Oral Answers to Questions

Tom Tugendhat Excerpts

Thursday 24th November 2016 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)]

1. What estimate her Department has made of the number of properties that will be better protected by the Government’s investment in flood defences up to 2021.

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Andrea Leadsom)]

Mr Speaker, with your permission, may I take this opportunity to thank the emergency services, the Environment Agency and all who helped with the recent flooding? Our thoughts are with those who have been affected. Our £2.5 billion six-year capital floods programme to improve flood defences will provide better protection for at least 300,000 homes in the six-year period from 2015 to 2021.

[Tom Tugendhat]

Does my right hon. Friend recognise that the investment on the Medway provides an extremely good and important opportunity for the Government to protect homes around the Tonbridge, Edenbridge and East Peckham area?

[Andrea Leadsom]

As an ex-Tonbridge Grammar School girl, I know the area well. The Environment Agency is progressing business cases to increase the capacity of the live flood storage area on the River Medway, alongside new schemes at Hildenborough and East Peckham. The agency has estimated that these schemes qualify for a £15.5 million Government grant in aid. If approved, this will better protect more than 1,900 properties in the Medway catchment.

Flooding: River Medway

Tom Tugendhat Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)]

It is a privilege to be here for my first Adjournment debate on a particularly topical matter: flooding along the River Medway and its tributaries. The recent storm has brought some serious flooding across our country. I am sorry to have to report that some properties have been flooded in Edenbridge in my constituency. I am very grateful to the flood wardens in Edenbridge, Tonbridge and across the community who have done such sterling work not only in warning people about the floods but in ensuring that drains were cleared and culverts were not blocked. That has prevented surface water from becoming a problem.

Surface water and more serious flooding has been an issue for us in Kent in the past, although Kent is rightly recognised as the garden of England and has some of the most beautiful countryside in our land. I am blessed not just to represent it but to live in it. This unites me with all those who live from the coast to the High Weald, whether they are “men of Kent” or “Kentish men”—a distinction based on which side of the Medway they are from and whether they come from Jutish or Anglo-Saxon stock.

The river has shaped much more than just the names of the people. It has carved its way through our history and is reflected in two of the towns that I have the privilege to speak for in this House—Tonbridge, with the Medway running through it, and Edenbridge, with the tributary, the Eden, running through it. Both testify to the importance of the river in our county’s life. Further downstream, towns such as Maidstone and Rochester have grown over the centuries as a result of the river providing an important trading link with neighbours. Communities have grown up around the river because of what it offers. The Medway is no different. The floodplains offered fertile fields and later cheap development options with good flat land.

It is no wonder that the history of flooding long pre-dates my time representing this wonderful community, but it has also marked me. Three years ago, just weeks after being selected as the Conservative candidate for the seat of Tonbridge and Malling, I found myself making some of my first visits as a candidate to local villages. Sadly, many were under water. I can vividly remember seeing the impact of floodwater in Hildenborough in January 2014, when I visited with Councillor Mark Rhodes, now the mayor of our wonderful borough council.

[Mrs Helen Grant (Maidstone and The Weald) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend and neighbour on bringing this important debate before the House. As he knows, my constituency was devastated by floodwater in the Christmas floods of 2013, and even now some of those areas are not fully recovered. Does my hon. Friend agree that in addition to everything that the Government are doing in respect of flood defences, they should also earmark funding for the more natural flood defence schemes, such as the four-acre wetlands site in Marden in my constituency, which can hold up to 15 million litres of floodwater? I am sure my hon. Friend is aware that many of these schemes are low cost, low tech and low maintenance, but very effective.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tom Tugendhat]

My hon. Friend and neighbour makes some persuasive points. I shall shortly speak about some local flood defences.

The Brookmead estate and surrounding roads, which I visited with the present mayor, were struggling to recover—as my hon. Friend and neighbour pointed out, some parts are still struggling to recover—from flooding by what to some may sound like a very small amount of water. In many parts it was just over a foot, and sometimes only a foot and a half, of water, but the damage done, even by so little water, can be overwhelming.

That Christmas will not be forgotten by me and, I know, by many residents, some of whom are still struggling to get insurance deals sorted out. Having been elected their MP, I am proud to be here representing them, but I am also conscious that flooding is one of the most pressing issues for me to solve.

The underlying causes of the massive Christmas 2013 flood have not changed significantly in the past three years, unfortunately. We all know that these instances may be getting more frequent. That catchment area flooded severely in 1947, 1958, 1960, 1963, 1974, 1979 and 2000, before the 2013 flood, and these are just the major events. Localised flooding on tributaries can occur much more often.

On Saturday 25 June this year, when many people were either celebrating or mourning the result of the referendum, very few people noticed that homes in Ightham, a beautiful village to the north of the community that I am privileged to represent, were being swamped, following only 33 millimetres of rainfall in just two hours. Busty stream was not able to cope and burst its banks, and the village suffered what the Environment Agency calls a one-in-19-year flood. Today, five months on, many residents are still not back in their homes, and sadly, they are not alone. In Hadlow and East Peckham, recent localised floods on the River Bourne have forced people out of their homes, while in Penshurst, Chiddingstone and Edenbridge, the River Eden has threatened to burst its banks many times since 2013. All these tributaries feed into the River Medway and underline the importance of finding solutions that address the underlying causes of these localised floods without simply passing the problem on to communities further downstream.

Let me take Tonbridge as an example. The new 320-metre flood wall at Avebury Avenue shows a local solution that works. Following restoration of the ground height, 80 homes in the Barden Road area, which were flooded in 2013, are now less at risk from the river. However, the scheme works only because the new walls work in conjunction with existing defences at Leigh and in Tonbridge town centre. Each individual solution must be part of a larger strategy for flood mitigation along the wider catchment.

I recognise that communities in the River Medway catchment are not the only ones in the country that flood. Indeed, we in Kent have great sympathy with the people of Somerset, Yorkshire and Cumbria, who have had their own dreadful floods in recent years, and Government funds to help those communities are welcomed by us, too. Both the larger schemes and the smaller projects, such as the £4 million investment in riverside footpaths in Cumbria, show a Government seeking to address the causes of flooding events. However, every time there is investment elsewhere, Kent residents rightly consider its effectiveness and ask whether such defences could help in our county, too.

Finding solutions to flooding on the River Medway is important for not just Kent but our country, because so much more depends on it than simply the protection of homes. Yes, our catchment area has 3,000 properties at risk of flooding, half of which are in Tonbridge and Hildenborough, with 500 more in East Peckham, but it is about more than that. Kent is also an economic powerhouse, and many businesses that rely on the ability to operate even in severe weather will be protected should we get the appropriate level of protection.

That is why I support the creation of a Medway flood action plan, which would bring together local authorities, businesses and residents, as happened in Cumbria and Calderdale. Indeed, the Cumbria model, which was well championed by my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart), is rightly recognised by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs as a central feature of its 25-year environment plan. I hope that success can be mirrored under the banner of a Medway flood partnership. I look forward to its work starting in the new year—it would certainly have my support, and I hope it would have that of the floods Minister, too. Having a flood partnership panel on the horizon would be very popular, as it offers the possibility of a collective solution—one that is cost-effective and that does not cause unnecessary problems elsewhere.

That would support the work already done by the Environment Agency to protect each community and would reinforce the thorough work it has done to demonstrate where the greatest gains can be made. Those inquiries all point in the same direction. It will come as no surprise to the Minister, who is very aware of this issue, that the most viable scheme involves the enlargement of the Leigh flood storage area, the Hildenborough flood alleviation scheme and the East Peckham flood alleviation scheme. That is where resources for capital projects should be directed, with the Government also being clear that property-level resilience should be explored, where feasible, to deal with the 350 properties that may fall outside the effectiveness of those schemes. Where community defence projects are shown by agencies not to be viable, the Government should commit to property-level resilience. The fact that collective defence does not work does not mean that people should be left out. I am told by the Environment Agency that that applies to communities bordering my own.

For my community, however, tomorrow will be the defining moment, as we very much hope to hear from the Chancellor’s autumn statement the outcome of local growth fund allocations. I am sure the floods Minister will agree that the bid for the Leigh flood storage area is impressive and compelling, and it would be deeply disappointing to everyone involved were the £4.5 million requested not provided.

This bid is crucial to our community. It has the third largest amount of “other funding” of all the south-east local enterprise partnership region bids. It includes contributions from local businesses in East Peckham, from Kent County Council, from Tonbridge and Malling Borough Council, and contributions in kind from Southern Water and Tonbridge School. This is a true community project and, with the Environment Agency's commitment of £15.5 million of flood defence grant in aid, a viable one too. The Environment Agency’s contribution is not symbolic. It understands better than anyone that the project would increase capacity at Leigh by 30% while constructing much needed local embankments at Hildenborough and East Peckham. As I mentioned earlier, those projects work in conjunction with each other to improve the wider catchment area. That was why the then Prime Minister, David Cameron, promised Government funding on his visit to the area in the aftermath of the Christmas 2013 floods.

However, there is a wider issue at stake along the River Medway and all its tributaries that goes beyond individual bids through the local growth fund and localised schemes in particular villages—the strategic importance of the Rivers Medway, Eden, Beult, Teise and Bourne to Kent and to the wider south-east region. The Government have been very clear in highlighting the growth that they want to deliver in our part of the country over the coming years, and that depends on investment and people—and, in turn, on viability. This project alone would enable an additional 2,100 homes to be built in sensible locations in an area of predominantly green belt in the south-east of England. It would also deliver over 13 hectares of employment land by 2031, roughly equating to 2,900 associated jobs. The Government targets are rightly ambitious, and to succeed we need to address the creaking infrastructure of the towns and villages nearby. The long-term economic plan, about which we all once heard so much, would focus on these communities to ensure that we have every possible option open to us locally to plan for the future.

Tonbridge and Malling Borough Council is currently consulting on that future through its local plan, and has shown that without significant investment in local flood defences it will be unable to deliver the growth required by Government. The consequences of a funding shortfall would be severe. Investors would be deterred from coming to the area, new buyers would be priced out of the market due to a lack of supply to keep up with Government demand—or rather popular demand—and current residents would remain at severe risk of flooding. For the cost of a rather modest house in Chelsea, thousands would be left at risk.

Further upstream in Sevenoaks district, the demand for more services in Edenbridge is increasing, yet without additional defences on the River Eden, land will not be available to make these important developments. The doctors’ surgery needs more space, as do many in the town of Tonbridge, but their search is severely limited by flood risk in the town. Localised projects that tie in with the collective aim of the catchment could help to solve a variety of problems that our towns and villages face.

I feel it only right to end by referencing the importance of finding solutions to flooding on the River Medway and its tributaries for each individual community involved. A trip upstream from its mouth near the Isle of Grain through Aylesford, Maidstone, East Peckham and Tonbridge will show to all just what a beautiful county Kent is. It will also demonstrate the reliance that each of the communities places on the river, and how economic and cultural links have been forged by the connections it provides. Each of its tributaries, from the Beult and Teise to the east, to the Bourne to the north and the Eden to the west, have seen communities built around them. They no longer feed the tanner’s yard and the cricket ball factories, but they are still at the heart of our life. It is crucial that this Government make their contribution to ensuring that Kent has the ability to grow and to deliver its plans in the region. That is important not only for the Government but, most of all, for the people of Kent. The work has been done and the options are now present for each town and village. Some will require larger capital schemes, while others will require property level resilience to deliver the appropriate outcome. Each has its place.

Christmas 2013 is still in my mind, and I know just how much of an impact it has had on many others who lived through that night and the past three years. We all know that it could happen again at any time. I hope that the Government will do their bit so that next time we flood—sadly, I fear it will be next time, rather than never—the impact is limited and the people who have made their lives and businesses in west Kent are able to do so in the security of the appropriate flood defences.

Flooding

Tom Tugendhat Excerpts

Wednesday 6th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Richard Arkless]

As the hon. Gentleman will be aware, our budget is set by Westminster, not by us. If he bears with me, perhaps I will enlighten him a little bit more.

I am sure that all colleagues will understand that all Departments have had to take a cut of some description since the current UK Government have had a say. The Scottish Government have attempted to protect the SEPA budget in the fairest way possible, while still endeavouring to offer immediate assistance and permanent solutions to all those who have been affected by flooding.

A further point that I should make clear is that SEPA is not responsible for flood prevention in Scotland, which is the responsibility of local authorities with the support of the Scottish Government. We believe in Scotland that local authorities are best placed to devise flood protection, and the Scottish Government will support them in any way they possibly can. Indeed, the Scottish Environment Minister told me recently that our Government have never refused funding for a flood defence on the basis of cost. Other elements of flood spending, such as on the Scottish flood forecasting service, are protected in their entirety until 2020 and will not be subject to any cuts. Good flood defence is not only about how much is spent but about how we choose to spend it.

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)]

As a victim of the floods in 2013 in west Kent, I am extremely aware of the money that has been spent on flood defences by the British Government and around the whole UK. I am astonished to hear the hon. Gentleman claim, somewhat bizarrely, that nothing has been refused to anywhere in Scotland on the grounds of funding. Is there an enormous sack of cash into which the Scottish people can dip for money when the British people in the rest of these islands are struggling to pay for what they need?

[Richard Arkless]

Again, had I been given some forbearance and patience, an answer to that question might have come up soon. I beg the hon. Gentleman to stay patient.

The cuts to SEPA’s budget planned for next year have to be seen in their full and proper context. The Scottish Government’s top priority is the reduction of flooding across risk areas, which was why the Scottish Parliament passed the Flood Risk Management Act 2009. One of its main requirements was the production of a flood risk management strategy for the whole of Scotland, and we now have 14 local strategies. They are all about forward planning, with the end aim of minimising flood damage. As a result of the Act, we now have 42 proposed flood defence protection schemes to cover the period 2016 to 2021. They will cost an estimated £235 million, which the Scottish Government have agreed to finance.

Under the Act, flood prevention schemes can proceed to approval without the rubber stamp of Scottish Ministers, giving local authorities full responsibility and authority to implement them under a streamlined process. We believe that those decisions should be taken locally, not least because a flood defence scheme requires significant construction in and around riverbanks, which are often the focal point of a community. Not only do engineering solutions have to be found, but buy-in from local communities is essential. Communities care about their riverbanks, and plans must take account of that. In Dumfries, there are many objections to the local council’s plan for an earth bund, which would remove car parking and views at the river. The council is now under severe pressure to ensure that the voices of local people are heard in the debate.

As part of our flood preparation in Scotland, the Scottish flood forecasting service has done an excellent job of providing reliable information to relevant authorities in good time. In actioning the Bellwin scheme, the Deputy First Minister has committed the Scottish Government to covering any additional local authority costs. As the House will understand, the scheme sets a threshold beyond which the Scottish Government guarantee to cover the costs of emergencies. Following Storm Desmond in December, the Scottish Government provided £3.94 million to the most affected local authority areas, including in my constituency, to help them support flood-hit households and businesses. That funding will go to affected local authorities as a specific grant in this financial year, and they will be able to provide each flood-affected household or business with a grant of up to £1,500, which is under review. That grant is available to reimburse people for the cost of not receiving the full benefit of services that they pay for through council tax or rates while they are absent from their home or their business cannot trade. It can also be used to protect homes and businesses against future floods by installing new flood barriers or by carrying out flood-resilient repairs.

The Scottish Government have recently legislated to give councils the power to reduce and remit bills, which can be used to target support to businesses in areas affected by flooding. The Deputy First Minister, John Swinney, announced in the Scottish Parliament yesterday that Scottish councils have a new power to relieve households devastated in the flooding from council tax and small business rates. They are considering what further help they can give.

A few days before Christmas, Dumfries and Galloway held its breath as weather experts indicated that the region would be the next one hit by severe flooding as a result of Storm Frank. We had witnessed the devastation caused by Storm Desmond to our neighbours and friends in Cumbria and the borders. In the first wave of flooding, Dumfries was flooded but the rest of Dumfries and Galloway managed to escape largely unscathed. We watched as Hawick, Appleby, Penrith, Carlisle, Keswick and Cockermouth, to name but a few, battled against the flow of water that was sadly insurmountable.

The predictions for Storm Frank made for worse reading and, as it approached, we prepared. SEPA and the Met Office co-ordinated information about expected rainfall in risk areas and issued details of areas and addresses to be evacuated.

Flooding

Tom Tugendhat Excerpts

Monday 7th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

It is fantastic that volunteers from Somerset are helping out in Cumbria, and I am delighted we have been able to establish the Somerset Rivers Authority to give local people control over local decisions such as on dredging. It is absolutely right that people who know the ground and understand the area are making those crucial decisions.

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)]

I speak for many in west Kent—I see the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), on the Front Bench—when I ask the Secretary of State, when she looks at the floods in Cumbria, to remember that we in west Kent not only feel huge sympathy for our compatriots in Cumbria but are keen to ensure that the defences required on the Medway and the Beult are put in place. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately), who is not here, would be urging me and others to say on her behalf that towns such as Yalding, Wateringbury, Tonbridge and Edenbridge absolutely need the defences planned only a few years ago when we suffered ourselves. I urge the Secretary of State not to forget the rest of the country.

[Elizabeth Truss]

Over this Parliament, we will be investing an additional £2.3 billion of capital expenditure on flood defences in real terms. I am committed to ensuring that this money is distributed and spent in a clear and transparent way so that people fully understand how it is being used.

Hedgehog Conservation

Tom Tugendhat Excerpts

Tuesday 10th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Rory Stewart)]

Multa novit vulpes, verum echinus unum magnum, Madam Deputy Speaker.

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)]

In every happy home is a hedgehog, as the Pashtuns would say. I urge my hon. Friend to encourage our Pashtun community in this country to follow that example.

[Rory Stewart]

I am very grateful for that Pushtun intervention, but my hon. Friend refers, of course, to the Asian variety of the hedgehog rather than the western hedgehog, which is the subject of our discussion today.

The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.

I am extremely pleased to have the opportunity to respond to my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile). I believe that this is the first time that Parliament has discussed hedgehogs since 1566, when the subject was famously raised in relation to the attribution of a bounty of tuppence for the collection of the hedgehog throughout the United Kingdom.

The hedgehog has undergone an extraordinary evolution. The year 1566 seems very recent, but the hedgehog was around before then. It was around before this Parliament. The hedgehog, and its ancestor, narrowly missed being crushed under the foot of Tyrannosaurus rex. The hedgehog was around long before the human species: it existed 56 million years ago. It tells us a great deal about British civilisation that my hon. Friend has raised the subject, because the hedgehog is a magical creature. It is a creature that appears on cylinder seals in Sumeria, bent backwards on the prows of Egyptian ships. The hedgehog has of course a famous medicinal quality taken by the Romany people for baldness and it represents a symbol of the resurrection found throughout Christian Europe.

This strange animal was known, of course, in Scotland, Wales and Ireland originally in Gaelic as that demonic creature, that horrid creature, and is the hedgehog celebrated by Shakespeare:

“Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen…

Come not near our faerie queen”,

and famously of course in “Richard III” there is that great moment when Gloucester is referred to as a hedgehog. It tells us something about Britain today; it represents a strange decline in British civilisation from a notion of this magical, mystical, terrifying creature to where it is today, and I refer of course to my own constituent, the famous cleanliness representative of Penrith and The Border, Mrs Tiggy-Winkle.

I want to be serious for a moment. The hedgehog is of course an important environmental indicator, with its habitat, its ability to occupy 30 hectares of land, and its particular relationship to the hibernaculum, by which I mean the hedgehog’s ability, almost uniquely among animals in the United Kingdom, to go into a state of genuine hibernation. Its heartbeat goes from 240 a minute to only two a minute for six months a year. It has a particular diet—a focus on grubs and beetles. The street hedgehog initiative, which my hon. Friend has brought forward, reminds us that, by cutting holes in the bottom of our hedges, we can create again an opportunity for hedgehogs to move.

The hedgehog provides a bigger lesson for us in our environment—first, a lesson in scientific humility. The hedgehog has of course been studied for over 2,000 years. The first scientific reference to the hedgehog is in Aristotle; he is picked up again by Isidore of Seville in the 8th century and again by Buffon in the 18th century, and these are reminders of the ways in which we get hedgehogs wrong. Aristotle points out that the hedgehog carries apples on his spine into his nest. Isidore of Seville argues that the hedgehog travels with grapes embedded on his spine. Buffon believes these things might have been food for the winter, but as we know today the hedgehog, hibernating as he does, is not a creature that needs to take food into his nest for the winter.

Again, our belief in Britain that the five teeth of the hedgehog represent the reaction of the sinful man to God—the five excuses that the sinful man makes to God—is subverted by our understanding that the hedgehog does not have five teeth. Finally, the legislation introduced in this House, to my great despair, in 1566 which led to the bounty of a tuppence on a hedgehog was based on a misunderstanding: the idea that the hedgehog fed on the teats of a recumbent cow in order to feed itself on milk. This led to the death of between of half a million and 2 million hedgehogs between 1566 and 1800, a subject John Clare takes forward in a poem of 1805 and which led my own Department, the Ministry of Agriculture, in 1908 to issue a formal notice to farmers encouraging them not to believe that hedgehogs take milk from the teats of a recumbent cow, because of course the hedgehog’s mouth is too small to be able to perform this function.

But before we mock our ancestors, we must understand this is a lesson for us. The scientific mistakes we made in the past about the hedgehog are mistakes that we, too, may be mocked for in the future. We barely understand this extraordinary creature. We barely understand for example its habit of self-anointing; we will see a hedgehog produce an enormous amount of saliva and throw it over its back. We do not understand why it does that. We do not really understand its habit of aestivation, which is to say the hedgehog which my hon. Friend referred to—the Pushto version of the hedgehog—hibernates in the summer as well as the winter. We do not understand that concept of aestivation.

For those of us interested in environmental management, the hedgehog also represents the important subject of conflict in habitats. The habitat that suits the hedgehog is liminal land: it is edge land, hedgerows and dry land. The hedgehog is not an animal that flourishes in many of our nature reserves. It does not do well in peatland or in dense, heavy native woodland. The things that prey on the hedgehog are sometimes things that we treasure. My hon. Friend mentioned badgers.

Living Wage (Farmers)

Tom Tugendhat Excerpts

Wednesday 28th October 2015 Westminster Hall

[Gordon Henderson]

As I was saying before we were so rudely interrupted, while horticultural businesses employ large numbers of workers, they are in the main low-turnover, small to medium-sized outfits, which leaves them exposed to the impact of the living wage. As my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately) pointed out, profitability levels in the industry are low and having to pay the living wage will push many producers over the edge and out of business. Unless the Government step in and help farmers, we are likely to see the loss of British-grown produce and an increase in imported food, which would have serious long-term consequences for not only the British economy but our country’s food security.

Farmers also face a couple of other problems. Accommodation provided by an employer can currently be taken into account when calculating the national minimum wage. It is not clear, however, whether that arrangement will continue under the living wage. If it does not, many employers who provide accommodation will face rising wage bills without the benefit of a reduction in the amount that they pay to subsidise that accommodation. It might help if the Minister confirmed whether and how the living wage will differ from the national minimum wage in that respect.

Another problem is that the introduction of the living wage comes at a time when farmers, like other businesses, are facing increased costs from other employment legislation, including pension auto-enrolment and an increase from 1% to 2% in the employer contributions that will come into effect in 2017. Farmers believe that the rise in wages under the living wage will lead to a growth in contributions to auto-enrolment pensions. Assessing a complex, changing workforce and calculating contributions for short periods for seasonal workers who stay with a business for just over the current 12-week postponement period will add to farmers’ costs.

To help British farmers in general, and my local farmers in particular, I want the Government to consider several possible mitigating measures. First, supermarkets could be encouraged to work with farmers to help ensure that they receive a fair price for their produce. Ministers could do that by convening a meeting between the management of our major supermarkets and farmers’ representatives to put together a long-term plan for the industry. Secondly, the exemption from the living wage for workers under-25 could be widened to include seasonal workers. Thirdly, employment allowance could be changed so it is based on individual workers and not a business. Fourthly, we could introduce staged increases for the level of accommodation offset that counts towards an employer’s payment of the national minimum wage and, presumably, the living wage. Fifthly, the cumulative and disproportionate administration burden associated with auto-enrolment duties could be reduced by extending the current three-month postponement period to six months to help capture seasonal workers in the postponement period.

Sixthly, the starting point for national insurance could be aligned with the starting point for income tax. In 2011-12, the class 1 NI threshold was set at almost 95% of the income tax starting threshold. Today, it is just 76%. Finally, the review cycles for the national minimum wage and the living wage could be aligned to reduce complexity. As I asked earlier, will the Minister perhaps confirm whether and how the living wage will differ from the national minimum wage? In addition, will he provide clarity on how the two wage rates will co-exist and whether the various rates can be simplified?

Agriculture and horticulture are important to Britain. They are particularly important to Kent, which, in addition to being the garden of England, just happens to be God’s own county.

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)]

My hon. Friend speaks for many of us who represent some of the fantastic areas of the kingdom of Kent. I am delighted to hear his comments, which forcefully express the importance of agriculture to our region. In my constituency is Hugh Lowe Farms, which grows the strawberries for Wimbledon, and the community there has done a great deal to develop not only the farm but the economy around it. Marion, who runs the farm, raised the possibility of considering the Australian piece rate, which is a concept that would see the average employee wage be 25% above the minimum. If my hon. Friend is not going to come on to that point, will the Minister consider it anyway?

[Gordon Henderson]

I welcome that intervention because I was not going to mention the concept, so it is just as well that my hon. Friend did.

In conclusion, I want to see a thriving farming industry in Kent that provides food security for future generations. To achieve that, however, we need the Government to back British produce.