Upland Sheep Farmers

Albert Owen Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Glyn Davies]

I agree, and I was interested by my hon. Friend’s reference to sheep nuts. Lorries have not been able to deliver them, and everyone else wants them to feed to their cattle. A huge shortage of food has made a disastrous position even worse.

[Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this important debate, to which he brings considerable experience. As well as the problems caused by energy and food costs, there is the problem that many small businesses were encouraged to diversify into tourism, which has also been affected by last year’s long periods of adverse weather. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that we need a special review of the situation, covering not just agriculture but tourism and other aspects of the rural environment?

[Glyn Davies]

I do agree. I contemplated the possibility of expanding the debate to include other businesses—and, while tourism is the obvious example, other businesses will have been affected—but decided that that would weaken the thrust of the point I wanted to make. I do not seek in any way to belittle the issue, but I wanted to concentrate on something else today.

Most of the livestock that we are discussing would eventually have been sent to an abattoir. Strangely, that is accepted among farmers as being the natural order of things, but what happened in this instance was not the natural order, and it has been hugely stressful.

During the most recent foot and mouth outbreak in 2001, I was Chair of the National Assembly’s Agricultural and Rural Affairs Committee. For several months, I spent most days—and it often continued late into the night, until the early hours of the morning—talking to people in distress who were unable to cope with the fact that all their animals, many of them prized animals, were being put down and burnt as a consequence of contact with the disease. Interestingly—I say that it was interesting now, but it was tragic then—it was not the farmers who were ringing me, but their wives and parents, who were deeply worried about the men. It is mostly men who work in that industry. Livestock farming is a lonesome life, and those wives and parents were hugely worried about the mental state of the farmers and about what they might do. Indeed, the tragedy is that some of them did the very worst.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Heath]

Of course, I am happy to take your guidance on that, Mr Speaker. I will say that in the parts of the country I visited the casualties, almost exclusively, were sheep. It was the sheep flocks that were devastated, although of course other livestock are affected in such extreme circumstances.

I also want to say—this point was made by the hon. Member for Llanelli—that charities are playing a crucial role in supporting those in real hardship, sometimes simply by acting as a compassionate friend, which is exactly what is needed by people who often lead very isolated lives. Sometimes they just need a shoulder to lean on, and I think that it is extremely important that the charities provide that.

I have received many hundreds of e-mails and letters from individual members of the public who want to support the farmers affected through donations, directly with a pick and shovel, or in the supermarkets by buying British lamb. That is a message I want to get across: one thing that every single person can do to support the British sheep meat industry, wherever they live in the country, is go out and ask the supermarkets for British lamb. I hope that is recognised as one of the most powerful things they can do. Retailers—this is something the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd said—can play a part in that, not only through the price of meat, but by highlighting the quality of British lamb and sheep meat.

[Albert Owen]

The Minister is absolutely right that we should be buying British lamb, and Welsh lamb, as a priority—[Interruption.] It is British, of course. Has he or his Department contacted other national Governments and Assemblies in this country to assess the impact the adverse weather has had on the sheep industry and other food industries and on the price for the consumer in the United Kingdom?

[Mr Heath]

As I think I said earlier, it is actually quite difficult to assess the impact now, but of course we will continue that dialogue with the devolved Administrations. At the moment, we are still effectively dealing with an emergency situation. Many factors affect the price of meat, as the hon. Gentleman knows, but it is an assessment that we need to make, and I am happy to work with colleagues in the devolved Administrations to do that.

[Albert Owen]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way again. I understand that this is a crisis and that it takes time to assess it, but as we have discussed in the debate, a number of adverse weather conditions have impacted on the industry. Will he, working with the other Assemblies in the United Kingdom, conduct a proper assessment of the impact on food prices now, and not just for this crisis, but for previous adverse weather impacts?

[Mr Heath]

As the hon. Gentleman says, there is the cumulative effect of a number of things. To be perfectly honest, this particular event, devastating though it has been for a significant number of farmers, but luckily not so many, will not in itself have a real effect on food prices, but I think that, in a wider context, what we have experienced over the past six to nine months will. We must also look at the effect that imports from other countries might be having, particularly on the price of British lamb—I will persist in saying British lamb, because I am the Minister responsible for agriculture in England as well as in the UK.