HC Deb 18 June 2002 vol 387 cc249-58

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Jim Murphy.]

10 pm

Mr. Michael Weir (Angus)

It will come as no surprise to the Minister that the debate has been prompted by the situation of the Arbroath smokie.

The Minister for Rural Affairs (Alun Michael)

I assure the hon. Gentleman that we will be on level communication this evening. I am aware of his intention of raising the matter of the Arbroath smokie, and I sampled that delicacy this afternoon in order to be properly prepared for the debate.

Mr. Weir

I am delighted to hear that the Minister has sampled that delicacy. I brought down with me a pair of Arbroath smokies bought from E and O Fish in Arbroath on Sunday afternoon, so I could have presented them to him had he not done that. My Chief Whip tells me that that might constitute a bribe, but he says that he will come round and help me finish them off. We shall see.

As I am sure the Minister and all other hon. Members are aware, the Arbroath smokie is a smoked haddock, a delicacy that has been produced in my home town for centuries. Indeed, it is believed to have been invented by the monks at Arbroath abbey, even before the abbey hosted the signing of the first declaration of Scottish independence.

The Minister also knows that the fishing industry, and with it the fish processing industry, have been going through difficult times in recent years, owing to the scarcity of fish in general and haddock in particular. That has hit the Arbroath smokie industry particularly hard. For a time last year, the main producer of Arbroath smokies ceased production. It is now reported that there has been a substantial increase in the haddock catch with the new quotas, and the haddock catch landed at Arbroath has risen from 40 to 300 boxes a week. That is the first time that that has happened in many a long year, and it is a good sign.

Now is the perfect time for the industry to expand and seek new markets—but if it is to do so, the protection by registration of the name is essential. The Minister will know that most of the producers in the town are small-scale family businesses that rely for their business on the worldwide reputation of the smokie. That has been under threat in recent years, as fish processors in other parts of the UK have tried to use the name of the Arbroath smokie to sell their own much inferior products.

Such a situation can be disastrous for any product that relies on its name and reputation. If the market gets contaminated by inferior products, the name and reputation can be irreparably damaged. Because of that, my local authority, Angus council, is spearheading a campaign to guarantee and protect the good name of the Arbroath smokie, by joining forces with fish processors in the town to apply for the Arbroath Smokie name to be registered under the European protected geographical indications scheme.

That is rather a mouthful, but as the Minister knows, it is one of three designations that can be sought under European legislation, the others being the protection of designated origin, whereby the product must by produced, processed and prepared in a specified geographical area, and the certificate of specific character, where the name must be specific in itself or express the specific character of the foodstuff.

Under the protection of geographical indications scheme, the product must be produced, processed or prepared in the geographical area, which is obviously the case with a smoked fish delicacy such as the Arbroath smokie. Perhaps the most famous example of a food with such a designation is Parma ham. It is a scandal that such an inferior product has the designation, while the great Arbroath smokie has not yet achieved it. The producers of Parma ham jealously guard its name. The pig producers must adhere to strict protocols and standards, and the ham must be prepared and sliced in or around Parma. Indeed, the producers have taken large supermarket chains and others to court to try to ensure the quality and reputation of their ham.

However, the problem with the registration process is that it is long, cumbersome and expensive. A protection of geographical indications—PGI—designation involves a number of stages, as the Minister will no doubt be aware, and must include information about the method of production, including the origin, nature and characteristics of the raw material. In the case of a traditional delicacy such as the Arbroath smokie, making the application is an arduous task. Angus council engaged Bob Spink, local smokie expert and former director of Arbroath fish processing company R. R. Spink and Sons, to draft the application. Indeed, anyone who knows Arbroath will know that the name of Spink is synonymous with fishing.

After the application has been drafted, it must pass through three stages. It must go to the Environment and Rural Development Department of the Scottish Executive, the Minister's own Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and then the European Commission. That is a lengthy process; I understand that it can take up to 18 months. Once the application reaches the European Commission, I understand that it takes six months to consider it before issuing its decision. If the applicant is successful, as I am sure the Arbroath smokie application will be, details of the product are published in the Official Journal of the European Commission.

However, there is then a further period of six months to allow other members of the European Union and EU producers to express objections. If no objections are received, I understand that the product will then become registered and details will once again be published in the Official Journal. If objections are received, however, there can be a further three-month period to allow the EU states involved to have bilateral discussions to solve the problem. It would be an interesting seminar or summit at which European nations met to discuss the Arbroath smokie. I am sure that it will not come to that, but if it does, and the issue remains unresolved, the final decision will be taken by the European Union regulatory committee.

I have described the process in some detail to illustrate the fact that it can be expensive. The costs of drafting, submitting and pursuing an application and of the required expertise would be beyond the means of most small-scale producers. Indeed, I asked the Minister's Department a parliamentary question about the average cost to it of such an application. The answer referred to some £15,000 in staff costs alone. That is how much it will cost that Department, let alone the applicants themselves. No small amount is involved, and therein lies the problem with the process: it is almost impossible for a small-scale producer to afford the cost of registering a product.

In the case of the Arbroath smokie, as I said, most producers are small scale and would be unable to meet the cost on their own. They can proceed only because of the support of Angus council. That should not be the case; we should be able to register our traditional products much more easily. Therefore, my first question to the Minister is this: will he investigate whether it would be possible to reduce the cost of making such applications, and whether the Government could consider helping to fund them to ensure that more go forward?

Given the complexity and costs of the process, it is perhaps hardly surprising that producers in Scotland—and, indeed, the whole of the UK—are far behind in registering products. Again, I raised the matter in a written question to the Minister's Department. I was told that to date, only five products from Scotland and 31 from the UK as a whole had been registered. As well as the Arbroath smokie, I understand that only two other Scottish products are currently going through the process: Aberdeen Angus beef, which again comes from my constituency and neighbouring ones—

Alun Michael

As anybody reading the record might be misled, I should say that I understand that seven applications have been approved from Scotland out of the 31 applications made from the UK as a whole. As a Welshman, I was rather disappointed to see that there were no Welsh applications, although I believe that Welsh beef and lamb—both excellent products—are on the cards.

Mr. Weir

I thank the Minister for that intervention. I had originally written that there were seven approved applications, as that was my understanding, but the parliamentary answer that I received said that there had been five.

Pete Wishart (North Tayside)

As my hon. Friend is going to Wales, may I also take him across the constituency boundary to the part of Angus that I represent? As a son of Angus, he will no doubt be aware of the excellent Forfar bridie, which in my opinion is the finest meat-based product—I suppose the English would call it a pasty—in the whole United Kingdom. Beyond that, Strathmore, which has the most intensive berry production in the United Kingdom, produces the best strawberries and raspberries in the UK, in my opinion. Does my hon. Friend agree that registration of those regional foods could do a lot to encourage tourism to those areas? We could use the excellence, exclusivity and greatness of traditional foods to promote Angus, Strathmore and the rest of the Tayside area.

Mr. Weir

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. which I was going to come to later. Many European areas have managed to get a good industry going with local foods, and to tie that into their tourism industry. We need to do that in Scotland to a much greater extent.

The only two products currently going through the registration process are Aberdeen Angus beef and Scottish farmed salmon. It is instructive to realise that the products registered to date include Scotch beef and lamb and Orkney and Shetland lamb, which are backed by strong producer organisations, although those industries have not been without their troubles in recent years. Comparing the number of registrations from Scotland and the UK—I am, as I said, sad to learn that there are none from Wales—with those from continental Europe, we see that in France 127 products have been registered, in Italy 117, and even 88 in Greece. Registered European products include wine from Italy and champagne from France—again, products far inferior to the great Arbroath smokie. It is obviously important for small producers to register a food, and the reasons for doing so are becoming more urgent in a difficult marketplace.

Registration protects a product from cheap imitations and provides an excellent marketing opportunity both for products aimed at new markets and for tourism, as I have mentioned. Would champagne be so successful if it was just another fizzy wine? Registration protects the quality of the product and thus its respectability and the market for it. In an age of mass production, people who seek to create quality products must more and more seek niche markets to sell their wares. Scotland has a worldwide reputation for quality and for its environment, and that reputation means a lot.

Furthermore, registration means that inferior products produced elsewhere cannot be passed off as local products, as has happened in the past to the smokie industry among others. Indeed, when Delia Smith recently discovered the Arbroath smokie, there was a rush, albeit short-lived, on the product—but many people who were buying "Arbroath smokies" were probably buying fish that had never smelled the fresh air of Arbroath harbour.

Many rural and remote areas are suffering badly from the downturn in traditional industries. Sadly. Arbroath's once great fishing industry is almost a distant memory—although as I said earlier, there is currently an upturn, but that may turn out to be an Indian summer. Proposals have been submitted to turn part of the Arbroath harbour area into a tourist attraction—again, smokies could form part of that. Perhaps there will be no Smokieworld, but we have hope for the future.

Welcome as those developments are, they do not compensate for the loss of fishing jobs in the past few decades. Fish processing continues in a fairly substantial way, although with small-scale producers in Arbroath, and has a future if fish stocks are maintained. There was a welcome increase in them this year as a result of the quotas negotiated by the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Mr. Morley) in Brussels. However, storm clouds appear to he gathering on the horizon again. The fish-processing industry sometimes lives on the edge, as was recently demonstrated by the closures in north-east Scotland.

To survive, traditional industries must protect the things that make them unique; the Arbroath smokie is an example, as is the Forfar bridie, which my hon. Friend the Member for North Tayside (Pete Wishart) mentioned. To do so, however, they must seek the protection of their identity, which would allow them to develop a niche market and sell a reliable quality product. We are told that food producers must seek that quality niche market, and many are striving to do so.

However, to secure protection for the future they must receive European registration. It is imperative that the Government give all necessary assistance to such applications, especially to small-scale producers, who may be wiped out if they have been successful in establishing a market only for it to be swamped by mass producers cashing in.

The registration system has been taken up with gusto across continental Europe, as is shown by the figures. I ask the Minister to do the same here and to offer help in achieving registration to all small-scale producers in Scotland. Wales and the rest of the UK. Many fine and unique products are produced in Scotland, and even in other parts of the UK; I confess to being a great fan of blue Stilton cheese.

10.15 pm
The Minister for Rural Affairs (Alun Michael)

It is a great pleasure to respond to the hon. Member for Angus (Mr. Weir), and I congratulate him on securing the debate, which gives us the opportunity to hear about the joys of Arbroath smokies. The first thing that I did when I realised that I would be responding to the debate was to test the availability of Arbroath smokies in London. As the test proved positive, I tasted the product for myself this afternoon. I can therefore join him in recommending it to the hon. Members who have flooded into the Chamber to hear this important debate.

I want to get one or two statistical matters straight. The hon. Gentleman referred to the number of successful registrations in Scotland. There are seven—Orkney beef, Orkney lamb, Scottish beef, Scottish lamb, Shetland lamb, Bonchester cheese and Teviotdale cheese. That list excludes those that are going through the process, such as the Arbroath smokie. On the comparison with other countries, although the hon. Gentleman is correct that the United Kingdom has some 31 successful registrations, France has 127 and Italy has 117, we are at the halfway point in the table, and many countries have not taken as much advantage of registration as has the UK.

Mr. Weir

My figures are taken from a parliamentary answer from his Department, which reads: No regional foods have been registered as protected food names in Angus"— as yet, obviously. It continues: Five regional foods have been registered in Scotland, (and including these) 31 in the UK."—[official Report, 10 June 2002; Vol. 386, c. 940W.]

Alun Michael

The point is that I can give the hon. Gentleman the accurate answer—there are the seven that I named. I do not know the reason for the disparity. Perhaps the figure that he was given is mistaken or has not kept pace with registrations.

What is interesting, apart from the fact that the United Kingdom is halfway up the table—and may move further if the information that I have been given today is correct—is the way in which registration is being used. Eleven products are from the south-west of England. That fits in well with the fact that the promotion of regional foods in the south-west, "Taste of the West", is particularly effective. It has succeeded in giving a profile to the region and to the local foods of the region. I have been telling those in other regions of England that they should look at what has been achieved in the south-west to build on that for the future. We can learn lessons from each other.

Although there is growing interest in regional and local food, there is little public knowledge about the EU scheme for protecting food names, and I welcome the opportunity to discuss it and to say a little about what we have been doing. The idea of registering a traditional regional food or drink remains something of an alien concept in the UK, and we need to ask why that is. Other member states—it is no accident that France and Italy are at the head of the list of registrations—have a long tradition of recognising the importance of regional food and drink in encouraging a vibrant rural economy. The French have a well-established system for registering protected food names, which is familiar to us from their cheeses and wines—appellation contrôlée. That explains why so many French products now benefit from the EU scheme that came into force in 1993, with the first products being registered in 1996.

Despite our position somewhere behind the starting line when the scheme was introduced, we are beginning to catch up. The first products registered under the scheme include Scottish beef, Scottish lamb and Orkney lamb and, moving south of the border, Newcastle brown and Stilton cheese. Both the latter have adherents in the House. They are all excellent products, which deserve protection. The 31 United Kingdom products that have been registered place us seventh in the EU league table.

In addition, there is the designation known as the "certificate of specific character". Such a product has to be produced on the basis of a traditional recipe. It has been little used so far, even in France. However, traditional farm-produced turkeys in the United Kingdom can make use of it. The market is growing because consumers appreciate the distinctive flavour that derives from the method of production and preparation. That is another commendable step forward.

Much more needs to be done. As we have heard, many other products are equally worth protecting. I hope that, in future, hon. Members from different regions of England as well as from Scotland and Wales will compete to tell the House, the country and the world about the excellence of their local products.

Why should we protect such products? What are we doing to encourage more registrations? It is not enough to register food names for the sake of it or for sentimental reasons. Consumers are showing an increasing interest in regional and traditional foods. As well as price, quality and accessibility, consumers look for authenticity and traceability. Products that fulfil those needs can therefore be marketed at a premium, thus benefiting farmers and secondary producers.

Time and again, we have said that it is important to find ways of getting the price that consumers are willing to pay back to primary producers and the communities from which the products originate. Once a protected food name is registered, consumers can be assured that it is authentic because registered products must be fully certified as conforming to a set specification by independent inspection bodies.

It is becoming easier for consumers to identify registered products thanks to the distinctive community logos that producers can use when labelling their products. Several UK products are using the logos and we are keen to encourage a greater take-up.

Let us consider ways in which to encourage more awareness of the scheme, which is voluntary and designed to promote new applications. In 1999, the then Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food launched a campaign to raise the profile of our regional food heritage. It was aimed at food producers, retailers and consumers and tried to raise awareness of the EU scheme and highlight UK products that had already been protected or might be eligible for protection.

The campaign involved a major exhibition at the royal show and a series of regional seminars in England and Wales. They prompted a great deal of interest from producers and resulted in several new applications, some of which are with European Commission for consideration.

There is more to do and I am pleased that Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs officials are working closely with colleagues in the devolved Administrations to attract more applications. As I said earlier, no Welsh applications have yet been approved but we are confident that that will happen. The Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly have been working, through officials' joint activity, to use the European scheme. That is another example of the co-operation necessary to make devolution a success.

Close co-operation is also vital once an application has been submitted to us. That was much in evidence when we dealt with the Arbroath smokie application, and ensured that we were able to forward it to the Commission in Brussels without delay.

I want to say a little about the timetable to which the hon. Gentleman referred. Criticisms have been made of the scheme, which has been portrayed as slow and bureaucratic. However, let us consider our goal. The delay is partly due to the built-in timetable in EU legislation. The timetable is designed to protect the scheme's integrity and the long-term value of designation to consumers and producers. It is not simply a quick marketing ploy, but something that will add value in the long term to the product that he wants promoted on behalf of firms in his constituency.

The timetable also includes an opportunity for producers elsewhere in the EU to object to applications and enables our producers to object to a possible unfair designation from some country elsewhere in Europe. It is, therefore, right that the process should have a degree of time for thought and for objection to ensure that the integrity is protected, and that once a product is designated, it means something.

We try to make the process as painless as possible by guiding applicants through the process, advising them on completing their applications, and doing all that we can to ensure that there is no undue delay once an application is sent to the commission. The hon. Gentleman referred to costs, and was kind enough to inform us of the amount that it costs the Government to assist with the process. I should point out that no fee is charged to applicants. We are supporting this because it is good for business in the UK, and we are seeking to encourage small businesses as well as larger ones to take advantage of this facility.

The commission on the future of farming and food, led by Sir Donald Curry, recently recognised that one of the greatest opportunities for food producers to add value and retain a bigger slice of the retail price was to build on the public's increasing enthusiasm for local food or food with a clear regional provenance. The Curry report recommended that industry bodies, with the help of Food from Britain and the regional food groups, should do more to ensure that English producers take part in the protected food name scheme—the same would apply to Scottish and Welsh producers. We accept this recommendation, and DEFRA officials have been making information about the scheme available to the regional food groups and will work closely with them in the same way that they work closely with their colleagues in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Finally, it is worth noting that the scheme may not be suitable for all our regional food and drink products, either because those products do not meet the criteria for eligibility or because the producers themselves do not wish to register the products.

I shall close by saying something about our efforts to encourage regional food production more generally and to help producers find outlets for their products. One of the pleasures of this job is spending time in the regions of England, and eating regional and locally grown products with people whom I meet and entertain has brought home to me how the quality and presentation of food in the United Kingdom has improved in recent years.

We have made provision under the England rural development programme for grants-related activities such as the establishment of farmers' markets, the development of regional or local branding of foodstuffs, the marketing of organic products, and the formation of collaborative groups to market quality products. All of these are important. The Countryside Agency's "Eat the View" campaign seeks to achieve more favourable market conditions for local products that support sustainable land management. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that there is a link between food and attracting tourists to an area. That is a good connection that we should make the most of.

Food from Britain, another of the bodies to which we grant aid, has been encouraging supermarkets to stock local produce, with some success. It also supports a network of regional food groups which provide trade development services to regional and speciality food producers.

At a more strategic level, it is one of the benefits of the new Department that it brings more closely together the staff dealing with a wide range of food, environmental and sustainability issues. This is very much in our minds as we draw up our response to the Curry report's recommendations relating to regional and local food, with the aim of developing a strategic approach to the promotion of regional foods and greater co-ordination between bodies with an interest in this work.

At the end of the day, there are models that work, and there is an opportunity for registration in this community scheme. It is by bringing those together and ensuring that people understand what is being done that we can help the British food industry not only to succeed for itself but to help the work of the British tourist industry and other industries at national, regional and local level. The encouragement by the Prince of Wales to supermarkets to consider regional and local products is also beneficial.

There is also encouragement for us to look across boundaries so that we appreciate products from elsewhere. Those of us from Wales, for example, might appreciate the products of Scotland and the regions of England, and so on. We have a great deal to gain from each other if we value each other's products and encourage them to become better known not only throughout the country, but throughout Europe and the world. I hope that, like the hon. Gentleman, many Members will take the opportunity to publicise products from their area, and to encourage producers in their constituencies to make use of this facility.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at half-past Ten o'clock.