Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

Well, for a start, as well as the system bringing in sections such as horticulture that had not been covered previously, which could have been anticipated, no one realised that all of a sudden, nearly 50,000 other so-called farmers would come on the scene who had never even registered for the integrated administration and control scheme. People who had bought farmhouses when farms were broken up had five, six or 10 acres of land, and they thought, ““Hey, this'll be rather good. We'll claim some single farm payment for our pony paddock.”” They then boasted in the local pub, ““I received £54 in subsidy payment.”” The system was overwhelmed, which is why serious, professional farmers suffered so much. In future negotiations, I hope that there will be a minimum size or standard to ensure that such people are not liable to receive the single farm payment. The serious result of the chaos over the Rural Payments Agency and the single farm payment was that for over two years it distracted farmers from sitting down and doing what they should have been doing. Because of the delays, farmers reached a point of desperation. They were borrowing money left, right and centre from banks and owed money to their suppliers. For the past two years, they have essentially concentrated on simply keeping their heads above water. They should have been doing what they had been advised to do: using the single farm payment to make their farming enterprises profitable, instead of relying on subsidy. The idea was that a farming enterprise should run profitably on its activities, and that the single farm payment would be money for investment and possibly profit. Farmers have not been able to do that, and as a consequence many farms and farmers in the livestock sector are running at a loss. If they properly quantified their labour, which a lot of them do not do, they would find that their losses were quite substantial. I got some figures recently—I do not know whether the Secretary of State has seen them—from the English Beef and Lamb Executive, which has been doing research into the cost of production of livestock. For example, the loss on the average England lowland suckler herd in 2005-06 was £351 per beast. In 2006-07, that figure went down to just under £300. Right through the beef industry, the losses are about the same. The losses in the sheep sector were equivalent—a loss of nearly £50 per ewe in 2005, and a £34 loss per ewe in 2006-07. The Secretary of State can see that there is a tremendous amount to do if we are to ensure that such farming enterprises are properly profitable. That is why we should encourage schemes such as the EBLEX better return scheme so that livestock farmers get a better result. The disasters of foot and mouth and bluetongue came at the worst possible time, which is sad because 2007 was shaping up to be not a bad year for the livestock industry. That went down the pan immediately, particularly when the export of sheep stopped and there was a huge overhang on the market. However, the underlying trend is good because the quantities of beef and lamb being eaten in this country are up. It is a pity that farmers could not cash in on that by getting the better prices that they were anticipating at the start of the season. There is some reason to be optimistic, certainly in parts of the livestock sector. Cereal farmers are also not unhappy, but pig farmers, poultry farmers and game rearers are desperately unhappy about what has happened. What the industry needs from DEFRA are some positive decisions on a number of hugely important outstanding issues. The first, which has been mentioned, is the issue of TB, which needs to be resolved. That is a matter of considerable urgency that has been around for at least 10 years—