Debate on the Address

My Lords, it has been an interesting debate. I detect a step change, particularly in relation to agriculture and food production. I wanted to speak yesterday on the constitution and indeed the Barnett formula but, speaking as an agriculturalist, the issues currently facing agriculture are enormous. There is a lack of understanding between the metropolitan communities and the countryside on the issues of food production. I can illustrate that immediately. This time last year a badger jumped out in front of my car. Unfortunately I hit it and the car was damaged. I had an estimate for the damage and rang the insurance company. I reported to the lady at the other end that I had hit a badger. She responded, ““This budgie—how much damage has it done?”” I cannot give a better illustration of that lack of understanding between one community and another. I explained that a budgie could not do £1,100 of damage. There is a crisis in livestock farming, with foot and mouth and bluetongue. There is a panoply of issues that would probably take 12 hours to cover. There are doubts now about UK food security. Climate change is having a global impact on food production. In the UK, supermarkets control 80 per cent of the food market and 1,700 dairy producers have left the industry every year for the past 10 years. The disaster that has now struck the sheep industry with foot and mouth is there for all to see. Yet agriculture appears nowhere in this Queen’s Speech. With regard to the environment we have the Climate Change Bill. That is excellent and I praise it. At the moment, however, the prospect of a Marine Bill remains just a prospect although some species of fish are facing extinction in the short term. Along with agriculture, animal health is a vital issue, and both are in crisis. I have written a very long speech but have decided that I cannot possibly deliver it in the time. However, in the Queen’s Speech there should have been Bills to tighten animal health security and to make it illegal to sell produce at less than the cost of production for primary products, whether they originate in the UK or in the Third World. We have to rein in the activities of the supermarkets. From what I have heard of the Competition Commission report it looks like another whitewash; of course consumers get a good deal, but what about the producers? It worries me that UK food self-sufficiency rates have dropped from 82 per cent to 73 per cent in the past 10 years. I am pleased that the Prime Minister is now turning his attention to that vital issue. Supply-and-demand economics have doubled the price of wheat for all the reasons that have been given in this debate. We need new marketing Acts in the UK to ensure that our products can compete against the Dutch and the Danes, who have co-operatives that control 85 per cent of their markets, all within the EU. However, occupying my mind most of all is the pollution disaster at Pirbright. It is clear that more legislation in animal health will be required in the future. Pirbright is a research station and it had broken drains. Defra has tried to brush off its responsibility for this disaster, with the honourable exception of the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, who I know has worked hard, as have his staff, to mitigate the overall effects of foot and mouth. None the less, it was a disaster. Some of the statements that have been made would be sufficient for setting up a website with the name notmegov.com. The Government do not run the research station, but they are responsible for regulation and funding the research council. They have recently cut funding to these research establishments. There are two line management units on the site. One is a research station, the other, a private company. All of it is a result of near-market research put in place by the previous Conservative Government. The sheep industry is suffering; producers are on their uppers. Defra should fund the full cost of welfare schemes in Wales and Scotland. It should introduce a welfare scheme for sheep stranded on Romney marsh, where the water table is coming up. It should ensure also that more than half of the industry’s £520 million losses are paid in compensation by Defra to ensure that we have a sheep industry next year. It is short-term help, because supply-and-demand economics in food will solve the problems from next year, but the current situation is chaotic. This assistance is vital to sustain our agriculture. The director of the Pirbright station should resign. If he will not, he should be sacked for inappropriate management and incompetence. We need to sharpen up our act in the research stations and produce the goods to tackle the challenges in food production that face us in the United Kingdom.