Tim Farron

It is a genuine joy to serve under your guidance, Dr Murrison. I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton) not just for her good speech, but for securing this important debate. I pay tribute to my hon. Friends the Members for Chichester (Jess Brown-Fuller), Glastonbury and Somerton (Sarah Dyke) and South Cotswolds (Dr Savage), as well as the hon. Members for South West Norfolk (Terry Jermy), North East Hertfordshire (Chris Hinchliff) and Cannock Chase (Josh Newbury), all of whom made excellent contributions and made this a really thoughtful, worthwhile debate. I hope I have not missed anybody out. I also welcome the Minister. It is possibly the first time she has addressed Westminster Hall in her current role as the new Minister; I welcome her and look forward to many exchanges. Britain is not secure unless it is food secure. The right hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills made a really important point when she quoted the former MI5 director general Baroness Manningham-Buller. I have an additional quote from her: “The more self-sufficient we are as a nation, the better our ability to withstand price spikes, geopolitical shocks and instability around the world. The truth is, we are moving in the wrong direction”. She is sadly right, and that is horrific. Various figures have been bandied around, but DEFRA’s own figures show that in 1984, the UK was 78% self-sufficient. If DEFRA is right, we are now no better than 65 %; the NFU’s figure is more like 60%, and I think that I am more likely to believe it. Either way, there is clearly a massive decline in our self-sufficiency. It is vital that our land use policy ensures that we produce the food that Britain needs. Leaving the European Union perhaps held one single, solitary silver lining: that we would leave the common agricultural policy and be able to set out on our own with something a lot less counterproductive. Yet even that silver lining turned darker, and the last Conservative Government must take responsibility. They are singularly culpable for ignoring our farming communities, taking their votes for granted, and completely botching the transition to the new environmental land management scheme. Nobody knows—and I could not say—whether they did that harm to our farmers by accident or design, but outrageously, we now have an agricultural policy that actively disincentivises the production of food. That is madness. We must reverse that damage, because that figure for self-sufficiency will only further decrease unless we take radical action. At the heart of the food security problem is the counterproductive transition from the old payment scheme. Conservative and now Labour Governments have persisted with the same flawed approach—a stop-start payment system that leaves farmers unable to plan even a year ahead, even though farming demands planning cycles over years or even generations. Farmers are being asked to make long-term decisions about land use, stock numbers, crop planting and environmental improvements based on schemes that change suddenly, launch late, or simply close with no warning. The sustainable farming incentive is a prime and awful example. In March this year, farmers were one day being encouraged to apply, then the next day, the door was slammed shut. It is still shut.