HC Deb 30 July 1997 vol 299 cc303-11 12.53 pm
Mr. Christopher Gill (Ludlow)

I should like to preface my remarks by declaring a lifelong interest in the meat and livestock industry. I have no intention of saying anything in this debate that would justify scoring political points. For far too long, the food industry in general and the meat and livestock industry in particular has been used for political point-scoring. The House would do well to remember the devastating effect that that has had on the lives and livelihoods of the hundreds of thousands of men and women employed in those industries.

As an earnest of my good intent, I shall start by giving credit where credit is due. I applaud the Government's efforts to achieve a ban on specified risk material in all European Union abattoirs. That is necessary if the European beef industry is to be an integral part of the single market established on 1 January 1996. Common sense decrees that, given that SRM is perceived to harbour the bovine spongiform encephalopathy agent, it is right to ban SRM in all European abattoirs. That is a small but none the less welcome development. As that faint glimmer of light appears at the end of a long and dark tunnel, we should ask ourselves what lessons there are to be learnt for the future.

Never again must the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food or the Department of Health precipitate the sort of food scares seen in 1988 about salmonella in eggs and, more recently, in 1996 about BSE. Nor must Ministers of the Crown allow themselves to be stampeded into making pronouncements and taking actions that are not only unsupported by the facts but at odds with practical experience and common sense.

The House will recognise both the events to which I have referred as having occurred under a Conservative Government, but my message to Ministers is that they could just as easily occur under a Labour Administration, given that the sources of the advice that they receive are unchanged and that the civil servants who give the advice are, by and large, the same people who advised the previous Government.

Ministers should be asking not what additional legislation is necessary but what is the source of their advice, what is the quality of the advice that they receive, and what was the end result of following that advice. They should ask those questions against the background of the holocaust in the animal kingdom that has occurred as a result of following advice. Some 3.7 million head of poultry were compulsorily destroyed between March 1989 and June 1996. More than 1.5 million cattle have been needlessly destroyed in the past 15 months. I say needlessly, because there was no realistic prospect that salmonella could be eradicated and there is no proof or evidence that BSE causes Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. We must learn from those experiences. We must learn to understand the dynamics of the rather new phenomenon, the scare. We must recognise the risk of falling into the trap of feeling that something must be done when, more often than not, that action simply serves to confirm people's worst fears. In short, the hazard is that control measures may simply exacerbate the problems and have the opposite effect to what was intended.

Before I turn my attention to the future, I wish to highlight some of the industry's current concerns. The first is the phasing out of the rendering subsidy, which will make beef dearer—the opposite of what is needed in present circumstances. British beef will become even less competitive with foreign imports at a time when the strong pound is creating problems enough. In that regard, the whole farming industry looks to the Government to reconsider their decision on agrimonetary aids. The phasing out of aid to renderers will also drive producers and processors out of business, to the long-term detriment of the nation's balance of payments and the livestock industry's future prosperity. It will precipitate the demise of the knackermen—those unloved and, to the European Union, unwanted people who, along with hunt kennels, provide the livestock farmer with an outlet for fallen and casualty stock, which would otherwise be buried on farm, with all the hazards that that implies.

Secondly, farmers are concerned about the reduction in payments under the over-30-months scheme, not least the arbitrary decision to impose a 560 kg ceiling. It appears that that decision has been made for political reasons, given that there has been no consultation with the industry and that there is no statistical evidence to support that cut-off point.

Mr. Edward Garnier (Harborough)

On the subject of the OTMS, I should like to draw my hon. Friend's attention to a letter that a constituent of mine, Mr. John Wadland, received from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Mr. Morley), in reply to his letter to MAFF in which he set out his concerns as a beef farmer about the reduction in the compensation payment. In that reply, dated 22 July, the junior Minister said: With the greatest of respect I felt yours was a very silly letter. If you really feel that Dr. Cunningham"— the Minister— who has represented beef and dairy farmers for decades in his rural constituency of Cumbria"— his constituency is not Cumbria— does not understand the difference in a suckler herd and a dairy herd then you really need your head examining. What hope do my farmers and my hon. Friend's farmers have when arrogant Ministers write such offensive, rude letters to farmers in trouble?

Mr. Gill

That is not the sort of letter that I would have written. I recall speaking in a debate in the previous Parliament on the subject of quality beef, when I was ruled out of order by the Chair for referring to suckler cows. We should take that lack of understanding of our industry seriously, because we have a lot of leeway to make up so that the public and, indeed, colleagues in the House of Commons understand what our industry entails.

On the subject of the OTMS, I am sure that my constituents would wish me to place on record the anger and frustration felt among Shropshire farmers. Incidentally, their cattle account for 5 per cent. of the nation's dairy herds and 4 per cent. of the nation's suckler herds. They are angry because there are no longer any abattoirs in the county contracted to handle OTMS stock.

Mr. Desmond Swayne (New Forest, West)

Will my hon. Friend comment on the fact that beef cattle in constituencies such as mine, which are effectively store cattle and are raised in open forest in the most ecological conditions, are particularly penalised by the changes to the OTMS, when they are the least responsible for the BSE crisis?

Mr. Gill

I understand my hon. Friend's question. There is a good case for Ministers to look again at the OTMS, to see whether it could be converted into an over-36-months scheme. That would give a little more headroom for the type of cattle production that my hon. Friend described. Given that the limit of 30 months was set arbitrarily, I believe that there is no obstruction to raising it to 36 months. I hope very much that the Minister will consider that.

As I said, in Shropshire there are no longer any abattoirs contracted to deal with OTMS cattle. Will the Minister reconsider his decision not to award a contract to F. M. Caine and Sons Ltd. of Ludlow, which may prove to be the last straw for that knacker business? That would result in serious repercussions on an area that is highly dependent on livestock.

Thirdly, I wish to relay the concerns felt by many of my farming constituents that the calf processing aid scheme is now working against the economics of the beef industry by putting a false bottom in the market, which militates against cost cutting and low inputs as a means of producing a competitive product.

As for the future, let me say at the outset that there is a future for an industry that produces one of the finest and most natural food products in the world. That product contains high-quality protein, important vitamins and vital minerals, which, as any nutritionist worth his salt would tell us, are essential ingredients in a healthy, balanced diet.

As the House knows, the first priority is to get the beef export ban lifted. In that connection, I seek the Minister's confirmation that Her Majesty's Government will, forthwith, as a matter of urgency, put a firm proposal to Brussels that beef from cattle born after 1 August 1996 should be exempt from current restrictions.

The second priority must surely be to restructure drastically the beef regime, so that the industry takes the all-important decisions about what should be produced, in what quantities and to what standards of quality. Those decisions should seen to be quite separate from the ones that Governments may or may not wish to take in relation to the future well-being of the countryside.

The ruination of the beef industry, BSE and other scares apart, has been the dead hand of the common agricultural policy, which has skewed production to the continental pattern of beef production. In other words, no subsidies are paid in this country on beef from heifers, which was always an important source of quality beef on the British market. Even now, the Agenda 2000 proposals seek to take that a stage further, by creating even bigger incentives to produce bull beef as opposed to the traditional steer beef. In the past, so much of our quality beef has come from steer cattle.

The common agricultural policy has dictated quality standards by dint of the specifications for intervention, which in its turn has become, on occasion, a bigger and better customer than consumers. It has created the situation in which billions of taxpayers' money has been spent incentivising the production of a product that the market either does not want or cannot cope with, at a price that consumers are reluctant to pay, as evidenced by the relatively static level of demand.

Sir Geoffrey Johnson Smith (Wealden)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for bringing this matter to the attention of the House. As for the future, does he agree that it would be helpful towards meeting the pre-Florence conditions if, rather than moving to a part paper-based traceability system, which could only be bureaucratic and place a heavy burden on farmers, we moved to a computer-based system, and that we did so quickly?

Mr. Gill

My right hon. Friend has raised a matter which is of concern to many of my farmers. The sooner we decide on the system that we intend to adopt to tag and identify animals, and move to it, the better. I am mindful of the fact, however, that there are extreme practical difficulties in ear-tagging animals. Although it is easy to do that in practice, in the weeks during which the cattle are grazing, tags are inevitably lost. There is then a huge problem in trying to trace which tag has been lost and its number, and replacing it. As an industry, we must consider other forms of identifying cattle, and certainly my right hon. Friend's suggestion is entirely sensible. I believe it to be the most practical, and I am sure that the Minister will note his suggestion.

The CAP beef regime has had most unfortunate consequences for British beef. When I spoke on "Farming Today", I was at pains to try—when the interviewer would allow me to get a word in edgeways—to explain that in the case of my family business, which runs an abattoir, we gave up the slaughter of cattle about 10 years ago. We did so not because of BSE, but simply because that commodity had become so political that I concluded that I was not clever enough to best-guess the decisions of the Intervention Board and all those people in Brussels who interfere so dramatically in the business.

We need to get away from all that and put the whole industry back in a position in which it can call the shots and decide on the quality and standards that will give the consumer a first-class product. I have no doubt that this country can produce better-quality beef than can any other country in Europe or, indeed, the world.

The system that I have just described provides a sharp contrast with how we did things 25 years ago, before we joined the Common Market. The old British deficiency payment scheme meant that farmers' incomes were maintained, consumers had the benefit of cheaper meat and ate more of it, taxpayers subsidised food production, to the benefit of non-taxpayers and people on low incomes, and food was used for its intended purpose: feeding hungry mouths, not creating wine lakes or beef and butter mountains, which ultimately have to be disposed of at further prodigious cost to the taxpayer.

The Minister may not agree with my analysis, but no one can deny that, for as long as most of us have been in the House, there have been calls for the reform of the common agricultural policy. I have one question for all who say that reform is the answer: how do they intend to bring about such reform of the CAP? It would require either unanimity or perhaps even a qualified majority vote, whereas it is as plain as a pikestaff that there are more winners than losers under the policy. I do not expect that many Germans would share my perspective; but my perspective is that of a practical man representing the interests of an intensely practical beef industry, which was once the finest in the world.

What reform of the CAP there has been has always resulted in bigger problems, more expense and more bureaucracy. I would ask the Minister not to underestimate the devastating effect of all the bureaucracy on many farmers, especially small family farmers who find all this form filling very difficult. The Minister will be aware of the many grievances that have resulted from forms being rejected because they were filled in wrongly. I have often investigated such cases and I am persuaded that the forms were not deliberately filled in incorrectly. They were wrong either because of poor guidance from MAFF officials or because of their sheer difficulty.

I leave the House with one final thought. In 1997, it is likely that there will be more deaths among farmers who commit suicide or die from stress-related illnesses brought about by bureaucracy and the strains of seeing their cattle needlessly destroyed than among people contracting CJD. Surely this is a case, if ever there was one, of the cure being infinitely worse than the disease.

1.13 pm
The Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Jeff Rooker)

I paused before rising, Mr. Deputy Speaker, because the hon. Member for Ludlow (Mr. Gill) was able to start his speech early, and I should have been more than happy to give time to any other hon. Member who wanted to speak. I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this important debate, and I certainly understand the feeling with which he spoke. I heard his truncated interview on "Farming Today" this morning, and I acknowledge the vigour and sincerity with which he makes all his points.

Some weeks ago, the hon. Gentleman and I conducted an exchange across the Floor of the House to the effect that we need to treat this matter in an adult way. It is not a matter for party politics—but we still have to deal with the legacy that we have been left, and that limits our choices.

The hon. Gentleman was right to say that we must learn the lessons of this affair. Never again must Agriculture or Health Ministers precipitate food scares by the way in which they communicate risk. That is being given detailed attention by my colleagues in MAFF and the Department of Health. We are trying to learn the lessons of the past, and we, too, are practical people living in the real world. A change of Government does not mean that there will never be another food problem. We shall try to manage problems as they arise without causing the collapse of any industry or needlessly putting thousands out of work. Common sense is of the essence.

Certainly, the public need reassurance, which is why, later this year, we shall publish a White Paper on the setting up of an independent food standards agency, at arm's length from the Government but accountable to this House. That should lead to greater confidence on the part of the public and the industry. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that many hours of civil service and ministerial time are being devoted to the preparation of that document.

Mr. Gill

The food industry is greatly concerned that the new agency may include nutrition in its remit. That, the industry believes most strongly, is a matter for commercial judgment and decision. The risk is that standards and nutrition may get confused in the process.

Mr. Rooker

During the consultation period, Professor James has received well over 600 submissions. We have not ended consultation; the submissions are still coming in every week. They are all being considered and fed into the machine. Several people have written to Ministers on the subject of nutrition, but no decision has been taken on it yet: it is still under consideration. We fully expect the White Paper to include several green chapters, on which we are consulting further at the moment. We have no wish to be inflexible. Some issues are clearly in; others are clearly out. But there is a group in the middle on which we are more than happy to allow hon. Members and the industry to comment further, before we bring a Bill before the House.

A central plank of our policy is the restoration of confidence in food. The beef industry has taken a battering, but we are doing what we can actively to encourage consumers, based on the honest belief that beef produced in this country is safer than any other beef in the world.

We have taken steps to beef up the Meat Hygiene Service—the Ministry's policemen—to ensure that what goes on in slaughterhouses and meat-cutting plants fully complies with hygiene regulations. We recently closed down two plants on hygiene grounds, while the licences of certain other plants have been withdrawn on structural grounds. The service's officers do a difficult job. It is not easy to go into an abattoir and tell the owner or manager to slow down the line or else he will have to close down. We are giving officers all the powers that they need, and we fully intend to use them.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned the over-30-months scheme. What he says is wholly reasonable, but 30 months is not an arbitrary figure; nor was it imposed by Europe. It was the recommendation of the Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee. The Government, like the previous Government, are duty bound to accept advice from independent scientists. I emphasise that they are not Ministry scientists, but independent scientists. As an aside, I might add that I relied on advice from independent scientists when making the recent decision on vitamin B6. Those people are not paid by the Ministry; the previous Government were right to rely on SEAC and we shall do the same.

The beef assurance scheme provides an opportunity for animals between 30 months and 42 months to be sold on the market, rather than being sent to over-30-months destruction. I realise that the scheme has never really taken off and, from my few short weeks of experience since coming to the Ministry, I believe that it has not been pushed.

Mr. James Paice (South-East Cambridgeshire)

Before the Minister leaves the subject of the over-30-months scheme, I should like to raise a few points in the same spirit as that adopted by my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Mr. Gill) and the Minister. My hon. Friend raised the issues of the reduction in price and the cap of 560 kg. Will the Minister confirm that the 560-kg limit is the limit that the European Community funds, but that, until next week and under the previous Government's decision, the British Treasury funds the excess? Will the Minister tell the House now—or, if he cannot, will he undertake to write to me or to my hon. Friend—what relative savings he expects will arise from next week's changes, that is, the savings from the reduction in price and from the weight capping?

Mr. Rooker

I shall be more than happy to do that, but my recollection is that the information that the hon. Gentleman requests has already been given in answers to written parliamentary questions. I authorised one answer that provided information that had not previously been given on the expected savings from the changes that are envisaged.

Before I come to the subject of renderers, it is fair to say that the Intervention Board, which is an independent Government agency, carried out competitive tendering to get value for money in dealing with the over-30-months scheme. Although I understand why the hon. Member for Ludlow is aggrieved that there are no OTMS abattoirs left in Shropshire, there are a good number on the outskirts. I know that, because I listed them all in a parliamentary answer to the hon. Gentleman. The second large abattoir that I visited was in Shropshire, although it was not involved in the over-30-months scheme. I understand the hon. Gentleman's feelings, but the Intervention Board was duty bound to try to get value for money. Over the past three years, the sums paid out have declined considerably from the payments first made at the height of the BSE crisis.

The hon. Gentleman is quite right about the renderers subsidy, but I have to make it clear that we found that no money had been left behind to pay for it. The scheme was a one-off—£59 million for one year—and there is nothing in the kitty to pay for another year. If the scheme were to carry on, the money would have to come from some other element of the Ministry's support scheme for farmers. As my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food announced, we decided that, not having the money to extend the scheme past one year, we would withdraw the subsidy. All we are doing is coming to the end of the first year of a scheme for which money was provided for one year and not two, and that is that. I accept the consequences and realise that we cannot escape from the difficulties that the decision might cause.

The right hon. Member for Wealden (Sir G. Johnson Smith) asked about the date-based scheme. We are pressing that issue and we have put proposals for a date-based scheme to the European Commission. We are currently having informal discussions, and we shall report the results of those discussions to the House, or communicate them to hon. Members during the recess, as quickly as possible. The issue is not one which we can deploy in public, but we are pressing on every possible means of breaching the ban. The idea that we might end the ban all in one go is probably not realistic, so we are operating on several different fronts, and a date-based scheme is certainly one of those fronts.

Mr. Paice

Will the Minister confirm what he has just said? He said that the Government have made proposals to the Commission. I am aware of informal discussions going on, but my understanding is that the Government have not yet made formal proposals for a date-based scheme.

Mr. Rooker

I can confirm that, because I read it in my brief, but I shall put it on the record now. We are developing a new proposal for a date-based scheme and have put our ideas to the Commission. Details will be announced when the exploratory talks with the Commission have progressed and the Government are ready to put forward a formal proposal. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for the opportunity to clarify that important issue.

The hon. Member for Ludlow, thinking of the future, talked about traceability and the tagging of cattle. I have discussed that with farmers, seen the taggers and heard the arguments about plastic and metal tags. It would appear that we shall probably have one plastic tag and one metal tag. I shall check when I get back to the Ministry, but it may well be that the relevant legislation is to be laid before the House today. We are actively pursuing that matter. We have got agreement on what we wanted: we were asked for two plastic tags, but all the indications were that, in this country, plastic tags do not work, for the reasons given by the hon. Gentleman. An electronic scheme is certainly an option down the track and must be borne in mind, but we cannot go for a Rolls-Royce job to start with. If we do that, we shall be in real trouble from day one.

On a positive note, it is worth remembering that one of the five preconditions of the Florence framework for lifting the ban was a centralised animal identification and movement recording system with official registration—what I shall now call the British cattle movement service. I am pleased to announce to the House that, earlier today, I decided that we were in a position to announce where the headquarters of that operation would be, because we are moving fast to get it set up and running by the end of March next year. Some time ago, my right hon. Friend the Minister asked me to decide on the location, and the decision was urgent if we were to meet our deadline.

I am pleased to announce that the headquarters of the British cattle movement service, which will be paid for by the industry, will be located in Workington, west Cumbria. It is part of my ministerial duty to ensure that the project is successful and gives value for money to the industry. My right hon. Friend the Minister has played no part in the choice of location, which is in a constituency adjoining his own, although Workington was once represented by Fred Peart, a former Labour Minister of Agriculture. The decision will bring value for money, coupled with clear advantages in terms of our regional, social and employment policies. More than 100 new jobs will be created in the operation of the scheme.

Mr. Dale Campbell-Savours (Workington)

On behalf of my constituents in Workington, I thank my hon. Friend the Minister for this enlightened decision, for which many of us have pressed for several years. We will make the scheme work. I also express my gratitude to the West Cumberland development agency and especially to John Grainger and Barbara Stephens for the excellent way in which they conducted themselves in bringing forward the bid.

Mr. Rooker

I thank my hon. Friend. As he knows, it was crucial that a decision was made on the location of the headquarters if we were to stand a chance of getting it up and running.

The hon. Member for Ludlow raised several other issues in respect of the price of beef. His remarks about the market were absolutely right—producing beef for intervention is not a runner for the future and a market-led arrangement will have to be arrived at. The sooner that fact dawns on everybody, the better. Although I do not say that in the past schemes have been fudged at the edge, there is no doubt that, as different schemes have been introduced, farmers have adjusted their production in order to obtain the benefits. When the schemes are changed because of a crisis or because the European Commission decides to change things, the farmers get their fingers burnt. That is most unfortunate and I regret it.

It is important to produce a quality product at a quality price, so that the corner butcher's shop—there should be more of those—and the supermarket can sell with confidence to their customers, because they know which farm the beef came from and what the animal was fed on. Moreover, if ever a problem arises in future, better traceability systems will enable us to nip it in the bud straight away. There will be no need to search for cattle that may or may not be a problem for the food chain in future.

I shall write to the hon. Member for Ludlow in the early part of the recess about any points that I have not covered.