Dave Robertson

What a pleasure it is to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Twigg. I thank the hon. Member for Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe (David Chadwick) for securing this debate on such an important issue. I spent the whole of last Monday during the recess visiting farms across my constituency, from the edge of Lichfield all the way up to Kingstone. Several of the dairy farmers I met last week raised with me, independently and without prompting, the need to see dairy processors covered by the groceries supply code of practice. Independently, they said that one of the things that we can do to encourage and improve profitability in dairy farming is to ensure that the code is applied to those processors—the middlemen who buy their milk from the farmers and sell it on to supermarkets. The code is designed to ensure that farmers get a fair deal, but because it applies only to those retailers with an annual turnover of £1 billion or more, the 14 biggest supermarkets are covered but some third parties that supply the supermarkets are not in its scope. British farmers, whether they are dairy farmers or from any other part of the industry where there are different processes, must get that fair deal. That is what the code and the adjudicator were set up to establish, and we should ensure that we carry that forwards so that every single farmer gets a fair deal. One thing that strikes me is that the NFU’s call to expand the coverage of the code by decreasing the turnover limit from £1 billion would mean that a lot of those processes would be covered. I am interested to hear the Minister’s remarks on that, because that is a non-fiscal intervention we can make that can drive profitability significantly in the farming sector and support the people who feed the nation.