Louise Haigh defends Labour’s budget measures after Starmer shuns farmers at tax protest

Louise Haigh defends Labour’s budget measures after farmer tax protestSource: Sky News

Transcript

00:00Why did he have nothing to say to farmers yesterday?

00:03They were gathered, they're demonstrating,

00:05from what their leaders say, they're hurting.

00:07Prime Minister had nothing to say to them.

00:10Well, colleagues have met with representatives

00:12of the farming community and we do understand concerns.

00:16We appreciate how hard farmers work.

00:19I've got people in my own circle of family and friends

00:22that work extraordinarily hard in farming

00:24and earn very little as a result.

00:27But these decisions had to be made

00:28and we think that they've been made in a fair

00:30and proportionate way in order to fund public services.

00:33What I would say in order to address the exact question

00:35about what we've got to offer farmers.

00:37But the money you're talking about is just a few million.

00:40And if I may say so, is it wise for the farming minister

00:45to respond to the anger of farmers

00:48by telling them to calm down,

00:50which is apparently what he's done?

00:52Well, I don't think we would use exact language like that.

00:57He said, look at this calmly.

01:00Perhaps you might want to correct

01:04the tone of that a little bit.

01:06We absolutely recognise the enormous contribution

01:08that farmers make to our economy and to feeding the nation.

01:11And we've recognised that actually

01:13through our New Deal for Farmers,

01:15which Steve Reid, the Environment Secretary has set out,

01:17which includes reforming our procurement rules

01:20to require 50% of food in our public spaces,

01:24to be produced by British farmers.

01:27This will be an enormous boost to the farming industry.

01:31Also set out protections for them with future trade deals

01:35and bringing down energy bills.

01:36This will be transformative

01:39for a lot of farmers across the country.

01:40So we do recognise the difficult situation that many are in,

01:44but we think the choices that we've set out in the budget

01:47are fair and proportionate.