I thank the Minister for his remarks. As an educator, I concur with him that education is all things. There is a real role for colleges such as Plumpton in our area to really underpin and pump-prime this sector. That applies to every part of the sector, too.
I wonder whether there is also something to be considered around our holiday activity food programmes and how we might open up a farm experience to children. Last summer, they hit the water; it would be great for them to understand rather more about food and its provenance. West Rise Community Infant School in Eastbourne has its own farm shop. The children keep their own animals and understand the process all the way through. That can only be a good and important thing. I should also mention my one vineyard—one—in Eastbourne: Compton Combe is great in ambition but stands alone. I can see it from my mum’s house. It is small in scale but big in ambition.
We have heard today about the high value in which we hold our farmers, not least for all that we need them to take forward by way of safeguarding and protecting our natural environment, which is our No. 1 asset. I look forward to taking up some of the other points raised in the debate, particularly in respect of those SHINE features, in conversations to come, for which I hope to find the Minister still in his place—or perhaps higher.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered agriculture in Sussex.
5.28 pm
Sitting adjourned.