Speeches by Eagle.

“This is a highly sensitive issue. The reasons for someone contemplating taking their own life are often very complex. My heart goes out to every family who is devastated by such events. I understand the pressures that farmers are under, but I have to say that the right hon. Lady’s way of making her point is very distas…”

“My hon. Friend raises the important point that a third of all farmland in England is managed by tenant farmers, so a fair and sustainable tenant farming sector relies on positive landlord, tenant and adviser relationships. To help deliver that, we have appointed Alan Laidlaw as England’s first commissioner for the tena…”

“I am more than happy to look at how Italy does things, but that can be a bit of a double-edged sword. I sympathise and empathise with coeliacs, who have to deal with much higher prices. Some of that is to do with production and the need to ensure that there is no cross-contamination of foods. It may well be that it is …”

“While the Conservatives failed to spend £300 million of the farming budget, we are backing farmers with the largest nature-friendly budget in history, and 50,000 farm businesses and half of all farmed land are now managed under our schemes. We have today published our initial response to Baroness Batters’ recommendatio…”

“I am puzzled by the hon. Lady’s view that the issues she talks about are somehow having a bad effect on food prices, since yesterday’s figures demonstrate that there has been a 0.7% decline in food price inflation, and estimates assume that inflation will gradually come down over the next two years.”

“We have a close relationship with the Home Office, and I have old contacts there too. I promise that we keep a close eye on these things and look at what we can do about emerging shortages. Given that we want to reduce the number of people who come into this country and that we want to create job opportunities for peop…”

“Yes.”

“That is absolutely true. Stepping forward with confidence into the future using new agritech techniques, diversifying farm income and seeing what we can do in partnership with the industry, as Baroness Batters’ report says this morning, is the way forward; talking down the industry and covering it in doom and gloom is …”

“We have already brought forward some sectoral regulations to improve fairness, but there is a built-in difficulty when there are small suppliers and very large buyers. The fairness regulations that the hon. Gentleman talks about have been put in place to try to redress that difficulty.”

“We have to get the science right on vaccination trials. The turkey trial is being carried out because this is one of our most valuable stocks, so we cannot rush it. I would not want to get our turkey industry into a situation where the vaccination trial was rushed and we were not sure of the response, because if there …”

“The global glut of milk has led to instability in price, which is difficult as many of our food prices are reliant on global markets. We have put in place the Fair Dealing Obligations (Milk) Regulations 2024, and we will be keeping a close eye on the sector to see what else we can do to ensure that we continue to suppo…”

“You won’t be in the kitchen, then?”

“I understand and empathise with the experience of the hon. Lady’s constituent. A global glut of milk is driving prices down; prices had gone up because there was an undersupply, so there are market corrections going on. The Fair Dealing Obligations (Milk) Regulations 2024 now apply to all dairy supply contracts. If her…”

“Dairy farmers are facing a difficult period of market adjustment. The new fair dealing regulations ensure fairness and greater transparency, creating a more resilient dairy supply chain that supports farmers and strengthens national food security.”

“It is a very wide-ranging review. You only have to wait a small number of hours now to see it. I certainly hope that, taken together, it will be able to deal with quite a bit of this.”

“I do not have anything personal against land agents, but I want to have a system where, after you have been in the fields all day, you can come back and make your application without having to go through hell or employing somebody to do it. I have had the Rural Payments Agency in my office to show me how the system wor…”

“There is—and there is no getting away from it—a power imbalance between those who are buying food and those who are selling it. The smaller the farm, the larger the power imbalance. If one looks at dairy, the statutory instrument took two years to co-develop with the industry, including with dairy farmers and their rep…”

“One strategy, probably. But if you do strategy, that can guide you. The farming road map is at the pinnacle of that, because that will demonstrate the way forwards. In order to do that, first you have to have the “what”, and that is the profitability report, which will be coming this week. Then we have the land use fra…”

“I am an octopus eater myself, but I recognise that not many people in Britain do the same thing.”

“You will have to talk to our predecessor Secretary of State about that. These issues were inherited and on the books when I came into government. I think that it is good to have a strategy rather than not have a strategy, because I am a chess player and I tend to think that—”