Conference speech fallout started badly for farmers
Adramatic turnaround in the weather last week saw temperatures jump as the chilly wind and rain went away. We have had some beautiful sunny days in West Sussex due to Hurricane Sam which raged in the Atlantic – one of the longest lived major hurricanes on record. Fortunately this huge hurricane did not reach land, travelling north and weakening as it reached the cooler waters between Newfoundland and Greenland.
An offspring of Sam then developed in the Atlantic, inheriting a mass of warm air and pulling up further warm air from the south and it is this which now gives us this balmy weather in October. Scotland has had one of driest and sunniest summers on record and has water shortages despite the recent downpours. It is despairing to see that our water services are determined to have similar standards of competence, as sewage spilt on to south east beaches two weeks ago, with Southern Water discharging waste at more than half its outlets and some lasting more than 60 hours after heavy rain flowed from surface drains into sewers.
No one could have missed the fact that the Conservative Party Conference was taking place last week and the fallout continues. It started badly for farmers on the Sunday as Boris Johnson refused to answer or take seriously the dilemma in the pig industry. This theme has continued, with the Prime Minister at subsequent interviews and other ministers equally clueless. Either they don’t like pig farming very much or they simply have no answers. The pig industry says the national pig cull which is now underway could amount to £24million in total, with an estimated 120,000 surplus pigs on farms which cannot be processed for food. This amounts to around 13,000 tonnes of food going to waste and many pig farmers will go out of business on the back of it, with many more giving up. We will then import the shortfall from countries which produced to different standards. George Eustice has claimed that processors and retailers are not supporting the industry as they should and he has a point. While Aldi and Lidl are 100 per cent British, Tesco is 50 per cent and Asda a mere 15 per cent, according to the figures I have seen. As reported in this column before, processors are also importing pig meat from Spain, Belgium and elsewhere. There is so much pressure throughout the supply chain with wafer-thin margins that the slightest hiccup is catastrophic and the farmer carries the risk and pays the price every time.
It’s not just farming though is it? We have plenty of other challenges and the PM had quite a backlash from business after his conference speech. It’s as if Jeremy Corbyn is in No 10 and telling business to invest in its people, pay more and give them better working conditions rather than pull the immigration lever to keep wages low and conditions poor. Not only is he challenging business, this government has raised taxes and is investing in the NHS and care for the elderly. The left would be cheering from the rafters if this was indeed a Labour government, but no, it’s just too much to accept that a Conservative Prime Minister is taking this left-ofcentre position on the economy.
Why would we not as a nation want more British doctors and nurses, care workers, farm workers, butchers and so on? That is after all what Brexit was about for many people who saw their wages and conditions deteriorate as more and more European workers came into the country who were able and willing to work for less. The same companies who are now suffering shortages took full advantage of uncontrolled immigration and are now in real trouble as they thought they could persuade this government to backtrack.
While the charge of no plan and no strategy on how we bridge the transition might be true, it is equally true of business as everyone has had five years and the direction of travel was obvious. However, there are many jobs our own people do not wish to do, even at higher wages and better conditions, and answers need to be found to these challenges. It is unfortunate that the transition has been completely overshadowed by the pandemic, which has hit every country and as economies recover so does the need for labour and resource.
The Prime Minister’s speech at the conference was entertaining, peppered with anecdotes and clever language, full of jokes and went down a storm. Whatever we think, that was the audience he was addressing and they loved it and there is no challenge to his position to be seen from within his own party or in opposition just now. He is also totally correct that there is talent, genius, flair, imagination and enthusiasm in every part of this country, all of them evenly distributed, but that opportunity is not and needs correcting.
Who could disagree with that? However, many are (and some chose to be) enraged as they see it at laughing at the problems and the chaos all around us; is that fair? There are global problems and there are global shortages caused by a cut back in production across the globe as manufacturers realised the enormity of the pandemic and expected a slump in consumer buying. This did not happen as people continued to buy and the transition to online purchasing took off with demand for certain things such as exercise equipment and electronics shooting up.
The task of shipping goods to these consumers was suddenly out of kilter. Around eight million containers are either on ships or waiting at port, forcing China to manufacture more containers as fast as they can. As a result of this, coupled with demand, the cost of shipping goods in a 40ft container is now £7,000; four times the cost of just a year ago. The spot-price for last minute container shipment on the busiest routes is £14,000 and the time it takes door to door has risen from 41 to 70 days in the past 12 months. The effects of this global disconnect between rampant demand and constrained supply is felt in most sectors.
There is a global shortage of labour and of course HGV drivers (yes I have had my letter as a Class 1 Dangerous Goods licence holder), but the industry in this country failed to attract people as the average age went up and is now 53 and only one in 50 is under 25. This demographic time-bomb has been ignored. Of course many HGV drivers switched to delivery vans where pay was higher and they could get home every night; no one can blame them for that. However, the frustration in boardrooms across the country about this government’s economic mismanagement is widespread. The main accusation is that the government does not react until it’s too late and that it was particularly stupid not to allow fruit and veg pickers, meat packers and butchers and drivers into the country months ago as the warning was loud and clear from industry. Much of this is not our government’s fault but it is fast getting a reputation for incompetence over the things it can actually do something about.