Nitrate Vulnerable Zones

I remind hon. Members of my entry in the Register of Members' Interests. As others have rightly done, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Mr. Dunne) both on securing the debate and on the exceptionally comprehensive and reasonable way in which he presented all the issues. In many ways, he made other contributions superfluous, because he covered every aspect. However, I do not intend to follow his reasonable approach entirely. The most important thing to state is that the debate is not about the rights and wrongs of reducing nitrate pollution, so I hope that the Minister will not detain us on that issue. There is universal agreement across the House that we all want to do that, so we do not need to hear a lot of verbiage about why we need to do it. The issue is entirely about how we should do it. The proposal is totally disproportionate and pays no heed to the realities of farming practice. It has clearly been drafted by people who have no idea about farming practice on the ground. It has been put to the House by Ministers who also have no understanding of farming practice and are therefore not in a position to challenge what is put before them. It goes far beyond what any reasonable interpretation of the directive would require, or what is necessary to comply with the directive. I agree with the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) that part of the problem is the directive. I hope that it can be renegotiated because it is far too detailed. Several hon. Members have mentioned individual cases. Just this morning, I received a letter from a constituent of my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr. Goodwill). Mr. Cussons has a relatively small family farm of 63 hectares with 130 dairy cows. He estimates—he provides figures in the letter—that if he had to reduce the herd to cut manure production, it would cost £58,000 in reduced income. Increasing slurry capacity, as well as other factors, would bring the total to £148,000. On his 63-hectare farm, that is a cost to the business of more than £2,000 per hectare. I accept that the 50 mg per litre requirement is laid down in the directive and that we have to work with it. My hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) is right to say that there is some science to challenge that figure, but for the purposes of the debate, we have to accept it. However, the action plan is entirely disproportionate, especially at a time when even No. 10 Downing street is beginning to acknowledge the importance of having an element of domestic production and food security. As several hon. Members have said, the plan goes way beyond the directive and represents gold-plating. The Minister appeared to suggest that the measures on cover crops, which my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Mr. Dunne) discussed, are not gold-plating, and I look forward to hearing his explanations on that point. The whole issue of cover crops goes completely against traditional agricultural practice and the interests of the environment. They will cost some farmers their entry-level scheme. If they are getting points for winter stubble in an entry-level scheme to which they have signed up for five or seven years and if they now lose that, one must question how they can possibly achieve both objectives. The measures on cover crops will require much more energy use. I grew up farming in Essex, on heavy clay, where the frost for tilth was essential to get any sort of spring seed bed because otherwise we had to engage in what was called clod bashing to break up the soil, which used a lot of energy. Having tried to deal with the Labour Government for the past 10 years, I sometimes feel as though I am back clod bashing. There has been a massive 25 per cent. reduction in the use of nitrogen, yet paragraph 5.12 of the document contains the insulting—there is no other way to describe it—statement that the programme could"““lead to cost-savings that will act to mitigate the costs””." The document goes on to say:"““it is expected that the efficiency of nitrogen utilisation on farms will improve, thereby enabling farmers to reduce their input costs (e.g. manufactured fertiliser).””" If someone is paying £300 a tonne for their nitrogen, as opposed to £120 a tonne two years ago, they are already damn well looking at mitigating their costs. They do not need some pipsqueak writing it into a DEFRA document—it is already part of business practice. Other important issues are the development of technology and fertiliser placement. Farmers are doing all that they can to reduce their nitrogen inputs because that makes sense. We have also had the issue of closed periods. With the exception of two rainfall categories, there is no differentiation, so the situation in Cornwall is the same as that in Cumbria—and in Cambridgeshire, although we have a lower rainfall. There is no reference to topography, so the same set of rules applies whether land is level or on a slope, or north or south-facing, and whatever the soil type. That is bonkers, and no respectable Minister with any understanding of, or sympathy for, this industry would put such measures before the House. The hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney) rightly referred to the very small percentage reduction in leaching that can be achieved for what the NFU estimates is a £250 million investment in storage. Wherever one looks, there are serious problems, and I could go on. Paragraphs in section 4 of the document lay down unbelievably ridiculous detail about what farmers should do. The whole farm limit excludes woodland and roads, but makes no reference to the mix of crops. Slurry and manure cannot be spread on every crop—only on certain types of land. For example, they cannot be spread before potatoes. They can be spread only on crops for which the land is there and can be travelled on at that time of year. All sorts of husbandry constraints make the proposal nonsense. The document promises us a ““new decision support tool””. I look forward to a new decision support tool—