Speeches by Eagle.

“That is true. The collectivisation of the kulaks caused problems.”

“You will have to talk to our predecessor Secretary of State about that. These issues were inherited and on the books when I came into government. I think that it is good to have a strategy rather than not have a strategy, because I am a chess player and I tend to think that—”

“Money is tight everywhere. I am not just going to sit here and say, “Yes, we have lots of money that we can throw at this.” On your point about whether the Groceries Code Adjudicator should move to DEFRA or merge, we would be open to that. That is a machinery of government change. It currently sits in the Department fo…”

“My view is that, for resilience, we should ensure that we have a healthy farming and food production industry that can adapt very quickly if we should have an issue. Part of food security and food resilience is our connections with the countries that we trade with. For example, during the winter months, we can get frui…”

“Are you asking whether the Government should have a food production target?”

“Let me first deal with the strategies that you have listed off there. It is important that we get the profitability report—the Batters report—out there first.”

“This comes across my desk all the time whenever there is a trade deal in the offing.”

“And regulating for pollution and all the externalities that can occur. I know that consumers in the UK value high-welfare animals. We have to make sure that labelling is appropriate and correct. As a Department, we have not taken a view on how people should farm, so long as they farm within the animal welfare and pollu…”

“It is going to be influential, yes.”

“To do what, though?”

“As I said earlier, the Government have not taken a view on what size farms should be or how production should be organised, except regulating for animal welfare on such farms—”

“Okay.”

“I have read the Batters report. It is a very substantial piece of work and it certainly is not trash. We will, when it is produced, have an initial response and deal with some of the larger areas and recommendations. I hope that, in the months that lie ahead, we will be able to do more work. This is a substantial piece…”

“I absolutely hear you, but I am not going to comment on a current planning issue.”

“You have made your point about that particular local issue very strongly.”

“This week, hopefully.”

“I am not trying to say that we should put solar on grouse moors. I am trying to establish the size of the issue. I think that it goes to 0.4% by 2030, which is still about half as much as we use for golf courses at the moment.”

“It is a question of scale. I do not know the details of the application in your constituency and I certainly would not want to comment on things that are live going through planning. At the moment, 0.1% of land in England is under use for solar. Half of that is also used for food production, usually by sheep grazing at…”

“One has to produce food. One also has to have somewhere to live. Planning authorities are all about deciding how to do that. The land use framework, when it is published, will be a tool for deciding how those balances need to be struck. They have always been struck, over the years, as we have developed as an economy. T…”

“Yes, of course, but we have to get our own house in order before we can lecture other people about it. You say we import feed. We do, but a lot of our arable land is taken up growing feed for the animals that we raise in this country. I think that when I last looked, staggeringly, it was 70%.”