Support for British Farming

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd November 2022 Westminster Hall

[Dan Jarvis (Barnsley Central) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Gary, and to follow the hon. Member for East Devon (Simon Jupp); he made an excellent speech, and I warmly congratulate him on securing this important debate.

I should say at the outset that I have a long-standing love of the countryside and have spent a lot of my life on farms over the years. For the purposes of transparency, I want to declare that my son is at agricultural college in Yorkshire, my parents-in-law are farmers, and I am the grandson of a farm worker. I should also say that a sizeable portion of the borough of Barnsley is in a national park, and I am proud that there are a number of farms in my constituency.

Let me say something about the challenges farmers face and what I think we should be doing to support them. The UK benefits from better food security if British farmers produce more food. The war in Ukraine has brought that into sharp focus, as it has caused an abrupt decline in global food production, but the UK has experienced a longer decline. According to the National Farmers Union, we now produce 60% of our domestic food consumption, down from 80% in the 1980s. The Government have an important role to play in reversing that trend, but we can all play our part by buying local produce.

A recent report by the CPRE showed that, pound for pound, spending in smaller, independent, local food outlets supports three times as many jobs as spending at supermarkets, and buying direct can be even better for some farmers. In my area, the Hill family, who run a local dairy farm, have shown entrepreneurial spirit by setting up a very sophisticated vending machine so that people can buy their dairy products directly. They call it “Milk From The Hills”—local milk from local cows helping local farmers.

Members who speak to their local farmers know that farming has rarely, if ever, been easy. So we must support farmers during difficult times, and the latest outbreak of avian influenza is a timely reminder of that. I acknowledge the need for the Government’s national housing order for poultry, along with steps to improve the compensation scheme, although there is some way to go to get that right. Ultimately, strong biosecurity will help prevent and mitigate many threats, but the Public Accounts Committee reported last week that the Government are not prioritising the significant threat to UK health, trade, farming and rural communities posed by animal diseases. That has led to the Animal and Plant Health Agency site in Weybridge having more than 1,000 single points of failure. The completion of the redevelopment programme, due in 2036, will be cold comfort to farmers, especially given that avian influenza is not the only threat.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

The hon. Gentleman is right about the contribution of biosecurity to tackling avian influenza, but does he agree that, because of the interaction between the wild bird population and domestic birds, biosecurity will never be the whole answer to the problem? To be honest, I do not know what the answer is, but to put all our metaphorical and political eggs in the biosecurity basket risks leaving us with no solution in the long term.

[Dan Jarvis]

The right hon. Gentleman makes a very important point. I understand that there will be a debate on that subject in the House next Wednesday. That is a really important opportunity for Members to put points to the Minister, who takes these things very seriously. I hope that that debate will be well supported. I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention.

On biosecurity, African swine fever is a real danger, but the Government have not yet shown that they appreciate the need for strong border checks. I would be grateful if the Minister could say something about the need to keep it out of this country. It is in Germany, and many hon. Members are concerned about the potential for it to come here.

Farmers do diligent work to keep their livestock healthy, and we all respect the fact that farming can be physically demanding. Despite recent advances in technology, it can, as we heard from the hon. Member for East Devon, still require a significant workforce, crucially at harvest time. The seasonal workers scheme must secure the labour needed to ensure that we can produce the food we need.

In response to a written question that I put to the Minister back in October, he said:

“40,000 seasonal worker visas were available in 2022”.

However, the NFU says that farmers need between 60,000 and 70,000 seasonal workers. It is important to note that those workers are not the same as other economic migrants: they return home after performing critical work and filling labour shortages. I would be grateful if the Minister could say something about what his Department is doing to ensure that supply meets demand.

Despite the large workforces sometimes required, we appreciate that farming can be a solitary experience, so we need to ensure that our young people see farming as an attractive option for their future. The Farm Safety Foundation reported in February that 92% of farmers under 40 rank poor mental health as the biggest hidden problem facing farmers. That is a concerning figure. I know that the Minister will understand this issue and take it seriously, so will he say something about the Government’s plans to target outreach to young farmers to make sure they get the support they need?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel), and to be able to say—unlike, perhaps, on some occasions when she was in the Home Office and I shadowed her—that there was a great deal in her speech with which I agree. I congratulate the hon. Member for East Devon (Simon Jupp) on getting this debate, and I am pleased at the measure of consensus, because consensus is very important for agricultural policy. In politics, we tend to work on a four or maybe five-year cycle. In agriculture and farming, that is but the blinking of an eye. I should, parenthetically, remind the House of my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests; I am a farmer’s son and now a landowner myself.

The real support for agriculture that we need from Government is more certainty. That, of course, will come from the future of farm payments; they have hit difficulties south of the border. North of the border, we must still wait and see. We welcome the consultation that is outstanding. I share some of the frustrations of the National Farmers Union of Scotland, which came forward with proposals four years ago that would have put active agriculture at the heart of environmental policy; it feels there has been a missed opportunity. However, if we get what we need from that consultation, it would behove us all to welcome it.

In particular, in my community, I am keen to see a flexibility that shows an understanding of the local social and economic benefits from agriculture. We have two dairy farms left in Shetland; they have been whittled down—salami-sliced away—over the years. Last week, we had four days without ferries, so our supermarkets, Tesco and the Co-op, which would normally import much of the milk, were not able to do so. For those four days, we were reliant on those two dairy farms for milk for our communities. If there is not an opportunity there for public money for a public good, then I do not know where there is one.

[Chris Loder]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the supermarkets’ dominance of our national food supply chains is now just too much? It is defeating the objective that he mentions, which I have long advocated for: local food, getting through local supply chains to local people, is the way forward.

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[Mr Carmichael]

The hon. Gentleman risks triggering me—if my children were here, I think that is what they would say—because that is a theme on which I have spoken many times. He is absolutely right. I was part of the Government who introduced the Groceries Code Adjudicator. I am disappointed that it has not worked; it needs to be revisited.

There are other powers in the Agriculture Act 2020, and with the Competition and Markets Authority, that could be brought into force, and I think that the consensus in rural and agricultural communities across the country is that that should be done. There is an imbalance between the purchasing power of the supermarkets—which are maybe 10 behemoth commercial organisations, at most—and that of the thousands, if not tens of thousands, of farmers across the country. The supermarkets have been allowed to take advantage of their market dominance for too long, and that absolutely must end.

There are a couple of other areas where the lack of certainty is becoming difficult for the agricultural sector. The progress of the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill is one. I know the Minister understands that, because I was with him when he heard from the National Farmers Union of Scotland about its concerns. There is a real concern that, because of the way the Bill is framed, we risk losing some of the most important legislation, almost by omission. There must be a more pragmatic and practical way to deal with the concerns that that Bill seeks to address that does not risk unintended consequences.

There are other areas in which agriculture, certainly in my community, could benefit from support, but that requires Governments in Edinburgh and Westminster to be prepared to listen. I see some of the debate about the transportation of live animals by sea and it scares me. The people who talk about that issue seem to have no interest in the fact that those of us in the Northern Isles, having years ago designed the state-of-the-art, blue-chip system for transporting animals by sea, risk being caught in legislation that frankly does not take account of our needs and circumstances.

I know the Minister is good at this, and he has a background that will allow him to do it: he must take his heft into Government and deliver. He must be prepared to listen to the people who know most about agriculture: the farmers. If he does that, the benefit is not just to farmers and farm workers, but to the rural communities across the countryside. Good agricultural policy makes for sustainable rural communities; it is as simple as that.