Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:00 pm on 30 November 2021.
We've even recently heard some Conservatives in this Senedd raising their voices against multinational corporations buying up Welsh agricultural land. It's great to see the Tories as late converts against the unbridled operation of the free market, and I think Welsh agriculture, beset by all these pressures at the moment, needs a bit of a united front. But the wider attempt to present the Tory party as defending Welsh farming sticks in the throat of many farmers. When they were promised in the 2019 manifesto that the Conservatives would guarantee the annual budget of farmers in every year of the next Parliament, what have we had but the opposite: the promise of a cut every year in this comprehensive spending review? So much so that, actually, as the FUW point out, by 2025, it's going to be—[Interruption.]—Welsh agriculture allocation is going to be £248 million worse off. I'm all in favour of finding common ground, but let's be clear who the common enemy is: a Westminster Government that has betrayed farmers and farming in Wales time and time again.