Labour has laid out its plans for farming at the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) conference, promising to reduce imports that undercut British farmers and forge a closer trading relationship with the EU.
Making a number of pledges that appeared to commit to properly functioning government rather than radical reform, the shadow farming minister, Daniel Zeichner, promised Labour would make the environmental land management scheme, which pays farmers to green their farms, work properly and take action on flooding.
The prime minister, Rishi Sunak, had promised large grants for farmers and told them he “has their back” on Tuesday.
The Tories are aware that the farming vote is at risk, with NFU polling released on Wednesday showing its members have a negative view of Sunak, at -36.
The farmers seem to prefer the Labour leader, Keir Starmer, who has a ranking of -8. Labour is expected to win in rural areas, according to the polling: 36% of NFU members polled intend to vote Labour and 32% plan to vote Tory. This is a stark change compared with the 2019 election, when the Tories polled at 58% among farmers and Labour at 20%.
Neither Starmer nor the shadow environment secretary, Steve Reed, attended the main conference sessions, which caused some surprise, though Reed did go to a dinner on Tuesday.
Zeichner addressed the Tory impact on the sector, telling a hustings that the Conservative government had presided over farm closures, and chaos that had “forced over 6,000 agriculture businesses here to close down since 2017”. He said: “A Labour government will resolutely back British farmers, reducing our reliance on insecure imports, supporting high quality, local produce for consumers and ending the shameful new reality of those empty supermarket shelves.”
The party’s food security plan, he said, meant “Labour will lower the red tape farmers face at our borders, for both imports and exports”. He added: “Ministers have left farmers too vulnerable to low quality imports that undercut our people.” The post-Brexit free trade deals including the one with Australia have been heavily criticised by farmers and the previous environment secretary.
Zeichner said the government’s own assessments had indicated that the New Zealand trade deal would result in an economic contraction of £48m for agriculture and fisheries, and that Jacob Rees-Mogg’s comments at the Conservative party conference that he wanted to allow hormone-treated beef into the UK “represent a strand of thinking that runs deep through parts of the Conservative party, parts that were in government all too recently, and could be again”.
He also promised to fix the situation at Dover, where he said contaminated meat had been accepted on to British soil, and post-Brexit checks are mooted to move 21 miles inland, which Zeichner called “very risky”. Zeichner said Labour would “seek a veterinary agreement with the European Union that will get British food exports moving again, and ensure standards are safeguarded”.
There has been a big debate at the conference about the English environmental land management scheme. The government has underspent by hundreds of millions of pounds because farmers have not signed up. Officials have also buried financial analysis showing the negative effect on farmers. Agricultural businesses have asked for more money, saying they are at risk of going out of business as the EU common agricultural policy is phased out.
The farming minister, Mark Spencer, said he would be “pitching very hard” to Sunak to increase the farming payments budget from £2.4bn a year. The Liberal Democrats are promising to boost it by £1bn. Zeichner said it would be “irresponsible” to promise to raise the payment without knowing what it would deliver for the public in hard pressed times. He did, however, say Labour would publish the outcomes of the schemes and “fix” them to end the underspend.
Tim Farron, the Lib Dem farming spokesperson, criticised the Tories’ “botched transition” and said hill farmers in his constituency had been losing 41% of their income under the new environment schemes. He said there had been “lakeland clearances”, where large landlords turf tenant farmers off the hills to join lucrative government nature schemes. Spencer promised he would take action to stop landowners moving tenants off and planting large parts of their farm as wild bird food to receive payments of £800 an acre. However, this appears to be only in the form of “issuing very strong guidance”.
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This article was amended on 21 February 2024. An earlier version said Steve Reed did not attend the conference. To clarify: while Reed did not attend any main conference sessions, he did go to a dinner event.