Obviously I take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Curry. The construction of the Bill, as I said, ensures that we are rewarding farmers for those matters that we have hitherto not rewarded them for. We will get to that in Chapter 2, which deals with
“Fair dealing obligations of business purchasers of agricultural products”.
We want to address that, which is why it is in the Bill. Clearly, the farmer has not always had a fair deal with agricultural producers and others in the supply chain—and of course in Chapter 3 we will look at producer organisations.
As I said, the construct of the Bill is designed to provide new financial assistance powers within the prism of productivity grants. As subsection (1) states:
“In framing any financial assistance schemes, the Secretary of State must have regard to the need to encourage the production of food”,
and this production must be undertaken
“in an environmentally sustainable way.”
We all want a healthy diet. We all want food security. That is why the Government have been working with industry and will continue to work with industry, as we always have. Industry is often the best at finding sources all around the world so that we have resilience in our food supply.