Trade in Animals and Related Products (Amendment) (Northern Ireland) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown Excerpts

Monday 13th May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Browne of Belmont (DUP)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for all the additional work he has had to undertake with regard to Northern Ireland. Unfortunately, this has come about because, as we know, there is no Northern Ireland Assembly or Executive to discuss and pass these Motions. However, I think all of us here hope that the ongoing talks taking place in Stormont will prove successful, and that might relieve the Minister. It is vital, however, that these Motions are agreed to protect animals and plants in Northern Ireland from disease, which can be imported from other countries, so I very much welcome the regulations. Northern Ireland has some of the best policies that defend animals and plants from imported disease. When the European Union certificate is replaced by the phytosanitary certificate, it will obviously involve additional administration. Can the Minister say who will bear the additional cost: the importer or the exporter, or will it be passed on to the public? Once again, I thank the Minister for all his work and for keeping the Northern Ireland Peers so well informed about these matters.

[Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown (DUP)]

I shall follow on from my noble friend. The Minister talked about the consultations between officials from Defra and the Irish Republic. Can he tell the House what consultations have taken place with the Ulster Farmers Union and the other groupings that represent farmers in Northern Ireland, and do they agree with the regulations before the House this evening?

Also, do any of these regulations have any connection with the backstop being demanded by Europe in the present negotiations? If they relate to the present negotiations and the backstop, which is opposed by many within Northern Ireland, certainly my colleagues in the Democratic Unionist Party will have to look afresh at these recommendations.

My noble friend also asked about the burden being placed. Do any of the proposals place a greater burden on the agricultural and business community in Northern Ireland than those in the rest of the United Kingdom? Who will bear the financial responsibility for that?

Winter Flooding (Preparation)

Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown Excerpts

Wednesday 19th November 2014 Westminster Hall

[Steve Brine]

My hon. Friend is a visionary and a futurist. Bear with me—“bear with”, as someone recently said.

I was touching on Headbourne Worthy. The Good Life Farm Shop lost thousands of pounds of business because of the road closure. That is part of the wider socio-economic impact that I mentioned. My constituents in the village of Littleton, another place where my team and I shifted thousands of sandbags, took that to a whole new level, as one end of the village was the ungrateful recipient of thousands of tonnes of water flowing off groundwater-saturated farmland at the other. One thing that I have learned this year is that water is ruthless and will find its way, no matter what or who is in its way, to the lowest common point. I saw that happen to devastating effect.

Meanwhile, villagers at the other end of my constituency, in Hursley, saw rising groundwater levels fill cellars and infiltrate sewerage systems, with the resulting outpouring down the picture-postcard streets. The villagers do not look on that as their village’s finest hour and I would not want to see it again.

What do all these communities, including Sutton Scotney in the north of my constituency, where there are still constituents out of their homes, have in common? As I said, their flooding was the result of groundwater—levels just overspilled. The problem that they all share is that the cost-benefit ratio for flood alleviation schemes—this issue was alluded to by my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris)—under the national funding formula does not favour them or, I am sure, many of the villages that colleagues represent, because of the low number of properties that are actually physically flooded.

The difficulty is being able easily to quantify impacts such as the road closures that I mentioned, disruption to local businesses, such as the Good Life Farm Shop and the King Charles pub, deliveries to those businesses and to homes, welfare services, social care, education—I mentioned St Bede’s school—and normal life in general. Our experience in Winchester points to the need for the cost-benefit analysis for flood alleviation schemes to be articulated in a very different way.

We know that the national funding formula, the so-called flood defence grant in aid programme, will never touch us, but we want to build something that is complementary to it, not in place of it, which properly recognises the value of multiple small-scale local measures to deliver community flood resilience.

[Dr William McCrea (South Antrim) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on initiating the debate. Could he address a problem that constituents right across the United Kingdom face when flooding happens? I am referring to the difficulty that householders, including my constituents, encounter when they try to get insurance. They experience great difficulty in getting insurance at all or they face exorbitant rates. Surely the Government must do more on that with the insurance companies.

[Steve Brine]

Yes. I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I could have gone into huge detail on insurance, but I know how many hon. Members want to speak in the debate. A huge insurer based in my constituency, Ageas, briefed me recently. There is a scheme that has come out as a result of the floods; there is a levy on policies that helps those in hard-to-insure or uninsurable properties. I urge the hon. Gentleman to look into that. Perhaps the Minister will refer to it.

I was talking about the national programme and the difficulties that communities such as mine, and those represented by many colleagues here, will have in accessing that. Fortunately, Hampshire county council, which Winchester clearly comes under, has a plan that is actively being discussed with officials from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs—even the day before yesterday, they were discussing it again, I think. Following my introducing the idea to my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Treasury officials are looking at it ahead of the autumn statement. Called the Pathfinder programme, it would look beyond property protection to measure the benefits of resilience in the wider area—for example, the benefit of maintaining strategic transport routes.

Better management of groundwater flood risk at local level, unconstrained by the current funding methodology, would mean that the communities that I represent could remain open for the duration of the flood, enabling local economies and businesses to function. By integrating existing programmes with a devolved funding pot for new measures, benefits of scale could be realised by incorporating simple flood risk measures alongside other maintenance programmes such as highway drainage or even the resurfacing of a road.

The Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs report, “Winter floods 2013-14”, rightly highlights the fact that each catchment area has different flood risk management needs. It argues that effective flood risk management should be informed by local knowledge and prioritised according to local circumstances. It calls on the Government to assess the possibility of a total expenditure for flood and coastal risk management in order to allow greater flexibility to target funding according to local priorities. I think that Government support for the Pathfinder programme in Hampshire would provide for exactly the type of flexibility envisaged in the Select Committee’s report.

Lest the Minister think that this is just another clever ruse from Hampshire, supported by its MPs—my hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) is here today—to eke more money out of the Government for it to spend as it sees fit, I am pleased to be able to say that Pathfinder is underpinned by serious academic work by the university of Portsmouth, which is working to secure a sensible baseline for cost-benefit analysis of flood risk adaption and mitigation. Hampshire seeks £2 million for Pathfinder that DEFRA devolves for a three-year programme and it will stand behind that request with match funding from Hampshire council tax payers. If the Minister hears nothing else that I say this morning, I ask him, as a consequence of today’s debate, to press his officials on those proposals and to think creatively about what they can offer.

Finally, I come to the repair and renew grant, or RRG, which I have become incredibly familiar with in recent months. It had the best of intentions when it was set up, but it was, for a start, poorly named, as many of my constituents who were attempting to claim against it would find out. The original guidelines defined the RRG as being used only if

“habitable internal areas of the premises have been damaged by flooding”.

However, following sustained appeals from my constituents, through me, DEFRA Ministers, to their credit, noted the high impact on daily lives where people were unable to continue living in their home and, on 24 June, Ministers decided to extend the RRG beyond the use in relation to habitable areas. That means that under the revised scheme, money can now be paid to those people whose septic tanks were flooded—a problem that was very acute in my area and that I suspect others will recognise. As they put it to me in their letter of 25 June,

“this is due to the fact that people cannot reasonably be expected to live in a property that is not flooded but has no functioning sewerage system”.

Quite!

That was a victory for common sense, and Winchester city council has run with it. As of the end of last week, the chief executive tells me, the council had received 67 applications to the reformed RRG, with 44 approved and only two rejected. The value of grants paid out to date is in the region of £45,000.

I do, however, have one final ask on the RRG, on which I beg the Minister’s assistance; I gave him notice of this. As he knows, the scheme is due to close at the end of this financial year, by which time all schemes that receive grant approval need to be implemented and the money claimed back from the council. I do not think that that will be a problem for most individual claimants, but for larger-scale, collaborative schemes, that deadline certainly is a problem.

There is one such scheme in the village of Littleton, which I have already mentioned. A residents company has a programme, already agreed by the council in Winchester and by DEFRA, that is designed to deal with the surface water that inundated their private foul drainage system last winter, leaving many of my constituents without drainage for many weeks. There were Portaloos in the village for a long time.

I am concerned that because of the detailed design work that is required to do this properly—and it must be done properly—it may not be possible for my constituents to implement the scheme and claim back the costs by the end of March next year. I appeal to the Minister to look at the case once again and to demonstrate the kind of flexibility that the Department displayed earlier this year, which showed it in such a good light. I am happy to provide the details to the Minister outside the debate.

I place on the record my thanks, on behalf of my constituents and many others in Hampshire, for the £11.5 million that our county was awarded from the Government’s flood recovery fund to assist with repairs following the floods. That has been invaluable in repairing roads in my constituency, such as Springvale road in Kings Worthy and the B3047 through Itchen Abbas, which were ripped to shreds by floodwater. Hampshire spent £5 million of that £11.5 million on repairing the county’s roads. That was in addition to the £35 million that the county spends on highways as part of its annual maintenance budget. That is a word of thanks, which I know the Minister will appreciate.

As I have tried to set out, many things went well in my constituency last winter when we were faced with unprecedented levels of rainfall, and there are real success stories to tell. Some things, such as the RRG, have since improved. We need some further help, as I outlined, in preparation for winter 2014-15. In preparation for this winter, however, other nuts are not so easy to crack. I close by stressing the importance to me and to my constituents of the Pathfinder scheme, as put forward by Hampshire county council. I look forward to hearing what other Members have to say, and I look forward to the response from the Minister and the shadow Minister.

Tyne River (Pollution)

Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown Excerpts

Tuesday 28th January 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mr Nicholas Brown]

Dr McCrea, like me, you represent a constituency with a rich industrial heritage that no doubt has similar problems, albeit perhaps not exactly of the nature we have been discussing. I am very disappointed by what the Minister has said. He has, however, offered one constructive suggestion, which I note would not cost the Government any money. Nevertheless, it is a constructive suggestion and I will take it up with the local authority and others locally.

I agree with the Minister that the possibility of a commercial way forward for the site is worth exploring. The figures he cited are the same as my own—a cost of roughly £1.2 million to £2 million for the council’s preferred scheme to try to contain the tars and prevent them from leaching into the river, but it would contain them on site. I do not know how commercially attractive that would be to a developer. My preferred option would be a one-off capital clearance of the whole site to clear it up completely and bring it back to a more pristine standard, certainly than it has known since 1920. However, my suspicion is that that would cost more money.

I rather thought that the Minister would turn me down on the money, and that he would refer to the Department for Communities and Local Government grant arrangements—

[Dr William McCrea (in the Chair)]

Order. May I say to the right hon. Gentleman that the Minister might like to say a few words in response, but it is an intervention; there can be no further speeches. Does the Minister want to respond?

[Mr Brown]

May I have a final sentence?

[Dr William McCrea (in the Chair)]

One final sentence.

[Mr Brown]

My final sentence—there may be a few commas and semicolons—is this: will the Minister, or another Minister from the Department, agree to meet me to have a continuing dialogue on a way forward for the site, with a view to finding a conclusion?

[George Eustice]

I omitted to deal with that point, which the right hon. Gentleman raised. I am more than happy to go back and raise that point with Lord De Mauley. He is responsible for the matter because it is in his portfolio, even though I handle it in the Commons, and I am sure that he will be willing to meet and discuss it further. I have been as honest and frank as I can with the right hon. Gentleman about the constraints that we have. As I have said, a large sum of money is required to put the site right. We have made it clear that we have only about £500,000 a year for the whole country, so he can appreciate that it would overwhelm us. I will nevertheless take that point back and ask Lord De Mauley if he will have a meeting.

[Dr William McCrea (in the Chair)]

I thank the Minister and the right hon. Gentleman for the debate. It was less contentious than some of the debates that we have had today, but it was no less important.

Question put and agreed to.

Common Agricultural Policy

Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown Excerpts

Tuesday 18th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Heath]

I cannot give the hon. Gentleman as full an answer as he would wish. First, we have not yet agreed the deal, so we do not know whether that voluntary modulation figure will stand. Secondly, a lot will depend on the design of the schemes and on how we implement them at national level. We have been pushing the argument in Europe that, in relation to the devolved Administrations, we want as much flexibility and local determination as possible in the design of operation. We want to give Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales the opportunity to use their own discretion on behalf of their own farming businesses, as they will know the best way of implementing the schemes in those countries. If we are successful in our objective of achieving that flexibility, as we have been so far, we will effectively have a devolved CAP.

[Dr William McCrea (South Antrim) (DUP)]

Will the Minister acknowledge the need for regional flexibility to allow Northern Ireland to tailor any new policy to fit the needs of the local industry?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Heath]

I am grateful for that question. A lot will depend on the local determination in Northern Ireland for the options under pillar two, which provides the capacity for supporting diversification. The relevant Northern Ireland Minister will have to decide the extent to which voluntary modulation applies and whether the pillar two schemes will be devised to support diversification. The capacity is there and the decision on whether it will happen or not will be a local one.

[Dr McCrea]

The Minister is being very gracious in the number of interventions he is willing to take. The UK has received the lowest EU share of the rural development budget, which will impact on schemes such as agri-environmental schemes, the less favoured area compensatory allowance and farm modernisation. Will the Government balance the reduction in rural development with funds from, for instance, pillar one?

[Mr Heath]

The hon. Gentleman asks a basic question about voluntary modulation. We have already indicated that we will probably wish to see significant modulation from pillar one to pillar two in England. Obviously, other structural funds could be used for those purposes, if desired. On rural development, there is a need to utilise every possible source of funding to improve the rural economy. We are not simply talking about what is available through CAP funding to support agricultural and rural development.

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[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

I am delighted to speak after the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh), the Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee.

Food security delivered by a viable farming industry and the sustainable management of our natural resources must be compatible. It would appear that the CAP does its best to ensure that they are not. Greening is a lie. The proposals are not greening proposals. Modifications that are being made in the proposals to pillar one can be said to be greening in nature, but the proposals do not constitute the greening of the CAP as a whole. Only 13% of the funding under pillar one goes to specific greening measures. In many cases, good farmers are doing those things anyway. The real objection is that money is being used for subsidies around Europe instead of being used to encourage farmers to improve their practices and run better businesses. That is the tragedy of the CAP’s current structure. The CAP budget is €57.7 billion, which is around 40% of the EU budget. It is staggering that the money is being used predominantly to reward productivity and to increase product, and not to incentivise better businesses and improve the wider environment.

I compliment the Minister—I do not always do so—for the way in which he has handled the debate. He not only took a lot of questions, but sought to engage the House. There is broad consensus in the House on the position that the UK Government would like to get to in Europe. The tragedy is that the 27 different countries have very different farming industries. Many of them have a vested interest in having subsidies prop up their ineffective farming industries.

The key issues are on the use of funds. The right hon. Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Sir James Paice) was right to correct what I said earlier—10% modulation was compulsory and 9% was voluntary in the past. That meant a total of 19% modulation as opposed to the 15% voluntary modulation that the Government propose. The difficulty is that the 15% is 15% of less, and the 19% was 19% of more. The will have a dramatic impact on advancing the environmental stewardship schemes and the green elements of our budget will be dramatic.

I take on board the points made by the Chair of the Committee and the right hon. Member for South East Cambridgeshire about how the proposal will impact on farming businesses in the UK. This is not a zero-sum game, but if we put the money into the schemes that hon. Members would ideally like—the greening schemes that will improve our environment—we will, to an extent, disadvantage our farmers, because they compete against their counterparts in Europe with less subsidy. It is as simple as that. We might all believe that that subsidy is wrong and should not exist—subsidies should not exist to prop up failing industries—but it exists none the less, which is a disadvantage to our farmers.

[Dr McCrea]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Barry Gardiner]

I do not have time, I am afraid.

The Chair of the Committee was absolutely right to put the central question: what is the Treasury going to do? Will it allow enough funds to DEFRA to ensure that we can put the money that is needed into the environmental schemes to support the natural environment White Paper it produced last year and to support our farmers, or will DEFRA budgets be cut in such a way that our farmers and the environment suffer? That is the question.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Margaret Ritchie (South Down) (SDLP)]

I welcome the opportunity to participate in this debate on the reform of the common agricultural policy.

I represent a rural constituency in Northern Ireland where the active farmer is prominent, and there is a need to emphasise the role of the active farmer in single farm payments. Farmers have had to withstand difficult weather conditions in the past 18 months. A combination of wet weather last summer and one of the coldest springs have had an impact on agricultural production. Farmers and farming organisations in Northern Ireland, particularly those in my constituency, are looking forward to a fair wind in the CAP reform negotiations to ensure the resilience of farm practice and the business of farming in Northern Ireland.

I have had several discussions with the Minister, both in separate meetings and as a member of the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Central to the success of the growth of the agri-food industry as the bedrock of the economy is a good outcome from the CAP negotiations that will underpin our industry and farm production at all levels; make provision for new entrants; acknowledge the position of the active farmer in terms of payments; and, above all, ensure a stable income for farmers and for those who derive their livelihood from the farm base. This is a long-term political issue that will shape farming and agriculture not only in the UK, but in Ireland too.

[Dr McCrea]

Does the hon. Lady agree that the reforms should support production, reduce red tape, and ensure that farmers receive an adequate return from the marketplace?

[Ms Ritchie]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I absolutely agree that farmers need to receive a fair income for the work they undertake, notwithstanding difficult weather conditions, soil fertility or other matters.

We must use all the levers at our disposal, including those in the EU, to achieve the best possible outcome for our farmers and our industry. Only last weekend there were some suggestions that farmers in Northern Ireland would be left at a financial disadvantage as a result of the ongoing Government negotiations. I seek assurances from the Minister that the business resilience and capacity of farms in Northern Ireland will be protected in whatever outcomes emerge from the CAP. I have spoken to the Minister’s opposite number in the Republic of Ireland, who is heading up the negotiations, and he has said that farming in Ireland, both north and south, is similar. We are looking for similar outcomes.

I am aware that some farmers involved in full-time farming inherited their farms from their fathers, but in some instances they have not inherited entitlements. What can be done in the current negotiations, and in further discussions at UK level and at devolved level, to secure a position for those farmers who have no entitlements because they did not apply for them back in 2005?

Those are the two principal issues I wanted to raise. I wish the Minister a fair wind in the negotiations. As we enter their final stages next week, the bottom line is to ensure a good outcome for agricultural communities and farm enterprises.

Upland Sheep Farmers

Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Glyn Davies]

I have not made such an assessment. I have seen two of the statements, but I have not looked at what has happened in Scotland or in Northern Ireland. I know that there are differences, however, and it is inevitable that they will be pointed out. At one stage, I thought that I might do that today, but I specifically decided against it because it would inevitably have led to the kind of debate that I did not want. I am probably a bit unusual in that I did not want a debate with a great deal of confrontation. Instead, I want to highlight the issue so that people can understand what has happened.

I want to say something about the sort of things that happened when the snow fell and re-formed itself into huge drifts. Yesterday, in a sort of surgery, I talked to union leaders and upland farmers at Welshpool livestock market. I spoke to one farmer who had just sent 72 dead sheep away in a lorry. He had also picked up another 72 dead sheep and they were awaiting collection. That illustrates the scale of what is happening. To make a terrible situation worse, he will have to pay several thousand pounds to have them taken away. That is not an uncommon experience.

On Sunday night, I switched the television on and watched the excellent Adam Henson covering the scale of the deaths on “Countryfile”. I caught the latter part of the debate. There was a large pile of carcases in the corner of the yard, but it was noticeable that the image was blurred to accommodate the sensitivity of the viewers. It was felt that they should not have to see all those dead sheep piled up like that. However, the vision of piles of dead sheep is not blurred for the owners of the dead sheep. For them, it is all too real. If people are to understand the impact, they need to know what is happening.

[Dr William McCrea (South Antrim) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this very timely debate. From experience, he will understand the horror that happened in Northern Ireland when 20,000 dead animals were buried beneath the snow. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will agree that many of these farmers are heartbroken, not only because of the death of the sheep but because of what it meant for their future as well as their past.

[Glyn Davies]

That was the very point I was coming to.

I spoke to another farmer who came to see me with his wife yesterday, desperately worried about how his family business was going to survive. Normally, his flock produces 340 lambs to sell in the autumn. This year, he will have but 120, and some of those will have to be retained as replacement stock. The only chance of survival will be from off-farm income, and so many others are in the same position right across Britain.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Heath]

I think the situation will be different for each of the constituent parts of the United Kingdom, so I hesitate to give the hon. Lady an answer that might mislead her about the position in Northern Ireland. We are currently negotiating pillar two payments. We are not in a position to know what the future funding arrangements will be there. In negotiating the CAP, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I are very aware that the needs of upland farmers must be met because, as we have already indicated, that is an extremely vulnerable sector of the agricultural industry.

[Dr McCrea]

The Minister has been very generous in taking interventions. Are any other finances available from Europe that can help the regions in the midst of a crisis like the present one?

[Mr Heath]

We have investigated that, and the honest answer is that there probably are not at present, because we are talking about total sums that are below the threshold level for the crisis payments. We have a further difficulty in the United Kingdom: the rebate arrangements come into play, which sometimes makes it difficult for us to avail ourselves of specific funding streams from the European Union in any case. In this instance I do not believe there is any immediate funding that we could draw on which would alleviate the situation.

To return to the scheme that I announced, the amount that I indicated reflects the very latest information on stock losses identified by the National Farmers Union. We are working closely with the NFU, the National Fallen Stock Company and other industry representatives to finalise the arrangements for funding and ensure that that goes to farmers in the worst affected areas and those who have suffered the greatest losses.

Details of the scheme and how to apply will be made public as soon as possible. Farmers should retain receipts and other documentary evidence, so that the collection of fallen stock can be verified once the scheme is under way. I hope that the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland will make her constituents aware of that. It is certainly not my intention to limit payments to those who have registered with or used the National Fallen Stock Company, but I want to find the most efficient mechanism for distributing public funds so that they get to the people who need them as quickly as possible.

Funding has been made available in Northern Ireland and Scotland to meet the costs of fallen stock collection services for farmers affected by the severe weather. As my hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire said, the Welsh Government have taken a number of steps to help farmers, including making a donation to farming charities to assist them in supporting farming families.

I am pleased that a robust programme of support has been made available. However, I emphasise that many individual farmers will face a huge bill to replace their lost animals. We have to make that point to people who do not understand this matter. There is not only the cost of recovering and looking after rescued animals, including the extra feed costs, but the loss of a significant part this year’s lamb crop. Because of the loss of hefted ewes, a number of the surviving lambs will also have to be retained. There is therefore a cumulative effect on farmers.

It is right that we have focused on what is happening immediately on the ground in north-west England and the Welsh hills, but we also need to look towards the longer term, as has been said. In May, the Secretary of State will therefore host a summit of farming sector representatives, farming charities and banks. The meeting will highlight the financial impact that the exceptional weather—not just this event, but across the board—is having on some farm businesses. We will see what more can be done to support farmers who are struggling financially.

This is an exceptional circumstance, and I am grateful that we have had the opportunity to discuss it this evening. I make no apologies for the number of interventions that I have taken from hon. Members, because this matter is crucial to the communities that they represent and I wanted them to have replies. Farmers are by no means out of the woods yet. DEFRA officials and Ministers will remain in close contact with farmers’ organisations and those who are helping to deal with the problems on the ground. I thank them all for their tremendous efforts to deal with this huge problem. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire and other hon. Members for giving us the opportunity to discuss a matter that we should be discussing. I hope that the things that we have done have lightened the load of those who have been seriously affected by this disastrous situation.

Question put and agreed to.

Horsemeat

Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown Excerpts

Tuesday 12th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mary Creagh]

The national equine database was as the hon. Lady describes it, but the fact that it no longer exists does not help with tracking and tracing where horses have gone. There were, I think, more than 1.2 million horses on it. I will need to check the numbers, because that figure is from memory—[Interruption]—and with noises off. Michael Frayn could not have written this farce any better. My point is that without the national database, which would have eventually had a link to the microchips, the opportunities for fraud are much easier. Another issue is that of bute not being written into animal records. That needs to be looked at again.

Government Members have talked about a ban on EU imports. It has been very convenient to blame the Poles and the Romanians, but so far neither country has found anything. The risk of a Romanian horse being given expensive veterinary medicine such as bute is smaller than it is in countries such as the UK and Ireland.

[Dr William McCrea (South Antrim) (DUP)]

The question of whether the animal has been injected with something might be a point for discussion. However, whenever people go into a shop for a beefburger, they are not looking for a horse burger, so it has to be what it says on the packet. In my opinion—I trust that this is also the hon. Lady’s opinion—it is not meat produced in the UK, but meat from outside that causes concern for many consumers. Should not all meat coming into the United Kingdom be quarantined and tested before being released into the food chain?

[Mary Creagh]

We need a proportionate response. The problem with the meat found in the Northern Ireland freezer is that there was no label on it at all. In such cases, how can we say where the meat has come from? That is the problem with that approach. On quarantining and testing meat, we need to make sure that what is coming in is exactly what it says on the label.

During yesterday’s statement, I thought I was going to see unicorns dancing over a blue moon as the hon. Members for Stone (Mr Cash) and for Christchurch (Mr Chope), who are noted, famous Eurosceptics, called for more EU regulation and asked what the European Commission was doing and whether the Health Commissioner was in control of the situation. It has been an interesting revelation for Members of all parties to see the important role that European Union regulations play.

There is an issue with large quantities of horsemeat coming in from countries such as Canada and Mexico. Kilos and tonnes of the meat come in without any traceability or any guarantee about what the horses have had injected into them.

[Dr McCrea]

One thing we can be sure of is that the meat did not come from Northern Ireland. Our traceability is second to none. It was the alertness of Newry and Mourne council that got it stopped in Newry. The meat was not from Northern Ireland, so it had to come from outside. We need to find out exactly where it came from, who was responsible and who acted in a criminal way, and then bring them to book.

[Mary Creagh]

I could not agree more, which is why I have questioned the Secretary of State so closely on the matter of the UK meat trading companies that have been named. The Secretary of State waited three and a half weeks to meet representatives of the food industry and then brought them in on a Saturday. They have now had two meetings in just four days.

Our regulatory services protect consumers and our food industry. They allow it to export all over the world. Their job has been made much more difficult by the Government’s decision to fragment the responsibilities of the Food Standards Agency. Members on both sides of the House want the British public to have confidence that the food that they buy in the shops and that comes from our producers is correctly labelled, legal and safe. The Secretary of State is responsible for ensuring that it is. It just is not good enough to say, “We don’t know what’s in your food, but whatever it is, we guarantee that it’s safe to eat.” The British people deserve so much better than that.

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[Mr Paterson]

The hon. Gentleman asks a good question. However, like many Opposition Members, he is asking me to impinge on the operational independence of the Food Standards Agency, which makes decisions on the details. [Hon. Members: “Is the FSA testing that?”] I have made it clear to the food industry and the FSA that I expect to see meaningful results from the tests by Friday. I repeat what I said yesterday: consumers need to be confident that food is what it says on the label. It is outrageous that consumers appear to have been misled by what appears to be a deliberate fraud.

It is important to distinguish between test results that indicate trace levels of DNA of an undeclared species and gross adulteration. So far, the results indicating flagrant adulteration have been limited to those products from the Silvercrest plant in Ireland and Comigel. It is too early to say whether they are indicative of a wider problem or isolated examples of such fraud. Either way, any case of fraud on the consumer is unacceptable, and I want all such cases to be pursued vigorously and those responsible brought to justice.

[Dr McCrea]

Will the Secretary of State assure me and the House on one point? The financial burden for any extra testing should not be placed on producers within the United Kingdom. They are not to blame, so they should not carry the burden.

[Mr Paterson]

The European law is clear that retailers are key. They are responsible for the quality and validity of what they say is in the box and what is on the label, and for ensuring that they conform. The prime responsibility is with the retailer.

Horsemeat (Food Fraud)

Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown Excerpts

Monday 11th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paterson]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Sadly, there is significant money to be made from this criminal activity. It is a fraud on the public. It is absolutely wrong that a British consumer should go to a retail outlet and buy a product marked “processed beef” and find later that it contains horsemeat. It is a straight fraud. It is criminal activity. We are absolutely determined to bear down on it, working with our European partners to stop it, and I am delighted that the FSA is working closely with Europol.

[Dr William McCrea (South Antrim) (DUP)]

Northern Ireland, like the rest of the United Kingdom, produces first-class meat products, but this meat scandal has seriously damaged public confidence in the safety of our food and is depressing an industry that is already struggling because of weather conditions. Does the Secretary of State agree that the only way to restore confidence is to find out who has engaged in this illegal activity, put them out of business and bring them before the courts?

[Mr Paterson]

I wholeheartedly concur with the hon. Gentleman’s sentiments. This is a fraud on the public. It is wrong for them to be presented with a product and find out later that it is not what is claimed. There is no health issue here; this is an issue of fraud and labelling. With reference to his previous question, the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that we have to get the perpetrators—these criminals—and stop this practice.

Public Bodies Bill [Lords]

Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown Excerpts

Tuesday 25th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Percy]

The hon. Gentleman has pre-empted another stage of my speech. Although I was not here at the time, perhaps mercifully, I know that the matter was dealt with on a cross-party basis.

The right hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Paul Goggins) referred to Lady Justice Smith’s report, and I want to refer to five issues that were raised in it. It found that the current system had offered inconsistent levels of service—which I think addresses the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart)—and that families and friends were insufficiently involved in coroners’ investigations. It found an absence of quality controls and independent safeguards—once again, we see the word “independent”—a lack of consistency, leadership or training, and, in some instances, an absence of medical knowledge. The report also stated that the

“coronial jurisdiction should be re-formed on modern judicial lines, as a national jurisdiction, small in size but comparable to other jurisdictions in having a Chief Coroner'”.

Although it could be claimed that that report said all that needs to be said about independent leadership, the desperate need to address the issue was perhaps put as well as it could have been by the Lord Chancellor in a written ministerial statement on 14 June:

“As the functions to be transferred are limited, and the Office of Chief Coroner not filled, neither the judge nor any other individual will be responsible for the leadership, culture or behaviour of coroners.”—[Official Report, 14 June 2011; Vol. 728, c. 62WS.]

That cannot be right. The Lord Chancellor’s statement implicitly acknowledged the need for judicial, and thus independent, leadership to address the culture of coroners, while simultaneously refusing to address it.

[Dr William McCrea (South Antrim) (DUP)]

If the three Front Benches were indeed in agreement in Committee, what has happened since to turn the position on its head?

[Andrew Percy]

The hon. Gentleman is tempting me down a path on which I should probably not embark, but I repeat that, in my view, the emphasis has been on cost. I agree with the Bill that there should be a burning of the quangos. Having spent 10 years as a local councillor, I know how overburdened the country has become, and I would support any measure that would save money. There is a debate to be had about costs, and I think that that is the debate we should be having, rather than a debate about whether the position exists at all.

The statement made by the Lord Chancellor back in June failed to recognise that the chief coroner’s office was a single senior judicial post with statutory powers. The Government’s proposals will dismantle the office and transfer some, but not—by any stretch of the imagination—all those powers to other judicial and political figures, which risks creating another fragmented structure where lines of accountability are opaque and clear leadership absent.

The second issue that I want to raise is monitoring and training. That was one of the most important functions of the chief coroner under the Coroners and Justice Act, which gave him the job of both monitoring investigations of service deaths and ensuring that coroners who conducted such inquests were suitably trained.

Dangerous Dogs

Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown Excerpts

Wednesday 6th July 2011 Westminster Hall

[Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to contribute to this debate under your chairmanship, Mr Bayley. I congratulate the hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) on securing this important and timely debate. The vital context for many of her comments is the consensus, to which she referred, around the need to introduce, update and consolidate the laws on dog control. The fact that Scotland and Northern Ireland are legislating makes it important that we follow the lead of the devolved Assemblies and update the legislation.

The hon. Lady set out clearly the case for changing the law. Between 2004 and 2008, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has seen a twelvefold increase in reports of dog-fighting. As she mentioned, more than 6,000 postal workers are injured every year by dogs. The estimated cost to the state of dealing with issues relating to irresponsible dog ownership is £76.8 million, which does not include the costs of dog welfare enforcement. That figure alone indicates the need to update the legislation, prevent and educate in order to reduce the incidence of irresponsible dog ownership, thereby reducing the overall cost.

Some 2,500 adults and 2,200 children were either treated in A and E or admitted to hospital for dog-related incidents in 2006-07, and eight people were killed by dogs in the past four years—six children and two adults. I think we would all agree that that is six children and two adults too many. In addition, some 197 people were seriously injured.

In an age of austerity, we can’t go on like this, to borrow a phrase from the general election. We need to educate, prevent and enforce. Many hon. Members have long been persuaded of the need to act. For me, the starting point was Christmas 2006, when there was a horrendous attack on a postal worker called Paul Coleman in Sheffield. He was dragged to the ground by a dog in a street outside the property at which the dog resided. Paul Coleman suffered horrendous injuries. He needed plastic surgery and skin grafts to his leg to try to repair the damage. I have met him and the scars from that attack are visible to this day. The psychological scars will remain for ever, along with the physical ones.

[Dr William McCrea (South Antrim) (DUP)]

I accept that it is vital that on the mainland in the United Kingdom there is an essential strengthening of the legislation, and we must get it right. However, that in itself is not the answer. We need to ensure that the legislation is enforced. How does the hon. Lady think that will be done in reality?

[Angela Smith]

I will come on to that later, because it is a very important point.

After the attack I mentioned, the Communication Workers Union—the postal workers’ union—launched its bite-back campaign, which has been incredibly successful in raising the profile of the issue. I think that the Minister acknowledges that. I place on the record today the importance of the work done by the CWU in partnership with the RSPCA. They have played a critical role in bringing us to where we are today. About three years ago, I introduced a ten-minute rule Bill based on the bite-back campaign to try to get the law changed. However, before I could get the Bill on the Floor of the House, there was another serious attack involving a postal worker in Cambridge, who nearly lost his arm as a result of a dog escaping from inside the gates of a property. Two Rottweilers dragged him to the ground and, as I say, he nearly lost his arm.

In that case, there was an attempt at prosecution on the grounds that the dog attacked on public property. However, the case was thrown out because the attack happened in an unadopted cul-de-sac. That judgment effectively means that there is very little protection not just on private property, but beyond the boundaries of what most of us would understand to be private property. That case alone highlights and underlines the need not only to consolidate, but to strengthen the law, as the hon. Member for South Antrim (Dr McCrea) mentioned a moment ago.