British Livestock Farming

Part of Opposition Day – in the House of Commons at 9:10 pm on 21 April 1999.

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Photo of David Curry David Curry Conservative, Skipton and Ripon 9:10, 21 April 1999

The crisis may be cyclical, but from the perspective of the uplands, it seems permanently installed. One might say, "Well, so what? Other jobs come along; agriculture always changes; there is always an exodus from agriculture", but I am afraid that it is different in the uplands. There are not an easy recourse, a fail-safe mechanism, a new industry or any sunrise jobs there. Investment is difficult; it does not flow readily. The region is remote and there is no availability of sites. There is poor transport, and there are poor levels of skills and—certainly in North Yorkshire—national park constraints. We understand the designation of areas of natural beauty, but they none the less make investment more difficult.

The average gross domestic product per capita in North Yorkshire is 79.5 per cent. of the European average. The area has the lowest wage rates in the region. In the uplands, the figure is 63 per cent.—so low that, if it were Liverpool, it would meet objective 1 criteria for European Union assistance. Agriculture provides 18 per cent. of employment in the North Yorkshire uplands and 35 per cent. in the two national parks. Subsidy accounts for the entire net farm income. Tourism adds perhaps 30 per cent., but both agriculture and tourism—and, I might add, care of the elderly, which is the unseen industry in much of the countryside—are low-wage, cyclical and seasonal. Off-farm income is absolutely crucial.

Half the farmers are more than 50 years old, half in the less-favoured areas have no family successor and two thirds have no formal qualifications. What is more, demography is against the dales; the population is changing. There are fewer people under 40 years old and, relatively speaking, more elderly people in the dales. So we have a sparse and ageing population. In addition, a quarter of them have no access to a private car. What I have said of the Yorkshire dales would be true of uplands across the United Kingdom.

That is the context of the agricultural crisis. We are faced in the uplands not just with a crisis industry but a crisis of society. One might say, "So what? Ways of life change, people have no right to be able to preserve a way of life indefinitely." But let us remember the fragility and vulnerability of the environment that we keep saying we want to save. On the 50th anniversary of the national parks, perhaps the Minister will remember, when he looks at his White Paper and his reviews, that those national parks were set up to try to maintain something very precious to the nation. That very preciousness is under threat at the moment.

There is action that the Government can take; I want to try to be constructive. First, objective 5b areas will be replaced by objective 2 status and its rural strand. The Government have the task of designating the populations which will fall within that. I hope that they will designate the whole of the population that is currently covered by the 5b areas of the Yorkshire uplands as objective 2 rural strand status, so that we may secure a stream of support for that important rural development.

Secondly, I hope that the Minister for the Regions, Regeneration and Planning will ensure that the regional development agencies recognise the genuine needs of the countryside in their programmes, and not the sometimes more evident needs of the inner city, which I would not want to deny. Thirdly, in reviewing long-term local government funding, will the Government take into account the needs of sparse and unskilled populations?

Although the situation in agriculture is desperate, there are things that the Government can do to help. There is no point in pretending that the Berlin agreement was anything other than a disaster. The Minister made an heroic effort in negotiating the deal, which he might not have thought was as good as he wanted, but which none the less just about held together. That has been undermined. It is ridiculous to say that it is a starting point for World Trade Organisation talks or enlargement. That is simply not sustainable.

Milk quotas have plunged into long-term uncertainty. I hope that the purdah attendant on local, regional and European elections will not mean that the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry has absolutely nothing to say about the milk issue for the foreseeable future. That would pile another uncertainty on top of an existing one. Farmers are getting 18p or 19p a litre and the net returns per cow are about £40 at the moment. That is simply not a sustainable livelihood.

Under the Berlin agreement, we have the new national envelopes. We need to know, as soon as possible, how they will be allocated and, in particular, how that will play within the new regional framework that is developing in the United Kingdom. The shift from headage payments to area payments is a complex business, but the Minister will want to make sure that there is no major disruption in the pattern of that support and that no one has a cliff edge off which they have to fall.

The importance of the beef export trade has been emphasised and we must start to think about how we move beyond the 30-month scheme with the measures that are in place and the agrimonetary compensation to which the Minister has referred. People in the pig industry are losing money. The road to bankruptcy used to be gambling, women or drink, but there is now a short-cut to it—raising pigs.

The Minister said something very important—[Interruption.] I should like him to pay attention to the point that I want to make. He said that the world trade round should take welfare standards into account and I want to be sure that that is Government policy, because it is an important statement. If welfare standards—as well as environmental standards and labour market conditions—were taken into account, the upcoming world trade round would be wholly different from previous ones. To what extent do the Government believe that the chemistry for this trade round is different from that which we have traditionally encountered?

I welcome the Minister's review of the various burdens on industry and I hope that he will conclude it rapidly. I will not, therefore, add my name to the telephone directory of my constituents who have specific complaints on that issue—they have been recited—but I ask him to consider one matter: the groundwater directive, which is causing serious difficulties in the uplands.

The directive concerns the disposal of sheep dip. The Environment Agency charges—the licence fee and the annual charge—are quite heavy. Such straws are small, but their cumulative effect is serious. I hope that the Minister will add that matter to his review and will perhaps consider veterinary inspections, which are now being applied to the export of live animals. I say to the Parliamentary Secretary that, whether people like that trade or not, it is economically important, given the state of the sheep industry, and it underpins what is left of the sector's buoyancy. Such measures may have a rationale in themselves, but their cumulative effect causes difficulties in these circumstances.

If the Government have to produce a financial fiche for their proposals and an environmental impact assessment, I should welcome a level playing field assessment, which would be of great assistance to us all. I hope that the Minister will consider what he can do practically. He said that he will review charges—I welcome that—and I hope that he will urge his colleagues involved in rural development and competition, and those in his own Department who are involved in the implementation of the Berlin agreement, to consult frankly and introduce new measures rapidly. This crisis is not one of the moment; it is beginning to unstitch the whole of rural society.

I know from my own experience that the problems of cities are evident, obvious and striking. Countryside problems are often hidden, unspoken and borne in a grim, personal way. However, they need attention just as badly. We have a resilient and independent society, but there is a real danger that it will soon be unable to cope any more.