My Lords, the best way to combat
“the rising cost of … fertiliser and feed”
is to end a war which I have opposed since before it began. An early settlement, which I have argued in detail over nine contributions in debates, would have saved thousands of lives, billions in cash and enabled a post-pandemic economic revival, with an early restoration of the international economy, particularly in the area of agriculture.
These days I have limited knowledge of agriculture, although in the early 1990s I had shadow ministerial responsibilities for agriculture in the Commons. With market stability in mind and on the advice of cattle breeders, I promoted a national cattle identification scheme. Following a five-year campaign, in 1997 the Labour Government rewarded my efforts with the establishment of the British Cattle Movement Service in my Workington constituency, which at its peak hired 1,200 people. With efficiency savings and developments in technology, its workforce of 578 helps maintain stability in the market. The crisis in Ukraine is undermining that stability across the world. Price stability is critical in agricultural markets.
My work on the BCMS helped foster my long-term interest in the fortunes of Cumbria’s farming community, to which I have turned for comment on this debate. In the words of one farmer, “It’s breaking my heart. An extra £3,000 a month in cattle feed costs, fertiliser up from £300 to £800 a tonne, and when they say you can spread more manure, they forget we are already doing that. My red diesel price doubled from 60p to 120p a litre. My electricity bill has gone from £24,000 to £70,000 a year. My extended credit terms have ended. Suppliers of feed and other agricultural inputs demand 28-day settlements. Yes, the milk price has risen to an all-time high, but it doesn’t cover my additional costs”.
Add to that testimony the increase in tariffs, reduced fertiliser supply internationally, banking restrictions, the international energy crisis, poor harvests and drought, export bans and other controls, and you have a crisis spiralling out of control. Then add to that a period of hyperinflation, with unimaginable potential consequences: starvation in the third world, certainly in rural Africa; millions in the advanced economies driven into not only fuel poverty but real poverty; millions cutting back on food and children suffering worldwide. You will then get the picture.
This is far too high a price to pay, yet we all know the war will end up in a costly compromise. Yes, there will be a peace of sorts, but historians will judge it all with a more critical eye. A brutalised Russian people appear unaware of the atrocities being carried out in their name by a desperate, brutal Putin leadership and a military establishment that is out of control and fearful of defeat. We need cool heads to think through an alternative strategy. We need a military build-up so that we can negotiate from a position of strength and avoid an escalating war.
Farmers throughout Europe are paying a very heavy price indeed for the failure of leadership in the civilised world. I suspect that all they want is an early end to the war and the return of stability. A settlement cannot be left to the Government of Ukraine; their agenda is not necessarily ours. Putin will not be there for ever. Our mistake has been to underestimate the potential for reform in a modernising Russia earlier this century. It is still not too late, but it will never happen while Europe lacks vision and sees the resolution of the conflict on the proxy battlefield and not in the conference room.
8.10 pm