§ Ms Julia Drown (South Swindon)This debate concerns the storage of meat and bonemeal potentially infected with BSE that the Government has to store as part of its cull of over-30-month-old cattle. That meat and bonemeal is in storage until incinerators are available or until other methods are found to dispose of the material. The matter is of interest to my constituents as a planning application has been made to store large quantities of this meat and bonemeal in Wroughton in my constituency.
I am pleased to have the opportunity to debate this issue, which is causing grave concern to many of my constituents. I know that it has also become a concern in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Mr. Wills), so I am glad to give him some time to speak in this debate and represent the views of his constituents. I have brought with me just some of the huge amount of correspondence that I have received on this subject. I have a pile of correspondence comprising thousands of cards from my constituents who wish their voices to be heard and heeded.
I raise the issue not only on behalf of my constituents in the villages of Chiseldon and Wroughton but on behalf of the many other people who are potentially affected by the storage of meat and bonemeal. I know that the new Labour Government want to minimise the risk to the public, but the current scheme involving the sites for storing meat and bonemeal is not achieving that aim.
I am acutely aware that responsibility for the scale of the problem lies firmly at the door of the previous Conservative Administration. However, it is now the responsibility of the Labour Government to sort out the problem while minimising the risk to the public. I shall raise three main questions in the debate: first, whether the Government can reduce the need for storage sites by increasing the capacity for incineration; secondly, and most important for my constituents, how the Government will ensure that essential storage sites are located in areas and buildings that minimise the risk to local communities; and, lastly, how we will ensure that storage sites are run in a way that minimises the risk to the public.
To amplify the first question—whether the storage needs of potentially infected meat and bonemeal can be reduced by increasing the volume incinerated—my constituents want to know whether all incinerators that could be used for the over-30-months scheme are being used, and whether the incinerators that are operating are doing so at full capacity, 24 hours a day. We urge the Minister to look into that matter. The costs of storing meat and bonemeal must be increasing. If so, increased incineration capacity could reduce costs and the risk to the public.
I recognise that even if the volume of meat and bonemeal incinerated can be increased, there may still be a need to store some of that material. If so, we move to my second area of discussion. I urge the Minister to re-examine the way in which decisions are made regarding storage sites. At present, it seems that private companies have a free hand in deciding where they would like to store the material. Those companies do not need to apply for planning permission to store meat and bonemeal if the site is already approved for storage. 314 They must apply to the Environment Agency for a waste management licence—but not for 12 months. So unlicensed, potentially infected meat and bonemeal can be stored in unsafe circumstances, as is proposed in my constituency.
In South Swindon, the proposed meat and bonemeal storage site is on raised ground at RAF Wroughton. The proposed storage buildings are 50-year-old aircraft hangars, which have not been maintained since their service during the second world war. The hangars are home to rats and pigeons, which previous users of the buildings have failed to get rid of. Those animals and birds could carry potentially dangerous particles from the meat and bonemeal throughout the area, and would thereby increase the risk of infected waste material re-entering the food chain.
No part of the hangars is properly sealed. The floors are cracked and would allow any liquid waste to soak into the ground, and thus move into the local water supply. The hangar roofs are structurally weak, and local people tell me that they may not withstand a heavy winter snowfall. The hangars are situated on top of a hill. Such a position would undoubtedly add to the likelihood of infected waste making its way into the water supply on which local businesses and homes rely. What is more, the location is windswept, and dust particles could be blown from the site not only into Wroughton but onto the rest of Swindon below.
The situation is of real concern to Swindon people. For example, they have heard that Professor Richard Lacey of Leeds university has stated that there is no data to show that the new-variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, which is linked to BSE, cannot be acquired by inhalation—that is, that the disease cannot be spread by air particles. Unless it can be shown that there are no risks, it is not sensible to store the meat and bonemeal in hangars that are full of holes in an area that is close to a large population on a site where it is sometimes hard to stand still because the wind is so fierce.
If the hangars themselves do not present enough problems, the site is also difficult to access. It is proposed that there will be up to 20 heavy goods vehicle movements every day to transport the meat and bonemeal, with each lorry weighing up to 38 tonnes. The lorries would have to use steep and narrow access roads through the villages of Chiseldon and Wroughton—roads on which children travel to and from school and where elderly people go about their business. Those roads are unsuitable for such large vehicles and the road network is inadequate for such journeys. So my constituents face the added risk of accidents involving those large lorries.
I want to help the Minister in what I know is a very difficult task. The solution may be found in the answer to my first point. If it is not, I ask the Minister to consider another option: rather than leaving storage sites to the vagaries of the markets, the Government agencies involved—the Environment Agency and the Intervention Board—should be given a proactive, rather than reactive, role in considering storage sites. Those agencies should seek out, or insist that the businesses involved seek out, the best sites in the country that will minimise the risk to the public.
I should like the Minister to learn the lessons that the previous Government did not learn. A couple of years ago, unknown to most local residents, meat and bonemeal 315 began to be stored at RAF Quedgeley near Hardwicke in Gloucestershire. Unsuitable hangars were also used there, but the public were not aware of the storage until it started. The local residents rightly protested about the unsuitability of the site and launched such a concerted attack that the project was driven away, causing the company considerable trouble and cost.
§ Mr.David Drew (Stroud)I confirm my hon. Friend's tale. The people had no knowledge of the storage until the material started to arrive. In the end, the Intervention Board decided to move the material on the basis that the hangars were neither watertight nor secure from wildlife. Would my hon. Friend care to comment on that?
§ Ms DrownThat is my point exactly. I warn the Minister that the Quedgeley fiasco will be repeated in Wroughton if the current plans continue—but the situation will be even worse. Wise film producers usually decide not to make a sequel to a movie that has flopped: Quedgeley I was a disaster; Quedgeley II in Wroughton should be avoided by Government, the local authority and by the company involved.
At this point, the Minister must be thinking that I am being too negative. Where, he will ask, is the equivalent of "The Full Monty" for storage sites? There are examples of better, successful sites, and such examples should be used to set minimum standards for the future.
The buildings at Wrangaton in Devon are strong and well built, and are made from brick, with sound roofs. There has been no opposition from the local community, because the risks have been minimised. The buildings are solid, well maintained and are some way from any large population. The contrast is there. When there are suitable sites in the country, surely it cannot make sense to pursue unsuitable sites such as that in Wroughton. It is not good enough for a company to say, "This will do." The Government must be able to say, "We have found the safest storage sites, because we want to minimise risk to the public."
I turn to the licensing arrangements for storing meat and bonemeal. Will the Minister review the regulations that allow companies to operate sites for 12 months without a proper licence first being issued?
There is no point in issuing licences if the companies are not monitored. A number of my constituents visited meat and bonemeal storage sites to smell the unpleasant smells and to see how the licensing system operates. They read how the waste management licence application sets down a number of strict requirements. These include keeping waste material dry and unheated, ceasing operations in wet weather, ensuring that site operatives always work in pairs and wear suitable protective clothing and masks, and not allowing the doors to the store to remain open unnecessarily.
However, when my constituents visited a site in the south-west, they exposed violations of the licence. The operatives were not wearing any special protective clothing. The owner of the company freely admitted that operations continue in wet weather. Operatives were working alone, and the doors to the store were allowed to stand open, even during unloading. I am sure that the House will understand how those findings add to the concerns of my constituents.
I have posed a number of questions to the Minister from my constituents. I appeal to the Government to take a proactive approach to storage sites for potentially infected 316 meat and bonemeal, to find the best sites in the country—sites that will minimise the risk to the public. Storage buildings should have a sound and sealed structure free from vermin or birds, preferably away from heavily built-up areas. The storage company should receive a licence from the Environment Agency before operations begin. Safeguards should be adopted on the site and in the transportation of the meat and bonemeal, which should not be transported on unsuitable roads.
I hope that the Minister will provide a timetable to ensure that all available incinerators work at full capacity, a timetable that shows us when no further storage sites will be needed.
I hope that I have made it clear today that the hangars at Wroughton cannot be the best place to store this potentially infected material. The risk may be small, but a risk there is. I know that the Government wish to minimise that risk. The thousands of people in Wroughton and Chiseldon know that their site is not suitable.
I wish to prevent any more time, energy and money from being wasted on the Wroughton proposal by the Government, my constituents or the company involved. I trust that the Minister will, in his answer today, be able to outline a way forward that recognises the inadequacy of the current plans in Wroughton, and in the current decision-making process on meat and bonemeal storage in the United Kingdom.
As I said at the start, this is not only about the safety of my constituents; it is about minimising the risk for everyone.
§ Mr. Michael Wills (North Swindon)I am grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for allowing me the speak in the debate. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon (Ms Drown) on bringing this important matter to the attention of the House, and on her cogent analysis of the issues.
The storage of meat and bonemeal in my hon. Friend's constituency has become a matter of intense worry and concern to her constituents. It has now become a matter of some concern to mine, too, since I learned on Monday that the Intervention Board is considering storing meat and bonemeal at Sevenhampton, in my constituency. Already, my constituents are expressing their disquiet.
I recognise the enormous problems caused by the tragedy of bovine spongiform encephalopathy. I also recognise that there is not the capacity in this country to incinerate all the meat and bonemeal immediately. That raises difficult questions of what to do with the material in the meantime. My hon. Friend pointed the way forward today with some very positive and constructive proposals.
I also recognise that the Intervention Board does not propose to store at Sevenhampton meat and bonemeal from animals showing any clinical signs of BSE, but I am dismayed at the apparent lack of concern for public sensitivities over this matter. The desperate plight of the victims of Creutzfeldt-Jakob, and the economic crisis that BSE has created for British farmers are well known. I am sure that everyone in North Swindon wants to support all the efforts that are being made to deal with the tragedy. However, we all must recognise that the general public remain understandably worried about the consequences for them.
317 It is not adequate for experts simply to satisfy themselves that there are no public health risks. The public need to be reassured, and in detail, that that is the case. I do not find it acceptable that the only public discussion of the storage of such material in my constituency appears to be a brief letter from the Intervention Board to Swindon council, which states that only meat and bonemeal from healthy animals will be involved, and that the Intervention Board will seek a waste management licence exemption from the Environment Agency.
In that short communication, the Intervention Board seems to have overlooked the fact that the animals in question are being slaughtered precisely to restore public confidence, and that their storage prior to incineration involves questions of public confidence and reassurance. I shall be grateful if the Minister will reassure my constituents by taking the following three measures. First, he should require the Intervention Board to explain in detail why the storage of meat and bonemeal at Sevenhampton would pose no—I stress the word no—public health risk, including a full description of the security of the storage facilities, to answer the points raised by my hon. Friend. If the Intervention Board cannot provide such an explanation, I hope that the Minister will halt immediately any plans to store the material at Sevenhampton.
Secondly, I ask the Minister to require the Intervention Board to apply for a waste management licence from the Environment Agency before any meat and bonemeal is stored at Sevenhampton. That would enable the arrangements to be scrutinised by independent experts. At the moment, the Intervention Board is considering an exemption from such a licence. Whether or not it is technically entitled to do so, such a move is hardly likely to encourage public confidence in the proposal. I urge the Minister to ensure not only that adequate precautions are taken, but that they are seen to be taken.
Thirdly, I ask the Minister to confirm that there has been a full investigation of all the available alternatives to the lengthy storage of meat and bonemeal before incineration. I shall be grateful if he will reassure my hon. Friend that the measures that she proposes are being fully investigated. Has any consideration been given to shipping some of the material overseas for incineration where there is available capacity? If no such investigation has been carried out, I shall be grateful if the Minister will confirm that one will be launched immediately. If there is any practical alternative to the lengthy storage of this material at Sevenhampton, which would allay public concern, I ask him to confirm that it will be adopted.
BSE and all its dreadful consequences have been a national tragedy. If we are ever to emerge from it, it is vital that the Government recognise the full extent of continuing public anxiety about BSE and do everything in their power to reassure the public about everything connected with it. They should provide full information about what is being done; actively seeking measures to incinerate immediately all relevant meat and bonemeal will be central to that process. I very much hope that the Minister will be able to respond positively and constructively to the debate.
§ The Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Jeff Rooker)I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon (Ms Drown) on securing the debate. I also congratulate my hon. Friends the Members for North Swindon (Mr. Wills) and for Stroud (Mr. Drew) on their assiduous concern for their constituents. It is right and proper that they raise the matter in the House. I shall do my best in the time available to answer some, if not all, of their points.
I was at the Dispatch Box almost a week ago making the same points. I make no apology for repeating some of what I said then regarding the operation of the over-30-months scheme. Many misconceptions and fears about safety need to be addressed. We must put them into perspective. We need to address them, not dismiss them. I shall return to the advice that is given by the Government's independent scientific committee, and explain the results of the risk assessments carried out by the Environment Agency, which were published in the summer.
I spoke briefly on this matter last week, and understand the special concerns that have been expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon regarding the proposal to store meat and bonemeal at Wroughton airfield. I know about the public meeting that was called and the strong concern that has been expressed by residents. I did not know in detail about the visit that her constituents made to storage sites in the Exeter area. I hope that all the alleged breaches of the licence will be fully investigated, because it is no part of the policy of the Government or the Intervention Board to have meat and bonemeal stored in such massive quantities in breach of any of the licensing arrangements, any of the agreements with planning authorities, or any of the arrangements entered into with the Environment Agency. Those matters will be fully investigated.
I know from my correspondence that many people think that the over-30-months scheme cattle have BSE. That is emphatically not the case, although I acknowledge that studies carried out by Professor Anderson and others at Oxford have shown that a very small percentage of those cattle presented for slaughter may be incubating the disease, because it takes many years. The selective cull scheme addresses that problem, because it involves the lengthy operation of tracing the birth cohorts of confirmed BSE cases and removing them from the national herd.
I shall explain briefly the background to the over-30-months scheme and the rationale behind current policy. The scheme provides for the slaughter and destruction of cattle aged over 30 months. Its origins lie in the previous Government's decision to prohibit the sale of meat from over-30-month animals. That decision went beyond the independent advice of the Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee to debone cattle intended for human consumption in licensed plants supervised by the Meat Hygiene Service. There were contributory factors: retailers and catering establishments were reluctant to sell over-30-months meat, and farmers' representatives were keen for the Government to intervene.
Compensation and disposal arrangements were established in European Union regulations in April last year. Maintenance of the over-30-months scheme—and 319 whatever we do to change it—is a pre-condition of the Florence agreement on the lifting of the export ban on beef and cattle. The rules do not allow for cattle that display clinical symptoms suggestive of BSE to be purchased under the scheme. The number of confirmed BSE cattle has declined rapidly since it peaked at some 36,000 cases in 1992. Fewer than 100 cattle a week are found to be suffering from BSE. Suspected cases are slaughtered on the farm, and are promptly sent for direct incineration. They are not stored as meat and bonemeal: they are completely incinerated. There are also stringent ante-mortem checks at abattoirs to look for the disease in animals presented for slaughter.
European Union rules require scheme carcases to be incinerated or rendered and destroyed. At the outset of the massive slaughter programme, incinerator capacity was insufficient to deal with the large number of cattle carcases. The Intervention Board executive agency has conducted tender exercises to increase the disposal capacity available to the scheme, but use of new incinerator capacity for carcases and meat and bonemeal remains subject to the necessary planning and environmental consents being obtained.
No operator can build an incinerator to bum meat and bonemeal without the approval of the planning authority and the Environment Agency: my Department is not involved in the planning process. It is not possible, in those circumstances, to produce a timetable for incinerator capacity. Such a timetable is not easily available, because every application is carefully analysed. There may sometimes be local opposition, which may or may not be justified. We rely on science, and we operate on the precautionary principle. We take stringent measures to protect public health.
I assure my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon that all authorised incinerator capacity is being used, mainly to deal with casualty animals. We are hopeful that more will come on stream shortly, but it depends on local decisions by planning authorities and the Environment Agency. Some meat and bonemeal is burned in appropriately authorised, high-temperature waste incinerators, but no decisions have yet been taken on other major disposal options, including the option to burn meat and bonemeal in power stations. Full weight will be given to the protection of the environment and human health in making any decisions. The Government will not cut corners in this exercise.
In the absence of sufficient incinerator capacity, the majority of carcases are being rendered to meat and bonemeal and tallow, which is stored in its most manageable form. Any further treatment prior to final disposal would add significantly to costs.
There is an added complication to the storage problem. The number of cattle presented in the first eight months of the scheme was double that in a normal year, which has put enormous pressure on storage capacity. So far, 1.9 million cattle have been slaughtered under the scheme. They were perfectly healthy cattle which showed no signs of BSE. As a result, there are 150,000 tonnes of tallow and 280,000 tonnes of meat and bonemeal in stores around the country awaiting disposal, and stocks of meat and bonemeal are growing at a rate of about 2,000 tonnes a week.
Last week, to give hon. Members some idea of the volume, I told the House that it was the equivalent of 32 Big Bens. But that was in September, and I am 320 informed that the present pile is the volume of about 36 Big Bens. That is a considerable volumetric amount of meat and bonemeal.
I visited one of the stores in Chorley to see the position for myself. It was not in any way, shape or form on a par with what my hon. Friend's constituents saw in Exeter and the breaches of the rules there.
The Intervention Board will need more storage space for meat and bonemeal and tallow. In the first instance, all offers are evaluated by the board's technical officer, and many are rejected at that stage. If a store seems suitable and in the right area, the board will write to the local authority and to the local Member of Parliament informing them of its interest. It adopts an open approach to this issue, although I acknowledge that that has not always been the case.
My hon. Friend mentioned the problems at Quedgeley in the early summer of last year. I understand from officials that, owing to the need to find storage quickly, there was no time for consultation. There is no excuse for such a problem to arise now, because the board has time to plan ahead and give notice of its intentions, which is why it has written to both my hon. Friends. The Environment Agency is also contacted to discuss the suitability of the site and the practicalities of the operation, including the issue of the required waste management licences.
My hon. Friends have referred to waste management licences, but I do not have time to go into detail. There are difficulties with applications for such licences, because storage is not the final disposal of the waste: it is prior to final destruction, and no final decisions have been taken. Waste can be stored for up to 12 months without a waste management licence, but it must be stored under licensed conditions. It cannot be stored in unsafe conditions: that would be a criminal offence.
As with incineration contracts, the Intervention Board will not enter a contract with a storage company unless it has obtained the necessary planning and environmental consents. That is absolutely crucial. Health and safety legislation also applies to those sites. The Health and Safety Executive, in keeping with Government policy on BSE, adopts an ultra-precautionary approach, and has issued generic guidelines to occupational groups that have contact with over-30-months scheme material. The position is closely monitored so as to protect the workers who are involved in storage.
There are specific instructions on rodent control, because that problem must be dealt with. Odour does not seem to be a significant problem at other sites, and it should not be a problem at any site once people are outside the building. Unloading of meat and bonemeal must take place within the store with the doors shut. There is a whole host of restrictions on the unloading of lorries.
We must be assured that human health and the environment are safeguarded. We are greatly encouraged by the results of risk assessments carried out by independent technical consultants on behalf of the Environment Agency into safety aspects of disposal. We will not cut corners; nor will the Intervention Board or any other authority.
The risk assessments endorsed the advice given by SEAC last year. It considered current and proposed methods of dealing with scheme waste material, and advised that they were safe. The Government are 321 operating strictly on the precautionary principle. We have always made it clear that we will accept SEAC's advice on the BSE crisis. Sometimes, advice will be based on the most minute risk that can be measured, but we will take precautions that others may think are over the top and cost more than is necessary. We are not prepared to cut corners in respect of BSE.
This is an emotive subject. There is no prospect of catching new-variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease by inhalation, as has been mentioned in some quarters. SEAC advises that the most likely cause is exposure before the introduction in 1989 of controls on cattle offals.
I have not been able to address all the issues that my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon has raised, or indeed that the hon. Member for Hereford (Mr. Keetch) raised last week. We are not masters in the matter of disposal, which is set out in EU regulations. I reiterate my assurance to hon. Members on both sides of House who are involved: I and my ministerial colleagues are actively considering all the options for safe disposal, although none offers a quick fix. So far, no one has proposed that we should export the meat and bonemeal for destruction, and I doubt whether the EU would allow that.