'We must also work to ensure the potential for future prosperity of our farmers'

MP for Ellesmere Port

WE now know more than 300 Cheshire jobs in the fertiliser industry are at great risk after it was announced that a much-valued agricultural company in my constituency is to close.

CF Fertilisers at Ince has provided good quality jobs for many years, so the decision to begin consultation on a proposal to shut the plant has come as a bitter blow for a great many people.

In early May I did alert the House of Commons about the risk to his factory which has been mothballed now for quite some time. I gave a dire warning that more support is needed to get farmers planting, otherwise the price rises we have seen at supermarkets in recent months will continue over the next few years.

Cheshire is a farming county and has been so for centuries so it is more than ironic that CF Fertilisers is closing at Ince at least in part because the company could not find a buyer for its products.

It is also ironic that the shutdown announcement was made a week before the Government outlined its latest food strategy proposals which will involve masses of food being grown in greenhouses covering acres of land in a bid to increase self-sufficiency to help guard against future economic shocks. I can but imagine all the fertiliser that will be required to help all those plants to thrive.

My initial reaction to the release of the National Food Strategy Report is that it should be seen as a massive wake-up call to fix Britain’s broken food system.

We all want to see self-sufficiency in our food production system but let us not forget that this Government has proved incapable of ending the growing foodbank scandal across our country, as well as the obesity problems which are blighting the health prospects of so many citizens.

We must also work to ensure the potential for future prosperity of our farmers who not only provide rural employment but also spend great amounts of their time looking after our land. Britain’s high food and farming standards must be protected in law and not watered down in trade deals.

One basic long-term aim must be to ensure every family can afford for their children to get a healthy, hot meal every day. We need a radical obesity strategy, ensuring families can access healthy food, tackling rising child poverty in so doing and supporting local leisure facilities too. In the short term, we must explore every avenue to see if there is a way to keep the plant open.

Meanwhile, as I contemplate the contents of my MP’s postbag I note that, months on, constituents are still writing to make clear their disgust at the behaviour of our Prime Minister.

Boris Johnson may have survived a challenge to his leadership and Premiership but four out of every 10 Conservative MPs voted to remove him from office.

And devastatingly for him, once MPs who are the Government payroll are taken out of the equation, it has been calculated that three-quarters of backbenchers wanted him gone.

Most of the national political pundits are in no doubt Mr Johnson’s days are numbered.