It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Simon Jupp) on securing this important debate.
I am proud to represent a large rural constituency, as a constituency MP and as a Member of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee. My constituency has a huge farming footprint. Our farmers in Cumbria and across the UK produce food to the highest standards with the highest animal welfare standards, and we should be very proud of that fact. I pay tribute to all farmers in Penrith and The Border and across the UK for all that they do. We must remember that during the pandemic farmers were classified as key workers, and they should be classified as key workers in the future.
The cost of living, which we have heard a lot about today, is really affecting the input costs for farmers. They are not immune to such costs, which include fertiliser, animal feed, fuel and energy. The Government support in recent months—such as the energy schemes, the bringing forward of the basic payment scheme payments, the new slurry grants and the fertiliser rule changes—has been very welcome and much needed, but I stress to the Minister that the Government need to continue to provide the support that farmers need during this crisis.
We have been supporting farmers through these challenging times, and as the funding systems change it is so important that we help farmers through those changes. I have seen at first hand in Cumbria how the new environmental land management schemes can work really well for local communities, and the farming in protected landscapes scheme is very welcome in Cumbria. This issue has been a big focus of the EFRA Committee. The current situation makes it even more crucial that the payments under such schemes are set at a fair and sufficient level and are a proper reward for producing the public goods that communities rely on. It is important—our Committee has been pushing the Government hard on this—that we support all types of farmers, including tenant farmers, commoners and upland farmers.
From talking to farmers in my constituency and across Cumbria, I know that there has been a lot of anxiety during this time. I have hosted regular roadshows with them, and I visit livestock markets regularly. I have triggered an EFRA Committee inquiry on the ELMS transition period. Sadly, I think some of that anxiety and negativity is being fuelled by people briefing against the payment system and misleading people on the levels of uptake.
I was pleased to question the Minister and Janet Hughes, the senior DEFRA official involved, at the EFRA Committee meeting last week. There is a 30% uptake of the environmental schemes, both existing and new.
The uptake on the new sustainable farming incentive is not as high as that because it started only this summer. I would welcome the Minister reaffirming the point that we want to encourage people to enrol in those schemes and then inform them so the schemes can be improved. It would be welcome if the Minister said we were looking into levels of payment to help farmers through this period.
We have heard a lot about food security in this debate. The issue came into sharp relief in the pandemic and has been highlighted again by the war in Ukraine. Bolstering our food security is a prime priority for the Government. The EFRA Committee has been looking at this—we are in the middle of a food security inquiry—and has heard about supplies of fertiliser to the United Kingdom. We have two plants in the UK: the one in Ince has been mothballed and the other in Billingham has ceased ammonia production. That is critical infrastructure for our country, and I urge the Government to keep watching that. We must also remember that a by-product of fertiliser production is CO2, which is much needed by the food and beverage industry. It is also needed in the slaughter process for poultry and pigs, so there is an animal health and welfare implication. We need to secure that supply as well.
On animal health and welfare, I declare an interest as a veterinary surgeon. To support British farming, we need to have healthy animals. I welcome the Government’s progress in that area. The new animal health and welfare pathway scheme, as part of the new ELMS, is very welcome, formalising the partnership between vets and farmers. But more can be done, such as responding to the calls for investing in animal health infrastructure—we heard the hon. Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) make that point.
As a member of the EFRA Committee, I guested on the Public Accounts Committee for the inquiry on the situation at the Animal and Plant Health Agency headquarters in Weybridge. It needs a radical and drastic refurbishment, and I urge the Government to make that a key priority. I have seen this at first hand: I came into politics on the back of my experiences in the foot and mouth crisis, and I witnessed things that I never want to see again in my lifetime. The APHA needs to be funded. The Weybridge site is pivotal in our attack and defence against infectious disease. We see that critically now with the avian influenza crisis. I pay tribute to the vets, officials and farmers on the frontline in that horrendous crisis. Funding that infrastructure is so important; this is about animals and people. We have to remember that diseases can transfer from animals to people. That work looks at public health and antimicrobial resistance.
We have heard a lot about rural mental health; the impact of infectious diseases and outbreaks have a massive impact on our rural communities. I urge the Government to look at that.
In conclusion, I pay tribute to our farmers. It is possible to produce food and look after the environment at the same time. We produce food to the highest animal welfare standards. As a Government, we must keep our arms around our farmers and ensure we support them moving forward.