Agriculture: Government Support Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Sarah Gibson
Main Page: Sarah Gibson (Liberal Democrat - Chippenham)Department Debates - View all Sarah Gibson's debates with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
(1 day, 8 hours ago)
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Richard Foord (Honiton and Sidmouth) (LD)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered Government support for agriculture.
It is a pleasure to serve under you in the Chair, Mr Turner. It is good to have the Minister in her place. I hope she will forgive me if I take a direct tone. It was a direct tone that members of the National Farmers’ Union in my area of Honiton and Sidmouth took with me when we met last Friday in Devon.
Food security is fundamental to our national resilience. At a time of global instability, farming underpins the rural economy, although we tend to take the produce for granted.
Sarah Gibson (Chippenham) (LD)
Farmers across Wiltshire, especially in my constituency of Chippenham, say that Government support is not working. They are disappointed that Labour is compounding the damage left by the Conservatives, with an underspend of millions in the farming budget. Shockingly, the Government’s own statistics say that in 2023-24, between 17% and 29% of farming families did not turn a profit.
Karl Turner (in the Chair)
Order. I remind Members that interventions should be short.
Sarah Gibson
Absolutely. I just wanted to ensure that my colleague agreed with me that we would like the Minister to consider farming.
Richard Foord
My hon. Friend rightly mentioned farming profitability. Minette Batters, the former president of the NFU, conducted a review of farming profitability in December and came up with more than 50 recommendations. It would be interesting to hear from the Minister the Government’s reflections and progress on fulfilling some of those.
Dame Angela Eagle
It is really important that we try to give a younger generation of people the chances given by access to land so that they can farm. I certainly think that we have not had a look at farming education and the ways into the sector for a very long time. I would certainly like to be able to do that.
Sarah Gibson
On the subject of getting young people into farming, my local agricultural college tells me that when it tries to send students to help on farms, the farmers find it extremely difficult to find a use for them, because getting a licence to drive high-level agricultural equipment is so expensive that students from lower-income families are unable to get one. Therefore, when they arrive on the farms, there is not a lot they can do with them. Will the Minister consider looking at the cost to entry for people who do not have a background in farming?