Farming
Debate between Victoria Atkins and Daniel Zeichner(3 weeks ago)
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Daniel Zeichner
I am going to make some progress, because I know that time is short. The third principle is a sector that recognises that restoring nature is not in competition with sustainable food production, but is essential to it.
On our first strand—food production—our new deal for farmers is supporting them to produce food sustainably and profitably, and we are making progress. Statistics released earlier this week show that average farm business incomes across the country are forecast to rise in the first year of this Government. That is welcome news, but we recognise that there is more to do. That certainly will not happen overnight, but over recent weeks, we have announced a series of new policies. We are extending the seasonal worker visas for five years, and we are making the supply chain fairer, an issue raised by my hon. Friends the Members for North Somerset (Sadik Al-Hassan) and for Suffolk Coastal (Jenny Riddell-Carpenter). In the next few weeks, we will see new regulations for the pig sector, making sure that contracts clearly set out expectations and only allow changes if they are agreed by all parties. Of course, we are also introducing a new regulator alongside the Groceries Code Adjudicator, building on the work of the existing regulator—the Agricultural Supply Chain Adjudicator, which is already in place.
We are using the Government’s own purchasing power to back British produce, working with the Cabinet Office to create new requirements for Government catering contracts to favour high-quality, high-welfare products that British producers are well placed to provide, as was outlined very well by my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury (Julia Buckley). That will mean that British farmers and producers can compete for a fairer share of the £5 billion a year that the public sector spends on food, with that money going straight into farmers’ bank accounts to boost turnover and profits. We will never lower our food standards in trade agreements, but will promote robust standards nationally and internationally, and will always consider whether overseas produce has an unfair advantage. That point was made by my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Noah Law) and by others.
We are investing in the UK agri-technology sector, and I listened closely to the comments made by the hon. Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman)—there is always much that we agree on. As we announced last month, we are looking to put in a further £110 million in farming grants, and we are also strengthening the wider British tech sector, a point that was made well by my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Luke Myer). These reforms will support farmers to make more money from the food they produce.
On the second strand, diversification, farmers must be resilient against future challenges if they are to remain financially viable and strengthen food security. We know the threat from flooding, drought and animal disease, as well as the geopolitical tensions that increase demands on our land for energy generation. We are investing to help farm businesses build resilience against animal diseases that can devastate livelihoods and threaten our entire economy—we are all mindful of the issues with bluetongue and avian flu. On the recent case of foot and mouth that we saw in Germany and the one in Hungary, I spoke to the Hungarian Minister earlier this week, and we have put in place all the appropriate precautions. As ever, though, if the shadow Secretary of State wants a briefing with the chief vet, that is always available in these cases.
We are investing over £200 million to set up a new national biosecurity centre, modernising the Animal and Plant Health Agency facilities in Weybridge, which will be vital for protecting farmers, food producers and exporters from disease outbreaks that we know can be devastating to businesses. We are helping keepers of cattle, sheep and pigs in England to improve the health, welfare and productivity of their animals by expanding the fully funded farm visits offer. We have also announced new ways to help farmers to remain profitable and viable, even in a challenging harvest.
We will consult on national planning reforms this spring to make it quicker for farmers to build new buildings, barns and other infrastructure to boost food production, and we will ensure that permitted development rights work for farms to convert larger barns into whatever is required or suits their business planning, whether that is a farm shop, a holiday let or a sports facility. We are working with the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero so that more farm businesses can connect their own electricity generation to the grid more quickly, so that farmers can sell surplus energy and diversify income.
The third element is nature. Restoring nature is vital to food production; it is not in competition with it. Healthy soils, abundant pollinators and clean water are the foundations that farm businesses rely on to produce high crop yields and turn a profit. Without nature thriving, there can be no long-term food security. That point was well made by my hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk (Terry Jermy). We now have more than half of all farmers in environmental schemes. That includes 37,000 live SFI agreements, meaning that 800,000 hectares of arable land is being farmed without insecticides, 300,000 hectares of low-impact grassland is managed sustainably and 75,000 km of hedgerows are being protected and restored. That is important for nature.
We have already had a discussion about the SFI cap. It is set at £1.05 billion for 2024-25 and 2025-26. As we discussed yesterday, that cap was reached this week with a record number of farmers in the scheme and 37,000 live agreements. Every penny is now paid to farmers or committed for payment through existing agreements or submitted applications. We will continue to support farmers to transition to more sustainable farming models, and we will announce details of the revised scheme after the spending review.
Victoria Atkins
The clarification that everybody wants is this: we saw the figures last night, and they cut across two years, so what is the money for this financial year—2024-25—that the Minister describes as a cap? What is the value that he reached on Tuesday night that led to that announcement?
Daniel Zeichner
We have been far more transparent in disclosing how the budgets work than the previous Government. The figure was disclosed last night, and the shadow Secretary of State can look closely at that. As she will know, we have to monitor things closely over multiple years. What we cannot and will not do is play fast and loose with the nation’s finances. We are taking no lessons from the Conservatives about how to manage public money in this country. This is about using public money in a way that supports food production, restores nature and respects farmers for the effective business people that they are, while ensuring that we stick to our budgets.
We are also improving other farming schemes. The Government have announced an increase in higher level stewardship payment rates across a range of options for this year. We will reopen the ELM capital grant scheme and open the rolling application window for the countryside stewardship higher tier later this year. We are continuing with the important landscape recovery projects that were awarded funding in rounds 1 and 2, as well as some of the other funds referenced by my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Josh Newbury).
It is those three strands that will create a resilient, profitable sector for decades to come. I look forward to continuing this important discussion with Members from all parts of the House.
Sustainable Farming Incentive
Debate between Victoria Atkins and Daniel Zeichner(3 weeks, 1 day ago)
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Victoria Atkins (Louth and Horncastle) (Con)
I thank the Minister for an advance copy of his statement, which I am going to pull apart in a moment. I thank you as well, Mr Speaker, for granting the urgent question that forced the Minister to the Dispatch Box, because the Government sneaked this statement out last night, presumably hoping nobody would notice; but, guess what, the countryside has noticed, because the question we are all asking ourselves is: what have this Government got against farmers and the countryside?
They sneaked out this announcement that they were halting the sustainable farming incentive scheme immediately. The scheme replaced the EU’s common agricultural policy scheme when we left the EU. We set up this scheme with our Brexit freedoms to establish a farming policy that works for farmers, the environment and food production, yet Labour pulled the plug without warning last night.
The SFI scheme is popular with farmers, but the Minister does not have to take my word for it. To quote one:
“The…schemes have the potential to be the most progressive and environmentally responsible schemes of their kind anywhere in the world.”
Those are the words of the former president of the Country Land and Business Association, and father of the hon. Member for Mid and South Pembrokeshire (Henry Tufnell), who I am sure will agree with his father’s analysis. Why, then, would this city-dwelling Government stop such a successful scheme? In the words of the CLA president, Victoria Vyvyan:
“Of all the betrayals so far, this is the most cruel. It actively harms nature. It actively harms the environment. And, with war once again raging in Europe, to actively harm our food production is reckless beyond belief.”
Does the Minister think she is wrong?
The Secretary of State, by the way, is missing in action. This is a significant statement, yet he is sending out his junior Minister to take the heat. Perhaps it is because the Secretary of State did not want me to remind him of his own words in November, when he said that farmers
“feel ignored, alienated and disrespected”.
I do hope the Minister will tell us how that is going.
This Government’s farming policy can be summarised in three sentences. First, they will halt any farming and environmental scheme on which farmers rely without warning or consultation, using criteria they have never before defined. Secondly, the state will seize their farmland at will through the compulsory purchase orders that were announced yesterday in the Planning and Infrastructure Bill. Thirdly, if families have managed to cling on to their farms despite all that, then Labour will tax them for dying. However, I am delighted to hear that the Minister for farming himself can see that farmers do not make enough money—I hope he will be changing the family farm tax.
It all adds up to nothing less than an outright assault on the countryside. As a proud rural MP—someone who actually likes the countryside—I am already being contacted by constituents and farmers across the United Kingdom who have had the door slammed in their face with no notice, asking how they are meant to diversify, make a living and protect our countryside.
The Prime Minister has said he understood the significance of losing a farm, acknowledging that it “can’t come back”, and warned against “constantly moving the goalposts” for the agricultural sector, yet that is exactly what his Government are doing. The statement issued by the Government last night was a masterclass in Orwellian doublespeak. It says that the SFI scheme has “reached completion”. What criteria have they used? They have not set those criteria out before. The Government’s own website stated that up to six weeks’ notice would be given for the withdrawal of SFI. Why was that disregarded last night? Does the Minister recognise that, in doing so, this Government have betrayed the trust of the farming community yet again? How many farmers does his Department believe will now be caught out without an SFI agreement during the transition period of at least a year? Just as with the family farm tax, Labour has got its figures wrong.
The CLA has asked me to ask the Minister some questions. What are his Government’s ambitions for the two thirds of farmers in England who are not currently in environmental schemes? How much have the vast cuts to payments under the basic payment scheme saved his Department, and where has that money gone? How will the Secretary of State support upland farmers who were intending to move on to the sustainable farming incentive scheme?
Then, of course, there are the legal problems cause by last night’s announcement. How will the Government meet their legally binding environmental targets, given that they rely so heavily on the SFI scheme? I do hope that the Minister will be able to give us a good, clear legal analysis on the impact of the changes to SFI on internal market competition law between England and other devolved authorities.
Any words that the Minister uses about food security are meaningless in the face of this policy, particularly as we all know that this Government have been delaying consideration and grants of these applications since the general election. The figures that the Minister is using are wrong and the theory behind this policy is very questionable, yet the Government would have us all believe that he understands farming and the impact that this measure will have on farmers. Farmers are in despair.
My message to farmers is clear: we have got your back; we will help you, so please hang on in there for the next four years; we will axe the family farm tax; and we will sort out this shocking mess of SFI, to help build a bright future for British farming with British farmers.
Daniel Zeichner
Well, really! I had hoped that the shadow Secretary of State would understand how the schemes that her own Government created actually work. Let me explain the problem that we inherited—there are some on the shadow Front Bench who, I think, understand this better than her. This time last year, these schemes were undersubscribed; they are now oversubscribed. It is not a complicated thing to say that, when the budget is spent, a responsible Government responds to that. The budget is spent. [Interruption.] The budget has been spent and what we are doing in a sensible, serious way—[Interruption.] Conservative Members should actually be celebrating the fact that so many farmers are now taking up these schemes. I am confident that we will be able to sort out the mess that we have inherited. Basically, if you set up schemes without proper budgetary controls, you end up in this kind of position. We have had to take the hard decisions that the previous Government ducked.
Rural Affairs
Debate between Victoria Atkins and Daniel Zeichner(4 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Richard Tice (Boston and Skegness) (Reform)
The right hon. Lady has obviously had lots of letters and emails. Has she had a single one from any farmer who thinks this is a good idea? I have not had any from my constituency of Boston and Skegness.
The Minister for Food Security and Rural Affairs (Daniel Zeichner)
We have—plenty!
Victoria Atkins
You couldn’t make it up, could you? This is what is so worrying. This is why, at the beginning, I talked about a Labour Government who do not understand and do not care, and it is exactly this attitude from the Government Front Bench that farmers and their families are seeing. In answer to the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Richard Tice), I say as a former Treasury Minister that if there is evidence of abuse, of course the Treasury and the Chancellor must go after that, but given the way the Government have designed this policy, it is going to go after the hard-working families that look after our farms in our great county.