Mr Alistair Carmichael
MP for Orkney and Shetland · Liberal Democrat · United Kingdom
“I do not know whether this is something I still need to declare, Mr Speaker, but I visited the Falkland Islands in 2003 as a guest of the Falkland Islands Government. They have never invited me back.”
“I remind the House of my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and also that my wife is a practising veterinary surgeon. What is happening was predictable because it was predicted. The Government were warned by the National Audit Office in June last year that they were unprepared for outbreaks of this sort.”
“The Minister is surely aware that there is no route to net zero that does not go through oil and gas hydrocarbons, and that not exploiting resources on the UK continental shelf leaves us reliant on imports, which also has carbon consequences that must be taken into account.”
“The transition to clean energy could be an opportunity to build a different model that would, to use the First Secretary of State’s own words, end “overly centralised decision making and over-privatisation”.”
“I welcome what the Prime Minister just said about strengthening farming. If he is serious about this, one of the first things he can do is ensure that our farmers do not have to compete with imported food that is produced to lower standards than we expect.”
“Q4. Like others, I have always respected the Prime Minister as somebody who was in politics because he wanted to give service to his country, and he has earned our gratitude for that. In my constituency, those who volunteer as coastguard rescue officers also do so from a wish to give service to their community.”
The complete record
Every one of 4,707 lines we hold for Mr Alistair Carmichael, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 6 of 95.
“83A(7) , That the following provisions shall apply to the National Insurance Contributions (Secondary Class 1 Contributions) Bill for the purpose of supplementing the Order of 3 December 2024 (National Insurance Contributions (Secondary Class 1 Contributions) Bill: Programme): Consideration of Lords Amendments (1) Proceedings on consideration of Lords Amendments shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion two hours after their commencement. Subsequent stages (2) Any further Message from the Lords may be considered forthwith without any Question being put. (3) Proceedings on any further Message from the Lords shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour after their commencement.— (Gen Kitchen.) Question agreed to.”
“Ordered, That Mr Alistair Carmichael, Jayne Kirkham, Sarah Bool, Jenny Riddell-Carpenter, Charlie Dewhirst, Sarah Dyke, Ann Davies, Seamus Logan, Ellie Chowns, Jim Shannon, David Chadwick and Tim Farron present the Bill. Mr Alistair Carmichael accordingly presented the Bill. Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 20 J une , and to be printed (Bill 203 ). National Insurance Contributions (Secondary Class 1 Contributions) Bill (Programme) (No. 2) Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No.”
“It also has wide geographical support, with sponsors from Shetland to Cornwall and across the four nations that make up the United Kingdom. I am grateful for the support I have received from the farming unions, the Country Land and Business Association, Scottish Land and Estates, the Tenant Farmers Association and the Countryside Alliance. That is a remarkable coalition of people who all understand that if we fail to act now, before too long there may be no industry left to protect. Charles Paterson’s family in Orkney still works the same land to this day. If we want to keep farming communities alive for generations to come, however, we need to act now to make it happen. That is why the Bill is necessary and why I seek the leave of the House today to introduce it. Question put and agreed to.”
“If supermarkets are about to embark on a race to the bottom, we can be pretty sure that it will be farmers, not company executives or shareholders, who will be expected to take the hit. It is not for us in Parliament to pick a winner in a fight between supermarkets, but they should know that we are watching. Any supermarket that thinks it can rebuild its balance sheet on the back of Britain’s farmers might find itself in front of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, and it better have some good answers when it gets here. My Bill has support from MPs across political parties; it is sponsored by Liberal Democrat, Labour, Conservative, Plaid Cymru, SNP, Green and Democratic Unionist Members.”
“Practice among supermarkets shows a wide variety of behaviours. Seven of the retailers were judged to have improved or at least stayed the same, with Sainsbury’s coming out on top with a net improvement score of 10.34%. Unfortunately, seven others—Home Bargains, ASDA, Tesco, Ocado, Iceland, Morrisons and Amazon— were scored as having worsened by varying degrees, with Amazon’s performance being judged to have worsened by a whopping 21.38%. Amazon was also scored as having complied with the code “consistently” or “mostly” only 46.96% of the time. Yesterday’s Daily Telegraph reported that ASDA was threatening a “price war” to regain the market share it had lost in recent years. For farmers, that is a chilling prospect.”
“Then, in February 2023, the company was told by the supermarket that its supply was no longer wanted for that season. For that business, the news was a hammer blow, and despite it being a prima facie breach of the groceries supply code of practice, the GCA initially declined to intervene. I would love to say that this was an isolated incident, but the GCA annual survey conducted by YouGov suggests that it is not. It found that 42% of suppliers would not raise issues because they believed the retailer would find out and that there would be consequences. The experiences they described included de-listing without reasonable notice, undisputed invoices not being paid according to agreed terms, retrospective changes to supply agreements, running a promotional activity at the supplier’s expense, and much more.”
“It is hardly surprising, then, that businesses supplying supermarkets are reluctant to make complaints, especially when the office has not issued a single fine in its entire existence. Cases that are pursued end up with settlements and non-disclosure agreements. Since publicising my Bill, I have spoken to a number of producers who have told me about their experience at the hands of supermarkets. Just yesterday, I spoke to a businessman who had been a supplier of Brussels sprouts to a large supermarket. His company had, on the basis of undertakings made to it by the retailer, invested significantly, borrowing £400,000 to build a state-of-the-art packing facility. In 2022-23, that one supermarket accounted for 47% of its business.”
“If, as the Prime Minister says, food security is national security, his Government should act urgently to allow our farmers to get a fair price for the food they produce. I was in government when the Groceries Code Adjudicator was set up. I do not think anyone believed that the GCA would be the last word in the regulation of the food supply chain, but we all took the view that it was better to have something than to have nothing. Twelve years on from its creation, the limitations of the adjudicator are apparent for all to see. The office has fewer than 10 staff, all seconded from other public bodies, and it is funded by a levy on supermarkets. To expect an operation of that size to take on some of the largest retail businesses in the country is laughable.”
“We really could not ask for a better illustration of the shift in priorities of our Governments over the past 100 years. This cannot go on. Farmers are seeing a rapid withdrawal of funding support. In England, the accelerated withdrawal of basic payments, followed by the closure without notice last week of the sustainable farming incentives, has left many farmers desperately worried about the viability of their businesses. Elsewhere in the United Kingdom, the removal of the ringfencing of money given to devolved Administrations for agricultural payments leaves farmers there feeling vulnerable to adverse change. That is why this market now needs direct and meaningful intervention. Without it, we risk losing domestic food production and any notion of food security.”
“Just last week a new report from the Food, Farming and Countryside Commission found that real incomes for farmers had stayed stock-still for the past 50 years. Shortly after the autumn Budget, a group of younger farmers in my constituency came to see me and brought with them their farm accounts. They were despondent in pointing out to me that their businesses earned a net profit of 0.7% on their capital. They were not much cheered when I pointed out that they were doing better than many of their contemporaries, as figures from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs show that the average return is as low as 0.5%. One of those farmers was the great-grandson of Charles Paterson, a seventh-generation farmer who works the same land as his great-grandfather.”
“That intervention has, over the years, distorted the market and allowed a range of unfair practices to be hardwired into the system. As a consequence, the market today has a handful of behemoth retailers—the supermarkets—at the top, hundreds of thousands of farmers at the bottom and a variety of processors, distributors and others in the middle. Everyone takes their cut and then, at the end of it all, the farmers get whatever is left. The power imbalance between the supermarkets at the top and the farmers at the bottom is more pronounced than any other market I can think of, and it is well documented that those at the top who have the power wield it to their own advantage. The extensive debate that we have had in this House in recent months has laid bare the shocking truth about the lack of profitability in farming.”
“He wrote: “In the nation’s interest I urge you, at whatever personal sacrifice, to overcome all obstacles, to throw your fullest energies into the work, and to influence and encourage all who assist you, so that every possible acre shall be sown.” At that time, there was no question at the heart of Government about the vital importance of farmers in the isles and across the country. In the century since, farmers have continued to play their part in supplying the nation’s table, but their incomes have stagnated. The market for agricultural produce in the UK has not been a free market since at least the end of the second world war. Successive Governments have intervened through the payment of public subsidies to farmers, initially in the name of food security and more recently in the name of cheap food for consumers.”
“I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision about the Groceries Code Adjudicator; to require co-ordination between the Groceries Code Adjudicator and the Agricultural Supply Chain Adjudicator; to make provision about public procurement in respect of British food products; to make provision about the labelling of food products; and for connected purposes. I remind the House of my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. In March 1917, at the height of the first world war, the then Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, sent a letter to an Orkney farmer, Charles Paterson.”
“This week, we have the publication of the National Farmers Union’s confidence survey.”
“13. What recent assessment he has made of the potential impact of changes to employer national insurance contributions on small and medium-sized enterprises.”
“The impact I hear from SMEs in my constituency, predominantly in the visitor economy, is that they are anticipating cutting the hours of part-time staff or laying them off and reducing the number of seasonal employees that they will take on. Will the Minister take those concerns seriously and work with Ministers in the Scottish Government to ensure that the legitimate concerns of SMEs in my constituency do not blossom into a full blown crisis of confidence?”
“May we have an early debate in Government time on the ending of the radio teleswitch, upon which many people who rely on electric heating and storage heating depend? It was last debated in an Adjournment debate on 4 December. That spawned a ministerial roundtable on 5 February, which promised further updates, but none have been forthcoming. With just over 100 days to go, it would be good to know that there is a sense of urgency in Government.”
“Those areas of the world from which we are importing food are also undergoing the changes that come from climate change, and they will not be as able to produce the food that they would wish to export to us in years to come. In this country, we still have a good temperate climate, which is absolutely suited to that.”
“Some of the trade deals were apparently underpinned by a thinking or an agenda that we did not need to produce as much or indeed any of our food domestically, and that we could rely on imports. Then, of course, Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine and we had a rather rude wake-up call. Since then, we have seen Donald Trump back in the White House talking about trade and tariff changes. Surely those things alone should make us understand the importance of a healthy, home-grown agricultural sector. We should not be offshoring to other parts of the world our standards of animal welfare or environmental protection. Climate change is so often held up as some sort of stick with which to beat our farmers, but there is a real opportunity.”
“For those who see this debate, whether in the Gallery or outside, I hope the message will go to them loud and clear that there are those of us in this House who want to see them stick at their efforts, because we are on their side, and it is worth it. Agriculture has one of the most resilient and resourceful workforces to be found anywhere. There is apparently an active debate within Government on how we make work pay and what the value of work is. If anybody wants to see the work ethic in action, they should go and spend a few days on a farm, because that is where they will see it clearer than anything. We have heard a lot of concern in recent years about the balance to be struck between imported food and food produced domestically.”
“I had also privately hoped that this might be an occasion when we could look beyond some of the changes that have occupied so much of the bandwidth in our political debate since the Budget, including the removal of the basic payment scheme and the changes to inheritance tax, double cab pick-ups and the ringfencing of agricultural budgets for devolved nations. This debate is an opportunity for us to remind people just what we have got going with British farming, because there are some tremendous positives. We have the farmers here again today in Westminster, demonstrating how much they care about their industry and their community.”
“I beg to move, That this House has considered the future of farming. First, I remind the House of my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and place on record my appreciation for the Backbench Business Committee in allowing us this time in the Chamber. It might be helpful first just to explain to the House why I thought this was an important time to have a debate of this sort, and that was before I knew anything about what happened earlier in the week. The Select Committee that I chair has an inquiry titled “The future of farming”, and I had thought that this would be an opportunity for Members and others to shape the course of that debate and to contribute to the work of the inquiry. I still very much hope that is the case.”
“The permanent secretary called it an iterative process, which to my mind just seems to be another way for people to say that it is okay to get things wrong and to make it up as they go along. I am afraid that in the minds and eyes of farmers across the country, Tuesday’s announcement on the SFI simply reinforces that impression. The future of farming could be bright, but we have to give farmers the confidence to invest and banks the confidence to lend. The Government have to acknowledge the damage that was done to that confidence by the Budget changes, especially in relation to agricultural property relief and business property relief. Anecdotal evidence has been growing for months. We have seen the closure of agricultural merchants and machinery dealers, and we have seen the number of first registrations of tractors fall.”
“In that evidence session on 14 January, we heard evidence from the permanent secretary, the director general for food, biosecurity and trade and the deputy director of policy, engagement and strategy. The Committee has not formally expressed an opinion, but it is fair to say from the informal discussions that followed that that session left few of us, if any, with the impression that it was an impressive leadership team entirely in command of their brief. It was clear that the team understood the target and where they wanted to get to, but it was unclear how they would achieve their targets. We saw that with the various false starts and missteps on the road to the environmental land management schemes, although I acknowledge that much of the responsibility for that lies with Ministers from the previous Government.”
“It had been rumoured for some time, and it is well known that land agents, consultants and others had been quietly advising clients to get applications in to beat the deadline and the exhaustion of the pot. That is fine if a farm is big enough to employ a land agent or a consultant, but this is a busy time of year for small family farms, upland farmers and others. Those are the people who deserve and need the assistance more than ever, and they are the ones who have again been left behind. Tom Bradshaw described DEFRA as “a failing Department”. That is strong language from a man not given to hyperbole, but the Minister would do well to take heed.”
“How did we get from that point, where officials seemed to be warning us, to the point we got to on Tuesday, when we saw the scheme closed without notice? The press notice announcing the closure of the SFI specified the budget as £1.05 billion capped. That is the first time I have been able to discover that that figure has been put into the public domain. Without that transparency, how on earth can farmers and their representatives possibly hope to regulate their behaviour, or know when the money will be running down and when they should be getting their applications in? The frustration is that for some, this situation did not come out of a clear blue sky.”
“The Government have pulled the rug out from under farmers across England, and that comes on the back of the accelerated removal of the basic payment scheme in the Budget. I am afraid that the Minister’s defence in the House yesterday around an uncapped budget is not adequate and does not tell the whole story. On 14 January this year, the director general for food, biosecurity and trade told the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee that they had had almost 11,000 applications to the SFI, with 7,000 contracts offered. She said: “If that continues at that scale there may come a point where the budget comes under pressure and we have to consider taking action.” What has been happening in DEFRA since that time? The permanent secretary was open with the Select Committee. She said that future funding hinged on the spending review.”
“I absolutely do, and my hon. Friend puts it perfectly when she talks about working with farmers. It seems that—this is as true for Governments north of the border as it is for those south of it—so much of what passes for agricultural policy is something that is done to farmers, rather than in partnership with them. To get to the bright future that I believe farming can have, we have to get past the present. The decision to close the sustainable farming incentive scheme on Tuesday without any notice has provoked predictable and justifiable fury, but doing it with a press release that sought to present it as some sort of triumph added insult to injury. It was almost like a return to the glory days of the Soviet Union, when the Politburo would boast about their advances in meeting their targets in the five-year plan for tractor production.”
“What the right hon. Gentleman refers to is the consequence of an agricultural policy that, despite aiming to do many worthy and worthwhile things, no longer has the concept of food production at its heart. Across this House and the different parties, we need to rebuild a consensus around getting food production back into agriculture. Climate change mitigation, nature restoration and the rest of it are all important parts of the context, but without food production at the heart of it, we will have the unintended consequences that he outlines.”
“I will conclude my remarks, but let me say on behalf of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee that I very much hope that Members from across the House will continue to engage with our inquiry, because if food security is national security, as the Prime Minister keeps telling us, then our Committee is one of the most important Committees in this House.”
“If the system did not work perfectly everywhere, let us identify those parts where the pressure escaped. But in order to do that, we need more transparency and more candour from Government Departments. If the Minister can answer that question when he responds to the debate, I will be enormously grateful. If he cannot, it would assist the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee greatly if we were able to get that answer in correspondence. Time really is against us this afternoon. I would have loved to have the rest of the afternoon, but we do not.”
“The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee has heard evidence on this issue from port health authorities, local authorities and the APHA itself. We have asked the Department about the point at which Government software systems were updated to stop animal products coming from Germany, following the identification of a foot and mouth outbreak there. Despite getting answers to our letters, we have still not been told by the Department whether IPAFFS—the import of products, animals, food and feed system—was updated on 10 or 16 January. That is something that the Government should be able to tell us. I have sympathy for the Government, because they are dealing with a brand new system. Essentially, we should be able to see this as a pressure test on it.”
“That is to be welcomed, but it will need a much more comprehensive and coherent strategy than we have seen thus far. Not all confidence is about finances. We have seen a lot of doubt thrown into every sector of agricultural production in recent months because of the biosecurity threats that face this country. The poultry sector has been hit hard as a consequence of avian influenza. We have seen foot and mouth outbreaks on the continent. We see African swine fever moving across the continent, and it seems likely that we will see bluetongue disease back in this country soon. The vets on the frontline—those in the Animal and Plant Health Agency—do a remarkable job, and we owe them all a debt of gratitude, but so much more needs to be done.”
“A small silver lining is to be found in the debate on APR and BPR, because it has forced us to think about the extent to which farming produces such a spectacularly poor return on capital. This is something we have all known for years, but now we have been forced to ask ourselves why it is the case. The hard fact of the matter is that 80 years of Government interference in the food market through agricultural subsidies has had the unintended consequence of keeping farmers poor and making supermarkets rich. I have a ten-minute rule motion next week to encourage the Government to introduce meaningful regulation in the food supply chain, and the Minister and his colleagues have recently spoken about their intention to see farm incomes increase.”
“Some 75% of employers expect to be impacted by the increase in employer national insurance contributions, 65% say they expect a reduction in profits because of the increase, and 43% expect to reduce investment to offset the additional costs. Again, that is on top of this week’s changes to the SFI and the basic payment scheme. I would like to say quite a lot more about other aspects of the Budget, particularly the removal of the ringfence for devolved budgets, but I am reluctant to do so, given the pressure on our time this afternoon and the number of people who want to contribute to the debate. However, I have spoken about those issues before, so those who are interested in my views can refer to my previous contributions.”
“If we are serious about the mission for growth, as the Government tell us, it has to be growth for everyone. It has to be growth across every sector and every part of the country, including rural areas and farming. That allows me to come back to the point that I was about to make about the NFU’s confidence survey, which was published just this week. I am afraid it makes grim reading for anybody who cares about the countryside and agriculture. It tells us that 85% of landowners believe that the reforms to APR and BPR will increase their inheritance tax liability. Of those, 32% say they plan to reduce investment to mitigate the increase. The figure increases to 42% for mixed arable and livestock businesses, and to 49% for arable farms.”
“The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. It has to be properly understood that farming underpins everything in rural communities. To take the example of agricultural merchants and machinery dealers, these are successful businesspeople. They will be people who are part of the local Rotary club. They will have children in schools. They will be people who take on all sorts of leadership responsibilities within the community. If they cannot make their living in the countryside, we should not expect them just to sit around and wait for something to come along. Of course they will leave and the population will decrease, and we will be in a vicious downward cycle, which is the very opposite of what we need. It is also the very opposite of what a good, well-resourced and valued farming industry can provide for the country as a whole.”
“Lloyd George”. The fact that we can stand in this Chamber today and debate this matter is a testament to the fact that Charles Paterson and his generation did step forward, and it is why we have a solemn and historic duty to ensure that his great-grandson can continue to do the same. I can think of no better definition of what is meant by “national interest”. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered the future of farming.”
“Since I opened this debate, Douglas Paterson, a seventh-generation farmer in my constituency, has sent me a copy of a letter addressed to his great-grandfather from 10 Downing Street, dated 5 March 1917. It states: “Dear Sir, We have now reached a crisis in the war when to ensure victory, the heroism of our armies at the Front must be backed by the self-sacrifice and tireless labour of everyone at home. To this end the production of each quarter of wheat and oats, and of each bushel of potatoes is of vital importance.” The letter finishes by saying that “the Government is confident that Farmers will at once step forward and do all in their power to utilise their services to the best advantage. The farmers of this country can defeat the German submarine and when they do so they destroy the last hope of the Prussian.” It is signed “D.”
“I note the Minister’s complaint that he inherited an uncapped budget. Can he tell the House whether that was something that he just noticed on Monday, which meant that he had to close the scheme without warning on Tuesday? On 14 January, the director general from his Department in charge of food biosecurity and trade told my Select Committee: “I do not think we can expect that every single farm will be viable but if we are talking about 92%, 93% having the opportunity of productivity improvement, that is what we are aiming for.” In other words, the Government’s aim is to lose 7% to 8% of our farms. What will that figure be after today’s announcements?”
“I know that the Minister is concerned about this, so can we use this moment to take a serious look at how we protect our coastal and island communities?”
“It is just over 32 years now since the MV Braer was grounded off Shetland, but for us the memories are still very fresh. We know exactly how those communities on the east coast of England who are braced for what may be coming will feel. We might not know what happened, but we can be pretty certain that at some time, somewhere, something of this sort was going to happen, such is the nature of shipping and how it is regulated and owned across the world. In Shetland we have been warning for years of the dangers of tankers anchored right by our shoreline and of others entering areas that are marked on the chart as to be avoided, but it is next to impossible to get any agency to take ownership of that.”
“Three years ago, the sale of Chelsea football club realised £2.5 billion, which was to be used for the benefit of Ukraine. Today, that money remains frozen, and as Lyra Nightingale of Redress said this morning, there is a total lack of transparency about who has it and when it is going to be released. Can the Prime Minister tell the House when that money will be released for its intended purpose—to help the people of Ukraine?”
“I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way because he has come to a very important part of the debate. First, we need proper resourcing of the GCA as it currently exists. Secondly, there is a structural problem with the accountability chain here. The GCA effectively governs the relationship between the middle link, the processors and distributors and the supermarkets. The Agriculture Act 2020 deals with primary producers in that middle link. What we need now, surely, as well as extra resources, is a process by which the whole thing can be rewired together.”
“Viewed from Washington, the idea of carving up the map in Europe might look like a pragmatic deal, even if history tells us that that always ends badly. Surely we in Europe understand that no matter what we give Vladimir Putin, he will always want more. Is that the context in which the strategic defence review is being carried out, and does the Minister accept that this moment requires a fundamental reset of our relations with our European partners—not just in defence—and that we need to get real about the financial and economic implications?”
“The hon. Gentleman is speaking about exports. We know the damage done to the Scotch whisky industry when we last suffered tariffs as a consequence of US trade policy—nothing to do with President Trump, it has to be said, but due to an old trade dispute. Surely this is the point at which the Government should be thinking ahead and putting a strategy in place to help the industry should, heaven forfend, we find ourselves back to that place as a consequence of the new regime in the White House?”
“There are good things that, with proper consideration, we could do for agriculture, but in order to do that, the policy must first of all be paused, and the proper engagement that we have spoken of needs to happen.”
“In that regard, I have one question that I want the Minister to answer today: before the policy announcement was made, what consideration was given in the Treasury to the very particular position of tenants in Scotland who hold their tenancy under the Agricultural Holdings (Scotland) Act 1991? Essentially, the situation there is that a 1991 tenancy gives rise to an asset that is a chargeable asset for taxation purposes, which survives death; but because they are tenants, they do not have an asset that they can sell on in order to pay their tax bill. That seems to me to be a point of fundamental inequity. If Ministers did not consider that before they put their proposals in the Budget, what else was given insufficient consideration? There is a need to reform inheritance tax.”
“Farmers are not, as the Secretary of State said to the Select Committee on 19 November, wrong in their understanding of this issue. What is wrong are the numbers on which the Government have based the policy that they have brought forward. It will affect many more farmers and estates than is currently believed or admitted by the Treasury. As Jeremy Moody said when he gave evidence to the Committee, this is a policy that penalises those whom the Government want to protect while protecting those whom they say they want to penalise. The whole policy needs to be paused and reconsidered. It needs to be done because no proper consideration was given in the first instance to the full range of unintended consequences.”
“As Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee, I have not been short of opportunities to speak about this issue in recent months, so I shall keep my remarks short so that others might place their constituents’ concerns on the record. I should declare that I am a farmer and landowner. That is entered in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. The hon. Member for South Norfolk (Ben Goldsborough), introducing the debate, said that what is necessary now is meaningful engagement with the Government. He is absolutely right. May I say to the Minister who is replying to that debate that that engagement has to come from the Chancellor of the Exchequer herself? For her not yet to have met with representatives of the farming unions from across the four nations of this country is unacceptable, and that has to change soon.”