Carla Lockhart

I absolutely agree. Maybe the Minister can elaborate on that. I have never been convinced that the answer to the disenfranchisement of Northern Ireland is the disenfranchisement of Great Britain. How can laws made elsewhere, without the United Kingdom having a vote on them, be the right basis for governing our farming industry? Some changes applying to Northern Ireland barely attract scrutiny. The Windsor Framework (Retail Movement Scheme: Plant Health) (Amendment) Regulations 2026 changed requirements in Great Britain to match those already applying in Northern Ireland. Parliament was considering legislation for GB, while the corresponding requirements in Northern Ireland were already a fact of life. That is no way to treat part of our own country. We should also remember the freedoms denied to Northern Ireland farmers. England has legislation to allow precision breeding. Work is progressing on cattle TB vaccinations in Great Britain, while Northern Ireland remains subject to the EU prohibition. Since 1 January, retailers in Great Britain have been unable to supply veterinary medicines directly to Northern Ireland. Other supply arrangements remain, but farmers have lost an established route for obtaining medicines from the rest of their own country. There are also differences in the rules governing mycotoxins in cereals and additional requirements on organic production. Those are practical matters affecting what farmers can use and produce and the cost. I want Ministers to look again at properly enforced trusted traders schemes for goods crossing the land border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, protecting the EU market through targeted controls on goods entering it and allowing trade within the United Kingdom without these barriers. Extending rule taking to Great Britain does not restore Northern Ireland’s voice. We should be protecting the freedoms secured through Brexit and ensuring that Northern Ireland’s farmers can benefit from them, too. At the end of the day, this debate is about domestic farming and food supply, yet in Northern Ireland so many of the laws governing our agrifood industry are made by the European Union, with no vote for those we elect and no ability to change the laws. How can Ministers talk about securing our domestic food supply while accepting that part of our country must take its agriculture rules from elsewhere? Northern Ireland’s farmers help to feed the United Kingdom and deserve the same democratic voice in the decisions affecting their livelihoods as farmers elsewhere. All these pressures fall on the same businesses: rising costs, disease, planning difficulties, barriers to trade and uncertainty over whether the next generation will face a tax bill it cannot afford. Ministers may deal with those issues separately; the farmer has to deal with them all at once. That is why tomorrow’s Budget matters so much. The Chancellor has an opportunity to restore confidence, release investment and give farming families some certainty about the future. I will continue to speak up for the farmers of Upper Bann, Northern Ireland and across the United Kingdom. They have worked hard and kept producing through some exceptionally difficult years. They have been patient and made their case and they deserve to be heard. Once a family farm is broken up, it is not easily put back together. Once a young person walks away from farming, we may never get them back. We cannot keep weakening the industry, assuming there will always be someone else to carry it on. Scrap the family farm tax, let farmers invest, give the next generation a reason to stay: no farmers, no food, no future.