Sustainable Livestock Bill

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Robert Flello) on speaking with such eloquence, authority and relative brevity to this important private Member's Bill, on which he has worked so assiduously, and I commend those other hon. Members who have participated: the hon. Members for Bury North (Mr Nuttall), for North Antrim (Ian Paisley), for Banbury (Tony Baldry), for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart) and for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton). They have provided extensive initial scrutiny of the proposals. Agriculture is one of the most significant parts of the UK economy. It directly employs 534,000 people and contributes £7.1 billion directly to the UK economy each year, with the agri-food sector constituting almost 6.7% of economic output. It is increasingly recognised that farmland has a wider role than simply agricultural production. In particular, it has a role in water protection and in sustaining landscapes and habitats that are rich in biodiversity. Globally, as the ““Food 2030”” study by the previous Government made clear, world population growth of between 2 billion to 3 billion in the next four decades will necessitate increased global food production, but that must be sustainable.