Sadik Al-Hassan

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Turner. My constituency is built on the backs of family farms that I have visited, many of them run by the same family for generations. I have had the privilege of sitting around kitchen tables with farmers and the NFU, and I hear the same thing time and again: making a profit from growing food in this country is almost impossible. However, North Somerset farmers do not do this job for the money; they do it as a way of life, and with the hope—often a distant one—that one day prices will allow them, or their children, to make a decent living from this land. I warmly welcome the long-term farming road map published today and the Government’s response to the Baroness Batters review. I also welcome the action on supply chain fairness and the transfer of the Groceries Code Adjudicator to DEFRA. That matters because farmers need a fair price. As a member of the Labour rural research group, I asked the Minister, as this road map is delivered, to keep welfare labelling firmly in view. It could put an extra £60 million into farmers’ pockets. LRRG research suggests British farmers are losing out by as much as half a billion pounds, undercut by lower-welfare imports. A mandatory tiered labelling system would build on the excellent foundations laid today. Farmers in North Somerset have waited a long time for a Government willing to back them with a genuine plan. Today, they have one.