anything that would compromise animal health or safety. I am willing to talk to the hon. Gentleman about this particular point. It has been raised with me by farmers. However, it is not a simple matter because we do not want to jeopardise animal health.

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[Mr Paterson]

I am absolutely delighted to be able to reassure the hon. Lady and the hon. Members for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) and for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) that the idea that biodiversity offsetting could be used as a means of imposing unwanted houses on ancient woodland is an absolute travesty. It is absolutely clear: all along we have always said that should we bring in offsetting—I made this clear to the all-party group—all the current protections of the planning regime and all the mitigation hierarchy remain. Only at the very last moment could offsetting be considered, and we have always said that some assets will be too precious to offset and—[Interruption.] Exactly, and that might well be ancient woodland.

The hon. Lady should look at examples of offsetting in countries like Australia, where there has been an 80% shift of planning applications away from fragile environments. Used properly, therefore, biodiversity offsetting could be a tremendous tool to protect those ancient woodlands which she and I value. As someone who has planted an arboretum over recent years, the idea that I am going to trash ancient woodlands is an absolute outrage to me personally.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

Following the damage caused by the tidal surges in the Kent estuary on more than one occasion last week, will the Minister confirm that draft flood defence schemes along the whole of the River Kent will now be prioritised?

[Dan Rogerson]

My hon. Friend knows that, as we heard from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, the Government are making investment in flood protection schemes a key priority. We have secured record investment in the next spending review period to do that. If my hon. Friend would like to write to me about those specific schemes, I would be happy to hear more.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tim Farron Excerpts

Thursday 10th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Dan Rogerson]

The hon. Lady has obviously been concerned about these matters for some time. I would be happy to hear more from her about the details and perhaps we could take the matter forward on that basis.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

Do my right hon. and hon. Friends share my alarm at the growing practice of Natural England’s insisting on the removal of sheep from land under new stewardship projects? Given the absolute need for the UK to be able to provide more of its own food, is that not a dangerous step? Will Ministers take action?

[Mr Paterson]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question, which touches on our conundrum in the hill areas, where we clearly want to increase food production but also want to improve the environment. We will be consulting shortly on whether we modulate a significant sum from pillar 1 to pillar 2 and what the shape and form of those pillar 2 schemes might be. I am absolutely clear that we have a real role to play in helping hill farmers to keep the hills looking as they do and to provide them with sufficient money to provide food.

Agricultural Wages Board

Tim Farron Excerpts

Wednesday 24th April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hart]

I can. The FUW members supported the abolition of the Agricultural Wages Board. The FUW as a union made rather a different representation. I speak on behalf of members in my own constituency. Of course I cannot speak for the union based in a different area.

One of the things that I find startling is that the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh), rather than the whole party that she represents, seemed to find it impossible to believe that an owner, a manager, a farm worker and a forester can all work harmoniously together because they have a common shared love of food production or a common shared love of their community and want to do the right thing by their farmer. That seems to be a concept that the Opposition cannot absorb because they have a union-fuelled view that it is some kind of Dickensian existence out there. For those of us for whom it is our daily life—it is where I shall be by the end of tomorrow—it is not like that. It may be like that in Wakefield, but it ain’t like that in Pembrokeshire.

I am particularly sad that the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies), is not in his place. He seems to be dancing to the union tune on the subject. I know Ogmore in the way that he knows Pembrokeshire, and we both know, as I said, that this is not an issue for agricultural workers in either of our constituencies. I am surprised that he has not stood up to the pressure from the sponsors of the debate and spoken on behalf of the agricultural workers, with whom we are all familiar and for whom we have great respect in west Wales.

[Tim Farron]

I deal with about 9,000 pieces of casework a year and I have not had a single farm worker write to me on the issue, which is surprising, but not when we think that the overwhelming majority of livestock farmers and dairy farmers in places like ours do not employ anybody, because they themselves are so hard up and are probably existing on significantly less then the minimum wage, considering what they earn and the hours that they work. We should be concentrating on how those farmers can get a fair deal for feeding the rest of us.

[Simon Hart]

The hon. Gentleman speaks with great knowledge because he represents an area suffering those hardships.

I shall not speak for long. I find it bizarre that last night when my hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire (Glyn Davies) was fronting a debate on the hardship facing upland farmers, I was reprimanded by Mr Speaker for mentioning cattle when I should have been speaking about sheep. Never mind. Here we are debating something which is not relevant to the hardships facing the agricultural industry, certainly in my area, when we should be devoting our energy to other matters. I am surprised that the shadow Secretary of State was not there to hear the debate, which was important and involved her party as much as it involved ours. I am surprised that we are engaged in the present debate when we know that the abolition of the Agricultural Wages Board will not leave agricultural workers, certainly in my area, exposed or vulnerable.

Common Agricultural Policy Reform

Tim Farron Excerpts

Tuesday 12th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Roger Williams]

I agree. I am not arguing for an increase in the CAP budget; what I am arguing for is equality across the whole of Europe. At present, for instance, dairy farmers in the Netherlands receive twice as much support as those who farm in England.

DEFRA’s attempts to cut payments unilaterally, were they to be realised, would hit our farmers far harder than the proposed EU budget cut. In that context, I want to raise a few regional concerns that have arisen following discussions with the Farmers Union of Wales.

Although many of the draft CAP regulations and recently proposed amendments acknowledge regional administrations, others do not. Is the Minister confident that the final regulations will properly acknowledge devolved Administrations such as those in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland?

The impact of greening measures on the regions was also raised with me by the FUW. Greening accounts for 30% of direct payments. Analysis by the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board suggests that Wales, Scotland and northern England would be worst hit by the European Commission’s crop rotation greening proposals. That impact is likely to be due to the particular climatic and topographical challenges faced by farmers in those areas, which, as the Minister will know, are limited in terms of what arable crops can be grown in them, and are therefore at an instant disadvantage in relation to other regions. There is a fear that the greening measures will be perceived as too prescriptive and therefore unhelpful.

I should like the Government to make allowances for farmers in higher latitudinal areas, for example, to take into account the challenge of farming in a tougher environment. I should also like them to support amendments tabled by my Liberal Democrat colleague George Lyon MEP and agreed to by the EU’s Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, which will allow farms to be exempt from greening requirements if they undertake actions that reduce agriculture’s impact on the global environment.

It will be difficult to ensure that the greening measures that generate 30% of direct payments will have an equal impact in countries whose climates and agricultural systems vary as much as Finland and Malta. I fear that DEFRA wants to impose one form of greening on English farmers, namely the ELS-light approach in pillar one. It is one thing to say that a farmer who participates in the entry level stewardship scheme should be exempt from greening, and another to say that the only way in which he can receive his greening payment is to participate in the scheme. We see DEFRA’s approach as an interesting addition to the Commission’s proposals, but only as an accompaniment, not as a replacement. Forcing farmers in England to take part in ELS management measures when, say, Scottish, Irish or French farmers have access to choice and the various “green by definition” derogations sounds very much like domestic gold-plating to me.

I hope that the Government do not consider it necessary to use the new flexibility in the proposals to allow for voluntary modulation of funds in the region of 15% that can be made by member states between the two pillars. While it does represent a liberalisation of the voluntary modulation principle introduced for the UK and Portugal under the previous CAP regime, does the increased possible modulation not represent a threat that could undermine UK farmers’ ability to compete within a common market?

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that, given the likely shrinkage in the overall size of the EU budget, a decision by the UK Government to reduce the amount of modulation would be one way of ensuring that livestock and dairy farmers in particular see no reduction in their single farm payments?

[Roger Williams]

I agree. UK farmers certainly need a level of direct payment to remain financially viable and to play their part in the activities in which the people of this country would like to see them play a part.

National Park Authorities (Elections)

Tim Farron Excerpts

Wednesday 28th November 2012 Westminster Hall

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again, Mr Benton. I am extremely grateful for the opportunity to raise the issue of accountability in relation to Britain’s national parks. The matter is raised with me almost daily by local businesses and residents of the Lake district and the Cumbrian part of the Yorkshire dales, not because local people are desperate for more elections or because we are constitutional obsessives but because decisions made by people who are not accountable to those affected tend to be bad decisions.

As a result, businesses are under unnecessary pressure because they cannot expand, farmers are struggling because they cannot diversify, and local people, especially young people, are leaving our communities never to return because of the lack of affordable housing. Meanwhile, the rise in second home ownership has gone unchecked in recent years. A conservative estimate is that one in six properties is now a second home owned by folks wealthy enough to have a property in a national park that they occasionally visit, while locals who are desperate to stay are forced to leave.

That said, Britain’s national parks are stunning countryside protected for the nation. The 1945 to 1951 Attlee Labour Government spent a good six years implementing Liberal policies, among which was the establishment in 1951 of the national parks, including both the Lakes and the Dales. That was good legislation; it was a wise and visionary move. The motivation behind the Act was to preserve Britain’s most spectacular landscape and its environment and to promote the heritage of our national parks for the benefit of all the people of Britain. There was a sense that the national parks were the lungs of Britain’s towns and cities, and that they therefore belonged to the whole country, not just to those who lived, worked or indeed owned property or land there.

Today, those of us who are blessed to call the Lakes or any other national park home are proud to live in such beautiful places. We embrace the fact that our area is cherished by the nation. We are determined to be stewards of our countryside and to share it with all comers. The Lake district has 16 million visitors a year, the tourism economy of Cumbria is worth roughly £3 billion a year and, outside London, the Lake district is Britain’s most important attack brand for overseas tourism, drawing in millions of tourists every year, many of whom then visit other, less famous parts of Britain, adding hugely to the economy of the whole country.

It is vital for our environment, for biodiversity, for our tourism economy and for our fight against climate change that our national parks are protected, and it is vital for our nation’s heritage and for our sense of collective ownership that that heritage is propagated and that decisions taken about our national parks should be taken on behalf of the UK-wide community well as the local community.

I contend that the evidence of recent years shows that the local community’s interests are most likely to be overlooked when the balance of considerations is made. We in Westmorland and Lonsdale are blessed with two national parks: within the constituency are the most populated part of the Yorkshire dales, including Sedbergh, Dent and Garsdale, and the most populated part of the Lake district, including Ambleside, Grasmere, Windermere, Bowness, Hawkshead, Coniston and the Langdales, to name a few. For those towns and villages, the national park acts in many ways like the local authority: it decides on planning, environmental matters, provision of housing, car parking prices, tourist information and a range of other services.

Although I am talking about beautiful countryside, I am not talking about empty spaces. The Lake District is Britain’s most populous national park: 45,000 people live within it, and thousands more who live near it make their living there. The national park boards act almost identically to local district or county councils. There are 22 members on the Lake District national park board and 22 on the Yorkshire Dales national park board. Of those, six are appointed by the Secretary of State and by local district or county councils. A further four are appointed by parish councils.

The idea is that local council appointments tick the box when it comes to demonstrating that local people have a voice, but it is worth pointing out that many local authority representatives see themselves, understandably, as there to represent their local authority’s institutional interests rather than the interests of residents. To underline that point, many of those local authority representatives do not actually live in or represent wards in the national parks. Also, many parish councils that nominate members of national park boards tend be made up of people who, although able, decent and committed, became members of their parish council without being elected, owing to a lack of demand to take up parish council places.

That prompts the question whether there would be any interest in or demand for elections to the national park boards. Hon. Members might be interested to know that South Lakeland had the highest electoral turnout in the country in the police and crime commissioner elections on 15 November, but even then we managed only 23%. Perhaps that underlines the public’s antipathy to those elections. I suspect that one reason why the turnout was so low is that people felt that the post should not be politicised, and that we already have too many elections.

Maybe this is not the best time to be asking the Government—or, more important, local residents—to consider holding more elections, but let us look at it this way: we would not tolerate a district or county council making decisions about housing, planning, economic development, environment and tourism without its members being elected by the residents who had to live with those decisions. In fact we would be outraged, yet to the people who live and work within them, our national parks are effectively unelected and unaccountable local authorities.

That does not mean, however, that the national parks do a dreadful job. In fact, they do a good job. They protect our world-class landscape and environmental heritage to the extent that the lakes are potentially a world heritage site. They have done outstanding work, enhancing biodiversity in the Howgills and the Yorkshire dales, for example. They have performed an almost miraculous clean-up operation in respect of water quality in many of our lakes. They have made massive strides in reducing carbon emissions through improved cycle routes and rail integration. But they make silly decisions—for example, about aggressive car park ticketing prices in Hawkshead and Ambleside, and they choose to develop their main visitor centre at Brockhole in ways that are almost designed to damage local hotels. They throw out exciting, completely appropriate commercial ventures, such as the Honister zip wire, but they put pressure on farmers to reduce their livestock numbers, forcing many of them to abandon farming altogether. I suspect that they do such things because too often they do not listen to what local businesses, residents and farmers want.

[Roger Williams (Brecon and Radnorshire) (LD)]

My hon. Friend sets out the importance of national parks and some of the failings. Does he agree that experience in the Scottish national parks, which have had elected members since their formation, proves that the elections can be well contested and of great interest to local people?

[Tim Farron]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point. That is true. I will mention the Scottish example in a moment. The elections in the Scottish national parks have engaged people and made them take the national parks seriously, providing a sense of ownership rather than a sense that this is a national thing deposited upon them.

It is important that our national park boards are chosen by local people, not simply chosen by others, so that a strand of legitimacy supports their decision making. Of course, that is not to say that people who are elected will make perfect decisions. We hon. Members present are proud to be elected to this place, but there are occasions when we do not get things perfectly right. Decisions made by people who are accountable will tend to be better, because those people have had to listen to those who have put them where they are.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

I agree with the thrust of what the hon. Gentleman is saying. Is he proposing that all or most of the NPA members should be elected? There are a couple of pilot schemes under way, whereby a proportion—about half a dozen—members will stand for election. I am pleased to say that the New Forest national park authority volunteered to be one of the two authorities to go down this route. The NPA in the New Forest got off to a bad start, cutting across the grain of society, leading to protests, but after a complete reorganisation it now works with the community, which is why it is not afraid to volunteer to have at least some of its members elected.

[Tim Farron]

My hon. Friend makes a superb point and underlines the case. I envisage a minority of people, rather than a majority—these are national parks—being there as the local voice. It is commendable that the New Forest NPA has put itself forward and it is to be congratulated on that.

If our national park boards were in part elected, they would, as my hon. Friend said, be far more legitimate in the eyes of local communities, residents and businesses, because there would be a far greater sense of collective ownership of decisions. Local communities would be far more willing to accept even difficult decisions, if they felt that they had at least been arrived at with the local case having been made.

This is about the quality of decisions, not about the quality of the people. The Lake District and the Yorkshire Dales national parks are led by outstanding chief executives. Cumbria’s two national parks are led by Richard Leafe and David Butterworth, decent people with vision and immense competence. The Lake District national park is chaired by Bill Jefferson and the Yorkshire Dales national park by Carl Lis, both of whom are staggeringly hard-working servants of our local community and who are desperate to do the right thing, both by the nation as a whole and by local residents. All the board members I know—I know most of them—are good, decent people who are dedicated to their roles and selflessly give their time and service.

I return to what I said at the beginning. The national parks are there for the enjoyment of the whole nation. It is right that a proportion of the board membership should be selected nationally, but wrong that none of those members should be elected locally.

I welcome the proposed pilots in the Peak district and the New Forest. I note that Scotland has blazed a trail with national parks, with Loch Lomond and the Trossachs electing many of their board members for some years now. But why are all national parks not required to elect some of their members, and why was the nation’s biggest, highest-profile and most populated national park, the Lake District national park, not first on the list in the selection of the pilot project, whether it volunteered or not?

Is there not a special case for introducing democratic legitimacy in the Yorkshire Dales national park, given the genuinely mixed response received in some quarters to plans to extend its boundaries? Many residents and businesses in and around Barbon and Casterton retain deep concerns about proposals that would bring their communities within the boundaries of the Yorkshire dales, not least because these are Westmorland communities and have never been in Yorkshire. Their concerns mostly focus on their fears that, whereas planning and housing decisions affecting them at the moment are made by the democratically elected and accountable South Lakeland district council, in future they may be made by an unelected and unaccountable national park.

There are, of course, dangers in introducing elections to the national parks. Just as many of us do not want our police service party-politicised, we do not want our national parks to become arenas for party politics. I would advocate for party political labels not being allowed in the contest, for example, to ensure that there was no sense that national parks would simply ape local councils in that respect. Nor would we want vast amounts of public money to be spent on such elections. However, given that every year in Cumbria there are parish, district or county elections, it would be possible to ensure that national park elections coincided on the same day to ensure cost savings and, at the same time, to maximise turnout.

If we thought that electing a proportion of national park board members would ensure decisions that everyone was happy with, we would be deluding ourselves. However, life can be tough in our national parks, because incomes are often low, and housing and the cost of living are high. Businesses need to be able to thrive, communities must be able to hang on to their young people, and farmers must be able to continue to farm. What point is there in attempting to maintain a thriving tourism industry in the lakes and the dales, if the dead hand of restriction kills off expansion and innovation?

Do we really want national parks that can only be lived in by the wealthy few, or do we want our national parks to be open to people of all income backgrounds? lf we want thriving businesses and thriving communities for people from all income backgrounds in our national parks, we need to ensure that decisions are taken by people chosen by our local communities, who will be responsive to those communities and will answer to them for decisions that they make, both good and bad.

As Winston Churchill said, democracy is not much of a system, but it is infinitely better than all the alternatives. He was right. It is time that that applied to our national parks, too.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Benyon]

I am happy to share with my hon. Friend the information that I have been given about the complexity involved. I can give him my absolute solemn commitment that I think that this is something that the Government should do. I do not believe, unlike some colleagues in both our parties, that everyone down to the dog warden should be elected, but I believe in localism and local accountability, so I have been progressing things in a meaningful way.

I was surprised by the complexity of something that initially, I agree, sounds like it should be simple. However, I have been concerned about conversations that we have had with the Boundary Commission about matching boundaries, which sometimes follow more ecologically-based routes than politically-based ones, as well as about the many measures that would need to be included in a Bill. I am happy to go into more detail, but I can absolutely give my hon. Friend my commitment that if the resources were there and if we could find the parliamentary means, we would take this forward, as it is something that the coalition is firmly united in wishing to achieve. I will give him more detail at a later date.

[Tim Farron]

I am a little concerned about the direction in which the Minister is going, but I am pleased that he thinks the Government should make progress. However, we already effectively have pilots in Scotland, so we have learned what to do constitutionally and about how the impact is felt in the national parks.

There is time to act in this Parliament. When I challenged one of the Minister’s predecessors in the previous Government about this, their view was that as the national park authorities had been asked whether they wanted to be elected, and they said no, they would not be elected. Turkeys do not vote for Christmas, even though I greatly respect the high quality turkeys in the New Forest.

[Richard Benyon]

I appreciate my hon. Friend’s point, and I can only give my commitment that although we remain in favour of direct elections, we must ensure that we achieve that in the necessary time scale and with the resources we have.

It is interesting that Scottish national parks have all-postal ballot elections. When I raise potential complications, it sounds as though I am being negative, but I assure my hon. Friends that I am not. However, we need to mention the fact that there is concern about such elections.