Jamie Stone

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) on opening the debate and on the thoughtful and knowledgeable speech he made. I also compliment Members on both sides of the Chamber for what they have said. I was brought up on a farm. I was the wee boy who shooed the cows home to the faraway field. I represent the biggest constituency in the UK. I have an awful lot of farms and crofts in my constituency. Farming is part of our way of life. It is about the food we eat. It is about the fight against climate change. It is about our heritage and, in constituencies such as mine, it is about the tourism economy. The change of Government has been difficult before. Brexit did not help—we all know that argument—and botched trade deals have not helped either. Much has been said about the taxation, and I will not repeat it, but I will remark on one thing that has been said, which is that land prices in the Six Counties of Northern Ireland are much higher than in other parts of the United Kingdom, so the effect of the taxation will be rather larger there. To compound this, cuts to DEFRA’s day-to-day spending mean that many family farms and rural businesses will struggle. That is why my party is saying that we should raise the farming budget by £1 billion. If we can do that, perhaps we can help. We want to see a renegotiation of trade agreements to protect British farmers and a strengthening of the Groceries Code Adjudicator.