Speeches by Dewhirst.

“As you already alluded to, that can only be achieved if your farms are profitable and you support profitability on farm. We are not going to get into the details today; we will await the report. Then that leads to the general point that greater profitability is unlikely to be achieved through higher taxation. As someon…”

“Now you are DEFRA Secretary of State so you are representing the farming community out there. Do you have concerns that the greater tax burden is not going to allow you to achieve your aims on profitability and therefore higher food production and greater food security?”

“Would it be your aspiration that farmers could keep more of their own money rather than having to apply for public funds from DEFRA in this circular money go round? Would that not be a better system?”

“Ultimately, the people impacted here are often those medium and small family farms. They are not necessarily looking for private investment in that sense. They just want to be able to make a living and grow fantastic British food.”

“I will draw my questioning to a close in the interests of time.”

“Secretary of State, just very quickly on precision breeding while we are discussing it—and leaving aside the practicalities of future negotiations with the EU and so on—are you generally inclined to support the progression of precision breeding from plants into livestock, and the potential benefits we might have with e…”

“I will not need to persuade the Fisheries Minister on the importance of shellfish to Bridlington, given that is where she is from. But can I make sure that when this fund is designed and implemented all sectors within the fishing industry will be able to access it equally so that it is not just offshore and that inshor…”

“On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The recent Cabinet Office annual accounts show that the departed Cabinet Secretary and the permanent secretary collectively received a quarter of a million pounds in golden goodbyes. I asked the Minister for the Cabinet Office the rationale for such a use of taxpayers’ money, …”

“Andy Rafter, owner of the award-winning Rafters greengrocers in Driffield, was telling me just this morning that the bill he has received as a result of his national insurance contribution increase is £30,000 a year. Does my right hon. Friend agree that that deters investment, deters future employment and is just bad f…”

“The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster has just come to the Dispatch Box and said that we have done a new trade deal with the European Union, which I think is news to both the Prime Minister and Brussels. The only thing this Government have done so far in terms of EU relations is to sell out our fishing industry for …”

“I am and always will be a proud Yorkshireman, but I lived in west London for a number of years, so I am aware of the diverse range of views on Heathrow expansion. I certainly do not subscribe to the luddite nimbyism of the hon. Member for Hammersmith and Chiswick (Andy Slaughter), but may I ask the Secretary of State w…”

“1. What assessment he has made of the potential impact of changes to inheritance tax relief on Scotland’s agricultural sector.”

“I welcome the new ministerial team to the Dispatch Box, and particularly the Secretary of State, who is back as Secretary of State for Scotland after nearly 20 years. Farmers watching that response will be thinking, “What a load of tosh!” What representations have the Secretary of State and the Minister made to the Cha…”

“Are there any barriers that you would like to see removed in terms of operational intelligence sharing that would help you do your jobs?”

“On that specific point about demand, leaving aside the person who comes back from holiday with a salami, we are talking about what is probably organised crime in terms of the volumes of meat that are being seized. Where is that meat being sold, on the whole?”

“We hear anecdotally about lorries registered as empty, which no one is going to check because they are empty, and that being a problem in terms of illegal imports. In terms of cross-border working between yourselves, how does that operate on a day-to-day basis in terms of intelligence sharing?”

“A number of organisations are involved in the UK side of this, whether it is yourselves, the National Food Crime Unit, Border Force or port health authorities. The Committee’s recommendation was for a taskforce to look at this to try to get a grip and take responsibility. Would that be helpful to you?”

“As you say, it is not going to major retailers. That would be unlikely. It is more like certain preferences in certain areas, which cannot be produced legally in the UK. In the case of Romania, for example, and its very high prevalence of African swine fever and, therefore, its inability to export pork from most region…”

“Moving on to the commercial side as opposed to personal imports, you alluded to the fact that BTOM has brought some more resilience in terms of food safety and that side of it. To what extent are you concerned about illegal imports through commercial routes as opposed to through those personal routes?”

“While we are discussing the stripping of the water-related responsibilities of the Environment Agency and Natural England, there is a lot of frustration from farmers and others about their responsibilities in relation to water; whether it is the Environment Agency’s flooding issues, which we get in the River Hull catch…”