Hormone Products (EC Ban) (Hansard, 12 December 1988)

§ Mr. Ken Hargreaves (Hyndburn)

The EC Council of Agricultural Ministers agreed in December 1985 to pass directive 85/649, which banned the use of hormone products for fattening cattle throughout the EC from 1 January 1988. The decision provoked a storm of protest, not least from the British Government, and I am grateful that our Government have been the strongest and most consistent opponent of the ban in the Community. Unfortunately, the British Government's attempt to challenge the ban in the European Court of Justice was not successful.

The immediate consequences of this total ban are very serious for international trade. It will prohibit the sale to EC markets of meat from animals which have been treated with hormones, whether for therapeutic reasons or for growth promotion. This will include all imports of meat and offal from third countries such as the United States of America. The meat processing industry in the EC is dependent on imported offal since the EC does not produce sufficient to meet its requirements, and consequently the ban will put at risk not only 45 jobs at Wirral Foods in Great Harwood, in my constituency, but over 300 jobs in the tongue canning industry in other parts of the country, if it is imposed after 31 December.

My constituents at Wirral Foods are grateful for all that is being done by their energetic production director, Mr. Brian Quinn, by Mr. Richard Burdekin, managing director of Rea Valley Canned Meat Ltd. and by the Government in pressing the Commission to try to resolve the trade problems created by the hormone ban in the general agreement on tariffs and trade and through bilateral discussions with the United States. It is always sad when jobs are lost and hard-working people are thrown out of work. However, it is nonsense when jobs are lost because of an unnecessary ban which, far from safeguarding the health of the consumer—which is supposed to be the justification for the ban—may put health at risk.

Meat from steers properly treated with hormones is often found to have lower hormone levels than meat from bulls and cows that are not treated at all. It is also leaner and thus considered safer. There is no scientific or medical evidence to suggest that the banned hormones are harmful in any way. The United States and the Common Market have used licensed growth-promoting hormones without any problems for over 20 years. All scientific and medical evidence proves that the licensed hormones oestradiol 17 beta, progesterone, testosterone, trenbolone and zeranol used in the correct manner are entirely harmless, and most third countries including the United States are still using them.

The five hormones that I have mentioned have been declared safe by a committee of the international food and health organisation Codex Alimentarius, which is made up of representatives of 134 countries, and funded jointly by the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation and the World Health Organisation. At the time of the ban, a committee of independent scientific experts set up 747 by the European Community was about to report that there was no danger whatever in the controlled use of hormones. The European Parliament passed the resolution without waiting for the report, and the Council of Ministers abruptly dismissed the committee of scientists before the report could be published, thus effectively supressing it.

That was a splendid example of the "I've made up my mind, don't confuse me with the facts" syndrome. This confirmed that the ban was introduced for political reasons, to reduce the beef mountain, to protect certain continental farmers from British and Irish competition, and to pander to a vociferous and ill-informed minority.

The scientists were so outraged by the action of the Council of Ministers that they came together at their own expense at Warwick 12 months ago and stated openly and unanimously that there was no risk at all to human health in eating meat treated with approved hormones.

Perhaps I could put the matter in a more understandable context. One litre of beer has the same hormone content as 100 kg of meat from an implanted steer; one tablespoon of soya bean oil has the same hormone content as 1,650 kg of meat from an implanted steer; and 1 kg of cabbage has the same hormone content as 2,000 kg of meat from an implanted steer.

Every day, a pregnant woman produces as much oestrogen hormone as is found in 1,350 tonnes of meat from an implanted steer. If she ate half a kilogram of meat from a steer implanted with an approved hormone, should would increase the hormone content of her body by three millionths of 1 per cent. It has been calculated on the basis of figures from the World Health Organisation that a child weighing 30 kg could eat more than 112 tonnes of meat per day without any risk from hormones, natural or implanted. However, such a child might be at grave risk from indigestion.

It can well be argued that the real risk to health comes not from the use of these natural hormones, but from the danger that the banning of licensed hormones will lead to a black market in illegal unlicensed products. Unlike the licensed products, these illicit substances pose a serious health risk to the consumer, since their constituents, the method of application and the dosage are totally uncontrolled, and the presence of these illicit products in meat is almost impossible to detect by existing testing methods. The only way to control the situation is to allow supervised use of those growth promoting hormones known to be safe, thereby extinguishing the need for a black market.

Since the announcement of this debate, I have received a letter from the National Farmers Union that confirms that the hormone growth promoters used by British beef producers before the national ban on their use, implemented on 6 December 1986, were the five substances I referred to earlier. The letter goes on: The NFU does not want the hormone ban lifted, rather it wants it amended so as to include a positive list of products that have been proven safe. These could be then made permissible for EC beef producers to use. We consider this position to be entirely consistent with the need to safeguard public and animal health, whilst at the same time ensuring legislation is based upon scientific evidence. We envisage that such a list would probably include the five products oestradiol 17 beta, testosterone, progesterone, trenbolone, and zeranol, once they undergo testing to satsify the European and national authorities that they pose no threat to health. That seems to be a positive way forward.

748 I hope that, even at this late stage, the efforts of my right hon. Friend the Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Office to have the one-year exemption extended will succeed. That would give a little extra time to find a way out of our crisis and perhaps allow common sense to prevail.

It is depressing that the dispute should have reached this stage, but we cannot sit back and wait for United States retaliation, which will surely come if the ban goes ahead, and with it the loss of even more jobs in this country. I hope, not least for my constituents at Wirral Foods, that the Government will continue to do all in their power to persuade the European Commission to be reasonable, and act now to ensure that a ban which is unnecessary, will lose jobs, and increase the risks to health, is not imposed.

I hope that, at the very least, as a result of this debate, someone from the European Parliament who supported the ban will respond to the invitation from Brian Quinn of Wirral Foods to explain it and justify it to his employees, who are to be deprived of their livelihood, because up to now, European Members of Parliament have failed to do so.

§ The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Donald Thompson)

The Government have a great deal of sympathy for the views expressed by my hon. Friend, the Member for Hyndburn (Mr. Hargreaves). Successive Ministers of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food have argued most forcefully in Brussels against a hormones ban. We believed, as we still do, that a ban is quite unjustifiable on any scientific grounds. Moreover, it would interfere unreasonably with supplies of meat and offals from countries outside the EC boundaries, many of which continued to authorise the use of hormone growth promoters. I shall not here rehearse the full history of the hormones ban, since my hon. Friend has covered much of this ground, but I should perhaps recount the main events since they demonstrate the strength of our opposition to the ban.

In 1981, the European Council initially adopted a directive which, among other things, instructed the EC Commission to undertake a scientific study of the five substances commonly used as hormone growth promoters. That was done in a working party chaired by Professor Eric Lamming of Nottingham university. The working party was able to report favourably quite quickly on three of the five hormones. It needed further information on the other two and so a report on these two substances was somewhat delayed.

In the interim, however, the European Parliament reported in favour of a ban on all five. As my hon. Friend has explained, the EC Commission did not wait for the final report of the Lamming working party, but proposed to the Council that a ban on all five substances be adopted. The Government protested most strongly to the Commission about this proposal and about its treatment of Professor Lamming and his working party. However, the matter was considered by the Council of Ministers in December 1985 and the proposal for a ban was adopted. by a vote conducted by written procedure.

The Government contested this directive on a number of grounds in the European Court of Justice. In its 749 judgment, delivered earlier this year, the court did not address itself to the issues of scientific justification or the impact on supplies of meat and offal from third countries. It did rule in the United Kingdom's favour, however, on a purely technical irregularity in procedure. The directive was annulled as a result but the Council of Ministers proceeded at once to re-adopt the initial directive. The United Kingdom Government again voted against the directive and once more forcefully rehearsed their objections to it.

It will be clear to hon. Members, as my hon. Friend has said, that the Government have been a strong and consistent opponent of the ban. My hon. Friend also referred to the real risks of a black market in hormones developing in the wake of the ban. The Government have always recognised that, if products acknowledged to be safe are banned, there is a real risk that producers denied access to them would be tempted to turn to dangerous options. We have consistently warned our Community partners of this risk.

I know that the ban on trade and on the availability of supplies of beef and beef offals to United Kingdom manufacturers, especially ox tongues for canning, is of the greatest concern to my right hon. Friend the Minister. My hon. Friend will know that I have met many of those who are concerned, especially those who run Rea Valley Canned Meat Ltd, which has taken in hand the task of bringing all the serious and difficult matters to our attention. They are especially serious for those whose jobs and livelihoods will be affected by any such ban.

As I am sure the House is aware, the United States made it clear at the outset that it regarded the hormones ban as an unjustified barrier to trade and that it was not prepared to attempt to comply with the Community's requirements. This has had two most serious consequences. First, Community manufacturers are to be denied access to United States supplies of beef and beef offals. My hon. Friend has already made clear the damaging impact that this would have for some of our meat manufacturers and particularly for those specialist producers of canned tongues who rely so heavily on United States supplies.

In the second place, the United States has threatened to take retaliatory action against some $110 million-worth of EC exports from 1 January 1989. There is therefore a real risk that we shall find ourselves drawn into an escalating dispute at the very time when we and others are pressing for the liberalisation of international agricultural trade.

Over the past two years, we have consistently urged the European Commission to find a solution to the dispute with the United States either within the framework of the GATT arrangements or through bilateral discussions. I 750 am sorry to say, however, that neither of these avenues has yet produced a solution. The Commission has shown little flexibility in the GATT and has consistently resisted any procedural move to allow an assessment of the scientific basis of the ban. The Americans continue to insist on such a scientific assessment.

Unless some last-minute progress can be made, which of course we continue to urge, it now seems inevitable that there will be a disruption of United States supplies next year and that United States trade retaliation will follow. An escalating trade war could spill from this narrow, but wide enough, issue. I can reassure my hon. Friend, however, that we shall not cease to press for a compromise in the dispute, and particularly one that allows access for United States supplies. We shall continue also to press the argument that EC policy should be firmly based on scientific evidence.

I should say a further word about the availability of supplies for United Kingdom manufacturers. Although it now seems inevitable that imports from the United States will be disrupted from the end of the year, contrary to what my hon. Friend has feared, imports from all other traditional suppliers to the Community, with the exception of Canada, will continue. At its meeting last week, with our support, the standing veterinary committee approved the guarantees offered by some 25 countries and voted to continue to accept their exports.

There are still difficulties to be overcome; some countries have been approved on a provisional basis only. I am hopeful that the technical problems can be resolved, and that more widespread conflict and trade disruption can be avoided. I know that there are severe difficulties in turning from United States supplies to other sources, but I believe that the decision to continue access for Australian and New Zealand supplies in particular will prove of some comfort to United Kingdom manufacturers.

Finally, let me sum up the Government's position on the hormones ban, which closely accords with the views expressed by the National Farmers Union to which my hon. Friend referred. We have consistently opposed the ban, and continue to believe that the prohibition on the five substances in common use worldwide is unjustified. We have consistently argued that the policy on hormones should be based on science and not on expediency. We have consistently worked to find a solution to the dispute with the United States, and to the problem of disruption of supplies for United Kingdom manufacturers.

My hon. Friend has done a great deal for his constituents, and for those of his colleagues on both sides of the House. I can reassure him that we too shall continue our efforts on all those fronts.