Parliament's party history for this member: Liberal Democrat ( – present).
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<Question HRSContentId="{701D69C2-466F-49B5-8E54-10AFC395B626}">T4. <QuestionText HRSContentId="{5393DA83-0986-431A-A4D0-A8467F75F41F}"></QuestionText>Westmorland and Furness council is England’s most rural unitary authority, but the Government’s new formula has punished us for being rural with a crushing 31% cut in our funding, putting care homes, help for the homeless and support for schools at risk. Does the Secretary of State think that is fair? Will she revisit this travesty urgently and provide emergency support?</Question>
The hon. Member is making an excellent speech, as always. Given that there is some underlying positivity, is she concerned that although there is ongoing support for people with their energy bills, there is nothing for the tens of thousands of people in Cumbria, and the hundreds of thousands across the country, who are off grid and who rely on heating oil? Does she think that the Chancellor had room for a formal cap on energy bills for people who are off grid, whose bills have gone up threefold in the last year?
The hon. Lady is being incredibly generous with her time, as ever. She will recall that the Defence Secretary told families last weekend to be ready for potential shocks that might come our way. Does she agree that, given what she was just saying, the UK as a whole needs to be far more ready to become food secure? Only 60% of the food that we eat here is produced across our four <span id="111WH" class="column-number" data-column-number="111WH"></span>nations. Is it not the job of all four Governments in this country—the three devolved ones and the UK Government—to ensure that we have farm payment schemes that encourage the production of food, so that we can become food secure?
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. In Foreign Office questions earlier today, the Minister for International Development, the hon. Member for Midlothian (Kirsty McNeill), answered a question from the hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Blake Stephenson). I have informed both Members that I would be mentioning them. They spoke about the matter of returning Eritrean asylum seekers to Eritrea, and of conversations between the Foreign Office and the Eritrean Government. At no point during their exchange was it remarked upon that Eritrea is widely regarded as the North Korea of Africa, and that under its murderous dictator, Isaias Afwerki, it has become the fifth most dangerous place on planet Earth to be a Christian or a member of any other minority faith. What can we do to ensure that the Minister and her officials are aware of these facts and come before the House to explain the extent of these conversations with the Eritrean regime, given that it would be an act of extreme wickedness to return any asylum seeker from Eritrea to Eritrea?
I had the joy of spending time with the Kendal and South Lakes prostate cancer support group just a few weeks ago. Like the hon. Gentleman and me, its members are massively in favour of increased screening and making sure there is default screening for men over 50. Does the hon. Gentleman also think the Government need to be aware that if we test more people earlier and identify cancers earlier, more people can be treated? Does he believe the Government have done enough work, both north of the border and in the UK Parliament, to ensure that we have sufficient capacity for surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy so that we can treat the people who are diagnosed?
Last year, there were 392,000 sewage spills across our country, 4,000 of which happened in the precious waters of Cumbria’s lakes and dales, and meanwhile companies rewarded their shareholders for that failure with increased dividends of £845 million. Isn’t it time instead to put failing water companies into administration? In the forthcoming water Bill—it would be good if the Minister could tell us when we might expect it—will the Minister bring forward a plan to create a new watchdog, with teeth, and transform our water companies into being mutually owned, so that money stops leaking out of the system and instead funds a clean-up of our waterways and water industry?
I beg to move,
That this House regrets the Government’s chaotic opening of the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) 2026 application window on 22 September 2026; notes that the scheme’s budget was exhausted within hours, leaving many farmers unable to apply after months of preparation; further regrets the previous Government’s decision to design the SFI on a first come, first served basis and its post-Brexit trade deals with Australia and New Zealand, which fundamentally undermined British farmers, their £358 million underspend in agricultural budget, and decisions to effectively cut farmers’ incomes in their approach to phasing out direct payments; further notes that the Government’s decision to accelerate the direct payments phase-out whilst stop-starting new schemes like SFI has left farmers with no universal payment offer for the first time since 1945; also regrets the Government’s changes to Agricultural Property Relief and cuts to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and farming budgets; also notes that the lack of an effective payment scheme for farms has undermined their profitability and the UK’s ability to produce food, recover nature and adapt to climate change; notes that farmers are deeply concerned about surging input costs, the impact of the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism on fertiliser costs, the impact of consecutive bad harvests and the looming crisis in the pig sector; and calls on the Government to guarantee long-term funding for all eligible SFI26 applicants, reverse the family farm tax, and commit to an additional £1 billion a year to properly fund environmental land management schemes.
If there was a thin silver lining to Brexit—and that is an “if”—it was the opportunity to design our own bespoke system to reward and support farmers, to care for our environment and to feed our country, but every farmer, certainly in England, knows that at the heart of this debate is the utter, inexcusable failure of both Conservative and Labour Governments to deliver an effective post-Brexit farm payment scheme. That failure has undermined farm profitability and the UK’s food security. It is two and a half years since the Conservatives left office, yet, as Halloween approaches, that Government still loom as a spectre over our rural communities, haunting us all, because this Labour Government refuse to exorcise that ghost, clinging instead to the ghastly Conservative policies that did so much to damage our farmers in Westmorland and beyond.
I am in no risk at all of overstating when I say that the last Conservative Government did more harm to British farmers and British farming than any other in UK history: trade deals with Australia and New Zealand that threw our farmers under the bus; a botched Brexit deal that ended overnight British farmers’ access to their biggest external market; and the reckless, rushed removal of the basic payment scheme while new schemes were falteringly introduced at a snail’s pace. Those new schemes have mostly placed hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money into the hands of huge non-farmer organisations, while family farmers saw their incomes plummet, such that hill farmers in Cumbria now “enjoy” an average income of less than half the minimum wage—and that is if you assume that they work for 40 hours a week, when it is nearer 90.<span id="1188" class="column-number" data-column-number="1188"></span>
I do not know if the Conservatives’ attack on our countryside, taking money away from family farms and putting it into the hands of a few large landowners, was deliberate or incompetent, but the results are the same either way—those who we rely on to feed us being treated like dirt. The Liberal Democrats tabled this motion today because I want farmers to know that this House cares about them; that we think that those who get up early each day to feed our country and to protect our planet do the most awesome job in the world; and that they are valued and respected, and that we want a system that reflects that in practice.
This debate follows the debacle of the sustainable farming incentive window in September. That catastrophically short window was a long time coming.