Direct Payments to Farmers (Legislative Continuity) Bill

Simon Hoare Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 21st January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dr Johnson]

I cannot promise that the Minister will visit, but I certainly agree that there is great importance in looking at the different size of farms and the different types of schemes that will be right for each different type of farming as we leave the EU. I will discuss that later.

It is noticeable that we are the party of farmers—of supporting farmers and rural communities. That is obvious today as we look around the Chamber and see how well supported this debate is on the Government Benches compared with on the Opposition Benches.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that one task of everyone in this place who supports British farming and agriculture is to make the clear argument, as she is, about the importance of the sector to an increasingly urbanised media, commentariat and, indeed, House of Commons? There are more urban MPs than there are rural. We need to make sure that the needs of agriculture in this country are well understood.

[Dr Johnson]

I could not agree more with my hon. Friend; he is absolutely right. I have a new map for my office wall that shows the constituencies by colour, as per the recent election result. It is noticeable that rural Britain is overwhelmingly blue in representation, because we are the party of the farmers. I am sure we will continue to make the arguments positively and that Ministers will continue to do the same.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)]

As I stood up, I received a text message saying, “Wind up”. I do not think it referred to me personally, but I will not keep the House for too long. I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests; it is very important that I do so in this particular debate.

I welcome the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) to his place. It is nice to have a shadow spokesman who comes from the land and who understands how the farming community works. I also congratulate the hon. Member for Angus (Dave Doogan) on his excellent maiden speech, and my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Fay Jones) on her very passionate speech. May I pick up on two points she made? First, as an ex-solider, I have marched up and down Pen y Fan more times than I care to remember, and my back is still paying the price. Secondly, she talked about curbing her independent spirit, but may I urge her not to do so and to stick with it?

May I rename this the “Common Sense Bill”? As the MP for South Dorset I have hosted farm meetings in my constituency over the past nine years, and the consistent message to Government—the Minister has visited on two occasions, which has been extremely appreciated—is that common sense is needed in agriculture. There is not a farmer in the land who wants to destroy the soil, pollute the water or damage the air and ground—they just do not exist. Farmers live on the land because they love the land. They want to produce good food, and, on the whole, food standards in this country are among the highest in the world. Please can Ministers not forget that? While there are calls on climate change and one thing after another—and of course we accept that as farmers—can common sense dominate the legislation?

We are leaving the EU on 31 January. I for one, along with many others, have fought to do so, and I welcome that huge move. We will still be vulnerable, of course, to EU rules until December 2020, when hopefully a deal will be struck. In that time, can we please ensure that the EU does not impose more rules and regulations on the farming community, which it would have the power to do?

I will be brief. I want to pick up on the phrase, “public money for public goods”. The Policy Research Unit note lists measures such as enhancing air and water quality, improved access to the countryside, reducing flooding, tackling climate change and improving animal welfare. As I said at the start of my speech, every single farmer in this country is already doing that. They do not need any more heavy-handed legislation. When we leave the EU, will the Government please remove, as they said they would, the big boot of the state and give farmers the responsibility to produce food, as most of them already do? The words “food production” were missing from the previous Agriculture Bill, but I am glad that that is now being promoted.

The key thing is that food be bought at a fair price. The National Farmers Union has provided a sobering figure. I hope I am quoting it correctly, but it told me that were we to get a fair price for wheat now, it would be about £450 per tonne. At present, it is about £120, £130 or £140 per tonne, and that figure has not changed for decades. The point I am making is that we still get cheap food, which is one of the reasons why subsidies are given to farmers. As has been pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Dr Johnson), if that did not happen, many farmers would go bust.

I never hear any Government Minister—in fact, I do not hear anyone—talk about profit when it comes to farming. Everyone seems to think that food should just arrive on their plate, it should be cheap and there should be masses of it. Farmers have to be taken into account, and the Government have to think far more carefully about the future, to protect our farmers.

[Simon Hoare]

I am grateful to my county neighbour for giving way. He is talking with his customary sense on these issues. Does he agree that we all need to remember that at no time in our history have we spent a lower percentage of family income on our food? We need to make a better argument on the point that he is making, which is that provenance and quality have a price?

[Richard Drax]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend and neighbour. The point of the CAP, with all its faults, was to provide cheap food and to provide it consistently. One could argue that the system was flawed—in many ways it was—but that was the honourable aim of it.

I want to touch on one or two points connected to the Bill. We hear time and again about the need to reduce flooding. I hear the word “rewilding” being used more and more. Before long, I am sure there will be wolves back in Scotland. There is now talk of putting beavers back in Dorset. A beaver creates a dam. A beaver has younger beavers and they go off and create more dams. The rivers in Dorset are tiny, and if they are dammed and protected—as surely they would be by the environmental lobby—there will be flooding on an epic scale. Can we please look at evidence-based beaver rewilding, rather than just banging beavers back into Dorset or anywhere else without any thought for the consequences? While welcoming wildlife, which we all do, can we please have some common sense in its reintroduction?

Points have been made about the multi-annual budget. Farmers desperately need consistency and certainty of income because, as we have heard, they are reliant on the weather. The weather is not always particularly kind to farmers, but it is vital that they have incomes to survive.

We have all had experiences of the RPA. I sat on the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee with my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish). The RPA attended on many occasions, and each time it had fallen short. It has to make sure that the money gets to the farmers.