argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Agriculture Bill — House of Commons, 2018-10-10
Topic: Agriculture
Michael Andrew Gove (Conservative, Centre-right): It is important that we have a network of abattoirs that enables, wherever possible, sustainable local food production. I know that it is an issue close to the hon. Lady’s heart; it is also close to mine. I pay tribute to Patrick Holden and the sustainable farming network for the campaigning work that they have done. We are doing everything we can to support small abattoirs. When it comes to animal welfare, it is also important that we make sure that we have a strong network of official veterinarians guaranteeing the quality of our food. It is also important that we recognise that this Government—originally under the leadership of my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom)—have introduced, or required, CCTV in all abattoirs to make sure that there is no hiding place for animal cruelty. It is critical that we recognise that our farmers thrive on the basis of producing high-quality food with animal welfare at its heart.
Agriculture Bill — House of Commons, 2018-10-10
Topic: Agriculture
Michael Andrew Gove (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point. I would be delighted to visit the Black Isle show and also to visit Lairg in his constituency, where I know that some of Scotland’s finest sheep farmers have an opportunity every year to demonstrate what they can do. He is absolutely right: iconic landscapes from Caithness and Sutherland and Easter Ross through to the Lake District and, indeed, Exmoor and Dartmoor depend for their tourist appeal and for their pull on the human heart on the work of our farmers. It is inconceivable that those iconic landscapes could survive and flourish without the rural, economic and social network that sheep farming and other forms of farming provide. Absolutely, we do recognise that. It is a public good, and public access to our countryside is placed here.
Agriculture Bill — House of Commons, 2018-10-10
Topic: Agriculture
Alexander John Gervase Chalk (Conservative, Centre-right): I am extremely grateful to my right hon. Friend. I warmly support this Bill because it incentivises farmers to enhance biodiversity and to promote animal welfare. This is not just a rural issue; it is an urban issue as well. What can he say about how there will be better potential for my constituents in Cheltenham to access this even more diverse and even more beautiful countryside?
Agriculture Bill — House of Commons, 2018-10-10
Topic: Agriculture
Michael Andrew Gove (Conservative, Centre-right): I know how important the environment and animal welfare issues are to my hon. Friend, as he has tirelessly campaigned on them. I also know that his constituents will be able to enjoy improved access to the countryside through the provisions in the Bill. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education is making £10 million available to ensure that more schoolchildren have an opportunity to understand what goes on in our countryside. Making sure that the next generation understands where our food comes from and the vital importance of food production will be absolutely critical. When the Department for Education set up the school food plan and when this Government ensured that all children up to the age of 14 received lessons in where food comes from and in cooking, that was an earnest example of our commitment to ensuring that everyone appreciates the vital importance of our farmers and the work that they do.
Agriculture Bill — House of Commons, 2018-10-10
Topic: Agriculture
Nicholas Edward Coleridge Boles (Conservative, Centre-right): I am seduced by the vision of the future of British agriculture painted by the Secretary of State, but I am puzzled why he wants to take so long before he can get started on it. Why do we have to remain trapped in the limbo of the transition, whereby we will still be trapped in the common agricultural policy when, by joining the European Free Trade Association and the European economic area on our way out of the EU, we could start on his magnificent reforms next March?
Agriculture Bill — House of Commons, 2018-10-10
Topic: Agriculture
Michael Andrew Gove (Conservative, Centre-right): I am delighted to have been able to seduce my hon. Friend. What is striking in the seduction is that, rather than asking for a slower hand, he wants a rough wooing. He makes the best possible case for his proposition, but I must respectfully disagree with him. The transition period, both the one that is being secured as we leave the European Union and the one for our farmers, is the right balance between urgency and space for reform.
Agriculture Bill — House of Commons, 2018-10-10
Topic: Agriculture
Helen Olivia Bicknell Whately (Conservative, Centre-right): My right hon. Friend was talking about public goods—an approach that I welcome. May I bring him to the question of health? Can he assure me that his Bill will support the production of fruit and vegetables in this country, which is so important to the nation’s health?
Agriculture Bill — House of Commons, 2018-10-10
Topic: Agriculture
Michael Andrew Gove (Conservative, Centre-right): Absolutely; the consumption of more fruit and vegetables is critical to improving public health. I am delighted that, thanks to the lobbying of my hon. Friend and so many Conservative Members, we were able to introduce a seasonal workers scheme pilot to ensure that fruit and vegetable growers get the support that they deserve. We will also have new schemes—improved over those that the EU provides—to ensure that the producer organisations that represent our growers continue to do the brilliant job that they do I should stress that the Bill will also ensure that the UK can take its seat at the World Trade Organisation and negotiate on behalf of the whole United Kingdom. Some people have suggested that the Bill constitutes a power grab from our devolved Administrations—nothing could be further from the truth. The Bill will empower the Welsh Assembly, the Northern Ireland Government and the Scottish Government to do what they believe is right for our farmers, and what is right for our farmers is to move away from a system that has constrained their energy, undermined their enterprise, held back innovation in food production and inadequately rewarded them not only for the food that they provide, but for the environmental and other goods that they provide for us The Bill gives us an opportunity to put farming across the United Kingdom on a surer footing, so that we can produce more, sell more and export more, but also hand on our environment in a better state to the next generation. I commend it to the House.
Agriculture Bill — House of Commons, 2018-10-10
Topic: Agriculture
James Stephen Heappey (Conservative, Centre-right): Will the hon. Lady explain how much, according to her calculations, it will cost to achieve net zero in agriculture? Will that be met from general taxation through the Government or through increased food prices at the supermarket?
Agriculture Bill — House of Commons, 2018-10-10
Topic: Environment
Rebecca Faye Clark (Pow) (Conservative, Centre-right): Given the shadow Minister’s concern about these issues—green Brexit, food, food waste and all those things—it is interesting that she was not given a major slot on the main stage at the Labour conference. In my meetings, I have not come across a single environmentalist or farmer who does not support the initiatives in the Bill.
Agriculture Bill — House of Commons, 2018-10-10
Topic: Agriculture
Hugo Swire (Conservative, Centre-right): An important point was made about the number of forms that farmers have to fill in to access funds. Does the honourble not agree that one of the most important things is ensuring the availability of reliable broadband, given that the amount of farming now done online is way in excess of the amount of farming when Clement Attlee was the post-war Prime Minister?
Agriculture Bill — House of Commons, 2018-10-10
Topic: Agriculture
Neil Quentin Gordon Parish (Conservative, Centre-right): This is an historic moment, as we last had an agriculture Bill in this House in 1947, since when there have been 15 Prime Ministers and many Governments. We therefore really need to get this Bill right The Bill is about agriculture and the environment not just today, but in the future, so I welcome our Secretary of State’s commitment on food security. During the Bill’s passage, I will look for us to adopt for England provisions similar to those in schedule 3 for Wales to ensure that we can support high-quality food production and high animal welfare standards in England and across the United Kingdom. Food security—the ability to have plenty of food, and good food, for our constituents—is very much a public good, and we will debate that further While I very much welcome the Bill, I am disappointed that my Select Committee was not offered the opportunity to subject it to prelegislative scrutiny. However, the Secretary of State and Ministers should not worry, because we will do our utmost to ensure that we scrutinise the Bill carefully, clause by clause. While the Bill is very good, I am sure that a little tweak here and there will not do it any harm I welcome the long transitional period because it gives farmers certainty over that time. We also need to ensure that as we build stewardship schemes, land management schemes and environmental schemes, we also enter into contracts with farmers of at least five to 10 years. Ministers and the Secretary of State might say that we cannot bind successive Governments, but we must ensure that we have a contract in place so that land management and farming can go hand in hand. We talk as though the environment, food production and farming are all separate, but they are not—they are very much combined. I believe that farmers are the original friends of the earth, and we will ensure that we deliver better soil, a better environment and great food while having as much food security as possible in this country I also welcome the Bill’s attempt to tackle unfairness in the supply chain.
Agriculture Bill — House of Commons, 2018-10-10
Topic: Environment
Oliver Letwin (Conservative, Centre-right): Before my hon. Friend moves on, I share his ambition in those respects, but does he agree that as the general framework for subsidy support or payment for ecosystem services lies in this Bill, and the general framework for the environment will lie in the environment Bill, it is appropriate that issues such as the contracting he describes should be covered in secondary legislation?
Agriculture Bill — House of Commons, 2018-10-10
Topic: Agriculture
Neil Quentin Gordon Parish (Conservative, Centre-right): I welcome my right hon. Friend’s intervention. He is right that that can be dealt with in secondary legislation, but I am, shall I say, a little bit naturally suspicious, so I am trying to ensure that we get everything covered as soon as possible. I like the Bill’s direction of travel towards the environment, but I am convinced that having good, healthy, affordable food is absolutely essential, and that is one of the issues towards which I will maintain my driving forces.
Agriculture Bill — House of Commons, 2018-10-10
Topic: Agriculture
Neil Quentin Gordon Parish (Conservative, Centre-right): I will take on board my right hon. Friend’s wisdom, and we will look at that as we go through the Select Committee process to ensure that do not do that. I thank him for his intervention The Bill very much attempts to tackle unfairness in the supply chain. That is essential. We need to ensure that the groceries code covers all aspects of trade—from the big retailers through to the processors and right down to the big suppliers—so that we can have true fairness in the supply chain. Often, when a consumer buys a product, enough money is paid to the retailer to ensure that there is enough money for the producer, and it is a question of ensuring that that money then gets back to the producer. There is an uneven relationship, with producers often being the weaker partner and not having enough strength in the market. I welcome the proposals to request data, which will improve transparency in the supply chain, but the way in which that increased transparency will improve fairness in the supply chain remains unclear. Furthermore, there are proposals to streamline support payments and reduce bureaucracy, which I believe we all welcome. I look forward to the Secretary of State and the farming Minister coming before our Select Committee to explain exactly how that can be done. Whether people love or hate the common agricultural policy, there is no doubt that we can have an agricultural policy that suits the four nations of the United Kingdom and that we can devise a better system than the one designed for the 28 countries of the European Union. I have direct knowledge of that, having previously chaired the European Parliament’s Agriculture Committee, so I know that we can do better and I look forward to that We welcome this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to shape British farming and the environment. We can improve policies such as our stewardship scheme, for example by ensuring that it runs for a minimum of 10 years and involves forestry. We can also ensure that we do not have to work out when a tree is a sapling and when a sapling is a tree. If we want to include water management, our schemes can include planting trees on banks to hold back water and so on. We can do so much better, and I look forward to hearing about that from Ministers.
Agriculture Bill — House of Commons, 2018-10-10
Topic: Agriculture
Neil Quentin Gordon Parish (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. We have to ensure that applying for grants is simple enough for all farmers, not just the big landowners who can employ offices full of people to do that, and I believe that we can. With some of the ideas coming forward about how we make payments, we can also ensure that, as we transition, family farms and smaller applicants can have less taken from them in the first instance. There are ways we can make this much more palatable Upland farming, which the Secretary of State mentioned, is very important, especially because of lamb and beef production. It is coupled with that great environment on the hillside, and we will not be able to pay public money just to keep sheep and cattle on the hillside; we have to ensure that they are profitable. Profit is what will drive this because—this point has already been made—if you are in the black, you can go more green. That is absolutely essential We produce great food. We also have a very effective poultry industry, although sometimes that is not mentioned. That is why we can produce good-quality chickens for under £5. Let us look at how we deal with our food industry and our production.
Agriculture Bill — House of Commons, 2018-10-10
Topic: Agriculture
Neil Quentin Gordon Parish (Conservative, Centre-right): My right hon. Friend and constituency neighbour makes a really good point. We must redouble our efforts to encourage our armed forces, our schools and our health service to procure our high-quality British food. Let us ensure that we can feed our nation with our food, because that is absolutely essential I also think that healthy food, as a public good, can be recognised naturally across the piece. This is an agricultural Bill, but if we think about the NHS, we could save nearly £2 billion when we consider the type of healthy food that we can produce. Buying from local producers will allow us to reduce our carbon footprint and improve the environment, so we also need joined-up thinking about future-proofing the Bill. If we weaken our farming sector to the extent that we have to import more food from abroad, there will be many consequences. When we import food from other countries, we also import their water and their means of production, and some countries can little afford that. We have to ensure that we continue to produce good, high-quality food and that, if possible, we produce more of it in future.
Agriculture Bill — House of Commons, 2018-10-10
Topic: Foreign Trade
John Alan Redwood (Conservative, Centre-right): Of course, once we leave the EU we will be able to settle our own schedule of tariffs, including those, if any, that we might wish to impose on European continental food. What level of tariff would the hon. Lady recommend?
Agriculture Bill — House of Commons, 2018-10-10
Topic: Environment
Colin James Clark (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith, that famous farming constituency, is making a powerful speech "The Scottish Government’s climate change ambitions…pose a bigger threat…than Brexit" They are not my words, but those of Jim McLaren of Quality Meat Scotland. Would she care to comment on that?
Agriculture Bill — House of Commons, 2018-10-10
Topic: Agriculture
Andrew Campbell Bowie (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Lady has spent a lot of time criticising this Government’s legislation. I would like to ask the question that many of my constituents who are farmers are wondering about: what is the Scottish Government’s plan for farming post Brexit? We have not got a clue.
Agriculture Bill — House of Commons, 2018-10-10
Topic: Agriculture
Douglas Gordon Ross (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Lady speaks about briefings. Does she agree with the National Farmers Union Scotland, which said in its briefing that the Scottish National party Scottish Government should accept the offer from the Westminster Government to include a schedule for Scotland? Why is the SNP refusing to do that?
Agriculture Bill — House of Commons, 2018-10-10
Topic: Agriculture
Michael Andrew Gove (Conservative, Centre-right): Why is it that the Welsh Administration are capable of providing a schedule to the Bill for Welsh needs, but the Scottish Government are not? Why are the Scottish Government silent on future policy for Scotland’s farmers? Why is it that we are providing certainty for farmers in the United Kingdom, as the Welsh Labour Administration are doing, but the hon. Lady is so recklessly negligent of rural Scotland’s interests?
Agriculture Bill — House of Commons, 2018-10-10
Topic: Agriculture
Rebecca Faye Clark (Pow) (Conservative, Centre-right): I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Having spent a lifetime immersed in both the environment and farming—I grew up on a farm—this, for me, is a very exciting moment. It is an opportunity to rethink our land use policy. It is a chance to build on the health of our environment, from soil to water to air, and to set ourselves on track to produce healthy, sustainable food and reset the biodiversity gauge Given that a quarter of all agricultural holdings are in the south-west, producing a third of the nation’s beef and lamb, the proposals are really important for our farmers, too. They are possible only because we are leaving the EU, and they have become a reality because the Government are putting not just their aspirations, but their financial support behind this endeavour As other colleagues have mentioned, the Bill is very much a framework Bill, which provides the finances and the tools for us to transition out of the common agricultural policy and gives us the chance to have a dialogue in every relevant area. We can now design our own tailor-made approach and not be dictated to by 27 other countries in the joint system that we have been part of. That system has often not been suited to the UK, but to get the money—all £4 billion of it—our farmers and landowners have had to accept the system. Who would not? Who could blame them?
Agriculture Bill — House of Commons, 2018-10-10
Topic: Government Operations
Rebecca Faye Clark (Pow) (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Lady makes a good point, but the new Bill will allow us to tailor our approach to suit every part of the UK. Wales is taking this opportunity, and schedule 3 states clearly what it will do. Interestingly, we have not heard from Scotland yet.
Agriculture Bill — House of Commons, 2018-10-10
Topic: Agriculture
John Robert Lamont (Conservative, Centre-right): The real risk to Scottish farmers is the fact that the SNP Scottish Government have failed to opt in to this Bill and failed to introduce a Bill in the Scottish Parliament to allow Scottish farmers to get the support they will desperately need after Brexit. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is the SNP who are letting Scottish farmers down?
Agriculture Bill — House of Commons, 2018-10-10
Topic: Agriculture
Christopher Paul Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Upper Bann (David Simpson), and it is always a great pleasure to hear his wise and knowledgeable words in any agricultural debate in this House. I congratulate the Secretary of State and his ministerial team on bringing forward this Bill and delivering the principle of support for agriculture in this House for the first time in over 40 years Many aspects of the CAP were of course very unpopular, but it did provide a vital lifeline for farm businesses and farming families in my constituency and many upland constituencies right across the country. However, change needs to come, and thank goodness the Government have worked long and hard on this and change is going in the right direction We need to reduce the administrative burden on farmers. This is a very overburdened industry, and we have a great opportunity to reduce the burden. I know the Minister in particular is keen to see this happen and has great ideas that will come forward in future statutory instruments We must also think about how the payments are going to be made. Many of my constituents are concerned about the Rural Payments Agency, as in the past it has not exactly covered itself in glory. If it is to be in charge of our new scheme, there must be tighter control, and greater regulation must be placed on it by DEFRA. I hope Ministers will take that request back to the Department with them I am pleased that the Welsh Government have decided to couple themselves with the Bill and the British Government, and I am very disappointed that the Scottish Government are not following suit. That is a massive disappointment to the people of Scotland, and the hon. Member for Gordon (Colin Clark), who serves as my vice-chair on the Back-Bench DEFRA committee, works particularly hard for farmers in Scotland, as do all the other Scottish Conservative Members, so I am very disappointed at what we have heard from the Scottish National Benches today.
Agriculture Bill — House of Commons, 2018-10-10
Topic: Government Operations
Stephen Charles Kerr (Conservative, Centre-right): In fact the briefing states very clearly that the biggest concern that the NFUS has is the politicisation of the process by the SNP, which is governing Scotland not in the national interest but in the nationalist interest.
Agriculture Bill — House of Commons, 2018-10-10
Topic: Agriculture
Christopher Paul Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): I would go further: I would be interested to know if DEFRA would consider ring-fencing the agricultural budget to all devolved nations as time goes on, because certainly in Wales we are concerned that the money will not be spent on agriculture. We hope that Scotland will spend its money on agriculture, but time will tell Importantly, the NFU right around the country is keen to see a national framework. All the countries in the UK need to work under a national framework; otherwise, farming will become fragmented, with Scottish farmers competing against Welsh farmers and English against Northern Irish and so on, which will be to the detriment of the whole farming industry in the UK. It is therefore important that we have a national framework.