Food and Farming: Devon and Cornwall

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd February 2022 Westminster Hall

[Sir Geoffrey Cox (Torridge and West Devon) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered food and farming in Devon and Cornwall.

I am most grateful and delighted to have secured this important debate on food and farming in Devon. It is good to see so many of my colleagues from Devon, and it is very good, if I may say so, to see some honorary Devonians this morning: the hon. Members for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron). It is a particular joy to see them so interested in food and farming in Devon. Of course, many of the themes on which we will touch will be of common interest to those whom they represent and so, speaking for myself and, I am sure, all my colleagues, we are delighted to see them.

I should say straightaway that I own farmland in Devon and derive an income from it. Although I do not myself currently farm the land, it is eligible for some of the schemes that I will discuss today and therefore it is possible that I might benefit from them.

A prosperous and flourishing agriculture in the United Kingdom is in the national interest—I do not imagine that that is a controversial statement in this company. It is not a dispensable or superfluous activity. Recent international events have confirmed, in the most dramatic way, that food production, and more specifically food security, is of increasing national importance and should be a vital Government priority. It does not need much imagination or foresight to see that, for some time now, we have been living through a new and unstable phase of international affairs. The effects of pandemics, wars—threatened and actual—and climate change are thrust upon us with every news bulletin. We cannot take for granted an uninterrupted international supply chain and an endless stream of imports.

On Monday this week, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence observed that the impact of a Russian invasion in Ukraine—now already in action—would be to remove access to the breadbasket of the world. It would have the most deleterious impacts upon vulnerable states and nations throughout the world. Similarly, the gradual erosion by climate change of fertile and cultivable areas of the world, increasing regional tensions, confronts us with a growing threat to the interest of this country in ensuring a constant and adequate food supply to its people. Perhaps not for a very long time has it been so critical that our domestic agricultural policies—under our own exclusive control again after 45 years—should be got right. That is no doubt why the Government sensibly included a legal duty on Ministers, in devising the financial support schemes, to have regard to the need to encourage the production of food and to report each five years to Parliament on food security.

However, agriculture in Devon and Cornwall, like farming all over the country, faces a time of great unpredictability and uncertainty. It must adapt to the major implications of the Agriculture Act 2020 and of changes in our trading relationships after our exit from the European Union.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the right hon. and learned Gentleman on initiating the debate. It is specifically about food and farming in Devon, but, as he rightly said, when it comes to farming, Northern Ireland is comparable. Does he agree that, while farmers in my constituency and across Northern Ireland have recently had a reported rise in income, their outgoings will far outstrip their income, and that, if any modernisation or diversification is to take place, the Government need to step up and implement funding streams that can be allocated to those who need them most, UK-wide? The right hon. and learned Gentleman and I discussed this before the debate. He and I understand well that our Minister in Northern Ireland has grasped the important issue of farming—I know that the Minister here has done the same—but does he feel that whatever happens in Devon, the same should happen in Strangford?

[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

I thought the hon. Gentleman wasn’t going to make a speech this morning.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Geoffrey Cox]

The panel of wisdom assembled this morning is extraordinary; it is almost as if my hon. Friends have read the speech that I prepared last night. Of course the issue of labour is critical.

I supported the departure of this country from the European Union. I believed in every fibre of my being that the freedoms it would permit our nation, if seized and enacted, would bring great benefits, not only to the farmers of our country but to our country as a whole. I do not believe the people of this country would fail to understand the need of British farming for skilled labour. I do not think that was the objection of the millions who voted for Brexit. They would understand a policy of flexibility.

There is no need for us to maintain, with adamantine stubbornness, a policy that leads to labour shortages in British farming. So I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris) completely. Nowhere is this uncertainty felt more keenly than in Devon, where 13% of the economy of the county consists of food production, almost twice the national average. No one seriously argued that an area-based direct payment scheme, such as the one we have, should be retained. Agricultural support should be aimed, as far as possible, at those who look after and promote the wellbeing of the land, or who genuinely make their livelihoods from it.

The aims and intentions of the Agriculture Act 2020 were widely supported, including by me, but those direct payments accounted on average for 55% of the total farm incomes of England. In the south-west, even with the farm payments, the farm business survey found that the average income of a lowland grazing farm in 2019 was just £4,048. Without those payments, there would have been a loss of £10,000, or closer to £14,000 if existing agri-environmental payments are included.

Last year, the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board found that the levels of the new environmental land management scheme then published would, even at the advanced tier to which many could not aspire, not remotely replace the current payments. Yet, according to the agricultural transition plan, by 2024 the direct payments will have been reduced by half, and by 2027 they are due to end completely.

The Public Accounts Committee has described the Department’s approach as “blind optimism”. I do not know, but I certainly hope that that is not an accurate description, and I look to the Minister to reassure me. So far, however, no impact assessment has been published of the effects of the design of these new schemes on food production and farming in Devon, or elsewhere. Nor have measurable standards yet been published by which the environmental benefits and farming outcomes can be assessed.

The Minister herself, in answer to a question about upland farming in April 2020, nearly two years ago, said that she understood the need for payment rates to be attractive to achieve the level of uptake and the environmental outcomes we need to see. The Government have suggested—I believe is an accepted and understood figure—that only if we achieve participation in the sustainable farming incentive of around 70% of all farmers can the scheme succeed.

I understand that elements of the new scheme are still under development, but I must tell the Minister that neither the current published rates, nor the schemes as so far defined, are attracting much enthusiasm from the farm businesses and farmers I represent. They simply cannot yet see sufficiently how these schemes will be relevant to the economic survival of their farms. That anecdotal evidence is supported by the growing chorus of concern from the industry. The Tenant Farmers Association, farming one third of the land in England, has described the current plans as

“a complex patchwork of small schemes of limited impact with little which seems to stitch them together.”

The Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs—it is a pleasure to see its Chairman, my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish), here this morning—the National Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee have all expressed their growing sense of dismay and apprehension. Steadily and relentlessly, the clock is ticking down for Devonshire and Cornish farmers. In the meantime, as the hon. Member for Strangford pointed out, their costs continue to soar.

I understand that in the cockpit of a commercial aircraft coming in to land, sirens and alarms will go off if the plane is approaching the runway either too low or too slow. The sirens are going off now on the Department’s transitional plan. If the market is to play a greater role in farm incomes in the future, it might be less troubling if one could see the necessary vigour and energy invested in creating new markets for British produce around the world—if we could see a bright and bold new vision of a British agricultural export agency with a mission and a passion to convey the magnificent story we have to tell about the quality of British food and to convert it into new opportunities. Perhaps the Minister might say a word about what the Government are doing in this respect.

If Devon and Cornwall’s farmers could sense that the Government were willing to invest in them and back them with the kind of tailor-made and well-designed policies that would lift their collective sales, I have no doubt that they would accept with alacrity the challenge of adaptation, investment and flexibility that these changes will require of them.

[Jim Shannon]

I was watching “Countryfile” on Sunday night, and sugar beet producers in England were mentioned. As we all know, there is an onus on the Minister, but there is also an onus on the companies that buy the product to give farmers the right price for their product. In many cases, the processing company that was mentioned—its name has escaped my mind—has upped its price, but the price has not kept in check with the cost. The right hon. and learned Gentleman is right to press the Minister, but does he agree that we should also press companies to give the producers—the farmers—the right price for their product?

[Sir Geoffrey Cox]

I completely agree that fairness within the supply and the price chain is vital. I think we have lost some momentum that we gathered a few years back with the enactment of various measures that this Government took in trying to create greater awareness of these matters within the industry and the price chain.

The hon. Gentleman has pointed out one further aspect of what I am attempting to convey. What we need is a conviction at the heart of Government of the importance of British farming. I do not doubt that the Minister herself has that conviction. I do not doubt that the Secretary of State, who is a valued colleague of ours in the south-west, has that conviction. I sometimes doubt that, at the centre of the Government’s councils, that conviction is always as persuasive and influential as it should be. I simply say again: at a time when we are confronting another dictator on the borders of Europe, how much more evidence do we need that food security should be a crucial priority at the heart of Government policy making?

If farmers felt that policies were being designed in our post-Brexit world to lift them up and help them make the most of the market, I have no doubt that they would seize those opportunities with alacrity. They were told that regulation would be handled differently and would not, as so often is the case, stifle farmers with bureaucracy and penalisation, but that there would be—I quote from the transition plan—a “new, more effective approach”. Well, someone appears to have forgotten to send the memo to the Environment Agency. Its new guidance on the farming rules for water has caused widespread dismay about the spreading of muck. I understand that dairy farmers are being visited today and told that they must build more storage for their slurry and invest in their farms—investment that they can ill afford at the moment, and even if they can afford it, they are frequently refused planning permission at the instigation of Natural England.

Again and again I hear the same of other agencies like Natural England, whose chief executive I have invited to a summit meeting on Dartmoor later this year to discuss its relationship with working farmers on the moor. We must see this fabled new approach manifested in the everyday experience of farmers. We must take the freedom that our departure from the European Union has conveyed upon us and create the light-touch, unbureaucratic approach for which the farming community is yearning. We must also see the sums promised for investment in on-farm productivity materialise, increase, and be simple to access and draw down.

Perhaps it is too lugubriously pessimistic to remind oneself of the ill-fated Rural Payments Agency and the long history of misery that its performance in administering the area-based payments so often caused those who had to deal with it. Perhaps it is too easy to believe that the administration of these new, as yet undeveloped and unfledged schemes will suffer the same fate in execution as they have appeared to in design. There are more hopeful omens: all is not doom and gloom, as I know the Minister will tell us. The countryside stewardship applications have been simplified, the rates have been increased and—lo and behold—there has been a 30% increase in the uptake of that scheme. Nobody rejoices in that fact more than I, but as the Minister will accept, it is not by itself enough. I hope she will give us this morning greater grounds for hope than, I am afraid, my more pessimistic observation produces at the moment.

This is not just a question of the observable facts. Sometimes one must rely on one’s intuition, and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs so often seems to wear an air of defeatism and lack the foresight, conviction and urgency that the situation demands. If they do not feel they are getting a fair audience at the heart of the councils of government, I understand that. That is why each one of us sitting here this morning can play our part in lending strength to my hon. Friend the Minister’s elbow and that of her boss, the Secretary of State. We stand here at their side, urging them on, willing to play any part—willing to march, to organise and to express solidarity with the team that we send into battle to fight the British farming corner in the Cabinet and the Government. In that fight she can count on my loyal, steadfast support.

I cannot, I am afraid, touch much more on optimistic and encouraging notes, because I must now turn to the topic of pigs. The Minister knows that pig farmers have suffered acutely from the effects of the pandemic. I have had correspondence with the Secretary of State on this pressing issue. The measures taken by the Government have been welcome, but inadequate to prevent a silent catastrophe on pig farms in Devon. Barely a quarter of the 800 visas for butchers have been taken up. The situation on the farms is just as desperate as when I first corresponded with the Minister last year—indeed, more so. One such local farmer has written to me just this week to say that even after culling hundreds of animals,

“we have 2,700 fattening pigs here whereas we would previously only have had 600 weaners and 650 newborn piglets. We have had to make significant investment”—

they have spent over £100,00—

“into adapting buildings to house all these much larger pigs, as well as buying two new bulk bins to store the extra food and also having to install extra feeding equipment. Meanwhile the cost of animal feed has continued to rocket. The financial burden is immense. The stress of this situation is terrible.”

Thus writes a farming family from Langtree, in Torridge in Devon.

Just yesterday the Irish Government followed other Governments, including Northern Ireland and Scotland, by announcing a hardship fund to allow flat-rate payments to farmers who send more than 200 pigs to slaughter each year. The week before last, there was a crisis meeting with the Minister. I would be glad to hear the progress that the Minister is making in this emergency—and it is an emergency.

There is a silent catastrophe going on in pig farms not only in Devon and Cornwall but throughout our country. The issue requires urgent action. The national interest demands that the Government place food security and agriculture in this country at the heart of their policy making. Surely, as the party of the countryside, we cannot stand by while farming—the very sinew of our rural communities—withers away. Of course adaptations to economic circumstances and modern requirements are necessary but, as the uncertainties and perils of world events remind us with acute and ever-growing force, the neglect of our domestic capacity to feed ourselves would be an omission for which the British people will, rightly, not forgive us.

Agriculture: Sustainable Intensification and Metrics

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd February 2022 Westminster Hall

[Julian Sturdy (York Outer) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered sustainable intensification and metrics in agriculture.

It is a pleasure, as always, to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. In bringing forward this debate, I declare my interest as an arable famer and as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on science and technology in agriculture.

The world needs to increase food production and availability by 70% by 2050 to keep pace with the food needs of a rapidly increasing and expanding global population in the face of climate change and the increasing pressures of the world’s finite natural resources. With its good soils, temperate climate, professional farming sector and world-leading research and development, Britain is uniquely placed not only to optimise its capacity for sustainable and efficient food production, but also to become a global hub for agriscience excellence and innovation, exporting technological solutions, attracting inward investment, and fostering international research co-operation. Outside the EU, Britain has a unique opportunity to lead in those fields and to put significant vigour and evidence at the heart of UK policy development.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I also declare an interest as a landowner and as a member of the Ulster Farmers’ Union. I commend the hon. Gentleman for bringing this debate forward. My constituency of Strangford is able to yield three potato crops a year due to sustainable, innovative farming and premium land. Does the hon. Member not agree that a UK-wide survey of soil quality and climate may enable farmers to slightly change their methods and allow us all to reap the benefits of additional produce with minimal environmental impact?

[Julian Sturdy]

I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman. Soils play a hugely important part in the wider metrics of agriculture. Knowing the Minister very well, I know that she shares a passion for soils, so she might touch on that in her response.

Early action by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to make gene editing regulations more science-based and proportionate, which realigns our approach with that of other countries such as Australia, Japan, Brazil, Argentina and the United States, is a positive and welcome first step. I am pleased to see that coming forward in a statutory instrument at the beginning of March, I believe—perhaps the Minister can clarify that.

Members of the APPG for science and technology in agriculture led calls for the Government to take action on that issue during the passage of the Agriculture Act 2020, and we are grateful to the Minister for listening and responding to those calls. Access to precision breeding tools will bring new opportunities to keep pace with demands for increased agricultural productivity, improved and more efficient resource use, more durable pest and disease resistance, better nutrition, and improved resilience against climate change.

Cost of Living and Food Insecurity

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 8th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on the clear points that he is making. In Northern Ireland, 13% of people—241,000 people—are in poverty, with 17% of children and 14% of pensioners in poverty. With the 5% increase that the chief executive officer of Tesco said yesterday would happen to food prices, those in poverty are unfortunately facing a perfect storm that will mean they are in even worse poverty. Does the hon. Member agree that, for those reasons, this Labour motion should be supported?

[Jim McMahon]

I thank the hon. Member so much for that. Northern Ireland is a beautiful part of the world, but that is partly because it is so sparsely populated and rural. On top of the premium related to poverty, there is also a rural premium, where many energy-efficient homes are more expensive to heat and, in many cases, gas oil has to be transported in rather than piped in. That has a significant premium that is felt acutely by many communities.

Northern Ireland Border

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Thursday 3rd February 2022 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice]

I know that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland has been engaged in these matters over the past week or so as events have been developing. I am sure that there will be many opportunities for the Northern Ireland Office to bring such statements before the House should there be anything new to report.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the people of Northern Ireland have been kept in the call waiting queue for long enough? We hear continual EU platitudes that our opinions are important, while they simply entrench further into the protocol. We are determined that now is the time for the call to be taken, for our voice to be heard, for our problems to be addressed and for justice and UK parity to be restored. Does he agree that since the EU and its government have continued to stall, there are now no options available to the people of Northern Ireland other than major steps that were a last resort and are now the only resort?

[George Eustice]

The Government have been clear throughout that, where there are legitimate grounds to use article 16 of the withdrawal agreement, we reserve our right to do so. We also, as I said earlier, have considerable patience for a negotiated outcome. Our preference is still to get that negotiated outcome. That is why my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary will be having further conversations this afternoon.

Bees: Neonicotinoids

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd February 2022 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Thank you for calling me, Sir Roger. I congratulate the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) on bringing this debate forward. As a constituency MP for a rural area, I have worked for some time to raise awareness of this issue; as a landowner, I have been interested in it; and finally, as a grandfather, I am invested in the need to get it right when it comes to our bees and ecosystems. I am very fortunate to have neighbours, Christopher and Valentine Hodges, who have introduced beehives on our farm, in Greyabbey in the constituency of Strangford. They are introducing the black bee. It is a species that is under some threat, so the fact that they are doing that is something that we should be very grateful for.

A consensus is emerging on the need to restrict the use of NNIs—neonicotinoid insecticides. The fact is that without pollinators, we cannot eat and will die. We need to restrict the use of NNIs and that must happen now.

I am conscious of your direction, Sir Roger, but may I quickly say this? The Northern Ireland protocol ensures that Great Britain now operates a separate regime, which began on 1 January 2021, and is able to diverge from EU decisions when it comes to pesticide approval. May I ask the Minister, as I often do, what discussions she has had, and will she enter into discussions with the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office Minister who has responsibility for the issues in respect of the protocol and with the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs Minister in the Northern Ireland Assembly?

What this debate, too, explains is that the Northern Ireland protocol is not simply a matter of a little extra postage paid or an additional form to be filled in; it is a matter of grave importance to our regulations and our environment in Northern Ireland. There can and should be no divergence UK wide. We should all take the issue of pesticides seriously, debate it together, as we are doing today, and apply the result UK wide—to everywhere. Currently, my constituents have no vote and no voice as to these regulations that affect their food intake and future security. That beggars belief.

I am a great believer that bees should be appreciated, respected and protected. From my time as a child in the 1960s, in my aunt Isobel’s garden, marvelling at the wonder of honeycomb—where my love of honey came from—to becoming a man and understanding the vital role played by the humble bee, I have learned this lesson. In the absence of indisputable proof to the contrary, NNI pesticides are dangerous and harmful in the long term to our environment, food security and, indeed, our future.

I work with an Ulster Unionist party councillor in Ards and North Down Borough Council. He is also a farmer, and I conclude with his words: when the bees are gone, we are gone. With that in mind, we must do all that we can to prevent that happening. Robust NNI regulations play a massive part in this, and should consequently be retained and implemented in UK law.

Environmental Land Management Scheme: Food Production

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 1st February 2022 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is always a pleasure to speak in any debate, but I thank the hon. Member for The Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) for securing this one. In his introduction, he hit upon all the salient matters. From what he has said, and from my knowledge of his constituency from afar, it is a richly rural place with beautiful scenery—as is my constituency. I take pride in the rural sections of my constituency, and I like to represent my local farmers. I declare an interest as a member of the Ulster Farmers Union, and as a landowner and a farmer. I say without boasting—that is not what this is about—that we have already made a commitment on our land to planting 3,500 trees, retaining hedgerows and introducing ponds; those are the things that we should be doing, and I have made an active commitment to doing them on our land.

I thank hon. Members for their contributions and I look forward to the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner), contributing; he has a grasp of the issues. I particularly look forward to hearing from the Minister. As others have said, she understands these issues, has a passion for them, and has a feel for what we are trying to say. I am quite sure that when she responds, we will get the answers that we hope for, and the encouragement we want for our constituents.

Farm support across the UK has changed, and will continue to change. Before the UK left the EU, farmers were supported by common agricultural policy funds. That scheme allocated some £4.7 billion to the UK in 2019. The Government said that they will maintain pre-Brexit funding from 2021 to 2027. Those CAP payments will be based on how much land is farmed. Northern Ireland’s farmers have suffered enough from the impacts of the protocol, as we all know. I urge the Government to provide reassurance for those in the farming community that those who own land and have done so for many years will not be further disadvantaged by any new legislation. Northern Ireland is a nation of small farmers. The average farm size is probably between about 70 and 90 acres. We could have reared a family on less than that years ago, but today farmers have increased their land, and the larger ones are still working the land.

The most recent land management strategy released in Northern Ireland was in 2016. It aimed to be a sustainable agricultural land management strategy for Northern Ireland, which would outline how the ambition of “Going for Growth” was to be achieved in a way that improved farm incomes, environmental incomes and food production simultaneously. The strategy said of land management:

“Almost 30% of agricultural land is let in Conacre”—

an important issue for us back home—

“a short term arrangement which denies tenants security in their land tenure and therefore impedes long term planning”.

We therefore have special circumstances, and that might be where our difficulties are. The Minister is not responsible for that, but it would be remiss of me not to make this plea on behalf of my constituents. We have the Comber Early, a potato that has had protected geographical indication status under the UK scheme since 30 October 2020. I am a man of simple tastes, and there is nothing I enjoy more than early Comber potatoes with a pat of butter. There is not a meal like it. The EU protected them, and we wish them to remain part of what we are about in the future. The Minister and the UK Government have issued that protection as well. That tells us what the land does: it produces the best of products, so it is important that we protect it.

The new Agriculture Act 2020 passed by Parliament in the previous Session had several new measures for protecting land management and food production services. They included requirements on Ministers to consider the need to encourage environmentally sustainable ways of producing food, and to report on food security at least once every five years; measures on agricultural tenancies, fertiliser regulation, and the identification and traceability of animals; and the red meat levy. That perhaps indicates that Government have grasped the issue—they have put in place three pointers to what needs to be done.

There is general support for replacing the CAP system of paying farm subsidies based on the area farmed, and for instead paying farmers to provide public goods such as environmental and animal health improvements. Farm groups, however, were concerned that food production was not included in the list of purposes for which funding could be provided. DEFRA has stated that it is maintaining farm support in every nation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and that is imperative for farming in all nations.

I know that the Minister is in regular contact with our Minister back home at the Northern Ireland Assembly; they have regular discussions about agriculture and fishing. I am very pleased that we have an active Minister present who has those discussions as a matter of form—not because we ask it, but because she knows it is the right thing to do—so again I thank her.

The National Audit Office revealed that there were 85,000 recipients of CAP payments in 2017. It also stated that 82,500 would participate in the new environmental land management scheme by 2028. I hope that that will be the case, and perhaps we will capture all current recipients. The new Agriculture Act prepares our agriculture sector for the future, so that it can meet the needs of the country.

I will conclude, Mr Davies; I am ever mindful of the timescale for the debate. I urge the Minister—I know that we are pushing at an open door—to have all necessary discussions with organisations such as the National Farmers Union, the Ulster Farmers Union and the Countryside Alliance, which is very active on these matters, to ensure that the financial protection of our local farms across the United Kingdom. Without doubt, land management and food production have suffered in some ways as a consequence of Brexit. It is time to get this right for our farmers across this great nation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. As I always say, we are better together.

Waste Industry: Criminality and Regulation

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 1st February 2022 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

First, I congratulate the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Aaron Bell) on securing this debate. I thank him for performing his duty to his constituents in the way he has fought this campaign. I am sure that they are very pleased that he has a good grasp of the issue, and I congratulate him on that.

As I always do in these debates, I want to quickly give a Northern Ireland perspective on the criminality and what is happening to us back home. In my constituency of Strangford, not a week passes without illegal waste management and waste disposal activities taking place, whether it be deliberate misdescription of waste, illegal dumping, waste burning or fly-tipping. They are incredibly important issues for me.

Just last week in DEFRA questions, the Minister kindly responded to a question on fly-tipping, which I thank her for. In Northern Ireland, the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs concluded that there were 306 illegal waste sites, using £600,000 of taxpayer’s money. As other hon. Members have illustrated, this is an industry where loads of money seems to be changing hands and there are advantages for those involved.

DAERA also stated that 16,000 tonnes of waste tyres were discovered, 30% of which were sent to unknown destinations. Some 22.5% of Northern Ireland’s waste crime fines were for illegal dumping. Local councils, which have a responsibility, say the lack of scrutiny around people paying fines is due to disruptions from the covid-19 pandemic. The pandemic has created lots of issues for us all. As we are now coming out of the pandemic, perhaps things will improve. I hope the Minister can indicate that to us. Criminality in our waste industry must addressed through further regulation, and we cannot expect any improvement without it. It is time to disrupt illegal activities by arresting suspected waste criminals and bringing them to justice. I look to the Minister to outline the steps that will be taken.

The comments made today show that there is still more work to be done. The Minister gave a commitment to work with the devolved institutions last Thursday, and I am hopeful that more can be done. There is always more we can do to tackle this issue, and the figures given today support that claim. There is no reason for anyone in today’s society to damage the landscape and ruin some of the most precious beauty spots we have across the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Thursday 27th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jo Churchill]

I do not think I can say any more than that it was described as similar to the narcotics industry. We need to treat fly-tipping with that much seriousness: we need to crack down and make sure that the people who are earning illegally and blighting others’ lives are hounded out of this industry.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

May I first thank the Minister for her enthusiasm in the matter? She clearly means what she says and I thank her for that. The most recent statistics from back home show that in the past two years the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs cleaned up 306 illegal waste sites, costing half a million pounds or the equivalent of 15 nurses’ pay. What discussions has the Minister had with her counterpart in the Northern Ireland Executive to discuss how we can combat these issues together and take the pressure off local councils?

[Jo Churchill]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. I meet Ministers from the devolved Administrations regularly. I have not had specific conversations on the matter, but I would be happy to because fly-tipping knows no boundaries. We need to sort it out together.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Selous]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. I am a former chair of Christians in Parliament, which is ably run by our colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for South West Devon (Sir Gary Streeter), and I participate in its meetings. I am glad the hon. Gentleman has given it wider publicity in these questions.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his response. I am a great believer in marriage, as you are, Mr Speaker. I have 34 years of married life—my wife has stuck me for 34 years, so well done to her. I know the hon. Gentleman is equally committed to helping people stay married and stay in happy relationships. What is the Church doing to ensure that, where there are breakdowns and grievances, it can step in to help to resolve those issues and make the marriage last?

[Andrew Selous]

I thank the hon. Gentleman; sadly, some marriages cannot be saved, but he is right that many marriages, with the appropriate help and support, can be saved. All marriages go through difficult times, and he is right to say that that is an important role for the Church of England.

Northern Ireland Protocol: Veterinary Agreement

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 15th December 2021 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the hon. Member for introducing the debate. The very point that he is making is one that is obvious to us. Certainly for my party, including my hon. Friend the Member for Upper Bann (Carla Lockhart), who is sitting here beside me, the problem is one not only of cost but of bureaucracy, and people are just turned off. In the past they had a simple system allowing them to bring stuff from the UK mainland to Northern Ireland, but suddenly there are all these difficulties. One quick example is the seeds sector for plants and flowers. If someone wants to buy a wee packet of seeds, there is an added £10 or £15 charge, which is ridiculous for a seed packet that costs about £2.50.

[Tony Lloyd]

The hon. Member is absolutely right. It is possible to transport used farm equipment without the need for many checks, and yet a packet of seeds, which is produced in a controlled way, has to have that bureaucracy and those checks, so he is right to be concerned. The central point is that is the bureaucracy that is frustrating for businesses in Northern Ireland and Great Britain.

There is a question for the Minister about the uncertainty. Traders have told us that the trader support service is working well. I am sure that is true, but they also make the point that an education process is needed for producers in Great Britain. How far along are we in securing that process of public education?

As I have said, the damage is already here and now. The sheep industry in Northern Ireland, for example, faces scrapie controls, which means that it will be three years before some sheep farmers can sell their goods into the GB market. Cattle breeders also face uncertainty because of the new regulatory regime. That is not because they move cattle—generally they move fertilised products and suchlike—but because they cannot plan for the future. That is disastrous for the agricultural industry.

The chief executive of Lynas Foodservice, the biggest food processor in Northern Ireland, has pointed out that there are eight different bureaucratic processes to bring mozzarella from Great Britain into Northern Ireland. He estimates that it will cost the business some £50,000 a year to service that requirement. It can do that because it is big, but a small producer cannot compete with that, so supply is going to be a real issue.

The Conservative manifesto was clear—I hope there is still common ground on this—that there would be no

“compromise on our high environmental protection, animal welfare and food standards.”

I hope the Minister will repeat that commitment, because I know it is the mantra that the Government insist on. If that is true, it should be very easy for us to move towards an SPS veterinary agreement. The CBI has talked about the need for a

“bespoke, modern UK-EU Veterinary Agreement”,

specific for Northern Ireland within the context of the protocol. That is supported by Retail NI, the Ulster Farmers Union and every party represented in Stormont. Oddly, it is one of the things that everyone agrees on—as well as that there should be no amnesty for those who committed murder during the troubles. It would be a great unifier if it was not such a negative thing. We should be able to get that agreement.

The Secretary of State for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said in February that the Government want to work on a veterinary agreement so that they can secure the flow of goods and improve the forms. Amen to that. The EU Vice-President told us that a veterinary agreement was “on the table”. Everybody is in favour of it, so what is stopping us? One thing that is stopping us—and the Minister has seen a way to address this—is the lack of trust and the lack of good faith that has been built up. The public diplomacy and rhetoric have been massively unhelpful. It is not something political or a shouting game, but that is what it has become. That has been very unhelpful and it has led to cynicism.

The Minister might want to say that the real ambition is to achieve a trade deal with the United States—not because that would compensate for the trade we have lost with the EU, but because it would allow the Prime Minister to stand up with the big banner headline and say, Donald Trump-style, “I have done a great trade deal”. That is not enough, however, if the price is lower food standards coming into our market, and it is certainly not enough if it prejudices our capacity to deliver a veterinary agreement that could make things easier. Ironically, even in the context of a US trade deal, President Biden has said that he sees no barrier to there being a veterinary agreement between the EU and the UK to protect the situation in Northern Ireland and the protocol.

There are two different models that we can look at. The first is probably a variation of the New Zealand deal, which I know is something that the Government have thought about. It has advantages. I have talked about between 4% and 5% of goods being subject to physical checks in Dublin. If the New Zealand example worked for us, that figure would go down to 2% and documentary checks would go from 30% to 10%. Those are still barriers, though, and the Minister should not underestimate that they would be real for businesses.

The other, much more attractive option is what the EU calls dynamic alignment. In actual fact, we are aligned at the moment. We have not moved our food standards, and nor has the EU. What people have talked about is the possibility of a temporary agreement, which could of course have a guillotine and could be terminated if we sign up to the Australian deal, the New Zealand deal or the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-pacific partnership. We could have a guillotine and move on, but let us have that temporary veterinary agreement, which would allow alignment and enable us to get rid of all the form-filling and other problems. That is the real thing we should play for. So, I ask the Minister, why not?

Well, to a degree we know why not—it is because Lord Frost has ruled it out, saying that he has grave doubts about how long it would take. Actually, that is nonsense—and I hope that the Minister in turn will also tell Lord Frost that it is nonsense—because it would take almost no time. It is the basis on which we were operating 12 months ago, and it would simply mean reverting to a reality already known to businesses in Northern Ireland, Great Britain and the EU.

If we can get this issue right, there is something enormous to be gained, because it would unlock not only the Northern Ireland protocol but the issues experienced GB businesses trading with the rest of the EU. That is something big and really important, and it would stop the erosion of trade.

My final point is that we need to move on to some form of trusted trader scheme. It ought to be easily achievable. It is not magic; it is a very easy thing to achieve. Of course it requires work but, two years on, that work should already have been done.

Perhaps what we really need is a trusted negotiator scheme, and perhaps that would not involve the current Prime Minister. That may sound trivial but this is a serious point, because as long as people play politics with this issue, they will get it wrong. If we can consider the needs of the people of Northern Ireland and the needs of businesses in both Great Britain and Northern Ireland, we can begin to come up with a real solution. It takes a little bit of imagination—not very much—but it takes a lot of political will, and that is what the Minister has to persuade us exists in the Government today.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is a pleasure to make a contribution, Ms Rees.

I thank the hon. Member for Rochdale (Tony Lloyd) for giving us a chance to participate in this debate. To be fair to him, I think that he and I know these issues. On the Northern Ireland protocol we have very different points of view, but this debate is about the difficulties that the Northern Ireland protocol has brought in through the veterinary agreement. So I will speak about that, because that is perhaps where we will find the unified approach—which I think is what we are trying to do—to overcome the problems.

I am so pleased once again to see the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner), and the Minister; it is always a pleasure to engage with the Minister in debates in this Chamber.

I will also pay a special tribute to the spokesperson for the Scottish National party, the hon. Member for Gordon (Richard Thomson). I had the opportunity to invite him to my constituency and I must say that it was a wonderful chance to engage with him. He himself had asked for such an invitation and I was very pleased to make it happen. He could find out what the Unionist people were saying and thinking, which gave him, as he told me himself, the chance to understand better the psyche of those of us in Unionism and what the key issues for us are. By the way, he is a very engaging person—I say that very honestly—and I know that all the people from my constituency who met him were certainly impressed by him. I will just put that on the record. I have said it to him before, but now it will be in Hansard for the future.

This issue is a very evocative one for me, for my party and indeed for a huge majority of the people I represent. I will give just one example of the Northern Ireland protocol working. To be fair, it is not a veterinary issue, but in just the last week parents and children have been inconvenienced at Christmas—not my grandchildren, by the way, but other grandchildren. To get their Barbie Dream House on Amazon, people have to pay an extra £35 to buy it in Northern Ireland. It is not just the inconvenience but, as the hon. Member for Rochdale said, the cost. It is almost as though £35 or £40 was just added on.

Here is another example. A lady who wanted to buy a rug for her horse made inquiries, as she did every year, about buying it on the UK mainland, and was shocked to find that its price had suddenly jumped from £40 to £65. She was quite annoyed at having to spend the extra money; and when she agreed to pay the extra £25, she was then informed that they would not send the rug anyway—the paperwork and the bureaucracy was so great. That was a veterinary issue for a person who has horses and understands those issues—great difficulties.

To be fair, the Minister understands the issues; we will not be telling the hon. Lady anything that she does not already know, but these are our frustrations about the protocol. These issues are not just inconvenient for business people; they are challenging the viability of their very businesses, from those who cannot supply motor parts, parts for lawnmowers or parts for mobility scooters, to the businessman whose supplies have been cut by over a third because of paperwork.

The hon. Member for Rochdale referred to tractors and machinery, and I will provide some examples from my constituency. Tractors must be scrupulously cleaned. If they have any mud or muck on them they cannot come across, even though, on 31 December 2020, that was perfectly acceptable. Did the world change on 1 January 2021? This makes me think that it did. Although we obviously cannot see the change, the EU certainly found a reason to change. The central theme of my speech will be the EU’s attitude and the obstructions that it is putting in place in relation to this issue.

The Northern Ireland protocol is affecting every aspect of life, and as we have said before—and I must put it on record because it is our party’s position—it has to go. It is not fit for purpose; it is massively affecting the quality of life, the cost of living and the rights of people in my constituency of Strangford and across the whole of Northern Ireland. I could, although I will not, speak for days on this issue. Everyone would say, “Look: it’s getting dark, Jim.” I will not do that, but there are so many examples that I could cite to reinforce the points that the hon. Member for Rochdale has made. I am sure that all of my comments on this topic in the House could well amount to a day’s worth—I, at least, definitely sometimes felt as though I was going on for days and days. The reason that I did so, and will continue to do so, is simple: the protocol is unfair, discriminatory and constitutionally unacceptable.

I turn to the specifics of today’s debate, to which the hon. Member for Rochdale referred and about which I want to speak. I contacted the Ulster Farmers Union—I declare an interest as a member of the union—and they have said that we must have a veterinary agreement immediately to survive this impasse. So that is the Ulster Farmers Union, which represents the majority of farmers in Northern Ireland—not all, because, I believe, the Irish Farmers’ Association has a lot of members in the west of the Province. The Ulster Farmers Union said:

“A veterinary agreement could remove up to 80% of checks and documentation that would otherwise be needed. It will support the agri-food and retail industries as well as farming and will keep prices low and choice high for NI families…even a time-limited agreement would assist us in the short and medium term and provide some relief to the current pressures—both trade and social.”

The Ulster Farmers Union has a very large membership. All of my neighbours in the Ards peninsula—I live on a farm as well—are members. That is not just because the insurance premiums are fairly keen but because, in all honesty, it represents us very well.

Farmers cannot wait for further machinations as the Government attempt to reason with the unreasonable. It has been made abundantly clear by the treatment of the European Commission and the manner in which Unionist people are spoken of in those circles that this protocol is not a matter of practicality for the EU; for them it is a matter of pride. They are out to beat us and are using the Northern Ireland protocol as a method to do that. Their pride was hurt, and the saying that hurt people hurt other people is true here.

I have to put on record my disquiet and anger at the tone and the methodology of the EU and how they have treated us. They are determined to inflict as much pain on the Brits as they look upon it. I would just say this: I am a Brit. I am very proud to carry a British passport. I am very proud to be a member of this United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. When they attack the Brits, they are attacking us as well, so I feel quite angered at how the EU have gone at this. We are not to be the conduit to inflict that pain.

I have two more examples—no more, because they all illustrate the same issue over and over. In his introduction, the hon. Member for Rochdale referred to the movement of cattle. I have been incredulous to hear some of these things. My farmers on the Ards peninsula have cows of a very high pedigree. They sell their bulls and cows all over the United Kingdom. This year, some of them phoned me as they were taking their bulls to market. These bulls are worth about £20,000 or £25,000 on the market when they take them across to the mainland and to Scotland. They informed me that if they went to the market sale on the mainland and they did not perchance happen to sell that bull or cow, they would have to then apply for a licence to keep there the bull or cow that they were hoping to sell. It would have to stay in quarantine for five to six weeks. Fortunately, they did sell them, but the possibility of not selling them meant that the cost factor arose, and that is something that I have great concerns over. The situation is affecting agriculture. It is affecting cattle. I am very concerned.

[Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

My hon. Friend is making extremely valid points and has raised a number of issues. Daily, businesses highlight to us that they cannot get seed potatoes into Northern Ireland; we cannot get approval for plant protection products; more recently, the Woodland Trust cannot bring its community tree packs into Northern Ireland for the Queen’s Green Canopy because it creates some sort of a risk. How is a tree coming from Great Britain to Northern Ireland a risk? It is not; it needs sorted.

I have sympathy with what is being proposed here today. A common SPS area would be beneficial. However, it does not deal with the protocol regulations in their entirety. The message today, if my hon. Friend agrees, is that the protocol needs to go. It needs to be fixed, and it therefore needs to go in its entirety. We need to enter new negotiations and try to get a sensible, common-sense way forward.

[Jim Shannon]

I thank my hon. Friend and colleague for that intervention. I absolutely agree. I know this debate is about the machinations of the protocol, but we are very clear where we stand. We are against the protocol per se, for the reasons covered in this debate, but also for reasons far beyond them.

My hon. Friend has stolen two of my examples. The first was seed potatoes. Speaking in a debate here last week, the hon. Member for Angus (Dave Doogan) mentioned seed potatoes, where there are clear issues for us. My hon. Friend the Member for Upper Bann (Carla Lockhart) has been very much at the forefront of trying to address some of those issues. The seed potato sector in Northern Ireland was doing great, but it has lost its way because of the Northern Ireland protocol and veterinary issues.

On the trees, it seems unrealistic that we cannot get in Northern Ireland the trees that the Woodland Trust and others are planting on behalf of schools across the rest of the United Kingdom—in England, Scotland and Wales. Really? They were okay on 31 December 2020, but they did not seem to be okay on 1 January 2021.

I will give another example. I shall not go on too long about this, but I want to have it on the record. One of my constituents from Ballygowan in Strangford bought three horses from England in February or March this year. She was not aware that there would be any problems for them to come over, but when she got them to the harbour she was told she could not bring them in, even though the papers, pedigrees and licences on medical health were all right. She could not bring them in because of the veterinary arrangements in the Northern Ireland protocol. They were held in quarantine for five to six weeks. Only on the intervention of our colleague, Edwin Poots, the Minister of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs, were they released from quarantine at the harbour to their new home in Ballygowan. Frustration does not get where we are on this.

I said at the start that we in Northern Ireland were being used as a stick to beat the British for daring to leave the EU. Nothing said or done since has altered that opinion. The path forward is clear—I put it on the record. It is to trigger article 16. Do it sooner rather than later; do it right away. The conditions have been met and these intensive talks, which were make or break, are now two months down the line. I am not involved in those negotiations, which may be a good thing, but something is glaringly obvious to those of us on the sidelines. The insulting play for power is not to be borne by us in Northern Ireland any longer. It cannot be borne any longer by anyone.

I thank everyone for their patience, and I will conclude with this. I am aware that discussions are ongoing but progress is not. In the absence of any clear progress, I believe—I say this with respect—that the Government are left with no option other than to trigger article 16. Fulfil your word. Refuse to be made fools of by the Europeans for one second longer. Bring Northern Ireland back from the sidelines and into the fold once more. I believe that “Grin and bear it” is no longer an option. I urge Government and my Minister to make the right choice. I know it may not be the Minister’s choice on the protocol, but I hope it is on the veterinary issue. Make it quick; enough is enough. Stop the toing and froing, knock the protocol on the head and make a final decision that the protocol can no longer rise again.

--- Later in debate ---

[Claire Hanna (Belfast South) (SDLP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Rees. I thank the hon. Member for Rochdale (Tony Lloyd) for bringing the debate and for his long-standing and genuine commitment to achieving good outcomes for Northern Ireland. I know that is a common cause for many hon. Members across the House, for which we are grateful.

Divergence and potential divergence on veterinary and SPS arrangements is the reason for the vast majority of checks between Britain and Northern Ireland since Brexit. Stripping out the politics, it is worth saying that the island of Ireland has always been counted as one single epidemiological and veterinary unit. That long predates Brexit and has offered protection for biodiversity, agri-foods and farming generally. Hon. Members will remember that foot and mouth disease did not ravage the island of Ireland because we were protected by those checks.

I will defer as always to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) on farming matters—South Belfast is not a farming constituency—but moving organic material in the form of soil had not been allowed before Brexit, because of the SPS arrangement. Those high quality standards have offered protection and given a unique selling point to Northern Ireland farmers and producers for many years. That is what we do: we produce high-quality goods and sell them to people who wish to buy high-quality goods. As far as I am aware, there is no demand to drop those standards. For what it is worth, I do not see demand to drop those standards in Britain, either.

I am a member of the UK Trade and Business Commission, which has MPs from across the House, including from the Democratic Unionist party. Over the last year, we have heard evidence on all sorts of trading and business issues from all sorts of sectors. The clear message from a range of businesses is that they value those high standards and do not want to drop them. People say that we will have higher standards in Britain—knock yourself out. It is a bit like going to a museum where the minimum donation is £5. If someone wants to put £20 in there, that is absolutely fine. The minimum standards can still be agreed, and Britain can exceed them if it wants to. So it is genuinely perplexing to me that the UK Government would not consider a veterinary arrangement. The EU even offered to sunset it, so that in a few years, when Britain worked out what it wanted from Brexit, that agreement could dissolve and a different set of arrangements could exist. Genuinely, I can only put that decision down to ideological reasons, because I do not see a demand for it from UK businesses or consumers.

As for our obeying these rules until new year’s eve and the question of what the difference is now, the difference is that the UK spent five years saying, “We don’t play by anybody’s rules,” so it is difficult now to get everybody to stick by particular rules. This is not the time or place—Christmas is coming—to get into the minutiae of global trade rules, but it is around having an identifiable set of rules and it is around preventing a thousand cliff edges. If on 1 January the UK says it will no longer adhere to a standard on soil and on 2 January says it will no longer adhere to a standard on the temperature of cows or whatever, we will create cliff edge after cliff edge. In the absence of a set of rules, businesses cannot possibly compete.

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the hon. Lady for her measured delivery of that point. The issue may not be as clear as she refers to. The soil was okay at Hillmount Nursery in my constituency before 31 December, and it was no different afterwards. The issue was not that the UK or Northern Ireland were going to do anything different. We want to obey the same rules. So the rules were there that we were going to adhere to.

[Claire Hanna]

The point is that the UK has made it very clear that it will not sign up to commit to those rules. That is fundamentally the issue—that the UK has not agreed, as a continuum, to adhere to those rules. Yes, obviously the soil has not changed over the new year, so I understand some of the frustrations, but those could be addressed by exactly the sort of veterinary arrangement that the hon. Member for Rochdale suggests, and that businesses across the UK have been suggesting. It is perplexing to me that all of the parties across the board in Northern Ireland did not get together to call for that, because at different times all of them said that an SPS arrangement would be acceptable. That unanimity and that consistency of message from Northern Ireland’s political representatives would have been very powerful.

In the absence of that SPS arrangement, which I would love to see, the protocol is the show in town at the moment. It is nobody’s first choice; nobody loves it; nobody would have designed it. It is a bit like that thing about getting directions in Ireland—“I wouldn’t start from here,” and you would not start from the protocol, but the reality is that all the other options have been taken off the table. I genuinely understand the frustration and confusion of constituents and consumers, reflected by the hon. Members for Upper Bann (Carla Lockhart) and for Strangford. They say that all of a sudden the rules are different, but that is because of Brexit, which in every way was always going to mean barriers. Brexit is, by definition, a set of trade barriers. That is why some of the rules have changed. In Northern Ireland, businesses were clear before the referendum that they were very happy with the status quo—being able to trade north, south, east and west.

--- Later in debate ---

[Claire Hanna]

I am happy to remind the hon. Member. It is all over Hansard and in TV clips. I think it was one Mr Boris Johnson and one Lord David Frost. I believe that at Christmas-time they told us that it was oven ready and ready to go, but it was clearly not. These are all consequences that flowed from a series of decisions.

As I say, business did not want to change the status quo. Businesses outlined their preferences for any solution that would mean no barriers in either direction. The Social Democratic and Labour party and I personally campaigned exhaustively over those five years, begging those people who were voting to not choose a solution that created a barrier either between north and south or east and west. Not alone did no business I have ever met want to choose between their trade with the single market and their trade with the GB market, but because we are a fragile and interdependent region that was always going to create the perception of winners and losers. That will have come to pass.

Members will be aware of some of the sporadic unrest that was seen in and around Belfast in the spring. For what it is worth, I think it was fairly contrived. Riots and bus burnings that switch on and off like an appointment are not very organic. I say that having spent all my life in a fragile region. I think they were part of a campaign to project an aura of chaos. I really felt for one young man, who was arrested at the riots in April and quoted on BBC TV. He said, “I don’t know what the protocol is, but my leaders keep telling me I am losing.” That is at the root of this Brexit problem. It created a barrier in one direction and created the perception of winners and losers.

Unfortunately, the protocol has been spun by many not to be a consequence of a series of decisions that the UK made for its own reasons. It is fair enough; they are a sovereign Government and are entitled to make decisions, but the perception has been given that it was because of Dublin or the EU. I have had the police round twice at my door with death threats because people have been told, “She brought you the protocol,” when these are the consequences of the UK’s decisions. Unfortunately, that is what we are working around.

I do not love the protocol, but we are now in the business of trying to make it work. At the moment, there are a variety of discussions between the EU and the UK to talk about how we can make the operation smoother based on the reality of how it works. The fact is that if the two jurisdictions have a different trading and customs regime, a border will have to go somewhere. That has been a fact since long before the Brexit referendum. It says it all over leaflets that I spread in 2016: that border will have to go somewhere, and it will create the headache of all headaches for this region.

According to recent polls by Queen's University Belfast and the University of Liverpool, people are saying, “No, I want a different solution.” That is a consequence of years of misinformation and deflection. I want a different solution too, but there is not one. We have spent five years discussing all the different ways to skin this cat, and the protocol was the outcome. The Commission and the UK Government, in conjunction with business and civil society, are trying to work through and find a way that works best for businesses.

There are a lot of challenges for businesses. There is no doubt about that. Brexit equals friction, and friction equals cost for business. Particularly for very small businesses that are moving low-value items and do not have a procurement or logistics department or whatever, it is worth saying that it has always been the case that there are different costs for some businesses between Britain and Northern Ireland. I have numerous examples. I become the most Unionist little warrior on Amazon when somebody tries to charge me a big fee. I have many email exchanges long predating 2016 where GB businesses are saying, “If is going to the highlands and islands, then it is going to be a different price.” I say, “No. It should be subject to the same rules.”

That issue predates Brexit. It has gotten worse after Brexit—there is no doubt about it—but that is a consequence of the failure of the UK Government to explain and prepare GB businesses for the changes that were going to come their way. That I am aware of, there is not one single product that is unavailable now in Northern Ireland. I hope my children do not read Hansard, because I am the Santa at home. I, too, have been trying to procure items for three children, and there was nothing I could get here that I was not able to get in Northern Ireland.

[Jim Shannon]

Did they ask for seed potatoes though?

[Claire Hanna]

No, my children are not seed potato fans. As I said, we are dealing with a series of responses—the consequences of the UK’s decisions and, as I said, they are the UK’s decisions. I do not agree with them. It is very clear that people in Northern Ireland wanted something different. That is a fact. I do not want to get into—we are talking about the practical issues and I am aware that it is difficult to divorce the practical, the emotional, the political and the constitutional, but the discussions under way are about tackling the practical outcomes of the pandemic.

However, there will be differences for Northern Ireland—that is a fact. We have always been a different SPS zone. Even those people who were behind the alternative arrangements commission, and all of those kind of Brexiteer leading lights, have been very clear that there will always need to be some form of protocol to address that situation.

I will not get into all of the issues around consent, but the people of Northern Ireland rejected Brexit and, at every subsequent election, they have chosen parties that reject Brexit and want to try to find a way to make it work for our particular circumstances. That has been very clear in poll after poll; even among those who voted for Brexit, many of them do not want Brexit on exactly the same terms as people on this island. People want that dual market access.

I will briefly address that. There are huge opportunities for Northern Ireland, which has not had a unique selling point in many decades, to trade equally into the UK single market and into the EU single market. That could create jobs, create prosperity and change our futures. The founder of our party, John Hume, said, many times, that the best peace process is a job. We finally have the opportunity to say to businesses, from wherever, that if they want to have a foot in both markets, Northern Ireland should be the place to invest.

However, investors need stability. They need clear rules and to know that there will not be unrest about all of those things. Businesses are very clear that this situation is not perfect, but they have solutions—they have ways to try to make it work. They do not talk about trusted traders, but they talk about data-based solutions. They are also very clear that they do not want the hard Brexit that Britain has; they do not want article 16 to be triggered. They know that it is not the silver bullet that it has been presented as, and that it just brings us back to the table, which is where we are now.

Brexit was always going to be bad news for Northern Ireland. It was always going to insert all of the difficult things for us—sovereignty, identity and borders—into our everyday conversations. That is driving real polarisation. Sovereignty is different in Northern Ireland because people voted for the Good Friday agreement 23 years ago, and it does not operate in the same hard way as it does in other nation states. The protocol, imperfect though it is, is how we will chart our course through this situation.

It is important that the EU and the UK can get around to the solutions. What people in Northern Ireland want, more than anything, is to not have to talk about this any more—not have to turn on the radio and hear this all day long, all year long. The only way to ensure that is to make the protocol work and agree that these are the choices that were made by the people of Northern Ireland and by the UK Government, and to try to make them work.

National Food Strategy and Public Health

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 15th December 2021 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Thank you for calling me, Mr Efford. I thank the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Jo Gideon) for setting up the debate. She is part of that strong Stoke team. It is nice to see her in her place and to support her as well. I recently took part in a debate in which the hon. Member for Carlisle (John Stevenson) talked about creating a more resilient food and drink industry for the United Kingdom. This debate aligns closely with that. We look forward to the Minister’s and shadow Minister’s responses; there are no two more capable people to look after this area. It is a pleasure to be here to again to highlight why our national food strategy is so important to the economy.

The Government’s approach to the national food strategy comes in two parts. The first focuses on urgent recommendations to support the country through the turbulent impacts of the covid-19 pandemic, as the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central referred to. The second examines good and bad outcomes of the strategy and the economics that deliver them. For us in Northern Ireland, the food and drink sector is so important. The national food strategy is equally important, as is the need to address public health issues. As stated in previous debates, the pandemic has had a significant impact on the Northern Ireland economy. Specifically, the economic output of the hospitality sector was atrociously affected, down by 90% in April 2020. That gives an idea of the impact on us in Northern Ireland, and in my constituency, where hospitality is so important and where many derive their living from it. While output improved in August 2020 due to the eat out to help out campaign, it was still below pre-pandemic levels.

While the food strategy aims to address England’s economic situation over the next 75 years, I warmly welcome recent work by the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs Minister back home, my colleague Edwin Poots, who has done instrumental work over the last few months initiating the Northern Ireland food strategy framework, which has six main priorities. I support the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central, as will others, but I will give a Northern Ireland perspective to these debates, which I think will complement the hon. Lady’s points. The aim is to publish the strategy in 2022, so I urge the Minister to engage with Minister Poots on it. I have absolutely no doubt that she will. It would be good to share thoughts on how we can perhaps learn from each other.

One of the Government’s main principles for the national food strategy is to ensure it is built upon a resilient and sustainable agricultural sector. I often think we forget how important that sector is to our meat and dairy sector. I represent a mostly rural constituency, so I understand that, but we also have some strong urban groups. In 2020, agriculture contributed some 0.59% to the UK’s GDP. These figures have fallen in recent years, further emphasising the need to do more to protect farmers through the basic payment scheme, which I know the Minister supports.

In addition, I thank the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central for raising the importance of the national food strategy for schools and young people, as did the right hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), who is a real champion—we use that word often in the Chamber, but it is true in his case—of education. I often look to his contributions, as Chair of the Education Committee, and I thank him for that. We need nutritional food in schools. For some pupils, school meals are the main meal of the day, so it is important that we get this right and that all our pupils benefit. Recent statistics show that 37% of schoolchildren do not eat a proper breakfast in the morning, so I agree with the national food strategy aim to help to address malnutrition in schools and protect the physical health of children.

At home, many schools run a breakfast club in recognition of the importance of that meal for concentration, as the first meal of the day. In recognition of the 103,000 children in Northern Ireland living in poverty, the Northern Ireland Minister for Education introduced wraparound care as soon as schools were opened back in Northern Ireland. These clubs are a priority in any and every food strategy document.

Mr Efford, I will briefly run through some statistics—I will not go over my time because I will adhere to your guidelines—to emphasise the importance of having a resilient and sustainable food strategy. Our food system is responsible for a third of local greenhouse gas emissions. Some 46% of children from black and ethnic minorities are in poverty and 14% of parents who live with their children have experienced food insecurity. Those are the stats, and although stats can sometimes go over people’s heads, it is important that we focus on them, because they give us an idea of how the food strategy will address some of the issues. We must also look at whether our rivers and lakes have a good ecological status. Some 25% of children born in 2020 will be obese by the time they are 25. Those are big issues, which the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central and others have referred to.

To conclude, those figures are the reason why we must do more now to protect our public health and national food strategy, especially after the impacts of the pandemic, Brexit and, one that is crucial to my constituents, the Northern Ireland protocol—not that the Minister is responsible, but it is one of the issues that we have in Northern Ireland to deal with: trade between the mainland and us in Northern Ireland, and vice versa. We in Northern Ireland export, I think, almost 60% of our products to the rest of the world, so it is important for food and the food strategy that we do not have any barriers to that.

The important thing for me in this debate on the national food strategy and public health is—I say this very honestly—public health: the health of our children and of the future. I encourage communication with the devolved nations to ensure that the United Kingdom can move forward collectively, with a public health situation that represents everyone, can benefit everyone, and protects our economy, because we need our economy to be boosted. I must pay tribute to the Minister, and to our Government too, because when it comes to boosting our economy, they have done that and done it well. We need the Government to protect the wellbeing of our constituents, because that is the reason we are all here: because our constituents vote for us.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Efford. I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Jo Gideon) on bringing this incredibly important debate to us. I know that we have an excellent Minister from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs with us, but this morning I have been thinking that, ideally, we would have a Minister from the Department of Health and Social Care, and probably the Children’s Minister as well. I know that they are very busy in their Departments, and that is not the convention, but we need serious, cross-Government work on this issue to get it right.

This all starts with the soil, and with looking after the soil. If we do not look after our soil, we cannot grow nutrient-rich food, and I am afraid that we have a problem with this globally, as a number of publications have stated. Scientific American’s April 2011 edition said that

“each successive generation of fast-growing, pest-resistant carrot is truly less good for you than the one before”,

and it has probably only got worse since then. There is also evidence that we need to eat several more tomatoes today to get the same level of nutrients that we would have got from one tomato a few years ago.

Looking after the soil is also good for dealing with climate change. According to the World Wide Fund for Nature, 34% of global greenhouse gas emissions come from agriculture. We often think, “Well, agriculture can’t be part of the problem. It’s all those diesel-belching buses and coal-fired power stations that are the problem.” But food production around the world is responsible for 34% of greenhouse gas emissions. It need not be like that, because the soil can sequester more carbon than all the plants and trees on the whole planet if we look after it. And if we look after it, we get better-quality food and we will all be healthier. We can do that: we can have less pesticide, fertiliser and so on if we grow more legumes, pulses and lentils. That fixes nitrogen in the soil and is actually better for us. One of the best things you can eat, Mr Efford, is lentils. There is a bit of a virtuous circle here, and I congratulate the Government on getting this with the sustainable farming incentive.

I went to the Groundswell farming conference last year. A couple of thousand British farmers are on this journey, because they want to look after their soils and grow nutrient-rich foods so that we have healthy children and healthy adults—they want to do the right thing. We are on a journey and, as the Second Church Estates Commissioner, I am very proud that on our 92,000 acres of farmland in England, we are going on that journey. I have been pushed on that by the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) and others and I can tell her that we have signed a compact with the National Trust. The train has left the station and we are going on that journey.

[Jim Shannon]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his contribution. Does he recognise, as others do, that the National Farmers Union and its sister organisation in Northern Ireland, the Ulster Farmers Union, have already committed to net zero carbon by 2050? That shows that the farming community want to do this; they did not have to be pushed to do it, and they are on their way.

[Andrew Selous]

I agree. I, too, am in very close touch with my local farmers, who as a group are one of the heroes of this piece. We need to be on the side of farmers. As my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas) said, we need to help them to do the right thing. I think they absolutely want to do the right thing.

I do not think we realise quite how bad the food that we eat is in this country compared with the rest of Europe. It is truly shocking. This is all in the House of Lords Food, Poverty, Health and the Environment Committee’s July 2020 report, “Hungry for change: fixing the failures in food”, and it was repeated in the national food strategy. As a country, we are an absolute outlier in the amount of highly processed food that we eat. More than half of all the food that we eat is highly processed. The figure is only 14% in France, 13% in Italy and 10% in Portugal—already cited favourably by the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Ian Byrne). We are five times worse than Portugal in the amount of highly processed food that we eat.

Why does that matter? I will tell you why it matters, Mr Efford. In 2018, a scientist called Monteiro did a report across 19 European countries that showed that a 10% increase in the amount of highly processed food we eat leads to a 12% increase in cancers, a 12% increase in cardiovascular disease and a 21% increase in depressive symptoms. Is it any wonder that one in seven people is on antidepressants? I wonder whether that has anything to do with the food we eat. These figures are just appalling, but I think they are quite a closely guarded secret. I do not think people know about them, and it is our job to get them out there and to challenge the food companies so that they do better.

Some food companies are on a journey. For example, the Obesity Health Alliance told me that Tesco—it particularly singled Tesco out—has committed that two thirds of all that it sells will be healthy product. It is not there yet; it is on a journey, but it is starting to get this. There is a supermarket in the Netherlands called Marqt. It is only small; it has about 16 stores, I think. It has a commitment to its customers to sell only healthy food that is good for them, because that is part of its philosophy, and it makes money as well. This is possible. We do not have to be on the treadmill of selling people the wrong things, which are bad for them. Their brains do not develop properly and they cannot achieve the potential from all the God-given talents that they were created with. We really can do better.

In schools and in so many of our public institutions, we are not doing well enough. I am waiting for a meeting with the Children’s Minister—he promised at the Dispatch Box to give me a meeting—on school food standards. The campaigners at Bite Back 2030, Jamie Oliver’s foundation, have already been mentioned today. Let me quote what one of its panellists said:

“I’m racking my brain because I don’t think my school does a single healthy option”.

The campaigners at Bite Back think that the food is not as it should be in about 40% of schools; the Soil Association thinks that the figure is 60%. I do not know whether it is 40% or 60%, but it is far too many.

The mechanisms for effective monitoring of the Government’s school food standards are not good enough and they are not being observed. I have been a school governor for 20 years, and we have a lot to do. I have sat with the children and eaten school dinners with them—what I had in Studham Village school was particularly good—but the dinners are not always that good. We need to do better. Why? Because the figures are absolutely appalling. Even before children get to school, the figures are awful, and they have got worse during the pandemic.

The figure for obesity among reception-aged children went from 9.9% in 2019-20 to 14.4% in 2020-21. That is even before children get to school. By the time they leave school, two in five are above a healthy weight and a quarter are living with obesity. Obese children are more likely to become obese adults, with the associated type 2 diabetes, cancer, heart disease and liver disease. This stuff really matters—it is really important, and we really can do better.

I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central: It is not about being a killjoy; it is not about “Bah, humbug!” We should actually be incredibly positive and upbeat about the business opportunities for British farmers and food manufacturers. Good, healthy food is delicious; it is wonderful. There is so much pleasure and enjoyment to come from it. I am very upbeat and positive, not at all negative, because there are so many better, delicious foods that we could have, and so many opportunities for our farmers.

Fundamentally, this is about making the right, good and proper thing the easy and affordable thing to do. Too often, healthy food is more expensive. It need not be that way—it really need not, and it is not always the case in Europe. There are issues about giving people a little confidence in how to cook and so on. This is a big national effort. I am looking forward to the White Paper. We have a lot to do, because we are not in the right place.