Cheese Manufacture (Hansard, 23 March 1988)

§ 6. Sir Hector Monro
To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what discussions he has had with the Scottish Milk Marketing Board relative to the provision of adequate supplies of milk for cheese manufacture in southwest Scotland.

§ Mr. Michael Forsyth
Since last August my noble Friend the Minister of State has been in regular contact with the board over the problems of the cheese makers in the south-west of Scotland. The most recent of those discussions was on 9 March.

§ Sir Hector Monro
Can my hon. Friend tell me why it has taken more than nine months, despite ministerial pressure, to get the English and Scottish boards to come together and decide how to provide sufficient milk in the south-west of Scotland to enable cheese to be made for immediate sale? Is it not intolerable that we should drag our feet for that length of time?

§ Mr. Forsyth
I understand my hon. Friend's concern about the matter, but I understand that some milk is now being delivered from England to Scotland for cheese manufacture and that negotiations between the Scottish and English boards to secure the supply of milk for manufacture in Scotland are now in their final stages.

§ Mr. Foulkes
Does the Minister not realise that when my hon. Friends the Members for East Lothian (Mr. Home Robertson), for Western Isles (Mr. Macdonald) and for Cunninghame, North (Mr. Wilson) and I saw the Minister of State as long ago as November he promised immediate action, but there has been no action apart from the milk coming from England? We do not want more milk from England. We want more quotas to be allocated to Scottish farms because a great many jobs are in jeopardy. If we keep on taking the milk from England, we shall have to rename Scottish Cheddar Anglo-Scottish Cheddar.

§ Mr. Forsyth
The name "Scottish Cheddar" relates to its place of manufacture, not to the milk that goes into it. When the hon. Gentleman says that we do not want milk from England, he speaks for himself alone, and certainly not for the interests of the producers or the manufacturers.

§ Dr. Godman
I sincerely hope that the Scottish Milk Marketing Board will not issue redundancy notices to members of its work force in the near future because of these disastrous shortages in supply. Surely what is needed to meet the shortages is the creation of a quota reserve in each of the European Community countries and, failing that, the restoration, on a non-intervention basis, of at least some of the cuts in the milk supply.

§ Mr. Forsyth
It was always recognised that the advent of quotas would result in some rationalisation of the milk product sector, but it is not true to say that the shortfall in milk supplies is of such an order as to bring about the demise of the Scottish Cheddar industry. The hon. Gentleman suggested creating a reserve, but that could be done only by taking from the quotas that have been allocated, including those that have been allocated to the south-west of Scotland.