Support for Farmers

Victoria Collins Excerpts

Wednesday 21st October 2026 Commons Chamber

[Anna Sabine (Frome and East Somerset) (LD)]

Madam Deputy Speaker, I hope you will permit me to quickly put on record my thanks to the broadcasting unit in Parliament, which has been so helpful in providing me with additional support while I have been trying to speak in the Chamber while struggling with vocal cord paralysis. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”]

I am privileged to represent nearly 200 farmers in Frome and East Somerset. They are critical not only to the rural economy of Somerset, generating hundreds of jobs in the wider economy, but to providing the UK with much of the dairy and other food products that it relies on. Every time I meet farmers in my constituency, I hear the same thing: that this Government do not understand rural communities and do not see that penalising farmers undermines their own goals of growth and stability.

In order to survive, many of my farmers are running a range of side hustles, from cafés to ice cream companies and farm-stay accommodation. They are stretching themselves to extremes to try to keep their farms going. The SFI is one of the few forms of funding available to those farmers but, as we know, after spending precious time preparing long and detailed applications, in September farmers in my constituency were not even able to load up the application form, because the money had already gone. Money was not awarded to the best farms with the best plans to feed the nation and restore nature; it was awarded to whoever clicked the fastest. Surely, regardless of attempts at political point scoring, we can all agree that despite any improvements that the Government have made to the SFI, that is not a fair or smart way to spend public money.

As a result, for the first time since 1945, many UK farmers now have no universal payment offer. At the same time, the Government are chopping and changing the agricultural property relief and making cuts to DEFRA’s farming budgets.

[Victoria Collins (Harpenden and Berkhamsted) (LD)]

You are summing up what so many of my farmers are facing. I have one farmer in Sandridge who says that he is closing his doors because he feels that the Government are not listening. There is also an impact on the environment. For Guy and Susannah in Great Gaddesden, the shortfall because of the extreme weather means that there are 6.6 million fewer bowls of porridge from one farm. Does my hon. Friend agree not only that that is important, but that this is a crisis moment? The Government have to listen, because this is about not only farmers, but our food security.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. Ms Collins, I was not summing up, because I was not speaking. “You” and “yours” do not count.