General Election 2019: What are the political parties promising on food and farming?

Funding

• Guarantee current agriculture budget to 2024
• 20,000 more police officers to help tackle rural crime
• £640m Nature for Climate fund to reach net zero by 2050 target

Trade and standards

• ‘Raise’ animal welfare, agriculture and environmental standards
• Negotiate trade deals with USA, Australia, New Zealand and Japan in next three years

Brexit

• Keep UK out of single market and customs union
• Negotiate a trade agreement with the EU next year

Animal welfare

• End live exports and ‘excessively long’ journeys for slaughter and fattening

Rural crime

• Tackle unauthorised traveller camps
• Increase penalties for fly-tipping

Future farming policy

• Move to public money for public goods farm support system
• Encourage public sector to buy British food

Infrastructure

• Ensure full-fibre and gigabit capable broadband reaches every home and business in the UK by 2025
• Invest £100bn in railways and roads
• Consider findings of Oakervee review into HS2
• Protect rural bus routes

Flooding

• Invest £4bn in flood defences

Access to labour

• Introduce points-based immigration system
• Reduce overall numbers of immigrants and ‘lower-skilled’ migrants
• Increase annual quota for Seasonal Agricultural Workers’ Scheme to 10,000

Nature

• Protect the Green Belt
• Set up Office for Environmental Protection
• Plant an additional 75,000 acres of trees a year by the end of the next Parliament
• Restore peatlands
• Create new National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Beauty
• Make green spaces more accessible to the public

Climate

• Deliver on target to become net zero by 2050

Future farming policy

• Refocus subsidies to transition to organic farming, agroforestry and mixed farming and away from ‘intensive’ livestock farming
• Aim for 50 per cent of all farms to be engaged in agroforestry by 2030

• Grants for farmers to replace high-emitting farm machinery and improve farm buildings and infrastructure
• New subsidies to expand and replace hedgerows
• Legislate to give farmers greater security of tenure
• Introduce support for small-scale family farms and new entrants
• Ban ‘most harmful’ pesticides, including glyphosate
• Maintain moratorium on production and import of GM foods
• Reduce amount of nitrogen fertiliser used on UK farms

Funding

• Increase funding for the Environment Agency and Natural England

Food

• Phase in a tax on meat and dairy products over the next ten years
• Introduce clear labelling to indicate carbon emissions, high animal welfare and ‘intensive’ production methods
• Promote initiatives to reduce food waste
• Legislate for a ‘right to food’

Infrastructure

• Connect rural communities through rural broadband and mobile internet
• Scrap HS2

Business

• Establish a Land Commission to ‘investigate the effects’ of concentrated land ownership on food and farming systems
• Introduce a new Land Value Tax
• Increase Living Wage to £12 and extend it to workers aged between 16 and 21

Nature

• Plant 700 million new trees
• Encourage rewilding
• Create a new Nature GCSE
• Extend Green Belt, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty and Sites of Special Scientific Interest protections
• Bring in targets for soil quality and biodiversity standards
• Develop a soil health monitoring programme for England
• Invest in peatland restoration and end burning of peatlands
• Restore access to the countryside

Climate

• Support research into reduction of methane emissions from livestock and conservation and development of high-quality soils
• Support introduction of EU-wide carbon tariff

Flooding

• Plant trees and restore soil in the uplands

Animal welfare

• Advocate for EU legislation to end ‘factory farming’
• Push for European rules to reduce transportation times for animals
• Ban live exports
• Stop the badger cull
• Prohibit routine use of antibiotics for farm animals
• Implement a complete ban on cages for farm animals

Trade and standards

• Maintain and enhance environmental and food standards in all future trade deals

Brexit

• Push for a second referendum with remain on the ballot paper

Funding

• Maintain agricultural and rural structural funds
• ‘Fully fund’ environmental agencies
• Invest in county farms
• Boost police resources to tackle rural crime

Food

• Introduce a ‘Right to Food’
• Establish a National Food Commission
• Support local food networks

Access to farm land

• ‘Expand access’ to farm holdings
• Work with farming organisations to increase access for new entrants

Farm workers’ rights and pay

• Re-establish the Agricultural Wages Board in England
• Introduce a Real Living Wage of £10 per hour for all workers aged 16 or over
• Ensure union representation for all agricultural workers

Trade and standards

• ‘Maintain and improve’ existing EU standards in trade deals

Brexit

• Replace Tory Withdrawal Agreement with one which ensures the UK remains in the customs union and aligned to the single market
• Second referendum with remain on the ballot paper

Future farming policy

• Repurpose agricultural and rural funds to support public goods and sustainable methods of food production

Flooding

• £5.6bn to improve flood defences
• Better upstream river management

Infrastructure

• Nationalise railways and water companies
• Free full-fibre broadband for all UK households by 2030

Nature

• Review protected area designations
• Introduce binding new standards for nature recovery, environmental quality and habitats and species protection
• ‘Ambitious’ programme of tree planting

Climate

• Aim to achieve net-zero carbon food production in Britain by 2040

Animal welfare

• End the badger cull
• Prohibit sales of snares and glue traps

Access to labour

• Freedom of movement to continue if Labour’s second referendum means the UK remains in the EU, with new rules ‘subject to negotiation’ if the result is to leave

Food

• Introduce a National Food Strategy

Funding

• Increase Defra’s budget, ensuring Natural England and the Environment Agency are ‘properly funded’

Animal welfare

• Improve standards of animal welfare in agriculture, including a ban on caged hens
• Develop ‘safe, effective, humane and evidence-based’ ways of controlling bovine TB, including investing in workable vaccines

Future farming policy

• Reduce agricultural support payments to larger recipients and redeploy the savings to support public goods
• Support producers by broadening the remit of the Groceries Code Adjudicator and helping them with access to markets

Trade and standards

• Ensure future trade agreements require high environmental and animal welfare standards

Brexit

• Revoke Article 50 with a majority Government, but in all other circumstances fight for a second referendum with remain on the ballot paper

Flooding

• £5n for flood prevention and climate adaptation

Infrastructure

• £2bn to install hyper-fast, fibre-optic broadband across the UK, with particular focus on connecting rural areas and small and medium-sized businesses
• Invest in mobile data infrastructure and expand it to cover all homes
• Set up a £2bn Rural Services Fund to enable the co-location of services in local hub
• Increase funding for buses

Climate

• Set legally binding target to become net zero by 2045
• Create a statutory duty on all local authorities to produce a Zero Carbon Strategy, including plans for land use
• Set up a ‘Just Transition Fund’ to support communities negatively affected by policies to tackle climate change

Nature

• Introduce a Nature Act which sets legally binding targets for improving water, air, soil and biodiversity, supported by at least £18bn over five years
• Plant 60m trees a year
• Invest in restoration of peatlands, heathland, native woodlands, saltmarshes, wetlands and coastal waters, including through piloting ‘rewilding’ approaches
• Increase the amount of accessible green space and create a new designation of National Nature Parks

Future farming policy

• Retain a direct payment scheme
• Ensure tree planting plans are closely connected with agri-environment incentives for farmers
• Maintain ban on GMOs

Food

• Create a stronger domestic food market underpinned by more resilient processing capacity
• Support food industry with pro-active public procurement policies
• Fight for full powers for the Senedd over food labelling to protect and grow the Welsh brand

Flooding

• Greater emphasis on flood prevention in planning guidelines
• Plant new woodland in the uplands

Rural crime

• Devolve policing and recruit an extra 1,600 police officers
• Devolve powers relating to dog attacks on livestock

Brexit

• Fight for second referendum and campaign for remain
• Push to stay in the single market and customs union

Trade and standards

• Uphold standards in future trade deals
• Ensure future trade deals secure geographical indications
• Ensure any imports meet domestic standards

Funding

• Push Defra to ensure all countries in the UK have an equal say on the total amount of money allocated to farming
• Replace Barnett Formula with an Office for Fair Funding

Access to labour

• Ensure Wales has an immigration system which plugs skills gaps in agriculture

Infrastructure

• Set up a publicly-owned Welsh Broadband Infrastructure Company to guarantee access to full-fibre broadband for every home and business in Wales by 2025
• Scrap HS2

Nature

• Advocate use of underground and undersea cables through National Parks and Areas of Natural Beauty
• Aim to plant a minimum of 2,000 hectares of trees a year from 2020

Animal welfare

• Tackle TB in wildlife

Funding

• Fight for powers to fund agriculture policy to be repatriated to Scotland
• Resist UK Government attaching strings to future funding
• Make UK Government pay costs to rural economy resulting from Brexit

Future farming policy

• Campaign for future farming policy to be developed in Scotland
• Ensure repatriation of red meat levy
• Extend the remit of the GCA
• Listen to sector views on mandatory written contracts
• Push for more Government bodies to buy Scottish food
• Maintain GM-free status

Brexit

• Support a second referendum with remain on the ballot paper
• Back revoking Article 50 in a no-deal scenario
• Stay in single market and customs union

Access to labour

• Devolve immigration powers
• Press for seasonal workers’ scheme to meet Scottish needs

Trade and standards

• Remain aligned with EU standards
• Ensure red meat sector compensated if facing EU tariffs
• Keep import tariffs on key agricultural products
• Oppose US trade talks until tariffs on Scotch whisky dropped
• Press for reciprocal recognition of geographical indications and for more Scottish products to be protected

Infrastructure

• Rollout superfast broadband to every home and business in Scotland
• Press Westminster to reclassify internet as an essential service
• Work with broadband and mobile service providers to make affordable tariffs widely available
• Fight against bank, ATM and post office closures

Climate

• Demand UK accelerates action to meet Scotland’s climate change targets of a 75 per cent reduction in emissions by 2035, net zero carbon emissions by 2040 and net zero all emissions by 2045
• Ensure a ‘just transition’ for communities affected by climate change policies

Nature

• Plant 30 million trees in Scotland by 2025