argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Agriculture Bill — House of Commons, 2020-02-03
Topic: Agriculture
John Henry Hayes (Conservative, Centre-right): I agree with the hon. Gentleman about food imports: I want to see less food imports and more of the food that we consume grown here to assure traceability and guarantee food security. To get him off the hook, it would be much better for the Opposition’s credibility if they backed the Bill and made these arguments later. Not to back the Bill is to fail our farmers by not giving them the support that they need as we leave the European Union—surely he must know that.
Agriculture Bill — House of Commons, 2020-02-03
Topic: Agriculture
Owen William Paterson (Conservative, Centre-right): I am listening carefully to the hon. Gentleman’s arguments. The Americans use peroxyacetic acid, not chlorine. Will he comment on the fact that Americans eat about twice the volume of chicken as Europeans but have significantly fewer cases of campylobacter and salmonella? He makes the correct case that they have different animal husbandry standards from ours, but what metric would he use? If he goes on the outcomes of the food, based on the medical evidence, American food is safer or as safe as ours. What will the Labour party do in considering food that is produced under a different regime? How will it be judged, what data will be used, and how will he stop this, or propose that it is stopped?
Agriculture Bill — House of Commons, 2020-02-03
Topic: Agriculture
John Henry Hayes (Conservative, Centre-right): We should be proud of the efficiency and productivity of our farmers. In this debate about the environment, much of which I respect and agree with, we must not lose sight of the effectiveness and efficiency that has made our farmers leaders across the world.
Agriculture Bill — House of Commons, 2020-02-03
Topic: Agriculture
Neil Quentin Gordon Parish (Conservative, Centre-right): My right hon. Friend is right, and I am looking forward to seeing that in the Bill. As we leave the CAP and develop our own agriculture policy, we will have an opportunity not only to enhance the environment, increase biodiversity, plant more trees, and so on, but to look at the efficiency of our production and livestock breeding—for example, by introducing native breeds and cross breeding in order to deliver that very high quality. On crop production, let us use genome technology and everything that is there so that we can produce lots of food It is also important, as we look to managing our landscape in the future, that we seek to enhance our hedgerows and field margins, but we must ensure good production where we have very good fertile land. One thing that worries me about our policies going forward is that it is very much at the high end of food production, and that is great, but much of the population also like to enjoy good-quality chicken meat that is produced intensively but is also very reasonably priced. We produce intensively reared chicken in this country according to very high standards, and I do not want us to phase out production in this country and then import that type of meat from other countries where it is produced much more intensively. Likewise with cereals: we must make sure that the types of crop protection used to produce cereals that we import are also available to our farmers. If we do not, all we will do is export our livestock and our poultry and pig production This is an important Bill, and it contains much that is to be recommended. However, we must be careful to ensure that as we enhance the environment and our biodiversity we also increase production. We have an opportunity now to produce more food in this country and to be more self-sufficient.
Agriculture Bill — House of Commons, 2020-02-03
Topic: Agriculture
Anthony Howe Browne (Conservative, Centre-right): The greatest thing about speaking in this debate on agriculture policy is that we are having it at all. The last Agriculture Bill passed by this House was in 1947. That means that no one under the age of 93 has had the chance to elect an MP who could vote on farming policy—until now It is a special honour to speak here on behalf of my home constituency, South Cambridgeshire. It is where I grew up, went to school and got married. It has lots of farms, one of which I grew up on. My predecessor, Heidi Allen, represented the constituency with great commitment, great passion—and great political versatility. She was diligent in attending local parish meetings and famous for dancing into the night at local events, and I certainly will not be able to follow in those dancing shoes. We do not agree on everything, but we do agree that it is a fabulous constituency. One resident told me that South Cambs has more Nobel prizes than France and that is a fact too good to check. [Laughter.] It is true—apparently. It is certainly true that just one building, the Laboratory of Molecular Biology, has produced 12 Nobel prize winners itself. We also have the global headquarters of AstraZeneca, one of the biggest drug companies in the world. We have Addenbrooke’s hospital, one of the top hospitals in the country, and one where I had my life saved when I had my appendix out. It has been joined by the newly opened Royal Papworth Hospital, the top heart hospital in the UK. Other MPs have urged Members to visit their constituencies if they want a great day out. My hon. Friends, I urge you to visit my constituency if you want a great heart transplant.
Agriculture Bill — House of Commons, 2020-02-03
Topic: Agriculture
Geoffrey Robert Clifton-Brown (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. That is precisely what I am trying to get at—our farmers can compete with any farmers in the world, provided they have a level playing field It is not only regulation that could be an obstacle to them. There could be a tariff schedule that broadly supports European farmers and disadvantages British farmers. For example, lamb producers in the Cotswolds, who work in a very important farming sector, could be undercut by New Zealand lamb being brought into this country with zero tariffs, while they face an adverse European tariff that prevents them from continuing their lucrative export to Europe The new ELMS and productivity scheme needs to be implemented on time, to see how it works in practice and to play an important role in achieving net zero goals. If it is not introduced on time in 2024, there will be a gap in funding. Many experts believe that introducing it on time will be extremely difficult, and that it is more likely to slip from 2024 to 2028, which will produce a gap in funding. We have an opportunity, post Brexit, to create a progressive, carbon-neutral model of farming in the UK, with the NFU committed to an ambitious target of the sector being carbon-neutral by 2040 The Bill prepares our farming industry for the future, so that it can meet the needs of this country, and with that comes consideration of the younger generation of farmers. The lump sum payment provisions should be more geared towards encouraging young people into farming. As they stand, the provisions could well lead to some areas of the country simply not being farmed, because there will be land without the ability to get any subsidy whatsoever Farming has experienced a huge technological transformation in the past 10 years, with better IT, better animal husbandry, better use of GPS, improved agricultural chemicals and soil sampling, and a host of other technological improvements. Those advances in the agricultural industry will no doubt continue at pace. Younger generations can quickly adapt to new technology, as I am finding with my son, who has just moved to my farm. We must support them, so that they can play a bigger part in British agricultural production, considerably increasing productivity and environmental and animal welfare standards.
Agriculture Bill — House of Commons, 2020-02-03
Topic: Agriculture
Richard John Holden (Conservative, Centre-right): We have heard half a dozen maiden speeches today, all more eloquent than mine, and I congratulate my colleagues on both sides I welcome the Government’s opening statement that farmers put food on our plates. Domestic production is vital in a volatile world, and North West Durham has a bit of everything as far as production goes. We do poultry, beef, arable, milk and lamb. I thank the Secretary of State for her recent visit to my upland peat areas, which show that the environment and our grouse moors can go hand in hand Farmers in my constituency will welcome leaving the common agricultural policy and adopting a more flexible approach from the Government. They will also welcome the new measures in the Bill to deal with greater transparency in the supply chain, particularly when it comes to supermarkets, and the prominence of food production and food security in the Bill. As we move towards payment for public goods, environmental protection, public access and, crucially for my farmers, safeguarding livestock and plants, it is for many of my upland farmers the safeguarding of livestock that is important. I hope that any new regime recognises this as a crucial part of our environment. Our native breeds are an essential element of the environment. Furthermore, forestry is an important part of the future, particularly for my upland areas, and it is vital that the Government have a joined-up approach to ensuring that whatever is proposed in this area is viable There is concern among my farmers about the speed at which things are moving and about the seven years. There is a need to ensure real simplicity, especially with regard to the proposed environmental schemes I welcome the clear and balanced direction of the Bill and look forward to working with the Government at later stages to address the concerns of the rural communities in North West Durham.
Agriculture Bill — House of Commons, 2020-02-03
Topic: Agriculture
Philip Martin Dunne (Conservative, Centre-right): I commend my new colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham (Mr Holden), for taking a minute less than required under your strictures, Mr Deputy Speaker. He is obviously due for swift promotion I am pleased to speak in this debate, having sat on the Committee that looked at the previous Bill. I should declare at this point that I am a farmer and therefore have benefited from the structures that are being replaced by the Bill. I am pleased that the Government have followed several of our recommendations, in particular the requirement for a periodic analysis of food security and the provision for multi-annual financial plans. The initial transition plan is for seven years. I would prefer to see subsequent plans also covering seven years, rather than five, reflecting crop rotations rather than election cycles I should like to make three quick points. The first relates to the need for the Bill to ensure that British food producers are able to maintain viable businesses now that we have left the European Union, while also improving the environment. As we move away from the one-size-fits-all approach of the CAP, we have the chance to reform and connect the support in a coherent way between schemes for different custodians of our land, including those responsible for farming, forestry, natural wilderness, wetlands and wildlife areas As this Bill is being debated before the imminent Second Reading of the Environment Bill, we can rewrite the rules and regulations governing land use in the UK. We must ensure that the Bill supports agriculture while being well aligned to improve the environment and that it is sufficiently adaptable that improvements can be made through regulations if we find that certain activities or aspects of land use inadvertently fall through the cracks. For example, the new ELM scheme will now be available only from late 2024, with significant reductions in direct payments before the new scheme can be accessed, whereas the previous Bill had envisaged such arrangements arriving in 2021 Encouraging farm productivity is welcome to help farm businesses compete in a less protected trading environment, but many parts of the countries, such as the upland sheep farming areas mentioned earlier, have limited scope to diversify other than perhaps into forestry. That is where coherence and clarity are required in the interplay between different support schemes, and I will be grateful if the Minister confirms whether it will be possible for the House to see the detailed regulations that will set out programmes for different land use before Third Reading My second point is to agree with the sentiment already shared across the House about ensuring that we have world-class standards for British food and drink and for our environment. I expect further measures to be proposed in Committee to ensure that that is the case My final and main point is to encourage the Government to use the opportunity of leaving the EU to allow a "buy British" policy in food procurement for the public sector.
Agriculture Bill — House of Commons, 2020-02-03
Topic: Agriculture
Fay Alicia Jones (Conservative, Centre-right): I congratulate all those who have made maiden speeches, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Virginia Crosbie): a hearty llongyfarchiadau—congratulations—to her. I am delighted to have the opportunity to speak in this debate and represent the many beef and sheep farmers in my constituency Now that the debate on leaving the European Union is over and the sky still has not fallen in, as was promised, we can begin an incredibly exciting chapter for our farming sector. We have been part of a common agricultural policy that has all too often acted like a straitjacket on UK farming. I know just how tight that straitjacket is, having been part of the UK Government’s negotiating team during the last CAP reform when we tried to work with the European Commission on the greening requirements—a particularly awkward piece of legislation that meant that farmers would lose 30% of their direct payment if they did not plant three different crop varieties. The Minister made excellent representations to the European Commission, but we were still prevented from implementing that policy in our own way. We are now free to design a policy that works for our farmers, our consumers and our environment, and that is the real prize at stake Tackling climate change is a priority. We need farmers on our side if we are to make any progress. Farmers are a small part of the problem, but an enormous part of the solution. Who else will maintain the hedgerows, watercourses and flower-rich meadows that we need and who else will steward a system based on grass-fed cattle that is part of a virtuous circle—good for our stomachs, good for our health and, above all, good for our economy As I said, I represent one of the largest beef and sheep farming constituencies, so I am here to promote the benefits of livestock farming. With six in Brecon and Radnorshire, we have more livestock markets than supermarkets, so it is incredibly important that we maintain a future for the livestock industry. This Bill gives livestock farmers the space they need to continue to deliver for the natural environment while producing world-class food I endorse the comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd West (Mr Jones) on the Bill’s reference to the red meat levy sector, which irons out an imbalance that is having a negative impact on farmers in my constituency in mid-Wales I also welcome the commitment to tackle unfair trading practices in the food supply chain. Farmers are very much price takers, not price makers, and it is essential to give them the tools to stand up to retail power, building on the excellent work of the Groceries Code Adjudicator Much of the Bill will not apply to my constituents in Brecon and Radnorshire as it relates to a devolved matter. While I fully respect the devolution settlement, I hope that the Welsh Government will copy this Government’s ambition.
Agriculture Bill — House of Commons, 2020-02-03
Topic: Agriculture
Felicia Jane Beatrix Drummond (Conservative, Centre-right): I start by welcoming the Bill. The core tenet of the common agricultural policy—subsidising farming—is vital. Farming is one of our fundamental industries, and it needs our support I ask the Minister to touch on two areas of detail. The first is the balance between environmental protection and food production. The focus on the environment will help tackle climate change, reduce pollution and make us a healthier, happier, more sustainable country. However, we need to make sure that all our countryside organisations are working together collaboratively. Much of the Meon Valley is in the South Downs national park; I would be grateful for some indication of how the Glover report will impact on the environmental land management schemes for farmers in Meon Valley I am glad that this version of the Bill will introduce a reporting requirement on food security. Will the Minister explain in more detail how the Government will ensure that they get the balance right between the environment and food production, and how the funding available will reflect that My second issue is how targets will be set for farms, both individually and on a national level, for the public goods that we wish them to produce. Farmers need clarity and an articulated, joined-up agenda that makes it easy for them to plan for the long term. How will the Government ensure that individual farmers are advised on and funded for the best use of their land? Is seven years enough time for farmers to adapt or should it be a 25-year timeframe, in line with the environmental plan, to allow farmers to plan for longer? Will there be national targets for, say, carbon capture, and how will those be set? If we are falling behind in a national target, will the subsidies change to reflect that? I appreciate that the Bill marks the beginning of a lengthy process, but I know that farmers would appreciate as much detail as possible Tree planting is excellent for healthier soil and absorbing carbon dioxide, but there are other carbon capture initiatives and we need to reduce pesticides. What will the targets be for improving the biodiversity of the soil, much of which is now lacking in basic nutrients? According to the Cranfield report, 80% of soil is now dead. For all farms, some environmental protections will be more viable than others. That will differ from region to region and by land type—for example, chalk, heathland, clay and so forth. Some 159 different land types have been characterised by Natural England. Will the Government reflect that in their planning and targets I look forward to hearing more over the course of this debate. I will support the Bill, which is an important step in the right direction, but I would like to know more about the balance between food production and environmental protection, and about how the targets will be set.
Agriculture Bill — House of Commons, 2020-02-03
Topic: Agriculture
William David Wiggin (Conservative, Centre-right): This is an excellent Bill, and I am delighted to support it. I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests This Bill is the gateway to the future for an exciting and vibrant agricultural sector. I am particularly delighted that the Bill will allow financial assistance to the shepherds in my constituency, who I have been worried about. I like the direct payment element, although sadly there is more enthusiasm in the drafting of the Bill for cuts than for increases; I hope Ministers will keep an eye on that, although there are powers to modify the scheme as and when. There is an element of in-lieu payments, which is welcome for retiring farmers, although I suspect that death duties on agricultural land will delay that policy The food security element is vital, of course, to our whole population. The Bill is the perfect example of how Parliament should behave on a matter of national importance. The Government have not created a quango, as they seek to do in the Environment Bill—this Bill is a far better way of legislating. The elements on exceptional market conditions and fair dealing for food chain participants are welcome I am slightly worried about the red meat levy, because of course I care very much about native breeds, provision for which in the Bill is welcome. However, as with "pasture-fed", there is an issue with the definition of what native breeds are—pedigree or cross-bred. The figure of 51% is not adequate: we need to amend that part of DEFRA legislation to ensure that pasture herd farmers are getting the rewards that they richly deserve. As the National Trust found, grass-fed beef production does not just reduce greenhouse gas emissions; when carbon sequestration and storage are considered, it is actually a carbon net gain. The nonsense from the hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies), who intervened earlier, should be put to one side. The bit of the Bill that encourages organic production should be welcomed. This excellent Bill is good for my constituents, good for their food and great for our country.
Agriculture Bill — House of Commons, 2020-02-03
Topic: Agriculture
Robert Joseph Roberts (Conservative, Centre-right): As part of the all-party group on skills, I shall practise the skill of squeezing an eight-minute speech into three In leaving the EU, we have the opportunity to rewrite the book on agricultural policy, and rewrite it we have; this Bill is potentially the biggest victory for nature in a generation. Farmland occupies more than 70% of the UK’s landmass, and with more than 450,000 farmers in the UK, it is vital that we recognise the stark benefits that this Bill has over the CAP. It means that farmers are rid of the old, ineffectual direct payments system, which meant that some of our largest producers may actually have ended up worse off. The CAP’s method of rewarding farmers on the basis of land size unsustainably increases rents and land costs, while forcing farmers to use as much land as possible for production. Put simply, a farmer who gets funding on the basis of land size will cover their land in crops, whereas one who gets funding on the basis of their contribution to a better environment can use parts of their land to allow wildlife and natural habitats to grow; agriculture is, sadly, a contributor to biodiversity loss The "State of Nature" report by the National Trust found that 41% of species have experienced decline since 1970 and about a third of wild bee populations are decreasing, much to the frustration of my constituent Jonathan Thomas, who has a business producing local honey. Jon got in touch with me recently regarding this Bill, in the hope that it would produce a fairer system for farmers that incentivised them to promote biodiversity and assist in stemming the tide of this massive loss of bees I am sure we can all agree, perhaps some slightly more than others, that British food is among the best in the world, and people recognise that globally. We are opening up a new world of opportunities. Now that we can trade on our own terms and are no longer bound by Brussels, those on the world stage who see the results of what our farmers can do will flock to us for their carrots, peas and sprouts, and of course our wonderful Welsh lamb. They will see the UK as the agricultural giant that we in this country know we are. This Bill removes the restrictions on our farming and offers more money—the right money—to our farmhands With all this in mind, it is vital that any future trade deals that we have complement this Bill and allow us to both grow and import food to our own standards. As our soil quality and animal welfare standards increase, so does the quality of our foods and our meats. Do we not then deserve to have a like-for-like selection when we trade with other nations? Is it fair that our farmers are to put in the work and the effort to produce the best they possibly can when some of our trading partners are not meeting the commitments that we require of our own? All things that belong in future trade deals—