Food and Farming: Employment Opportunities

Michael Tomlinson Excerpts

Tuesday 25th April 2017 Westminster Hall

[Derek Thomas]

My right hon. Friend may be aware that I held a debate here early last year on food security and the need to create confidence in what we produce. The only way to do so is with clear labelling, so that consumers know exactly what they are buying, know that we are looking after animal welfare and the environment, and know that people are being paid properly. I agree completely that leaving the European Union allows us to provide direction and clarity about those things.

The food sector generates £1.8 billion in value to UK plc. Jobs in the sector range from engineers and scientists, to farm managers and vets. Given that the industry faces the challenges of an ageing workforce, it is clear that, like any industry, it will need a ready supply of new entrants with new ideas, energy and enthusiasm. As the industry becomes increasingly technologically driven and more reliant on its ability to understand and implement the latest science, businesses across the sector will need the right mix of skills among their employees.

[Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. I am the chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on youth employment, which reviews unemployment statistics every month. The latest show that just over 500,000 young people are unemployed. Does he agree that the sector provides a great opportunity to tap into some of that talent, upskill those young people and, most importantly, give them a place in the working world?

[Derek Thomas]

I am sure the Minister will want to comment on that. There are jobs to be filled in the sector—that is certainly the case in my part of the world. The challenge of offering jobs to those young people is ensuring that their schools properly prepare them for the work, so that they understand what is required and have the skills needed. Employers would then provide them with opportunities and training. I will consider apprenticeships and training opportunities later in my speech.

South-west Agriculture and Fishing

Michael Tomlinson Excerpts

Wednesday 19th October 2016 Westminster Hall

[James Heappey (Wells) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Moon. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall (Scott Mann), who is a fellow south-west MP, on securing this important debate. This is the second debate in just over a week to which south-west Members have turned up en masse—to stand up first for tourism and now for agriculture.

I cannot claim to have any significant commercial fishing in my patch, but I have a lot of farming and I know how concerning the impact of Brexit is to farmers. There has been a lot of uncertainty in the last few years, with low prices, the poorly administered basic payment scheme and the prospect of a significant change to the agricultural subsidy regime once we have left the EU and therefore the common agricultural policy. I welcome the Chancellor’s announcement that the current agricultural funding under pillar one of the CAP will be maintained until 2020, but despite that commitment the UK Government will spend less on agricultural subsidy because we currently get such a bad deal from the CAP. That must be music to the Treasury’s ears. The end of the decade is not that far away, so the Government need to start articulating the long-term vision for farming in the UK now.

[Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)]

We have heard many voices from the south-west but none yet from Dorset. Although Dorset is the smallest county in the south-west, it represents nearly 10% of the agricultural workforce. Does my hon. Friend recognise that there are opportunities for the CAP system to be reformed, which farmers have been calling for, specifically in relation to the timing of payments, as my hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall (Scott Mann) mentioned?

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (in the Chair)]

Order. For hon. Members’ understanding, James Heappey gains an extra minute.

Oral Answers to Questions

Michael Tomlinson Excerpts

Thursday 7th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

6. What steps the Church of England is taking to encourage the appointment of more women bishops.

[Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)]

7. What plans the Church of England has to promote women in leadership positions.

[Mrs Spelman]

As the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) has assiduously asked me this question on several occasions, I am delighted to be able to inform him that a further six women have been appointed as bishops: the diocesan Bishop of Newcastle, with a seat in another place, and five suffragan bishops—of Taunton, Aston, Sherborne, Repton and Dorking.

[Mrs Spelman]

This is a campaign the hon. Gentleman is well able to take some credit for, and I am sure my predecessor is too. Some 18 suffragan bishops have been appointed, eight of whom have been women, which is 45% of all appointments.

[Michael Tomlinson]

Will my right hon. Friend join me in welcoming the new Bishop of Sherborne, Karen Gorham, to her place? Her first official engagement was a confirmation service in Lytchett Minster parish church, at which, I am proud to say, my son was one of the candidates. However, does my right hon. Friend agree that Karen Gorham’s appointment will encourage other women into leadership positions in the Church of England?

[Mrs Spelman]

Yes, indeed, and I congratulate my hon. Friend on his son’s confirmation. An increasing number of younger women have indeed entered the priesthood. Some 47% of the clergy ordained in 2015 were female, and 22% of the women ordained in 2015 were under 40.

Oral Answers to Questions

Michael Tomlinson Excerpts

Thursday 17th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

We want management of entire catchments to reduce the flow going into our towns and cities, and to ensure that more farmland is protected. That is part of our 25-year environment plan that we are currently developing. The important thing to acknowledge is that the schemes we announced yesterday in the Budget will be looked at on a catchment basis. We are looking not just at Leeds, but at the entire Aire catchment.

[Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)]

T4. A number of farmers in my constituency have suffered from delays in the basic payment scheme, with all the worry and financial anxiety that that has caused. What guarantee can the Minister give that this will not happen again?

[George Eustice]

We have worked very hard with 1,000 people on this project to pay farmers as soon as possible. We have done considerably better than other parts of the UK, such as Scotland. We have now paid about 83% of farmers. By the end of this month, almost all of them will have been paid. We believe that from next year—we have done a lot of work on the computer system—it will be much easier for farmers to complete their application, because the data will already be there.

Basic Payment Scheme

Michael Tomlinson Excerpts

Thursday 28th January 2016 Westminster Hall

[James Heappey]

I very much agree with my hon. Friend. I will shortly come on to some of the impacts of late payments that I have seen, but he makes a good point, which I hope the Minister will take away. Perhaps those of us here today might seek to lobby the Treasury on exactly that issue, because farmers have a great number of bills on their desks awaiting payment once the basic payment comes. We can perhaps ease the pressure by making their tax bill less urgent.

[Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for securing this important debate. May I pick up on two things he has mentioned? First, I have had a number of meetings with farmers in Dorset who are concerned about the issue. Secondly, uncertainty is perhaps the key here. Farmers are asking for good communication and certainty. Perhaps my hon. Friend will comment on that. Part payment could be a solution and a way forward.

[James Heappey]

My hon. Friend does the farmers of Dorset a great service in raising those issues, which I intend to speak on at some length because they are hugely important.

I have the great honour of serving on the Select Committee on Energy and Climate Change, and one thing that I have observed is that we talk about energy security with great urgency—we are willing to bend our backs in government and in this place to ensure that we achieve energy security—yet we seem to be slightly less concerned about food security. I put it to the House that in many ways our food security is as important as our energy security and any other type of security, in that while the going is good we can rely on international markets, but when the going is bad, it is absolutely essential that we can feed ourselves. We must therefore be sensible and urgent in how we support farming to ensure that we maintain the sector.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Davies]

I thank my hon. Friend for that great intervention. We can only guess—and our guess might be that it is probably not a lot; but that is purely an assumption, and I cannot provide the facts. The Minister may be able to enlighten us further.

We must do everything we can to get the payments out to farmers as effectively and efficiently as possible, to resolve the current issue of delays to payments. I know of many local farmers in Wales who have received part-payments. Of course England has a completely different system. It does not have a part-payment system; it is paying fewer farmers, but in full. We need to get all the money out because in addition to the effect of payment delays on farmers’ cash flow, falling market prices of produce hamper the growth of the farming industry around the UK. With incomes low, many farmers tell me they are unable to pay suppliers until the payments come through. That has a direct impact on the ability to run local businesses and affects the whole rural economy. That is why we must do all we can to get payments out as quickly as possible.

[Michael Tomlinson]

Perhaps my hon. Friend will elaborate a little more on the part-payments that have been made and how well they have worked in his experience. Farmers whom I have met have said, “At least give us something now to help tide us over before we get the certainty of the full payment.” Perhaps he will elaborate on that a little more.

[Chris Davies]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising a very good question. In Wales, certain payments have been released—30%, 50%, 70%—but, as the permanent secretary told the Select Committee on Tuesday, the Department decided not to do that because that would mean a system of reprocessing claims, taking even longer to get the full payments out, so it was decided not to go down that route. I am sure the Minister will elaborate on exactly why, but that is what the Select Committee was told.

In Wales, the Welsh Government have in part put the delays down to a legal challenge to the new system that they intended to implement back in 2015, but I cannot help but wonder why there was not a back-up system in place as soon as the legal challenge was launched. That would have ensured that farmers would not face the sort of delays they currently face today. Although I appreciate that that was not under the control of the Minister here today, I wonder whether he will join me in recommending that, should such a challenge be put in place on any side of any border in the future, reasonable back-up systems should be in place so that farmers are not adversely affected.

That brings me loosely on to my second point. Farmers do not seem to have been informed of what is happening with their claims. The uncertainty this creates should not continue, and I am glad to hear that both the RPA and the Welsh Assembly will now write to farmers to inform them of why their claims have been delayed. That said, can I urge the Minister to ensure that, included in the letter, will be a statement of when each farmer can expect to receive their payment, as this will enable farmers to plan their cash flows better and assure their suppliers of when they can expect to be paid. The Secretary of State and the permanent secretary told us on Tuesday that they expect payments to go out somewhere between February and June, but we know that the window closes in June and we could not get a more specific time. Perhaps the Minister will know a little more about that.

We should keep our farmers up to date because they need to plan for the future. Each farmer is a small business; some are very large businesses in our rural economy. Without being able to get their payments, they will not have a business plan, and that has an impact. We should resolve the issues that we currently face as quickly as possible. I also think it is vital that we learn the lessons from this year’s application process, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wells has emphasised strongly. While the crisis is still going on, it is difficult to analyse exactly what has gone wrong. The applications will begin again in May this year. Can the Minister outline the lessons that he believes the RPA and all administrative bodies can learn to ensure that we do not face the same issues again in the 2016 application period?

On the basic payment system more widely, what is the Minister’s view on the stringent nature of the Assembly’s application of the BPS rules? I have several constituents who are concerned that they are not receiving their full allocation owing to the nature of the satellite imagery used to assess their farm sizes. Simple issues such as the shadows of trees mean that farm sizes are being shrunk, as the shadows caused by the trees make wooded areas look larger on satellite images. This then shrinks the size of farms, often by considerable distances, and diminishes the payments that farmers receive. This causes delays to some farmers’ payments, so will the Minister press the Assembly to look at new, more efficient ways to process basic payment schemes? For too long the system has been too complicated, and it is about time we simplified it best to assist our farmers.

In conclusion, I believe we face significant issues with this year’s applications that should be resolved as swiftly as possible, and I look forward to the Minister’s response on the issues that hon. Members raise today. The most important consideration we must take from the payment delays this time around is to ensure that not only are lessons learned, but also that resolutions are implemented in time for next year’s applications. Farmers should be able to focus their efforts on farming their land and not on form filling and concerning themselves with whether or when they will be paid. With all the current and predicted hardships that our farmers face, I implore the Minister to ensure that farmers’ basic payment scheme applications will not be a further hardship next year as well.

Oral Answers to Questions

Michael Tomlinson Excerpts

Thursday 17th December 2015 Commons Chamber

The right hon. Member for Meriden, representing the Church Commissioners, was asked—

[Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)]

6. What support the Church of England and the diocese in Europe are providing for Syrian migrants in Europe.

[The Second Church Estates Commissioner (Mrs Caroline Spelman)]

Within the diocese of Europe, the Anglican chaplaincy of Athens and the chaplaincy to Southern Italy are supporting migrants and refugees by providing spiritual and psychological support, clothing and healthcare. Local churches across the diocese of Europe are also acting as a messaging service to try to bring families back together if they have been disunited.

[Michael Tomlinson]

I am grateful for that answer. Further to the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), many churches and other local groups have contacted me in my constituency and the wider county of Dorset, offering help with accommodation. Will my right hon. Friend set out how those offers can be logged, assessed and, where appropriate, taken up?

[Mrs Spelman]

That is an important point that the Minister responsible will want the House to take on board. We need social landlords who are willing to offer accommodation to refugees, so that if possible we do not add to housing waiting lists and cause cohesion issues in our society. Within the Church of England we are looking for Christian social landlords who will provide accommodation for refugees which the Government will pay for.

Neonicotinoids on Crops

Michael Tomlinson Excerpts

Monday 7th December 2015 Westminster Hall

[Ben Howlett (Bath) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered e-petition 104796 relating to the use of neonicotinoids on crops.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Madam Chairman, and may I wish you a very happy birthday? [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] Whoever said I was a suck-up?

Neonicotinoids are more easily referred to as neonics. As a dyslexic, I will use that phrase for ease. Neonics are a class of pesticides used on crops to control pests such as aphids and grubs. The petition, which received more than 90,000 signatures, was prompted by the effect that neonics have on pollinators in the UK, specifically bees. The petition states:

“Neonicotinoids, especially seed treatments of imidacloprid and clothianidin on arable crops, have become of increasing concern to beekeepers and bee researchers in recent years with many of them suspecting that they may be connected to current bee declines. These concerns have led to partial bans on the use of some neonicotinoids for specific crops in several European countries, including France, Germany, Italy and Slovenia. Bees are already facing sharp declines in their numbers and need help.”

The EU placed a ban on three types of neonics just over two years ago. However, attention was returned to the issue when the Government permitted limited use of the substances as an emergency measure.

I want to discuss the importance of bees before continuing to discuss neonics, the EU approach and the recent permission granted by the Government for some farmers in Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire.

[Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Vaz, on your birthday.

Given the level of interest in this subject—it is clear from this room and from my inbox that the residents of Mid Dorset and North Poole and people around the rest of the country are concerned—perhaps my hon. Friend will comment on the revitalising of the all-party group to inform and discuss the issue further.

[Ben Howlett]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I welcome the creation of the all-party group by our hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman). I believe the APPG is meeting on Wednesday and he would like as many Members as possible to attend.

Oral Answers to Questions

Michael Tomlinson Excerpts

Thursday 18th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Spelman]

My hon. Friend has just mentioned the Methodist Church and I am sure you would agree that it is right that we should all record our sympathy to the Methodist Church in South Carolina, which has suffered a terrible shooting tragedy.

I intend to work very actively with the Heritage Lottery Fund, which dedicates about £25 million a year to essential repairs for all listed places of worship. Given the urgency of my hon. Friend’s specific case, I suggest we work on it together immediately.

[Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)]

Last winter, the church of St Mary’s in Lytchett Matravers was shut due to a lack of heating, and parish churches across Dorset struggle to meet both their parish share and to ensure that their buildings remain open. What plans does the Church Commissioner have to provide support for churches such as St Mary’s in Lytchett Matravers to ensure that they remain open, and will she meet me to discuss the matter?

[Mrs Spelman]

A total of 250 churches have managed to install renewable energy facilities. The Church offers a church care support system to help parishes make changes and modifications to their heating systems to bring down the costs of heating. I suggest that we work closely together with this specific example and see what can be done.