MPs press Government for greater support for farmers

Following extensive NFU briefings, meetings, farm visits and roundtables with MPs, parliamentarians from across the House highlighted the issues that impact you each and every day during the Support for Farmers Opposition Day debate. 

Following the botched handling of the second SFI26 application window, which closed just six hours after opening on 22 September, Liberal Democrat Efra (Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) Spokesman Tim Farron MP (Westmorland and Lonsdale) opened the debate by highlighting how unjust it was that farmers were excluded simply because they were “milking or otherwise doing their job before the window closed”.  

This sentiment was echoed by MPs across the House, including Labour MP Josh Newbury (Cannock Chase), who highlighted that “a farmer should not have to be the quickest with a keyboard and mouse to secure vital cash for margins or pastures”.  

Shadow Farming Minister Robbie Moore (Con, Keighley and Ilkley) also called for clarity and certainty over when SFI27 will open and what support will be available for those with expiring agreements.  

The NFU has been regularly engaging with Defra to make your experiences of SFI heard and call for change.

In the debate, Farming Minister Stephen Morgan confirmed that the government had “scrapped the ‘first come, first served’ approach” and, when pressed by Tim Farron, committed to “bringing forward SFI27 as early as possible”.

Get the latest on our lobbying work via our SFI timeline.

Another central theme of the debate was the need for action to give farm businesses the certainty and confidence to invest and remain profitable. 

Conservative MP Sarah Bool (South Northamptonshire) stressed the importance of long-term certainty, saying: “farming is a vocation, and it needs long-term planning and certainty for the future”. 

Liberal Democrat MP for Orkney and Shetland and Chair of the Efra Select Committee, Alistair Carmichael, highlighted that British farmers and growers are facing “a perfect storm” of pressures. 

He also highlighted the opportunity presented by the rural economy, saying: “The Prime Minister speaks about growth in every postcode, and a lot of postcodes are in farming communities.

“The rural economy presents a real opportunity to generate the economic growth that we all know we need.”  

With Chancellor John Healey set to deliver the Budget on Wednesday 28 October, a number of the asks set out in the NFU’s Budget submission were raised by MPs from across the political divide.  

These included: 

• Labour MP Josh Newbury highlighting the NFU’s call for Treasury-backed loans to help farm businesses facing acute pressures. 
• Liberal Democrat MP Olly Glover (Didcot and Wantage) calling on the government to increase the Annual Investment Allowance to at least £5 million, address the impact of CBAM and introduce a temporary programme of interest-free farm crisis loans. 
• Labour MP Markus Campbell-Savours (Penrith and Solway) calling for “the end of the family farm tax”, while Robbie Moore called for the restoration of 100% APR (agricultural property relief) and BPR (business property relief).

For the full list of our asks on the Budget, read: Key Autumn Budget asks – NFU writes to the Chancellor

On 20 September, the NFU hosted a roundtable for Derbyshire MPs where four local MPs met with NFU members from their constituencies to hear first-hand about the challenges they are facing and the NFU’s plan to tackle them. 

Those conversations were then reflected directly in the Commons, with Labour MP Samantha Niblett (South Derbyshire) telling MPs she had met Derbyshire NFU members and raising issues around access to capital for machinery, buildings and reservoirs, food labelling, Brazilian beef and transparency over how farming funds are allocated. 

Labour MP Jonathan Davies (Mid Derbyshire) also called for a “more accessible” SFI system, including publishing details of future application windows well in advance so farmers have time to prepare.