It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms Nokes. I congratulate the hon. Member for Stafford (Theo Clarke) on securing the debate. I am sure we will all—including the Minister—profess to be united in our support for British farming, but over recent years not everyone has been prepared to back up their words with action, which is what British farmers need right now.
We have spent a long time in this place discussing the future of farming, through the passage of the Agriculture, Trade and Environment Bills. It was clear what the farming sector needed, which was for British standards to be protected, but the Government and many of their Back Benchers consistently voted down amendments to achieve that. That means that farmers have been badly let down by the Government. We see that now with the Government stalling over the statutory Trade and Agriculture Commission and, in the trade negotiations with Australia, brazenly allowing unfettered access to Australian imports produced to unacceptably low standards, and trading away references to limiting global warming to 1.5°, just to get the deal over the line.
That is not the only way in which the Government are failing British farmers. We also see empty shelves in our supermarkets and food left to rot in our fields because of a lack of forward planning. We have a shortfall of 90,000 lorry drivers, as well as a critical shortage of agriculture workers, which we have just heard about. One producer in Scotland this week reportedly had to waste 3.5 million heads of broccoli and 1.9 million heads of cauliflower due to supply chain disruption. That is not just a scandal when farmers are struggling to earn a living and families are struggling to put food on the table. They will struggle even more if the £20 cut to universal credit and the rise in national insurance go ahead. It is also contributing to our environmental failure, given that 8% of global emissions are attributable to food waste.
Backing British farming should mean the Government pulling out all the stops to fix the supply chain shortage, rather than what I see as a shadow Transport Minister, which is Ministers across Departments burying their heads in the sand and just hoping it will sort itself out. On a more positive note, backing British farming also means supporting a sustainable agriculture mode fit for the future. It means embracing agroecological practices that ensure farming and nature benefit each other. It means pursuing rewilding, protecting biodiversity, promoting agroforestry, reducing reliance on pesticides and farming less intensively to protect topsoil. The Agriculture Act 2020, with its “public money for public goods” approach, goes some way towards promoting those practices. That is a welcome step in the right direction, but there is more to do on that front, to make those practices the norm, rather than the exception.
We cannot ignore the contribution of industrial animal agriculture to many of the issues we are facing, from the routine overuse of antibiotics and intensive systems to the destruction of the rain forest for cattle ranching and producing livestock feed. It was reported this week that in the Netherlands they are considering plans to force farmers to cut livestock numbers, due to the sheer scale of ammonia pollution. I am glad the NFU has thrown its weight behind the ambition for net zero but, if net zero is to become a reality and we are to have a genuinely sustainable food and farming system, all these issues must be addressed.
I am proud to be a Member of this House who backs British farmers through my words and my actions. I have consistently supported better scrutiny for trade agreements, pushed Ministers to embrace more sustainable models for agriculture, and called for action on the growing crisis in our supply chains. With both COP26 and the Christmas rush approaching, I hope that all
Government Members, not just the Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish), will join me in pushing the Government to act.
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