Environmental Land Management Scheme: Food Production

Debate between Victoria Prentis and Geoffrey Clifton-Brown

Tuesday 1st February 2022 Westminster Hall

[Victoria Prentis]

Fair enough. This is an important issue, and the clever statisticians are always reluctant for Government to commit to an absolute figure. That is not because of any theological argument, but because we cannot stop people eating, for example, rice or bananas, and nor do we want to. The important measure to look at is food that can be produced here.

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

Will the Minister give way?

[Victoria Prentis]

I will not, because I want to give my hon. Friend time at the end of the debate.

The figure at the moment is about 74% and that seems about right. I am committed to buying local, buying sustainable and promoting buying British wherever possible. It is important that we keep a close eye on our food security and our ratios. As hon. Members know, we are changing the way we support farmers and moving away from area-based payments. It is clear that there are worries about how this will affect food production levels, but many of the sectors where we have the greatest self-sufficiency are those that were not traditionally subsidised. We are close to 100%, for example, in poultry, eggs, carrots and swedes, and for many of those successful sectors, direct payments have never really been part of the business model.

There is no reason why we cannot produce the food we need while accommodating some land use change. We know that there is not a direct correlation between the amount of land farmed and the output. For example, around 60% of our output comes from just 30% of our land, farmed by just 8% of farmers. Delivering our environmental targets will inevitably require some land use change in some places, but we need to look at that in a wider context. We have 9.3 million hectares of farmland in England, so we are looking only at a small proportion being taken out of production. I associate myself with what has been said about carbon capture in permanent grassland and I commend my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas), who made some important comments about restorative agriculture.

In the last 20 years, the appreciation of the scale of the challenge we face on issues such as biodiversity loss and climate change has grown. Those challenges mean we must act now to establish a new system of rewards. That is why the Government have chosen not to remove the farming budget, but to repurpose it. The amount of money available is the same and I expect the number of farmers to broadly be the same in the future, though some of those farmers may be farming in a different way to the way in which they farm now. We are designing our new schemes in partnership with farmers, and to that end it was good to hear from my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds, my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton, the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax). It is always good to hear strong farming voices in this House.

We want to support the choices that individual farmers make on their own holdings. Farmers will be free to choose which elements of our new policies work for them. Some people may decide to embrace them extensively, but for others the schemes may be a smaller part of their business model.

I have spent the best part of 25 years in different roles in Whitehall, and I have never seen iterative policy making quite like this. We are doing it over a seven-year period, in close conjunction with the industry. Today, we have about 4,000 farmers actively testing things for the new schemes. I accept, and indeed embrace, some of the criticisms made in the PAC report about the beginnings of the policy. We will be responding to that report formally next month.

I agree that regular, annual impact assessments are a useful and positive part of the development of these policies. In many ways, I have enjoyed the cut and thrust of this debate. It is important that these policies are not set in stone. We are developing them in conjunction with farmers, as we make progress.

I know this is a time of huge change for farmers, but it has been good to see how many have embraced that change. The Chair of the Select Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton, wants carrots, and I would gently say that one of the most useful carrots this year has been the extensive take-up of the countryside stewardship scheme. We have seen a 40% increase in applications, including, I should add, from my own farm. We are encouraging farmers to join that scheme as an interim, while we roll out the new scheme.

As a carrot, we have announced a 30% increase in countryside stewardship payment rates, which I hope will act as a bridge to our new schemes. Using the future farming resilience fund, we are supporting farmers through the transition. The fund awards grants to organisations that are trusted in the farming community, to help farmers work through how the policies affect them individually.

Tenant farmers are a vital part of our farming industry. For DEFRA’s agricultural reforms to succeed, tenant farmers must be able to fully engage in these schemes. On Friday, I was pleased to see my Secretary of State announce an independent tenancy working group, chaired by Baroness Rock, who has long been a champion of this sector, and dedicated to looking at ways to ensure our new schemes really work for tenant farmers. In passing, I should say that BPS has not always worked for tenant farmers and may have been one of the reasons why rents have been artificially inflated. We want to ensure these new schemes work.

This is a period of change and it is understandable that there is worry, but there is also great opportunity ahead. One year into a seven-year transition, it is clear that there is much agreement in the House with the principle of the policy. There is also agreement that food and food security are at the heart of everything we do. I look forward to working with Members on both sides of the House and with our 86,000 or so farmers to make sure we get the roll-out of the policy right.

Agriculture Bill

Debate between Victoria Prentis and Geoffrey Clifton-Brown

Consideration of Lords amendments & Ping Pong & Ping Pong: House of Commons
Monday 12th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Victoria Prentis]

If I may, I will make a tiny bit of progress, otherwise we really will be here for another 100 hours.

The purpose behind Lords amendment 1 is to demonstrate the connections between this Bill and the Environment Bill. I am pleased to say that these connections very much exist already. Environmental improvement plans will already definitely be taken into account when determining the strategic priorities that sit within the multi-annual financial assistance plans in clause 4.

It is lovely to see the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow), in her place. She and I work very closely together. Ours is a very united Department, and we view farmers and environmentalists as often very much one and the same. Our future farming policies will be a key mechanism for delivering the goals set out in the 25-year environment plan, but we can take the steps we need to improve biodiversity only if the majority of farmers are firmly on side.

On Lords amendment 9, I would like to reassure the House that work is already taking place in this sphere. We have already commissioned an independent review of the food sector, led by Henry Dimbleby, and his interim report was released in July. We take his recommendations very seriously. We have made a firm commitment to publish a food White Paper within six months of his final report, which is expected next spring. This could well lead to a report sooner than is actually proposed in the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

Will the Minister give way?

[Victoria Prentis]

I will not just at the moment, but I will later.

I am afraid to say that, despite the considerable thought that has gone into the amendments, we have not yet found a magic form of words that will address all the concerns and avoid undesirable side effects. In asking the House to reject the amendments, I will set out the set of solutions, both legislative and non-legislative, that I hope will allay the fears that Members have expressed. In my view, this range of measures, and constant vigilance on the part of Government and, indeed, consumers, are of more use than warm words in primary legislation.

I will start by reiterating that, alongside my colleagues on this side of the House, I stood on a clear manifesto commitment that in all our trade negotiations we will not compromise on our high environmental protection, animal welfare or food standards. As I have said many times, our current import standards are enshrined in existing legislation.

They include a ban on importing beef produced using artificial growth hormones and poultry that has been washed with chlorine. The European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020 carries across those existing standards on environmental protections, animal welfare, animal and plant health and food safety. Any changes to that legislation would need to be brought before Parliament.

It falls to our independent food regulators, the Food Standards Agency and Food Standards Scotland, to ensure that all food imports into the UK are safe and meet the relevant UK product rules and regulations. The FSA’s risk analysis process is rigorous, completely independent of Government and based on robust scientific evidence, along with other legitimate factors such as wider consumer interests and the impact on the environment, animal welfare and food security.

--- Later in debate ---

[Victoria Prentis]

Yes, those in the Department for International Trade stood on the manifesto that my hon. Friend and I were also proud to stand on. We are absolutely committed to high standards.

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

rose—

[Victoria Prentis]

I promised to give way to my hon. Friend, and I forgot.

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

My hon. Friend has helpfully set out the very high standards that any imports will be required to meet coming into this country. Therefore, is there any reason why this House should not be given proper opportunity to scrutinise any free trade agreements before they are signed, so that we can ensure that those agreements do not enable produce to come into this country that is lower than those standards?

[Victoria Prentis]

If my hon. Friend can contain himself, I will get on very shortly to a long section of my speech that details how Parliament will be able to scrutinise future trade agreements. It is important, and I think that we do do that, but I will set that out very shortly.