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Showing every spoken contribution, including 12,832 under 12 words. Hide short remarks
I have met with a lot of farmers since the deadline closed, and there is an overwhelming feeling of anxiety, but because they are practical the main thing they want to know is that we are going to learn the lessons of this. Could my hon. Friend please let me know what lessons we will learn and how we will move forward on that basis?
I hear what the Minister says, but a generation of young people are growing up in the shadow of a growing climate crisis. Countless constituents have written to me setting out their concern—a concern that I share—about this decision and a potential decision on Rosebank. Can the Minister say more about how the energy wealth fund will support this Labour Government’s mission to tackle the climate crisis and drive net zero? What can he say to reassure my constituents, many of whom are coming to my climate and nature town hall at the end of this month?
As an Anglican, there is a little bit of me that would always like to see an Anglican as Prime Minister, but I recognise that that is not always desirable or possible. In fact, despite the historical measures relating to Catholic emancipation that we have discussed today, of course Roman Catholicism never did go away. Catholics practised their faith in private, often in fear of their life. The secret of the success of the Church of England is that it is the original broad church. Even within the Anglican communion, there are people who hold a whole variety of views, and allowing our Prime Minister, a Roman Catholic, to perform his constitutional function of advising the monarchy is very much in keeping with that tradition. A week last Sunday, I attended the High Sheriff’s legal service at Derby cathedral. It was for Dr Syed Yusuf Iftikhar, an NHS consultant who came from Pakistan and served for over 40 years in the NHS. It brought together people from different faith communities, and was led by the Dean of Derby, the Very Rev. Peter Robinson, but we had representatives from the Muslim, Sikh and Hindu faiths. That is the Church of England at its best, particularly at a time when we see division in our society. We have talked about antisemitism today, but recently we have unfortunately seen racist aspects to our political parties here. The Church of England has an excellent role to play in bringing communities together, and many of us will see that on Remembrance Sunday next month.
Yes, I agree with the hon. Gentleman that the Church of England is strengthened by bringing in more voices. It often does that already through the use of ecumenical canons in some cathedrals. The Bill is a step forward that will ensure that the Church brings in those perspectives, which will strengthen its hand in the future and bring our communities together in the way that it does so well. I thank the Minister for bringing this legislation to the House. It is an important step forward. I wish the Prime Minister well—from an Anglican to a Catholic—as he takes forward the important constitutional role of advising the monarch on the future leaders of the Church of England.
I hope that we will be appointing Anglican bishops and not bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church if the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage) becomes Prime Minister.
The important thing for the Father of the House to remember is that the Anglican Church is not like the Roman Catholic Church; we would not send a Protestant representative to the conclave to pick a pope. We are talking about the state Church of this country, which is answerable to Parliament, and the Prime Minister, as the most senior member of the Government, therefore has a role to play in advising the monarch. At the moment we have a situation in which a Hindu, such as the right hon. Member for Richmond and Northallerton (Rishi Sunak), could advise the monarch, but a Roman Catholic could not. That is why we need to move this legislation forward.
Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government could make the SFI system more accessible to farmers by publishing a timetable of when those windows will open well in advance, and circulating it so that farmers could be ready to apply when the next round arrived?
I thank Sir David Bell for his report, which is as depressing as it is unsurprising. Its finding is that antisemitism in our schools is on the rise, but we know it is rising not just in our schools, but across societies and across the world. What is perhaps most depressing is that it suggests that, if we do not take forward the recommendations, antisemitism will be embedded for generations. As the UK’s special envoy for post-Holocaust issues, I particularly welcome the recommendations on Holocaust education and on the adoption of the IHRA definition. I would like to say that it is a working definition of antisemitism. It cannot just be put on a shelf; it needs to be used. And in order for it to be effective there needs to be training for all those in our schools who are using it. Will the Secretary of State commit to supporting schools to make sure that training is provided?
I thank the hon. Lady for making such an excellent speech. Regarding the way that Royal Mail deals with complaints via email and via its website, does she agree that we as Members of the House of Commons seem to be doing a better job of identifying the problems than Royal Mail itself? Thanks to the excellent work of my brilliant team, there is a page on my website where people can plot where they live and the type of problem they have been having, which strikes me as something that Royal Mail ought to be doing itself—perhaps we should encourage it to do so.
I have been an enthusiastic supporter of the Government’s policy on developing alternative energy sources, successfully undertaken by the former Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Ed Miliband), and now incredibly skilfully developed by the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, my right hon. Friend the Member for Peckham (Miatta Fahnbulleh). We always knew that there were three key decisions that would have environmental implications, politically and physically: today’s decision on Jackdaw; the decision on Rosebank; and the decision on the third runway at Heathrow. Will the Minister take into discussions with colleagues my concern that approvals in the decision-making process for Rosebank and/or a third runway at Heathrow, could permanently damage our environmental credentials?
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell. I congratulate the hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sorcha Eastwood) on securing this debate and on making such an excellent speech. My constituents in Dartford welcome today’s debate. The performance of Royal Mail has been a running sore for many residents in Dartford and the surrounding towns and villages, and the growing delays are having a real-world impact on their lives. This is not about the hard work of staff at the Dartford delivery office. As we all know, Royal Mail has targets for local performance—in our case, it is for 87% of first-class mail to be delivered the next working day—that are palpably not being met. For the DA postcode that covers Dartford, the figure for 2025-26 was well below that at 74.6%. That is by no means the worst performance in the country but still a long way off hitting the target. Given that we know that the performance of Royal Mail in Dartford, as in most of the country, is well below that expected, I want to share one notable example of the impact. I recently received an email from the manager of the North Kent community diagnostic centre on East Hill, who has seen a significant increase in the number of patients not attending appointments, with many saying they are not receiving their appointment letters, notwithstanding the priority supposedly given to NHS correspondence. In one weekend earlier this month, almost half of the 90 patients booked in for appointments, with letters sent three weeks in advance, did not arrive. Those are people missing scans and critical tests vital for their journey to treatment and their pathway to better health. That is the real-world impact on people who are unable to receive the urgent treatment they need. What is the cause? Clearly, the changing structure of the postal and parcel market is causing problems for Royal Mail. Some of that is clearly about Ofcom’s lack of powers or ability to use them. Much of it is about the culture and management of Royal Mail. Whichever combination of those issues it is, we need the Government to address the problem and sort it out on behalf of my constituents.
I thank the hon. Member for giving way and for making such a powerful testimony about the impact of letters being lost or delayed by Royal Mail. I have been flagging up issues in the BH11, BH10 and BH9 postcodes, which are in my constituency, just as many other hon. Members here today have been flagging up issues about the postcodes in their constituencies. What concerns me most is that the Royal Mail responses to the issues we raise are at best generic and at worst deceptive. Does she agree that that is totally unacceptable and that Royal Mail needs to do better?
The hon. Member is painting a vivid picture of her constituents’ experience. I associate myself with her comments about the cast of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”. No one should be subjected to racist or homophobic abuse anywhere in the country. On the point about Selsey, Bournemouth West gets more than 10 million visitors in the summer, while Dorset police is one of the lowest funded forces in the area. We get no additional resources, and the funding formula does not adequately take into account the seasonal pressures or the rurality of the rest of the county. Does the hon. Member agree that that needs to change?
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Vaz. I wholeheartedly congratulate the hon. Member for Twickenham on bringing forward this Bill to close a clear legislative gap on child-like sexual abuse dolls, and I welcome the Government’s support. She has been a fierce champion for women and children for many years, and she should be commended for her leadership on this issue. This legislation comes at an important time, when the Government’s legislation to prohibit pornography with an actor purporting to be a child is due to come into operation on 6 November. It feels as though we are truly making steps forward to combat the environment that normalises child sexual abuse. However, I want to draw the Committee’s attention to a digital counterpart of the same harm: chatbots that simulate sexual scenarios with children. They are referred to by multiple members of the Pornography Harms Coalition, which includes CEASE, Barnardo’s, Rape Crisis and the Internet Watch Foundation, among many others, as digital sexual abuse dolls. These chatbots are more accessible, more scalable and arguably more immersive than any physical doll, and they are not clearly illegal today. The Internet Watch Foundation’s analysts have found artificial intelligence companion chatbots modelled as children that encourage users to act out specific child sexual abuse scenarios, including “child prostitute in a hotel”, “sex with your daughter while your wife is on holiday” and “child and teacher alone after class”. General purpose chatbots and companion apps are being used for interactive role play in which users actively co-produce abusive scripts. That can be text, but it can also involve visual, cartoon-like characters that narrate and reinforce the scenario. These are not isolated text exchanges; they create an immersive environment in which a user can interact with a child avatar and rehearse abusive scenarios. In some cases, the user can reach AI-generated sexual abuse images of children within a few clicks. Last year, the IWF actioned 17 reports of confirmed child sexual abuse images on those chatbots, with some depicting children as young as seven. Professor Clare McGlynn and her colleagues found that some chatbots, freely accessible to millions of users, let people role-play rape, incest and child sexual abuse. Research by Graphika cited by Professor McGlynn found a Chub AI character card with 109,000 chats depicting a grooming scenario. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism found that character.ai users could interact with characters such as “Bestie Epstein”, based on the prolific paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Under UK law, child sexual abuse material is unlawful whether it is real, AI-generated, synthetic or a hybrid. The Government accepts that AI-generated material causes comparable harm, yet a chatbot built to simulate written sexual scenarios with a child sits in a legal gap. Professor McGlynn has noted that text-only chatbots are not considered pornography under part 5 of the Online Safety Act 2023, so an incest role-play chatbot with a young girl’s avatar could fall outside its pornography duties. In July, the Government announced a ban on sexualised AI chatbots for under-18s—something that I and many here welcome. However, it is unclear what counts as a sexualised chatbot, how the ban will be enforced and what exemptions apply. It protects only under-18s, so it does nothing about an adult using a chatbot that generates written child sexual abuse scenarios. The Crime and Policing Act 2026 gave the Secretary of State power to bring AI chatbots within its scope, including illegal AI-generated content of all kinds—not only priority illegal content. However, that route helps only if the underlying conduct is actually illegal. Furthermore, no timetable has been given for either of those measures. This issue was raised by my friend Baroness Gabby Bertin in the other place during the passage of that Act. She tabled an amendment that would have made written material that glorifies sexual activity with a child a crime. That was prompted by a case reported in The Guardian of Emily, a pseudonym, whose father fantasised about, and described in detail in an online chatroom, raping and sexually abusing her as a child. Though the physical sexual abuse was never real, the trauma of its description has had a very real impact on Emily, who should have been recognised as a victim. The Crown Prosecution Service refused to prosecute, arguing that the father had no intent to deprave. Government Ministers at the time said Baroness Bertin’s amendment was unnecessary, as written child abuse content was already illegal. The relevant legislation they cited was the Obscene Publications Act 1959 and the Communications Act 2003. However, the CPS said that it was not possible to establish that the defendant in Emily’s case intended the messages to be obscene, or that he was aware when sending them that they would be considered so if seen by a reasonable member of the public.
Through the Bill, the Government have recognised the need for swift action on physical child sexual abuse, and I completely support that. I would therefore urge them to apply the same urgency to the digital equivalent.
I thank the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron), for his speech. Farming is not simply another industry. Farmers produce the food that sustains us, manage much of our countryside and underpin a wider food and drink economy. Agriculture alone contributes £14.5 billion to the economy, while the wider food and drink sector contributed £153.2 billion in 2023. That does not just matter to the economy; maintaining domestic food production to at least current levels is integral to our national security. As the Prime Minister said in this House last month, farming and food production are part of this country’s sovereign production and manufacturing capacity, which we will need to strengthen in the years to come. We will need to depend on it, and therefore we need to strengthen it—that is a clear commitment. That is why this Government are committed to backing British farmers and maintaining domestic food production to at least current levels.
I thank the hon. Member for that important question. I can confirm that the Farming Minister and other colleagues have been in active conversation with the National Pig Association and are continuing that dialogue. Our farming road map sets out a long-term direction for the sector that is more profitable, productive, sustainable and resilient, and better able to withstand climate, market and geopolitical shocks. I want to acknowledge just how difficult this year has been. The Liberal Democrat spokesperson set out the extraordinary combination of pressures that farmers have faced this year alone: drought and water shortages, reduced grass and forage growth, difficult crop conditions, and higher irrigation and feed costs. At the same time, the conflict in the middle east has put further pressure on fertiliser and fuel prices.
I will remind the hon. Member that the last UK ammonia production facility closed under the Conservatives without any Government intervention. We recognise that resilience is not evenly distributed and that some farm businesses have significantly less capacity than others to withstand those short-term shocks. The impacts of climate change and drought have been particularly severe, with more than 80% of the country now in drought. The south-east and south-west experienced their driest period from April to September in more than a century, and pressure on water resources continues despite the rain that we are seeing today. We understand what that means on our farms—less grass, lower forage growth and new crop yields, pressure on irrigation and reservoirs, greater demand for livestock water, and, ultimately, greater uncertainty about the year ahead—so we have acted. In August, we introduced a package of drought support measures including temporary adjustments to environmental land management agreements so that farmers affected by drought could continue receiving payments while taking practical steps to protect their businesses. We also reminded farmers and growers that they can apply to the Environment Agency for temporary abstraction flexibility through local enforcement protections to help them to access water during dry periods where environmental impacts can be appropriately managed. Liberal Democrat Members ask now what we are doing on water and climate resilience, but the last time they were in government, they cut flood defence spending by a fifth within six months of taking office. We are taking water and weather extremely seriously. However, responding to one dry summer is not enough; farmers need greater long-term water security. That is why we are making up to £15 million available through a further water management grant to help to build farm reservoirs, which allow water to be stored when it is most readily available and then used to support food production during the drier periods. This will help to reduce reliance on direct abstraction when rivers and groundwater are under greatest pressure. We are also making it easier to build reservoirs by updating planning guidance and working with industry to review whether further planning reforms are needed. We have also simplified applications for longer-duration abstraction licences, helping farmers to secure finances for on-farm reservoirs by better aligning licence duration with investment and loan repayment periods. We have also brought forward the reservoir refill season from November to October for this year. We are also encouraging farmers to work together through water abstraction groups to strengthen local water resilience, while trialling dynamic abstraction in places like Cambridge, using real-time monitoring and data to help farmers to access water when it is available while also protecting the natural environment. Drought and climate change are not the only sources of uncertainty, though; the middle east conflict remains a significant source of disruption to fertiliser and red diesel prices. The continued pressures underline something fundamental: our farming system needs to become less exposed to global shocks and expensive imported inputs. That means not simply telling farmers to absorb higher costs, but helping them to become more productive and more efficient, with farming schemes including actions supporting variable-rate nutrient application, companion cropping, legumes and herbal leys, all of which can help to improve nutrient efficiency and reduce reliance on synthetic fertiliser.
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that contribution. I will tackle the SFI later in my speech. The Farming Minister has been clear on many of the lessons that will be learned, but I will set them out further shortly. Across the sustainable farming incentive, countryside stewardship and higher level stewardship, 534,000 hectares are already using precision applications of fertiliser and manure. We have also increased fertiliser market monitoring and encouraged greater use of nutrient planning to help farmers optimise fertiliser use, and we are rolling out an online tool to help farmers use fertilisers more efficiently. Beyond DEFRA, the Treasury reduced the duty on red diesel earlier this year in response to price increases resulting from the middle eastern crisis. We are investing in innovation, because lasting resilience must ultimately come from producing more efficiently. For ’26-27, £123 million has been allocated to the farming innovation programme, with support for technologies and approaches that can raise productivity and strengthen resilience.
I will make progress, because I am coming on to something important. I want to address the issue of SFI26 frankly. I really do recognise the disappointment and frustration caused by the closure of the second application window on 22 September. The SFI is a scheme that the Government inherited from the previous Conservative Government. They designed this first come, first served scheme, sent a quarter of the money to 4% of farms and now complain that it was oversubscribed. When we inherited it, the scheme had no budget control and no proper alignment of SFI actions to environmental and sustainability targets, and it included that first come, first served application process. For 2026, we made improvements to the offer to ensure that more farmers could access funding. We made the offer simpler and more focused, with fewer actions while retaining actions for all farm types. We introduced a £100,000 per annum max agreement value cap to spread the availability of funding more widely. We also gave priority access to the scheme for small farms and farms without existing ELM revenue agreements. Those two groups had been under-represented in the SFI previously. This priority access through SFI26 window 1 remained open for two months. The SFI26 window 2 was open to all eligible farmers and land managers. It experienced exceptionally high demand and closed after around six hours once available budget had been allocated.
I thank my hon. Friend for the work he is doing to engage with his local farming community. I will be talking about that more, but work is already under way to make those improvements and scrap the first come, first served element of the scheme. We anticipated stronger demand and increased the window 2 budget significantly over this summer. An additional £50 million was announced by the Prime Minister in August as part of the response to the dry weather that we saw, and a further £20 million was added before window 2 opened.
I will give way because it is the right hon. Gentleman.
The right hon. Gentleman is correct that modelling was undertaken. As a result of that modelling, a further £50 million was announced by the Prime Minister and a subsequent £20 million was announced by the Secretary of State. I recognise that the substantial demand remained unsatisfied when window 2 closed, and I understand how difficult that was for farmers who were ready to apply but did not have the opportunity to secure an agreement. Let me say this clearly: there will be future SFI offers, and we plan to make an SFI27 offer available as soon as possible.
I am sorry; I am going to make progress. To that end, we are working with the farming sector on how the scheme can be improved, and the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth South, confirmed that we will scrap the “first come, first served” application. It is important to stress that the SFI is only one part of our support for farming. Across this Parliament, the Government have allocated a record £11.8 billion to sustainable farming and food production. That includes £788 million this year alone in new funding for farmers to boost farm productivity, develop cutting-edge technologies that will drive future growth, and maintain a healthy natural environment. Capital grants have provided £225 million this year for practical environmental improvements on farms. At least £50 million is available for new countryside stewardship higher-tier agreements. We have also committed £173 million in 2026-27 for productivity, equipment and innovation through the farming equipment and technology fund and the farming innovation programme. That represents an extensive ongoing commitment to farm adaptation and improvement. I hope that the Opposition support those aims. Our Government support is not only about grants. Farmers need thriving markets and fair returns for the food they produce. That is why we have established the Farming and Food Partnership Board, which brings together leaders from farming, food, retail and finance to focus on productivity, profitability, home-grown produce and national food security. We are taking action on fairness in the supply chain, too. Fair dealing regulations have been introduced for dairy and pigs, with further work covering eggs, fresh produce and crops. Our farming road map makes our long-term approach clear: we will maintain domestic food production at least at current levels; we will protect productive land for food production; we will support investment in technology and skills; and we will build resilience to the climate and geopolitical shocks that farmers are increasingly having to manage. That is because healthy soil, reliable water supply, efficient use of nutrients and profitable farm businesses are not competing objectives but the foundations of our food security.
I am going to make progress. Farmers have endured an exceptionally demanding period. We recognise the pressure that many businesses are under, and I recognise the real frustration for those who have been unable to secure an SFI26 agreement, but our commitment to farming has not changed. We will continue to invest in farmers, support productivity and innovation, improve water resilience, make supply chains fairer and work with the sector to build businesses that can withstand changing weather and an uncertain world. Above all, we will continue to back the people who produce our food, because supporting British farming is not simply about supporting one sector; it is about our food security, our economic security and our national resilience. The Government are determined to secure all three.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell. I thank the hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sorcha Eastwood) for securing this debate on Royal Mail performance. Royal Mail’s reliability has become a big problem nationally, as we can all see. Alongside many parliamentary colleagues, I wrote to the Minister to raise serious concerns about delivery, which has simply not been good enough. I noticed it when I tried to invite my constituents to a local “Tea with your MP” event and half the invitations failed to arrive before the event, which caused much consternation. I completely understand why people are deeply worried about missing critical, time-sensitive mail, which my casework shows. One constituent, like others, received a letter from the hospital after a vital medical appointment, so she missed it. An elderly resident had her phone cut off by BT because Royal Mail failed to deliver her paper bills. She does not have the internet and relies entirely on the post to stay connected. Others have resorted to getting their own mail from sorting offices, but in Cornwall, where it is hard to get around by public transport, particularly to sorting offices with limited opening hours, that has caused a real issue. The picture nationally is just as concerning. Citizens Advice reported that over Christmas 2025, 16 million people experienced letter delays, a 50% jump on the previous year, and 5.7 million adults missed vital letters about health appointments, benefit decisions and legal notices.
Yes, indeed—particularly my elderly residents who simply cannot get around. It will be the same in my hon. Friend’s area. Like other Members, I have visited my local delivery offices. The staff do an incredible job, but they are under-resourced and there just are not enough of them. Royal Mail continues to fall short under both its original and renegotiated universal service obligation. Even with the lowered targets, performance is well below the standard. I welcome the road map to rebuild the targets, but there are still serious structural concerns about that. We must make sure that these regulatory and service improvements are delivered without delay so we can make sure that our constituents are not disconnected from their communities, missing their hospital appointments, or unable to meet important bills.
I want to make an important but related point. Emergency and temporary accommodation in Cornwall is also extremely expensive because of the seasonal nature of things, and particularly because of the holiday let industry. That adds to the burden on councils and tenants.
I thank the Secretary of State for her statement and for accepting all the review’s recommendations. Antisemitism and all forms of prejudice and racism undermine public order and safety, and they need to be challenged wherever they appear. I am currently working with a community leader, Joe Burchell from our local synagogue in my constituency, to campaign to reintroduce faith officers to local police forces. Does the Secretary of State agree that faith officers could help to counter hate in our schools? Will she agree to look into this and to work with her Home Office colleagues?
I went to the Queen’s Medical Centre, the main hospital in Nottingham, to meet the paediatric teams. They told me that there had been 10 serious acquired brain injuries since April this year. They are looking at two a month, with the curve on an upward trajectory. The data on the ground is clear that this is a problem, so Ministers need to get beyond the lag in the data and start taking the action called for by people such as the medics I met. Does the hon. Member agree that the human cost and the long-term impact on those young people needs to be prioritised?
A constituent in West Bridgford in my constituency showed me a letter they had received from TV Times, telling them that because Royal Mail had become so unreliable it was going to use a third party to deliver the magazine separately, to make sure they got it on time. Does that not say everything about the reliability of Royal Mail?
I think the hon. Gentleman missed out SFI window 1 in his description.
Does the hon. Member think it is better to close a scheme because it has overspent, or to underspend the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs’s budget by £358 million?
I refer colleagues to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. When the Labour Rural Research Group polled rural voters in the summer of 2025, 75% of them told us that their communities had been neglected over the past 15 years. Over half, 51.3%, said that agriculture and the rural economy should get more Government spending—a higher share than for any priority except the NHS. People really do care about this agenda, and it is important that we on these Benches remember that. There is no doubt that there was exceptional demand for SFI26; that demonstrates farmers’ desire to invest in their soil, hedgerows, crops and wildlife. That was partly anticipated, which is why the Government allocated an additional £20 million in window 2, on top of the £50 million announced by the Prime Minister in August. I am pleased that, through this scheme, we have nearly £1 billion of investment in nature-friendly farming, as part of the £11.8 billion in funding for sustainable farming in this Parliament. The good news is that SFI26 was allocated; the Tories did not manage that. But farmers had been preparing for months, and some were left part of the way through applications that could not be completed. The Government have acknowledged that too many farmers who hoped for an agreement have been left disappointed. I welcome that acknowledgement, but acknowledging a problem is where fixing it must begin, and we need to see the co-design of a new system very quickly. We need the IT systems at the Rural Payments Agency reformed, and we need a much clearer and more transparent road map for future application timelines. I agree with the part of the motion that covers some of the failings of the previous Government. The motion “regrets the previous Government’s decision to design the SFI on a first come, first served basis”. It also regrets the trade deals with Australia and New Zealand, and it is true that the Conservatives left a transition that was half built and half funded. On trade, the former Secretary of State, Michael Gove, has admitted that the Conservatives negotiated poorly with Australia and New Zealand. There are therefore serious questions that need answering ahead of next year’s scheme. First, the National Farmers’ Union has said that any decrease in income jeopardises future business planning, so when will the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs commit to a date for SFI27? Secondly, there is potentially the gap mentioned earlier today: £520 million of agreements are due to expire. In the Minister’s view, is that accurate? If so, what are the Government doing about it? Thirdly, I seek clarity on the timing for those whose applications failed because of the system’s technical problems. Fourthly, on horticulture and smaller farms, SFI must work for market gardens and smaller growers; the 3 hectare minimum for SFI26 shut some of them out altogether. Can that be reconsidered?
The right hon. Gentleman speaks from a position of expertise. He is right that the more complicated we make a system, the more expensive it is to administer. I know that Ministers are looking into how a system that is not “first come, first served” might work; there are risks with that, and we should acknowledge that in this place. It is not a silver bullet by any stretch of the imagination. I notice that the Liberal Democrat spokesman, the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron), did not mention the word “profitability” in his contribution. However, that is an essential point in any debate on farming. Baroness Batters’ “Farming Profitability Review” notes that the farming budget in England has hovered around that £2.4 billion figure since 2007, but the input costs are forecast to be 30% higher this year than in 2020. We need to be clear about the essential mission for farming. The aim is a countryside where farms are less dependent on subsidy and scheme windows, and more independent, resilient and sustainable—for people, profit and our planet. That is the thread that ran through the Batters review, and it is also the thread that ran through the Labour Rural Research Group’s report on the rural economy.
Absolutely. There is a lot of muttering from the Lib Dem Benches, but I am sure that the Minister heard that point. I will conclude, because plenty of people want to speak. We should be clear that we need to fix the SFI system, and I am pleased that the Government have given indications of how they plan to do that. We must end “first come, first served”, so that the system works more fairly, but we must also collectively recognise that we must do better on the issue of profitability. I welcome the work that the Government have done to date, but we must accelerate the implementation of the Batters profitability review. I hope that we can work across this House to put those points into practice.
Will the hon. Lady give way?
We know the Prime Minister likes a pint—including, as he told me, a pint of Burton’s finest, Bass—so he will be sad to learn of the news from Carlsberg of the planned closure of Marston’s brewery next year. This puts at risk 310 workers and our historic ales, like Bass and Pedigree, being brewed in Burton upon Trent. Will the Prime Minister meet with me to discuss how to safeguard the site and keep it as a brewery?
Q12. My constituents should be able to rely on deliveries from Royal Mail, but post is being held up for weeks on end, and it is causing serious issues for far too many people. Will the Prime Minister join me in urging the senior leadership of Royal Mail to do the right thing by my constituents and our postal workers, and put in place a system that works?
Will my hon. Friend join me in acknowledging the similar work of campaigners in Hamilton and Clyde Valley who have worked so hard, diligently and steadfastly on this matter?