Farming Profitability

Question

As we are all sleeping in or children are opening their stockings on this Christmas morning, farmers in Teesdale and Weardale will be up tending to their sheep and cows, and we thank them for that. At the moment only 25% of subsidies go to just 4% of farms. Smaller upland farms have done particularly badly under the transition. Will the Secretary of State meet a delegation of farmers from my constituency in the new year to hear their wisdom?

Question

No farmers, no food. That is why I believe it is imperative that we support our farmers. After the last Conservative Government sold out British farmers with their substandard trade deals with New Zealand and Australia, what exactly are this Government doing to ensure that our farmers can get their products on to international shelves and grow their businesses abroad?

Question

Obviously, one of the biggest challenges to farming profitability is the market fact that farmers are price takers. The farming campaigner Olly Harrison was this week highlighting that Lidl and Aldi are selling carrots at 8p per kilo, well below the cost of production. What is the Secretary of State doing to ensure that when supermarkets sell under the cost of production, that cost is borne by the supermarkets, not the farmers?

Question

Here we are at the 11th hour on the very last day before Parliament rises for Christmas and the Secretary of State has left it until now to publish Baroness Batters’ profitability review —48 days since it was handed to her. She has tactically left it buried in her Department until well after the Budget and purposely until after the crucial Finance Bill vote earlier this week, in which 333 Labour MPs backed the implementation of the family farm tax—all in the knowledge that whatever the recommendations in the profitability review, the Government’s financial assault on our farmers was locked in. What message does that say to our hard-working farmers?

Question

If farm profitability is so important to the Government, I find it utterly peculiar that the review was released only today as a written statement at the last minute. It is an insult to this House and indeed the excellent Baroness Batters herself. England is now the only country in the UK, and indeed in Europe, that does not provide financial support to its farmers. Will the Secretary of State tell us whether food security will be counted as a public good, as the Liberal Democrats propose, and funded through environmental land management schemes? When will the SFI be reopened, and how much money will be in it?