John Cooper

Food security is national security, as the mantra from the Government Benches goes. Yet the reality, I am afraid, is that it is much spun and little done. The family farm tax sent a chill through my rural Dumfries and Galloway constituency and underscored yet again the disconnect between this urban-centric Government and rural Britain. Now we have the fertiliser tax coming along and again, like the family farm tax, it is deeply flawed. In fact, we had an admission that the family farm tax was deeply flawed from a former Government Minister who pressed its case in this House—incredible! On the price of fuel, there has been much back slapping about the cuts to duty for red diesel. That is certainly helpful, but the reality is that red diesel is up by as much as 60%, and that is an enormous input cost for farmers. It is a big difficulty as well for the fishing sector. I have asked the Fisheries Minister if he will convene a meeting with the fishermen, because British boats are afraid to put to sea when French boats are able to access finance from the French Government to fish in British waters. Funding in Scotland, as we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont), is devolved for farming and agriculture. However, we have also seen in Scotland the SNP Government exercising sleight of hand with the agricultural budget. Money that was intended for farming— supposedly ringfenced—magically disappeared, only to reappear. That is not good enough. Devolve and forget is the order of the day with this Government. We must have more accuracy about what is going on in Scotland. The block grant and the Barnett consequentials go north. This place should have some say in what goes on there. The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) opened this debate with his usual paean to the EU. The EU funding settlement is changing and the envelope under the common agricultural policy is shrinking, such that farmers in Ireland are protesting about it. I can assure the House that the farmers in Dumfries and Galloway are in no hurry at all to return to the EU and the idea of a shrinking common agricultural policy.