Aphra Brandreth

My right hon. Friend always makes such pertinent points. I know the importance he places on issues surrounding food security: he works extremely hard to highlight the challenges that farmers face all around them, and to ensure that they get a fair price from suppliers. Mental health problems are also more prevalent in agricultural communities because of the volatility of farming. Farmers do not enjoy the luxury of stability and are vulnerable to shocks such as adverse weather and flooding, health issues within herds, such as bovine tuberculosis, and economic problems. Agricultural policy ought to create stability for farmers, not more uncertainty. I will speak more about that issue shortly. There are many reasons why rural mental health is disproportionately worse, but I hope that the three I have mentioned give the House an idea of why I secured this debate. I have three asks of the Government; I hope that the Minister will be receptive and will commit to working alongside colleagues across the House and within Government to make real progress. My first request is that the Government take an integrated approach. I humbly suggest to the Minister that that has been an issue with recent Government policy, particularly in relation to agricultural property relief. Ministers in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs should have been in the room when the decision was made to change APR. If they were in the room, their priority and their plea to the Treasury should have been the impact on family farms, food security and the local economy. DEFRA Ministers should also be involved in many cross-governmental discussions. We need a joined-up approach whereby farmers and the rural community are consistently represented by Ministers who have their best interests at heart. Only then can we hope to see a policy that does not cause the agricultural community more concern, leading to further uncertainty and exacerbating the challenges. The decision on APR has once again brought rural mental health to the forefront. We have seen too many tragic stories in the papers. I hope that this is a wake-up call to the Government to start taking rural policy seriously, and not see farmers as a community to exploit. My second ask of the Minister is that a specific strategy be put in place for young people who live in rural communities. Statistics show a significant uptick in mental health problems among young people, particularly after the pandemic, but many of the problems that I have outlined as compounding factors making rural mental health worse are even more prominent among younger people. Research conducted by Yellow Wellies shows that 95% of farmers under 40 believe that mental health is the biggest hidden problem facing farmers today. That is a shockingly high statistic. We know that there is a shortage of young people entering the agricultural sector. That shortage is very often driven by the isolation of rural areas and by the lack of opportunity. If we want the countryside to thrive and farming to be a successful and attractive sector, we must do more to support young people. An important part of that is making sure that their mental health is in as good a place as it can be, so I ask the Minister to reassure the House that this will be a priority for him, and to meet me and representatives from the Cheshire Young Farmers’ Clubs to discuss how the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs can better understand the mental health pressures on young people in rural areas. My final ask is that we make sure that farmers are at the centre of policy decisions that relate to rural areas and the agricultural sector. The ask is simple but very necessary. When the Government are formulating policy, I urge them to think of its implications and consequences. I ask them to think about the motivations behind the policy, and to remind themselves of the motivations behind our farmers’ work. They are motivated by service to our country, by providing food and caring for our countryside, and by being part of their local community, supporting friends and family, and working to support the local economy. Farmers are part of the fabric of our country, the backbone of local economies and stalwarts in our communities. When Ministers feed into policy, I ask that they remember that and reflect the values of the rural and agricultural communities. If Ministers do that, we can go a long way towards improving mental health in areas where that is so desperately needed.