Food, Farming and the Environment

I beg to move,"That this House has considered the matter of food, farming and the environment." May I begin by giving a warm welcome to the Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Canning Town (Jim Fitzpatrick), who has joined the DEFRA team and to, in his absence, the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Wansdyke (Dan Norris)? I also pay tribute to the enormous amount of work done by my right hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Jane Kennedy) and Lord Hunt of Kings Heath. They did a terrific job and we will miss them both. I apologise to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) and to the House if I am not able to be present for the wind-ups because of responsibilities relating to the oral statement that I made earlier. I would like to update the House on the difficulties faced by the employees and farmer members of Dairy Farmers of Britain. As I told the House last week, that dairy co-operative, with 1,700 employees and 1,800 dairy farmer members, was put into receivership on 3 June. Since then, the receiver has found it necessary to close three dairies and 17 depots, but he has been able to sell two creameries and five depots, saving about 650 jobs. I am able to inform the House that, as of yesterday, of the 1,800 farmer members on 3 June, about 1,600 had found alternative buyers for their milk, which represents about 96 per cent. of the 1 billion litres of milk that were being supplied by Dairy Farmers of Britain at the beginning of June. That is a major achievement in such a short time, so I pay tribute to the hard work of the receiver, the member council, the employees at Dairy Farmers of Britain's headquarters, and the rest of the industry who have stepped in to buy the milk. However, about 190 farmers are supplying their milk to the receiver at the end of this first fortnight. They are scattered around England and Wales, but the majority are in the north-east and the north-west. The job now is for all of us to find buyers for the milk produced by those remaining farmers. Although I am optimistic that buyers will be found for more farmers, we must recognise that some might not be able to find a commercially viable outlet for their milk.