European Pig Industry
Debate between Jim Shannon and Richard Bacon(11 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Bacon
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. In this country, once the rules come into force on a given date—1 January 2013, in this instance—that should be it. There is a huge difference between our approach to the law, what we do with it and how we obey it, and the approach of many countries on the continent, where law and the making of law are more of an aspiration than a statement of what is and how things should be. I do not want to dwell on that point too much, because it is outside the terms of the debate, but I think that it highlights one of the fundamental differences between us and many European countries, which makes the melding of our countries—should we wish it, which we do not—almost impossible.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on bringing this very important issue before the House. My constituency used to have 30 pig producers, but we now have just one, although it is a large one. The problem has been that we in the UK have religiously followed the regulations, to the detriment of local pig farmers. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the supermarket chains should give a commitment to sourcing pork from local farmers, rather than buying from across the rest of Europe?
Mr Bacon
Yes, that is important, and the evidence is that where supermarkets—such as Waitrose and Morrisons —have made such a commitment, it has had very favourable consequences and customers like it.
As a result of 80% of EU member states not being expected to meet the deadline, many illegal farms are likely to operate well into 2013. Only five nations—the United Kingdom, Austria, Estonia, Luxembourg and Sweden—achieved full compliance with the directive by the 1 January 2013 deadline.
As the Minister will know, at the Council of Ministers meeting on Monday of this week, fresh figures on the extent of compliance with the directive were provided. The latest data from Agra Facts revealed that an additional five member states—Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia and Romania—are now fully compliant, taking the total number of compliant countries to 10. It is interesting that some countries that might have faced more difficulties and that are less economically developed have been able to achieve full compliance, while other countries, such as France and Germany, have not. That speaks volumes about why compliance has not been achieved. The reality is that it has not been achieved because it was not in those countries’ interests to achieve compliance, as they can get more profit by flouting the law, and they have done that up to, and beyond, the last possible moment.
Many of these countries export to the UK in significant volumes, including Denmark, the Netherlands and the EU’s largest pork producer, Germany. To take Germany as an example, one quarter of the EU’s pigmeat—some 5.6 million tonnes—is produced by German pig farmers. Recent Eurostat figures show that Germany has 27.4 million pigs, over six times the number of pigs in the UK, and 18.5% of the overall EU pig herd. The website for German Meat, the joint export promotion organisation of the German meat industry, proudly proclaims:
“The production of pork has a long tradition in Germany. Production methods and structures today are of a high standard and undergo constant further development in terms of animal genetics, animal health, production technology and hygiene.”
However, the December 2012 figures for compliance show that fewer than half of Germany’s pig farmers—just 48%—had achieved full compliance with the directive. That figure now stands at 73%—so still more than a quarter are not compliant—and both figures place Germany at 24th place out of 27 member states in terms of the percentage of pig farms in full compliance.
In December, four member states had compliance rates of below 50%: Germany, Portugal, Belgium and France. Together, they produced 49.7 million tonnes of pork and pigmeat. By contrast, the five countries that were fully compliant by December 2012 produced 9.4 million tonnes. These figures help to illustrate the scale of the challenge. Europe is awash with cheap pork produced illegally, forcing down the price of pork and other pig products and adding yet more pressure on Britain’s already hard-pressed pig farmers, who are complying with the law, unlike many of their major competitors.
Group Lotus
Debate between Jim Shannon and Richard Bacon
Mr Richard Bacon (South Norfolk) (Con)
I am very grateful for the opportunity to draw the attention of the House to the situation currently facing Group Lotus, the largest employer in my South Norfolk constituency, and the potential threat to 1,200 local jobs. I am very pleased to see parliamentary colleagues here from Norfolk and I have received messages from my hon. Friends the Members for North West Norfolk (Mr Bellingham) and for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb), both of whom would have wanted be here in their capacity as local Norfolk MPs, but who are both sadly overseas on Government business.
Group Lotus is a local and a national icon. It is a famous sports car manufacturer with a very special heritage, and also an important global engineering consultancy. The central concern is that following the Malaysian Government’s recent sale of its stake in Proton Holdings—a Malaysian company that is the owner of Group Lotus—to another Malaysian company, DRB-HICOM, the new owner may respond to what are said to be a number of Chinese businesses that would like to buy Lotus and relocate the manufacturing to China.
The CEO, Dany Bahar, has stated publicly in a recent interview that it would “make no sense” to move manufacturing. However, he also stated the exact opposite at the Paris motor show in October 2010 and at the Los Angeles motor show in November 2010, when it was stated that production would shift abroad and that a new factory site would be decided on before Christmas. One Chinese business, China Youngman, has had a commercial relationship with Lotus for many years. The great fear in South Norfolk is that there will be a repeat of the MG Rover saga when the remnants of a once great British car company were picked up from the scrap heap and put on a boat to China.
It is worth setting out why Lotus is so important and why its continued presence in the UK is so important. The company was founded in 1952 by Colin Chapman, a legendary designer and inventor who, it is probably no exaggeration to say, was an engineering genius. At the heart of Chapman’s philosophy for automotive design was his famous maxim, “Simplify, then add lightness.” His approach was driven by the belief that while adding power made a vehicle faster on the straights, subtracting weight made it faster everywhere, and so he focused on lightness and fine handling rather than on huge horsepower. To this day, Lotus is well known across the world for its unparalleled understanding of drive dynamics.
Lotus has made so many contributions to the history of automotive engineering which are still influential—and in many cases in use today in one form or another—that it is not possible to do justice to all of them in this short debate, although they include the first ever use in a Formula 1 car of a reclining driving position; a monocoque chassis design; aerofoil wings; a wedge-shaped front; adjustable suspension; and many other important innovations. This approach was rewarded with seven Formula 1 constructors championships and six drivers championships, and Lotus’s cars have twice appeared in James Bond films, notably in “The Spy Who Loved Me”, when a Lotus Esprit memorably transformed into a submarine.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
The hon. Gentleman says that there is a lot of Chinese interest. I also understand there is interest from the Formula 1 Lotus team in taking over the firm and protecting every one of those jobs. Does he agree that its bid should be the one that is chosen?
Mr Bacon
I certainly agree that it should be given the most serious consideration. I understand that the owners of Lotus F1, which by the way came second and third in the recent Bahrain grand prix, have expressed an interest and said that they would see no reason to move any of the business away from the UK. Their views should be treated with the greatest care and consideration.
The production side of the business has been doing very well and has built tens of thousands of relatively affordable and cutting-edge sports cars, employing many local people in the process. The consulting side has been so successful over the years that it is said that one in 10 cars in Europe has something in it that derives from Lotus’s intellectual property.
Lotus moved in 1966 to Hethel in South Norfolk to a purpose-built facility on the site of a former US air force airfield. The business now employs around 1,400 worldwide, some 1,200 of whom work at the Hethel headquarters. In 1996, Lotus was bought by Proton Holdings, a Malaysian car manufacturer. Lotus has experienced financial difficulties at times, but it was profitable as recently as 2008-09, when the Group Lotus annual accounts show a profit before tax of £1.5 million. It is important to emphasise this point as one will find many incorrect references in the automotive press to the “fact” that Group Lotus has never made a profit since it was bought by Proton, when the actual facts are that the company has been profitable quite recently. Lotus has a great story to tell and is at the heart of an innovation cluster. The recent and growing success of the Hethel engineering centre in nurturing a variety of high-tech small businesses has been due, in large measure, to the presence of Lotus nearby. There are also wider benefits along the A11 corridor that my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman) will address if he catches your eye, Mr Speaker.
If Lotus were removed, it would be a body blow to the growing success of a local economy that is succeeding precisely as part of the shift away from the overdependence on financial services that the Government wish to see.
Higher Education (Student Visas)
Debate between Jim Shannon and Richard Bacon(13 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Bacon
I was particularly interested to hear Sir Andrew Green of Migrationwatch UK, who I have always thought is a very articulate spokesman on these matters, say that he was interested in bogus students, bogus applicants, bogus colleges and genuine students who overstayed, because those categories contribute to net migration, but that he would welcome more genuine overseas students, as he thinks that is good for the country and the economy.
My fear is that genuine overseas students have been caught up in all this, so let me say how pleased I am that the Government have taken steps to deal with bogus colleges. The Select Committee on Home Affairs produced a useful report on that issue in 2009 and I gather from the Minister’s evidence to the Committee today that some 58 colleges have had their status revoked and the Government have taken compliance action against a further 235, which may lead to suspension or revocation of status. I applaud those excellent and worthwhile moves. Nobody has a stronger interest in seeing bogus colleges put out of business than legitimate providers. I should add that the Committee’s previous recommendation to restrict by law the use of the word “college” is a good one that Ministers should take seriously.
There is no place for bogus colleges or bogus applicants; nor is there any place for genuine applicants who overstay. We should have clear rules that everyone understands and that are enforced. If we deal with the bogus colleges, the cheats, the bogus applicants and those who fiddle the system, a great deal of the heat—the political problem about immigration—goes away. At that point, we face chiefly not a political problem, but a much more entrenched and difficult economic problem. We are all living through the consequences of the worst financial crash for a century or more. We know that this will be very painful and that severe belt-tightening will take place, and we have seen the Government make a start on that. We all know that any Government would have had to do the same. We know that we have to rebalance the economy away from its heavy dependence on financial services and have much healthier growth in other sectors.
We know that in Norfolk as well as anywhere does in the UK, because Norfolk is poised for significant growth in other areas of the economy, particularly once we get the dualling of the A11 completed, which I am pleased the Government have agreed. Norfolk is poised to help that rebalancing and not only through tourism, agriculture and high value-added food production, in which East Anglia has excelled, because there is a broader potential for growth. For example, Norwich is home to a cluster of internationally renowned research organisations in health and life sciences.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that for a great many universities across the United Kingdom—particularly Queen’s university in Belfast—students on visas are very important to research and development and to contact with companies? That potential needs to be realised. Does he feel that the coalition Government can make changes to ensure that the students who have the right to be in this country can make a contribution to universities and, thus, secure development?
Mr Bacon
I certainly hope so. I hope that the Government understand, if they had not already, that two in five PhDs undertaken in this country are undertaken by overseas students. Damage that and we damage the research base of this country.
More than 2,500 scientists are working at the John Innes centre near Norwich, the Institute of Food Research, the Sainsbury Laboratory, the Genome Analysis Centre and the university of East Anglia cluster, which together form the Norwich research park. That is the largest concentration of food and plant scientists in Europe. The IFR was recently ranked in the top two of 36,000 worldwide research organisations for the influence and citation of its research.
UEA also has a growing medical school and a renowned school of environmental studies. Other growing sectors include offshore and other renewable energy, including tidal, biomass and biofuel energy production. In advanced engineering the area has more than 1,000 engineering companies, employing a skilled work force of about 10,000 people, which trade around the world with the likes of Boeing, Airbus, NASA and Toyota. Group Lotus, which is based in my constituency, is developing the next generation of high-performance cars using renewable energies, as well as being the catalyst for a large cluster of advanced automotive engineering businesses along the A11 corridor. Almost every Formula 1 team is supported by engineers based in Norfolk or is using engineering invented in the county.