Sir Alec Shelbrooke

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Harris. I congratulate the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Pippa Heylings) on securing this important debate. For any of us with a farming constituency, there is no doubt what a difficult year this has been. Drought has led to lower yields, especially in arable farming—I have a mix of arable and animal farming in my constituency. When we talk about lower yields, we are not just talking about grain or the size of potatoes; we are talking about things like straw. The stalks have been much shorter this year, which will have a knock-on effect. And that is on the back of a very wet year last year, which created its own problems. There is no doubt that the farming industry is under enormous pressure. Sustainable farming is an important process that has been supported by many Governments across many countries in many different ways. I will discuss climate change and what we need to do on renewables, but we must also recognise that, although there are appropriate places to put solar farms, it is not appropriate to put them on good-quality farming land. I am constantly fighting solar farms on farming land in the Vale of York in my constituency that is very productive but is now being sold off for solar farms. There has to be a balance between what we are trying to achieve in moving to renewable energy and what we have to achieve in sustainable farming. The Liberal Democrats are quick to attack the Conservatives, but I remind them that it was Nick Clegg who stood at the Dispatch Box and cancelled a nuclear power station project, saying: “I am not willing to spend money on things that will not happen until 2022.”