Speeches by Dyke.

“Why did you choose not to do any media during the incident?”

“What date?”

“Why did you choose not to do any media during the incident?”

“What date?”

“It really should not have taken over a year for the pleas of thousands of farmers to be heard, and for the Government to finally concede their mistake and change the disastrous family farm tax. However, it is clear that they still simply do not understand the industry. Many farms in Glastonbury and Somerton are run by …”

“Rural life, particularly for those in farming communities, is more typically based on traditional roles, which can often see women marginalised in their role within the family and, sadly, more likely to be victims of abuse. Can the Minister assure me that with any new strategy on tackling violence against women and gir…”

“One fifth of the UK population live in rural areas. They face unavoidable additional costs, including longer travel times, reduced provider competition and workforce recruitment. Those costs have an impact on every single aspect of local service delivery, but funding formulas fail to adequately recognise rurality, putt…”

“Mandatory method of production labelling on animal-derived products could improve animal welfare and increase UK farm profits by over £46 million annually, but we must make sure that the UK-EU SPS agreement is aligned on standards and quality so that British farmers in Glastonbury and Somerton and across the country ar…”

“I have heard from many farmers, my brother being one of them, that the compensation rate of £2,000 per slaughtered cow does not even cover the financial cost of the disruption to their business. Milk prices are being cut. With the compensation being deemed inefficient, Minister, will you look at perhaps conducting a re…”

“Excellent, thank you very much.”

“But specifically on bovine TB?”

“One key thing that I have heard over and over is that the IT systems in the APHA, BCMS and LIS do not talk to each other. What consideration have you given to creating one master system database that will help improve tracking?”

“Minister, I want to quickly go back to labelling. I have just hosted a breakfast reception on tackling misinformation in the food industry for animal-derived products. DEFRA has previously consulted on a mandatory method of production labelling and has recognised its importance. Your Government have promised the highes…”

“Yes, I am happy to discuss that with you. Thank you.”

“To give you an example, 13,000 tonnes of butter was dropped into Rotterdam in the summer. It had no point-of-origin labelling on it, so it went into the UK market, undercutting some of our farmers. That is one of the key problems here. We go back to the labelling issue. With the trade deals that are coming through, the…”

“What assessment have you made of the effectiveness of the fair dealing obligations for milk? As we know, a lot of dairy farmers have been left reeling by a couple of quite significant farm-gate milk price drops over the last couple of months. There is potential for the milk price to go down even further. Farmers are al…”

“To be able to farm and not be distracted by trying to advance their business by developing applications for various other sources of funding. At the end of the day, farmers want to produce food. That is what they want to do. Is there merit in the Groceries Code Adjudicator and the Agricultural Supply Chain Adjudicator …”

“Going back to the power imbalances, there has been quite an extensive debate on whether the scope of the Agricultural Supply Chain Adjudicator should be expanded. Farmers in many sectors, such as pigs and dairy, do not deal with retailers. That is where some of the imbalance comes from, is it not? Farmers deal with the…”

“Just on that, if you are a small family farm, it is very difficult to run the business and then also manage all sorts of other things when larger farm businesses are going to have access to accountants, advisers and various things. That is where the imbalance is. That is perhaps where we need to ensure appropriate gran…”

“Thirty years have passed since I was there. The Groceries Code Adjudicator’s neutrality is valued by both retailers and suppliers. However, some concerns have been widely expressed around limitations in its effectiveness. Many farmers remain reluctant to report malpractice due to fear of retaliation, including being de…”