§ 7. Mr. Barry Gardiner (Brent, North)If he will make a statement on his Department's policy in relation to the purchase of British beef. [45227]
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. John Spellar)Our food supply contractor is bound to seek the best market price for beef under the terms of its contract and is also required to give full consideration to British products. As I advised the House on 1 June, the European Commission has recently approved a regulation allowing access to intervention stocks of British beef for use by the armed forces at competitive prices. That should allow our contractor to increase substantially the amount of British beef supplied to our forces in the United Kingdom.
§ Mr. GardinerI should be grateful if, subsequent to that answer, my hon. Friend would tell me what percentage of the stocks purchased henceforth by his Department will be of British origin.
§ Mr. SpellarWe expect that it will be a considerably increased percentage. I am reluctant to go into the final figure, but we are looking at—
§ Mr. Menzies Campbell (North-East Fife)It will be in the defence review.
§ Mr. SpellarActually, we will not know until we have looked at the contracts, which is probably the better way of doing it, rather than speaking first and reflecting later. In the light of discussions with our contractors, we expect a considerable percentage increase. Also, we have been analysing the acceptability of intervention beef, which has gone down very well in tests—I have tried it myself.
§ Mrs. Margaret Ewing (Moray)Although I appreciate that the Minister is perhaps unwilling to talk about future percentages, can he clarify the exact percentages at this stage? Does he envisage a doubling or a trebling?
§ Mr. SpellarIt would probably be a little difficult to have a trebling, as that might take us over 100 per cent.; at the moment, it is something over 30 per cent. for beef, because of a number of measures which we have taken. We are at 100 per cent. for pork. We do not do well in the percentage for lamb—we have been in discussions with farmers to increase that percentage, possibly on the basis of long-term contracts.
We are engaging in discussions with the farmers, and we realise that it is an important issue for them, but we are extremely pleased that colleagues at the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food have been able to negotiate with the Commission to get a major movement on a substantial increase in the percentage of beef coming from British sources via intervention stock.