I will pursue my point. I have already taken two interventions and there is a limit to how many I can take in a speech. The impact of global warming on temperature and weather will be felt most acutely by those in the farming community. The Australian deal sets a worrying precedent for trade deals going forward. If any future deal with the United States throws farmers under the bus as much as the Australia one did, many more farmers will struggle.
I cannot finish without mentioning the litany of complaints from the hon. Member for Stafford about Brexit labour shortages and food rotting in our constituency fields. The hon. Lady sounded shocked, as indeed she should, at the appalling waste. But it is hardly a surprise. Once upon a time, right-wing tabloids and Brexiteer MPs assured us that, post-Brexit, townies would be jumping on trains to the countryside, filled with “Pick for Britain” zeal, and would return ruddy-faced from their exertions in the fields. It was never going to happen. It has not happened; Brexit has led to chronic labour shortages, and we on this side of the House clearly warned that that would happen. So please, let us not affect surprise at the clearly foreseeable consequences of Brexit.
We in Scotland have a choice; farmers, and the rest of us, have the option of re-joining the European Union as part of an independent Scotland and to have free movement once again. Farmers play such an important role in society, and I am proud to back them. I wish the UK Government would do the same.
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