Upland Farming — House of Commons, 2015-06-01
Topic: Agriculture
Ian Richard Peregrine Liddell-Grainger (Conservative, Centre-right): My constituency is the home of the stag hounds and some of the finest shoots in Britain. I have, I think, 11 packs in my constituency and I assure the hon. Gentleman that shooting, hunting and fishing put an enormous amount back into my constituency, as is also the case in my hon. Friend the Minister’s constituency of Penrith and The Border. If there was ever a reason for repealing a ridiculous Act, this may be the time to do so. I thank the hon. Gentleman and hope he will join us in the beautiful Exmoor to ride to hounds Hundreds of thousands of visitors come to Exmoor every year. Hill farming is the driver for wealth creation across whole swathes of our rural economy. Diversification has become a necessity on moorland, encouraged by Governments and imaginative implementation by farmers who will turn their hands to anything legal to keep going. It is, of course, a case of having to do so. Many hill farmers will never break even on farming activity alone. They know it, we know it and I know the Minister knows it, but the burning issue for us all is how to achieve a financial solution that persuades farmers to continue doing what they have always done Personally, I am not convinced—I am interested to hear the Minister’s views on this—that we have got this right. I hope that we will hear a much more joined-up approach now that this country is being run by our one-party Government. We should strive to achieve an outcome that compensates farmers fairly for the efforts they make preserving, protecting and looking after our landscape Some of the hill farmers I meet have become embittered about the system—with some cause. It is, after all, a minefield of baffling bureaucracy with ever-changing subsidies all packaged in deliberately confusing names which keep altering without much warning. Even the most basic subsidy—I am going to go into acronyms, I am sorry—the SPS, or single payment scheme, has now been renamed the BPS to remind the world that it is just a basic payment subsidy. The poor old farmers, however, have to put up with much worse Does anybody remember the HLCAs—hill livestock compensatory allowances—which were paid to farmers to look after the land? They were simplified and replaced by the HFAs—hill farm allowances—but just as we were getting used to HFAs, they were killed off and turned into UELS, which, as everyone knows, stands for the upland entry level stewardship scheme. Don’t bother to write this down: it’s too late and I really can’t go on too much longer with this The same thing happened to ESAs—environmentally sensitive areas—but probably not for long, as some of these things tend to come back rebranded with different initials. We are going to be talking about something called CS, which is countryside stewardship. That is fine, but we have been getting used to the CSS, which is the same thing but with an extra S stuck on the end. I do hope everyone is taking this in; I will, of course, be asking questions at the end A hill farmer in an SDA or LFA who used to be paid an HLCA which turned into an HFA which then became a UELS or perhaps an ESA and is about to transform itself into the CS has probably been tearing out their hair, or what is left of it, for years. Every one of those schemes comes with complex forms which are to be filled in before—dare I say it?—a single euro changes hands and ends up in the farmer’s pocket I did a quick trawl on the internet to try to list the number of different schemes and rules that come under the CAP—common agricultural policy—and can see how it would drive anyone batty. I do not have to get up at 5 o’clock in the morning and run a farm in a bleak climate, or rely on subsidies to put food on my family’s breakfast table, to find that out Most hill farmers will tell us that this is a nightmare system. It is like trying to play soccer with both legs tied together and then finding that Sepp Blatter has shifted the goalposts again. The Minister should not be alarmed. I do not hold him personally responsible—he has only been here two minutes. The muddle is caused by a basic conflict between trying to help farmers and looking after the natural world at the same time. This is where common sense starts to break down As I have mentioned, the major funding that farmers get is the SPS, which is known now as the BPS. It amounts to roughly £200 per hectare, but to claim the cash the farmer has to have the land in good agricultural and environmental condition—or, believe it or not, GAEC—among the compulsory standards for which is: "Avoiding the encroachment of unwanted vegetation on agricultural land" That means that if a farmer wants more money, they have to keep wild weeds in check, presumably by towing cutting gear over the land, which is an awful lot easier said than done if they live and farm on Exmoor—it is a hill For decades, farmers have managed the moor by burning off gorse and heather in the spring. It is one of the oldest methods known to man. It fertilises the soil with ash, provides new growth for livestock grazing and prevents raging summer fires that could destroy the soil and lead to erosion. But guess what? Natural England came along and told farmers they were getting it wrong and burning too much. A restriction order was placed at the whim of one official, whose views were based on a practice in—dare I say it, seeing that my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr Goodwill) is on the Front Bench?—North Yorkshire. The problem is that vegetation grows far more rapidly on Exmoor, which is why it has to be burned regularly. I mean no disrespect: we are a few months ahead. The result of such interference is that parts of the moor now sprout 10-foot gorse. It is far too tall to be burned safely, so it has to be chopped mechanically, with no soil benefits whatsoever. It makes the area look—I would happily entertain my hon. Friend the Minister on Exmoor—as though a small thermonuclear bomb has just gone off, and it costs us a fortune All that is very hard for any farmer whose family has been managing the same piece of countryside for five or six generations. Just as one example, farmers have been told that they are not doing enough to protect butterflies and beetles, so they have been lumbered with more controls. I do not think that farmers go around wilfully vandalising fauna or flora—I have never met one who does, and nobody else in the House has; farmers love to see it as much as any of us, which is why they farm—but we cannot expect them to be full-time guardians of the countryside for next to nothing The problem is that subsidies have not kept pace with the growing list of environmental responsibilities. That is one of the main conclusions of an important academic study produced by the Exmoor Hill Farming Network. I commend that excellent organisation to the House. It wants the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to invest in a thorough analysis of beef and sheep chains to try to secure better prices for producers. How often have we been here before? It is also after a complete review of the current level of support to these farmers to analyse the implications of "social exclusion and mental ill-health" The Minister will already know from his own experience of hill farming how desolate and lonely it can be I accept that there are no quick fixes, but I have to wonder about the sense of moving too fast to achieve some of DEFRA’s more bizarre ambitions of reducing farmers’ reliance on subsidies. It may be a good aim, but it surely cannot be done until alternative solutions and sources of income can be guaranteed. I extend a warm invitation to the Minister to visit our beautiful part of the world. As I have said, I would love to host him I offer one caution. Almost 400 years ago, Exmoor was just a filthy piece of barren ground. That is what the writer Daniel Defoe called it. Robinson Crusoe would not give it a second look; he had gone to his desert island. But then came the farmers and—guess what?—they tamed the land. They continue to do so. If upland farmers ever called it a day, who would look after Exmoor? Why would the tourists bother to come? What would happen to the hundreds of rural businesses that we depend on to keep it the way it is? One farmer put it to me rather simply. "All I want," he said, "is a level playing field"—then he winked—"but please don’t tell FIFA to design it."