I draw Members’ attention to my declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.
I warmly welcome this vital Bill. I support the broad aims of shifting support for the sector to public money for public goods, alongside support for innovation and productivity gains. The new public goods model could be good news for upland areas in Yorkshire and other regions, as farmers there will finally be able to get direct payments for providing public goods such as iconic landscapes, flood defences with upper river catchment management schemes, and maintaining the quality of the 70% of our drinking water that comes from the uplands. UK peat has capacity to absorb carbon similar to that of the Amazon rainforest, soaking up more CO2 than all the world’s oceans combined, so paying farmers to restore and maintain peatlands could make an important contribution to public policy priorities relating to climate change.
As chair of the all-party group on science and technology in agriculture, I stress that the new technologies of the fourth industrial revolution are transforming agriculture as we speak. It is wise to concentrate support on facilitating the growth and efficiency gains of tomorrow.
The need to introduce the Bill afresh has allowed the Government to make substantial improvements incorporating many of the changes that would have been made via amendments to its previous incarnation. In the Second Reading debate on the previous Bill, I shared the sector’s concerns that food production and food security were not sufficiently central, so I am glad to see that clause 1(4) of the current Bill states
“In framing any financial assistance scheme, the Secretary of State must have regard to the need to encourage the production of food by producers”.
That clear recognition of the importance of food production—something that was absent from the previous Bill—suggests that food has not been forgotten in the shift to public money for public goods.
There is also a specific legal requirement for the Secretary of State to conduct regular audits of food security. I welcome that, but share other Members’ concern to ensure that those audits are more frequent. I want reporting back to Parliament to be much more frequent than the recommended five-year periods. I am reassured by further evidence that the revised Bill shows greater awareness of the needs of agricultural production and a positive relationship between that and protecting the environment. These are entirely complementary goals
and it is important that that is reflected. I am also really pleased that soil quality has been included in the Bill and recognised as a public good.
There is a lot to be positive about in the Bill. However, despite a lot of improvements, I urge the Government to remain alive to the possibility of unintended negative consequences, as with any such legislation. The Minister will be fully aware of the classic example of the notorious three-crop rule from the common agricultural policy. We cannot have a situation where policies incentivise farmers to take many acres out of possible food production, to cease farming altogether or to lay off workers and just to receive payments for managing land for public goods. We need balance and food production must be part of that. The new state-funded environmental land management system that the Government envisage must not serve to reduce our country’s capacity for domestic food production or drive down the numbers employed in agriculture.
In conclusion, I am really positive about the future of agriculture. The Bill is a great start, but we have to bear in mind our future trade talks and trade policies. They have to run at the same time as the Bill. If they do, we will be in a good place. If they do not, things might be difficult, but I support the Minister and the Department on what they are trying to achieve, and I look forward to seeing the Bill through Second Reading and into Committee.
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