My hon. Friend makes a good point. It is incredibly important that the agricultural industry is recognised, because energy bills have shot up. Also, quite a few of our agricultural businesses in Devon and beyond rely on heating oil. We know that additional support is on the way, but we will have to wait and see whether that is enough for people to weather the storm. However, I and other MPs in the south-west of all party political colours will be listening to our farmers and representing their views back to Government.
Putting domestic food production first should also apply to trade negotiations. Britain is now free independently to strike new trade deals across the world, and colleagues should have enough time and opportunity to scrutinise such arrangements in the House. Giving Parliament more say in the process, in terms of both the negotiating mandate and the scrutiny of these trade deals, will strengthen the consent for them from the farming industry and the public. That is very clear.
I sympathise with the comments made by my right hon. Friend Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice), who recently criticised the path undertaken by the Government in signing the trade deal with Australia. The deal undoubtedly brings benefits, but as a Government we can and must do better in the future. In the summer of 2020, I supported an amendment on food standards tabled by the former Member for Tiverton and Honiton to the Agriculture Bill. The Government listened and acted, setting out that our high standards for domestic and imported products will remain.
I particularly welcomed the setting up of the independent Trade and Agriculture Commission, which must ensure that the voices of everyone involved in food production are properly heard. I would really like to see more engagement between commission officials and MPs, with the commission bringing back some of the regional evidence sessions that it held back in 2020. Those were invaluable in feeding back concerns from farming communities in Devon, the wider south-west and across the country.
There are many other topical issues I would like to touch on before I conclude my remarks, and which I am sure are high in the new Minister’s in-tray—not least rising input costs for things such as fertiliser, slurry rules and avian influenza. Those issues are playing on the minds of local farmers, alongside significant concerns about abattoir capacity in the south-west and across the country.
I will finish my remarks by talking about workforce shortages. Those are an acute issue across the agricultural industry, especially in the south-west, and DEFRA must keep working closely with the Home Office on a long-term strategy for the food and farming workforce. Farming is a skilled career, and it is a labour of love for many. Excellent colleges, such as Bicton in my constituency, keep the flame alive in the younger generation, but is it enough and are we doing enough to encourage young people into these careers? There are ample career opportunities for UK workers in the food and farming sectors, but are
we selling that dream to people who are thinking of joining the industry or who have an interest in working on our land?
The farming industry needs sufficient access to labour in the meantime, with the industry calling for the seasonal worker scheme to be increased to a minimum five-year rolling programme to help give farms certainty to invest. The Prime Minister committed to look at expanding seasonal worker schemes in his leadership campaign during the summer, and he was absolutely right to do so. I hope that that is something that DEFRA Ministers and the Home Office can take forward, particularly for the poultry and pig industries, which have faced real problems in the last 12 to 18 months.