Industry welcomes new Defra team

The team was finalised over the weekend, with the appointments of Newbury MP Richard Benyon and Tory Peer Lord Henley as junior Ministers. They join Secretary of State Caroline Spelman and Farming Minister Jim Paice in what, despite the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition, is an all-Tory team.

Mr Benyon and Mr Paice both have first hand experience of farming. Mr Benyon describing himself as a ‘local farmer and businessman’, while Mr Paice’s career inside and outside politics has been dominated by farming.

Ms Spelman’s links to the industry are less direct and more controversial. She was an NFU sugar adviser in the early 1990s before becoming deputy director of the International Confederation of European Beet Growers.

Until a year ago, she was also joint director, with her husband, of a food and biotechnology lobbying company, which has already led to questions about possible conflicts of interest in her new job.

Nonetheless, the industry response to the appointments has been positive. NFU president Peter Kendall, congratulating the new Ministers, noting the Tories’ promise to ‘put the ‘f’, farming, back into Defra’. “I know that message has gone down well with farmers up and down the country,” he said.

He said he looked forward to meeting Ms Spelman ‘at the earliest opportunity’ and said Mr Paice would be familiar to farmers across thee country due to his ‘strong connections to farming’.

“I look forward to working with Jim Paice in promoting this exciting and vibrant industry and ensuring that productive farming is at the heart of Defra’s agenda,” he said.

Country Land and Business Association president William Worsley ‘warmly’ congratulated the new team and predicted Ms Spelman’s farming background would ensure she is ‘well prepared for the Defra brief’.

He said he was ‘delighted to have, in Mr Paice and Mr Benyon, ministers who ‘really understand the challenges of farming and needs of farmers’.

Countryside Alliance director of campaigns Rob Gray said Ms Spelman ‘could not be better qualified to take on this demanding role’ due to her ‘long connection to agricultural issues’.

Royal Association of British Dairy Farmers chairman, David Cotton also hailed Mr Paice’s ‘huge experience’ of the industry and said he looked forward to ‘working with him in partnership with Defra’.

Tenant Farmers Association chairman Greg Bliss went one step further than by contrasting his aspirations for the new Government with the frustration felt by some farmers with the previous regime.

“The last administration did much to marginalise the farming community and to diminish its importance to British society. 

“I am hopeful that the new administration will take time to understand more about the workings of agriculture and in particular its tenanted sector,” he said.

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