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In response to NFU President Minette Batters' letter to the Conservative party leadership candidates, Rishi Sunak joined us at a Q&A event exclusively for NFU members on 19 August 2022.

Mr Sunak joined Minette and 100 NFU members from across the country at NFU HQ in Warwickshire. More members joined the webinar online.

Before taking questions from the floor, Mr Sunak began by talking about his experience of the issues that are important to farmers and growers. He went on to talk more about how he would lead the government in relation to food and farming policy. You can read a summary of his key points below.

Liz Truss has also accepted our invitation to attend a husting event. We'll publish details of this in due course.

Summary

Mr Sunak began by thanking farmers and the NFU for everything they do for the country, their community, and for the support shown to him when he first became an MP. He acknowledged the difficulties farmers are facing with the agricultural transition, inflationary pressures and the issues that have arisen since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Minette opened the floor to questions from members which covered a number of key issues impacting farmers and growers.

We've provided a summary of Mr Sunak’s responses below.

Land use

Mr Sunak said environmental schemes must not be delivered at the expense of food production, nor should rewilding projects or building solar farms mean taking prime agricultural land out of production. He stated he wants to 'change the planning framework' to protect prime agricultural land from large scale solar farms.

Supply chains

Mr Sunak said he wanted to add greater transparency and resilience into energy, fertiliser and food supply chains. On fertiliser, he said he agrees with the NFU’s ask to establish a gas price fertiliser index, and on energy wants to reform how the wholesale energy market works for electricity to reduce inflationary prices on farming businesses.

Food security

Mr Sunak will have a food security target and a strategy to increase growing capacity as well as an annual food security summit hosted at Downing Street. He said he would provide a tax cut to enable manufacturers to improve production capacity by offering greater opportunities for value added products, such as finished dairy products, which we currently import a high volume of.

Trade

Mr Sunak said he believes trade deals should not be rushed and time must be taken to make sure farmers are not undercut, and that farmers are able to exploit export opportunities. He said a level playing field is crucial. He also highlighted that the food labelling system should be reviewed to make the country of origin clearer.

Regulatory environment

Mr Sunak said he wants to make things simpler, more straightforward and proportionate. He argued that most of the regulatory issues such as greening requirements, ear tags or the three-crop rule have been dealt with or are getting better, but will work with the sector to tackle remaining issues. He also said he wants to be progressive and pro-innovation, using the example of gene editing as something that can help boost resilience.

Investment

Mr Sunak said he didn’t think the current corporation tax regime was working and is in favour of an improved tax regime for capital allowances, saying the UK has a difficult regime compared to other countries. He said ‘half of the gap between the UK and France and Germany is explained by a gap in investment’ and wants to make 'the most generous capital allowances in the world to have a more productive, high growth economy, particularly for small businesses'.

He also highlighted plans to invest in the processing sector to boost the UK’s processing capacity, which would benefit farmers here as they wouldn’t have to export the raw ingredient for processing abroad.

Government funding

Mr Sunak stated that, while Chancellor, he protected the £2.8 billion of government funding rolled over from the Agriculture Transition Plan and said 'the ability for us to do different things with that money is exciting', arguing that being able to demonstrate a good return of investment in farming will give the Treasury the confidence to invest more in the farming sector in the next budget.

Immigration

Mr Sunak said he will be pragmatic on immigration. He stated he wants to get tough on illegal immigration and reform the welfare system to get more unemployed people into work, but recognised they weren’t likely to solve farming’s labour issues. Yet he stressed that as long as his government is doing those two things, it is 'totally reasonable to say we need to bring more people into the country for these jobs'. He said he is prepared to be flexible both in terms of the Shortage Occupation List and the Seasonal Workers Scheme.

bTB strategy

Mr Sunak said he believes the UK should work towards vaccination but believes culling must be an available tool to help manage the disease in the meantime.

Water management

Mr Sunak argued it’s important to get water right and said 'he’s prepared to do the work' to develop an effective water strategy. Wanting to boost resilience to drought, he would make sure grant schemes fund things such as trickle irrigation to help farmers make more efficient use of water.

Livestock

Mr Sunak said he wants to embrace new technologies such as feed additives and gene editing to reduce methane emissions from cows. He believes British farmers produce quality beef and sheep and that there are opportunities to develop markets at home and abroad.