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Agricultural Policy

I guess that we are expecting a vote shortly, but I shall get on and make as much progress as I can. We have had some light-hearted debate this afternoon about which party has the trust and loyalty of the farming and rural community, but no party should take the members of that community for granted, because they will say it as they see it and cast their vote as they think appropriate. My dear father, whom no one could call a socialist, often used to say, ““It is the Labour Governments who produce the best Agriculture Ministers.”” I am sure that had he lived long enough to see our present Minister, he might have modified that a bit. [ Interruption. ] He was a good Tory. Our present Minister has proved to be a good ally of the agricultural community. The hon. Member for Ogmore does not escape entirely: he did some good work when he was in office. I sat on many Standing Committees with him when he took legislation through, but I have to say that it was I who educated and tutored him when he stood against me in 2001. He has made progress since then. I welcome the debate and congratulate the Secretary of State on securing it. Agriculture is a huge part of the Welsh economy and of our nation’s culture. When we have a strong agricultural industry, we attract able and keen young people to enter it. Welsh agriculture is strong at the moment, and that strength is built on the back of rising commodity prices. The exception is the dairy industry, which has persevered with very low returns for many years. We hope that by introducing a grocery adjudicator, the hon. Member for Ynys Môn will do good work in addressing that. The Government must be aware of forces on the horizon that might affect agriculture and they must be prepared to something about them. First are the three F-words in agriculture: fuel, feed and fertiliser. Those are the big input costs, which are increasing considerably. Before everybody gets too excited about increases in commodities, they should have a look at the answers to my written questions at columns 664-68W of Hansard, which show that over the past 20 years food prices, both at the farm gate and at retail level, have remained stable. Indeed, it could be argued that food has had a moderating effect on inflation in this country, because food prices have always risen less quickly than the main retail prices index. Recently, of course, there have been spikes in food prices, mainly caused by floods, pestilence, droughts and other disasters, but it is often said that the best thing to address high prices is high prices themselves, because they encourage people into production, and as production rises, so prices fall. The message of Sir John Beddington’s Foresight report ““The Future of Food and Farming”” is that many forces are at play—including increases in population, global warming and some arable land becoming incapable of supporting crops—that will ensure that food prices are higher, if not the highest, in future. Against that background, the CAP undoubtedly needs to be reformed, and we have had a lot of talk about that today. Many issues that I wanted to cover have been covered, but many people would like a reduction in direct payments to farmers, which has been suggested today. I think that will be the direction of travel, but it should be gradual because we have to maintain viable and profitable farming so that we have land managers in the countryside who can deliver the public goods that we expect farmers to deliver.