Thank you, Mr Betts. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, and I will try to beat the bell, like any true Cornish girl.
I would like to say a big thank you to the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty) and my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) for securing the debate, as well as to the Backbench Business Committee. I would also like to make colleagues aware that because of the
actions of my hon. Friend before the summer recess, there was a tremendously well-attended meeting of the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. I do not think I have been to such a well-attended meeting, and it shows how committed my hon. Friend is to the well-being of our dairy farmers.
In South East Cornwall, a number of small dairy farms are vital to the local economy and to the livelihoods of their owners and the people who are employed there. I know that we, as a Government, have a will to support those farms. In the past, there has been a trend of supermarkets driving milk prices down to a level that is unviable for our farmers. The dairy industry has proposed positive action to resolve the problem, and I hope that the Government will support that.
Last Saturday, when I visited my local agricultural show in Liskeard, I learnt first hand how our dairy farmers are suffering economically. How on earth can anyone expect dairy farmers to be paid a price for their end product that falls below the production cost? It is just not common sense. I also know exactly how it feels to get up at stupid o’clock in the morning and work such long hours for a product on which there is no viable return, because dairy farming can be likened to the fishing industry, which I have extreme knowledge of. In recent days, it was encouraging to hear that Arla Foods and other processors are increasing the price to 29.5p a litre, but that is not really enough. As my hon. Friend the Member for South Derbyshire (Heather Wheeler) said, that is not sufficient to provide a genuinely sustainable dairy farming industry.
I want to mention the Clarke family and Trewithen dairy in my constituency. The Clarke family were dairy farmers who diversified into processing. They source their product from the local dairy farms around them and work together to ensure that everybody secures a fair share economically of the end result. It would be encouraging if other co-operatives could be formulated to secure similar deals.
It is encouraging that the dairy coalition has produced a voluntary code of practice, but will the Minister say when he will endorse it? If the code does not work, what action will he propose to ensure that we do not see any more dairy farmers going out of business? Will the Minister also say more about the timetable for the Groceries Code Adjudicator Bill, as it does not currently seem to be published?
I would like to endorse all the points that my colleagues have made today. I shall not repeat those arguments, as they have been made on many occasions, but I would like to tell the Minister that last week, I heard even his local farmers on Radio Cornwall, my local radio station, saying that they know he is a man of the land and that he has promised to support the farming industry. I hope that now he holds the position of Minister of State, he will continue the good work that his predecessor was renowned for. We want to see strong decisions and firm help from him for our farming industry.
4.17 pm