Tim Farron challenges DEFRA Secretary to support Cumbrian farmers to produce food

On the floor of the House of Commons yesterday, local MP Tim Farron urged DEFRA Secretary Steve Reed to give financial support to Cumbria’s farmers to produce food.

Tim told ministers that policies enacted by the previous Conservative Government, and continued by the new Labour administration, were actively disincentivising farmers from producing food.

Tim said this was a threat to Britain’s food security. 

Speaking during Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs Questions in Parliament, Tim said: “Farmers in my communities and across the country are genuinely devastated by the Government’s family farm tax, which will affect many in my patch who are on less than the minimum wage, and by the 76% cut in the basic payment next year.

“Perhaps what dismays farmers across our country and in Westmorland even more is that the overall agricultural policy of this Government and their Conservative predecessors is to actively disincentivise farmers from producing food, despite the fact that this country produces only 55% of the food we need. 

“That is a dereliction of duty by both main parties, and a threat to national security. What plans does the Secretary of State have to change his policy and back our farmers to produce food?”

Responding, Secretary of State Steve Reed said: “The honourable Gentleman raises a number of important points. I will repeat my earlier comments about agricultural property relief: the last year for which we have data available shows that the vast majority of claimants will not pay anything. 

“Unlike the previous Government, who thought that farmers were not in it for the money, we want them to succeed, so we are embarking on a farming road map and a new deal for farming that will consider supply chain fairness and stop farmers being undercut in trade deals such as the one the Conservatives agreed with Australia and New Zealand. Our intention is to make farming profitable for the future; the Conservatives’ record is the 12,000 farming businesses that went bust.”