HC Deb 20 May 1999 vol 331 cc1202-4
6. Mr. Jim Cunningham (Coventry, South)

What measures he is taking to ensure that controls on specified risk materials do not place additional burdens on the livestock industry. [83852]

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

My right hon. Friend the Minister announced last month the deferral of industry charging for the cost of specified risk material enforcement for a further year, which is worth about £20 million to industry.

Mr. Cunningham

I welcome my right hon. Friend's deferral of the SRM charges. Will he also treat his review of other charges throughout the industry with some urgency?

Mr. Rooker

Yes. Let us be clear about this. Deferring the SRM charges means that the taxpayer is continuing to pay for the work, which is still being done. There were about 4,000 SRM inspections last year. The industry has been successful. It is 36 months since we found any spinal cord attached to a bovine carcase. There has been excellent work in the industry, but it must be checked and audited. We have to make sure in the public interest that it is carried out properly.

So far as the other charges are concerned, we have not yet announced the meat hygiene charges for 1999–2000, and they will not be backdated. We are carrying the cost of not making the decision yet. We have undertaken a further, brief consultation that closed last week, and we will make our decision and announcements as quickly as we can.

Mr. Paul Tyler (North Cornwall)

Is the Minister aware that although the review is welcome—we particularly pressed for it—the speed with which the new consultation took place was resented, particularly by smaller producers who did not feel that they were given adequate time to look at it? Does the Minister accept that the important thing is to get the right decision rather than simply a quick decision, and if that results in low-throughput abattoirs being driven out of business, the lack of competition will be devastating for the meat industry?

Mr. Rooker

We have no intention as a policy objective of driving low-throughput abattoirs out of business. We can make decisions on the basis of the consultation that we have already undertaken, and there are no surprises here for anybody. We decided to announce a further, quick check of the industry. Given the amount of letters, correspondence and representations, I accept that seven days was a short time. However, it was not as if anyone had to start from scratch in putting together their further representations. I do not accept that the consultation was only seven days. Added to the previous consultation, it makes a considerable length of time.

Mr. Gareth Thomas (Clwyd, West)

The decision concerning deferral has been widely welcomed by farmers in my constituency, and is an indication that this Government genuinely listen to beef producers. However, does my hon. Friend believe that there is a need to ask some searching questions of our European competitors on their charging policy in relation to hygiene costs and specified risk material removal to ensure fair competition throughout the EU?

Mr. Rooker

SRM removal is a BSE enforcement measure. We must do that, and it is not common throughout the rest of the EU—simply because those countries do not have BSE on anywhere near the scale that we have had. I must also knock on the head the idea that the measure applies to everyone. I heard a programme the other week on which a pig farmer was bewailing the SRM charges. SRM conditions apply only to cattle and sheep, and not to any other meat. The SRM charges were the biggest section of the increase that was forthcoming. To that extent, I am sure that the deferral has received a wide welcome.

So far as the meat hygiene enforcement charges in the rest of Europe are concerned, we have put in the Library recently our assessment of the information that we have collected. We have no evidence that we are gold-plating and going over the top in comparison with other European nations. The contrary is true.

Mr. James Paice (South-East Cambridgeshire)

Why does not the Minister stop bragging about abandoning a charge for one year when the truth is that it was introduced by his Government in the first place, without any concern for its impact on the industry? How can we take seriously any concern for abattoir costs when he so contemptuously allowed just seven days for a response to the consultation? Why does he not do something useful today, and lift the specified offals controls on pig-only abattoirs, as was recommended earlier? If seven days is long enough for a consultation, the Minister has had more than that to consult the MLC. He could do it now.

Mr. Rooker

Yes. We announced the introduction of charges for the removal of specified risk materials, but we did not do so through a written question or a letter. I announced it in a Committee in November 1997. There was not a single comment from any Conservative Member of Parliament present in the Committee that morning. The idea that this has just been put to the industry without any forewarning is nonsense. We put off the charges for the first year and the second year, and we will decide what to do for the third year before it starts.