Asked by
The Lord
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of
the remarks by Minette Batters, president of the National
Farmers’ Union, on 23 February, about the challenges facing
farming.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs () (Con)
My Lords, I declare my farming interests as set out in the
register. Defra continues to actively engage with the farming
industry to deliver the changes we are implementing to support a
strong and thriving agricultural sector, including measures to
support productivity, raise standards and deliver environmental
public goods. The NFU president raised many interesting and
wide-ranging points during her keynote conference speech on 22
February, and we welcome them as a constructive contribution to
the ongoing debate on the future of our agricultural
industry.
The Lord
I thank the Minister for his reply. What assessment have Her
Majesty’s Government made of our nation’s food security in the
light of the current conflict between Ukraine and Russia, mindful
of the fact that those two nations between them produce 30% of
the world’s wheat? In anticipation of the loss of that harvest,
the conflict will have a catastrophic impact. Does he agree that
now is the moment for us to give active encouragement and
increase support to our hard-working farmers as they try to
guarantee our nation’s food supply, particularly given that
household bills are going up?
(Con)
The right reverend Prelate makes some good points. It is now a
requirement under the Agriculture Act for the Government to
publish where we are on food security in this country, which we
did a few weeks ago. It shows that the position has been more or
less static for at least two decades, and we want to make sure
that we increase the amount of food that we produce locally. It
is obviously too early to say what the impact will be on wheat
imports as a result of the conflict in Ukraine, but we want to
make sure that we are working with other departments so that we
are as prepared as possible and that the market is able to adjust
itself.
(Lab)
My Lords, will the Minister protect British farmers and consumers
by ensuring that those companies that have manipulated falsely
markets in their own financial interests, as we have discussed
before, are not allowed to operate in the United Kingdom market?
I point out to him, as I am sure he knows, that one of those
companies with a terrible track record of abuse of market
opportunities owns two subsidiaries in the United Kingdom.
(Con)
The noble Lord is right to point out that it is vital that we
protect the agricultural and food supply chain. We have powers in
the Agriculture Act that allow us to introduce statutory codes of
conduct that increase the transparency of business relationships
and protect farmers and others from imbalanced commercial terms.
We are currently exercising that in a number of sectors.
(Con)
Will my noble friend join me in celebrating livestock farming in
this country? He will be aware that much livestock production is
conducted by tenant farmers in upland and common land areas. What
future does he envisage for tenant and livestock farming?
(Con)
I and my ministerial colleagues are keen to sustain jobs in
agriculture in our uplands and make sure that the support
incentives that we give to farmers are accessible to tenant
farmers, freeholders and all the varying degrees of the tenanted
sector, that there is a future for livestock farming, and that we
continue to produce at high standards in a way that the consumer
will want.
(Con)
Is my noble friend aware that the National Farmers’ Union still
believes that Defra has been extremely unable to explain to it
the full programme that will follow the removal of production
subsidies? Is he also aware that the NFU is fed up with a
Government who promised to protect farmers and are now signing
trade deals that mean that the farmers will be competed with by
countries that are not meeting our climate change
obligations?
(Con)
We as a sovereign nation are negotiating trade deals with other
countries. We recognise that some concerns have been expressed
around the impact of new trade deals on our farming and food
sectors. I reassure the House that our recent agreements with
Australia and New Zealand, and, indeed, those with any future
partner, will not compromise our high standards. All products
imported into the UK will have to, as now, comply with our import
requirements.
(Lab)
My Lords, already over 40,000 healthy pigs have been culled and
the meat thrown away. A further 200,000 pigs are stranded on
farms awaiting slaughter with no one available to slaughter them.
Does the Minister agree with Minette that the disaster in the pig
industry
“should have, and could have, been avoided”,
and that the situation with pig farmers truly is an utter
disgrace?
(Con)
The situation for pig farmers affected by this is serious. That
is why we continue to work very closely with the industry. There
was a perfect storm of a loss of exports to the Chinese market,
disruption to CO2supplies and a temporary shortage of labour in
the processing sector. We have been working hard on that with the
private storage aid, the slaughter incentive payment and a
package of measures to address these unique circumstances. On 10
February, my colleague chaired a pig summit and
she is doing another one on 3 March. We are working really hard
to resolve the problems in this sector.
(CB)
I speak as a member of the Environment and Climate Change
Committee and, in fact, in relation to a letter that Minister
Prentis sent us in relation to ELMS. She says that the Government
are exploring how they can best support leverage of private
finance into ELMS. The recent spending review set an ambitious
target to raise £500 million in private finance every year to
support nature’s recovery to 2027, rising to £1 billion by 2030.
Exactly how will the Government commercialise the environmental
land management scheme?
(Con)
I should explain to the House that this is not as part of ELMS.
In addition to the support we are giving through the
environmental land management scheme, which is ring-fencing the
£2.4 billion to the end of this Parliament, we are seriously
encouraging green finance similar to the points made in the
Question earlier. That is a responsibility I have in Defra. We
are taking the publishing of the Treasury’s green taxonomy
extremely seriously and making sure that we are focusing what
Minette Batters talked about in her speech—the trillions of
pounds floating around in the ESG markets —on nature’s recovery
and benefiting farmers’ incomes by getting them access to that
green finance.
of Hardington Mandeville
(LD)
The call to increase wages for seasonal workers is causing
concern among fruit and vegetable growers. While it is important
to pay a decent wage, this will lead to food inflation. Given the
increase in fuel prices already heralded and those likely to
arise from the invasion of Ukraine, does the Minister believe
that this is the right time to put added strain on the growers
and increase the cost of food?
(Con)
I think there is a bit of confusion, which again was pointed out
by Minette Batters in her speech, in relation to the minimum
basic payment and the amount of hours a week that seasonal
agricultural workers will be working. We are working hard to
resolve that with the Home Office and I am very happy to write to
the noble Baroness with information on that.
(CB)
My Lords, where I live in Devon almost every small farmer has
given up farming. What are the Government doing to help small
farmers?
(Con)
The common agricultural policy and the basic payment scheme were,
and to an extent still are, not small-farmer friendly. We want to
make sure that the environmental land management scheme is much
more focused on supporting smaller farms. I have visited farmers
on the edge of Dartmoor who rent 100 or 200 acres and have
grazing rights on Dartmoor. I realise the difficulty they have in
gaining a living from their activities. We want to make sure that
they have a living, and that the whole support network that we
are providing and the addition of green finance will help them as
much as it will help other farmers.
(Lab)
My Lords, does the Minister agree that what has happened in
Europe in the last week should be a warning for us, because the
environmental schemes that we have just passed through this House
in two Bills are inevitably going to lead to a reduction in the
amount of land actually used for farming for food? What is
happening indicates that we cannot rely simply on being able to
buy cheaper food from other countries. Will he commit to
maintaining the amount of land still used for farming and to
encouraging food as the primary enterprise of farmers?
(Con)
The noble Baroness makes a very good point and it was well made
in Minette Batters’s speech at the conference. I entirely agree
with her that we do not want to create some sort of idyllic
garden in the countryside and export our carbon and other
footprints to other countries with worse livestock and
environmental standards. We want to continue to see farmers
producing food of the highest possible quality, and that is what
underpins our reforms.
