Upland Farming — House of Commons, 2015-06-01
Topic: Agriculture
Roderick James Nugent Stewart (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater and West Somerset (Mr Liddell-Grainger) for raising a subject of such importance, and indeed for his kind words. It is a very great privilege to have my first opportunity to stand at the Dispatch Box dealing with a subject of such importance. I apologise in advance for the fact that I am not accustomed to doing so. I am normally barracking Front Benchers from the Back Benches, and it is rather difficult to adjust to facing forward As my hon. Friend pointed out, upland farmers are the most powerful symbol of our most fundamental values. Their presence is a living reminder of the formation of the British landscape, with the relationship between humans and soils reflected in the very shape of our fell sides. The uplands are the creation of those farmers. As he said, it is their work that we are celebrating and from which we are benefiting, whether through tourism, ecology, poetry or painting. We see their legacy in the shape of every field and the angle of every dry stone wall. It is their children who support our schools, and it is they who support our rural roads and shops. The lifeblood of our rural communities depends on the upland farmer, and that is as true of Exmoor and my hon. Friend’s constituency as it is of Cumbria, the North Yorkshire moors, Northumbria, Dartmoor, the Yorkshire dales and the whole Pennine ridge Upland farmers face three unique challenges. As my hon. Friend said, those are, first, economics and incomes; secondly, bureaucracy; and, thirdly, environmental management. I would like to respond briefly to each of those in turn. First, I can absolutely reassure him that the Government understand the serious issues around farm incomes. The average income for upland farmers is about £23,900, but many farmers in our constituencies operate on incomes that are considerably lower. In my constituency, there are upland farmers on incomes below £16,000 a year We looked specifically at the data for my hon. Friend’s constituency and for Exmoor, and we found that the number of commercial farm holdings fell from 603 in 2009 to 510 in 2013. Now, there will be many reasons for that, some of which are to do with economies of scale, and some of which are to do with changes in agriculture, but I feel, and I think he will feel, that that is 100 families whose history, heritage, knowledge of the landscape and investment in the soil have been lost forever That is why I am proud that the Government have introduced some serious reforms to the way the basic payment scheme operates. For example, from 2015, we are equalising the payments for lowland areas and severely disadvantaged areas. The direct payment rate on moorland has almost doubled. That sounds like normal Government jargon, but it is not—it makes an enormous difference. Effectively, it means that lowland farms will lose a certain amount, but it will be a relatively small amount compared with the benefit for upland farmers. DEFRA estimates that the SDA rate will increase from about €200 to €245 per hectare, and the moorland rate will nearly double, from €35 to nearly €70 That should make a significant difference to upland incomes, but the Department needs to be careful to study this. We must be sure that we look at incomes in the round. We are looking not just at the basic payment scheme, but at all the other forms of support and environmental incentive provided to these farmers. More needs to be done, and we must monitor the impact of the changes to be sure that they remain flexible and that we are attentive to any problems.