3. What steps she is taking to encourage young people to take up learning and vocational training opportunities in the countryside and farming sector. (73879)

5. What steps she is taking to encourage young people to take up learning and vocational training opportunities in the countryside and farming sector. (73881)

6. What steps she is taking to encourage young people to take up learning and vocational training opportunities in the countryside and farming sector. (73882)

11. What steps she is taking to encourage young people to take up learning and vocational training opportunities in the countryside and farming sector. (73887)

12. What steps she is taking to encourage young people to take up learning and vocational training opportunities in the countryside and farming sector. (73888)

I am delighted that so many colleagues are keen to ask about this important issue. Improving skills and creating learning opportunities is an essential part of delivering growth in farming, rural areas and food businesses. To that end, earlier in the summer, my right hon. Friend the Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, announced 50,000 new apprenticeships, mainly associated with agriculture and the food industry. In addition, we are working closely with colleagues at the Departments for Education and for Business, Innovation and Skills to make sure that rural areas benefit from the additional £250 million that the Government are investing in adult apprenticeships.

I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer. Will she encourage her Ministers to work with people such as those at the Suffolk Agricultural Association, who hold annual school days for children, to ensure that they are involved in encouraging the take-up of apprenticeships when people leave school?

I have absolutely no hesitation in endorsing that scheme in Suffolk. Obviously, we would like to see that example of best practice replicated elsewhere.

With the rising price of lamb making upland sheep farming a promising and viable business now and for the future, what is the Minister going to do to ensure that more young people are attracted to remain in this sector of farming after generations of farmers’ sons and daughters have left it?

I well remember, when we launched our upland support package, which brought £26 million of new money to help support farmers and their communities in the uplands, sheep farmers saying to me that this problem of succession is a serious one. So I was delighted to hear that Northumberland national park, in partnership with Lantra, is encouraging a programme with the local college in that national park for upland farming skills. A similar scheme called Dartmoor skills has also been introduced. I think that young people will increasingly be attracted to the tradition of sheep farming, which has a bright future.

Last year, the Welsh Assembly Government launched the young entrants support scheme—an innovative project that offers grant funding and business mentoring to new entrants and young farmers. Will the Secretary of State look at replicating something similar in the UK? We have a real problem in that around a third of farmers are over the age of 65. We must try to get some new people in.

Yes, I think that that scheme has merit. As I announced earlier this month, we will have a rural strand as part of the growth review. I am sure that all Members want to see part of the economic recovery of our country vested in rural areas, which have often been neglected. A huge opportunity exists to help young people to enter land-based employment and to encourage rural enterprise.

Does the Secretary of State agree that national park authorities such as the Broads Authority in my constituency do some great work with disadvantaged youngsters in their outreach programmes and that all national park authorities should prioritise that kind of outreach work?

Yes, the Broads Authority sets a very good example in helping young people, particularly vulnerable and disadvantaged young people, to gain access to the countryside. I am delighted to tell the House that the Health and Safety Executive has, at the request of the Government, simplified its guidance for farm visits, thereby removing one of the significant barriers to helping schoolchildren access the countryside. Through the rural development programme for England, we make it possible for 1,000 farms to be visited by our young people; access to nature for young people is a very important part of investing in their future.

I recently met a farmer in my constituency who told me that more than 80% of his 50 employees are hard-working eastern Europeans. He finds it very difficult to attract young British people to take on those jobs. Is there anything that the Secretary of State’s Department can do to make this work more attractive to them?

I am sure that the same complaint has been made to other hon. Members. On Open Farm Sunday, I visited a farm in Worcestershire where exactly the same point was made to me. It is important to stress, for the record, that although manual work on the farm is hard work, it can be very well paid—up to £10 an hour on average—so that seems not to be the impediment. By working with the Department for Work and Pensions, we are very keen to make sure that work does pay for our young people.

Will not a lot of young people be discouraged from going into agriculture by the Government’s plans to scrap the Agricultural Wages Board, as that will drive down wages and conditions, particularly for young people and casual workers? Should the Secretary of State not listen to her coalition friend the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George), who, speaking on behalf of the Liberal Democrats, I believe, has said that he is against the abolition of the Agricultural Wages Board? Listening to him is something that she could do to help workers and young workers in particular.

This is becoming something of an obsession for the Labour party, but Labour Members refuse to accept or acknowledge that, when in government, they were certainly considering scrapping the Agricultural Wages Board, and only the Warwick agreement and pressure from the unions—their paymasters—caused them to change their minds. Employment legislation has moved on tremendously since 1948, when the Agricultural Wages Board was set up. They are supporting an analogue solution in a digital age.

Notwithstanding the previous question, does my right hon. Friend not agree that potential new, young entrants will be looking closely at the common agricultural policy reform proposals published by the Commission yesterday? Although there are welcome proposals with regard to payments to young farmers, does she not agree that many of the other proposals would undermine the competitiveness of the future of British and, indeed, European agriculture?

Yes. I thank my hon. Friend for that. The House will be aware that the Commission has just published its proposals to reform the CAP, and I am afraid that they are disappointing. We will do all we can to improve them. We need agriculture that is competitive, market oriented and successful, to attract new entrants, but at first sight—we need to do more analysis—the Commission’s proposals seem extremely bureaucratic and do not move us in the right direction.