Food Fraud

Debate between David Heath and Huw Irranca-Davies

Monday 8th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Heath (Somerton and Frome) (LD)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Roger Williams) on securing this debate, which is of critical importance to consumers, retailers, producers and everyone involved in the food industry. As I said earlier, I was Minister with responsibility for food when the horsemeat scandal broke, and I have to say that nothing has made me angrier than what was happening then. Not only was a deliberate fraud perpetuated on consumers who deserve better, but that fraud had a serious reputational effect on very good producers in this country who had no part whatever in what had taken place. Retailers who had good reputations were trying to do the right thing but were none the less affected. We must put in place systems that are as effective as they possibly can be to prevent such a thing from happening again.

I am unashamedly a fan of British food and British food producers. We have some superb production in this country, and we should be proud not only of the quality of the food we produce but of the standards that we maintain day to day, week to week and year on year. We should deal to the best of our abilities with anything that sullies that reputation.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

I thank the hon. Gentleman and former Minister for giving way. He has great experience and knowledge of this area. One of the great things about Professor Elliott is the great emphasis he places on this safe haven of intelligence coming forward and on a strengthening of the powers around whistleblowing. When the scandal was kicking off, it astonished me that people were then coming forward and whistleblowing. Elliott is right to say that there is a cultural change in the industry. There are lots of good players out there, but there needs to be a cultural mindset change to encourage people to come forward.

[Mr Heath]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. One of the earliest actions I took as a Minister was to convene a meeting—I remember it happening—at the Food Standards Agency with all the major retailers. I made it plain to them that they had a very real problem to deal with, and that that problem was not going to be resolved unless they were prepared to do the work that was necessary in terms of testing and of sharing information, which were not part of the culture of the industry at that point. I said that unless they were prepared to do that, it was impossible for the Government to take the steps that would help to restore the reputation of the food industry.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Heath]

I find it enormously frustrating because, frankly, the then Secretary of State and I did absolutely everything we could to mobilise and energise enforcement agencies across Europe to try to ensure that the problem was traced. I can say now because I am free to do so—the Minister may feel more constrained—that I believe that at the root of this was large-scale, European-based organised crime and that more could and should have been done by other member states to get the bottom of it.

It was a very convoluted story—we know that—and it was not easy, but I felt that having raised the issue very effectively in European Council meetings, obtained the involvement of the Commission and persuaded other member states to take it seriously, there was a palpable feeling once the press and media furore had died down that some member states were suggesting, “Let’s not push it too hard, shall we, chaps? Let’s not remind people that we had a problem and let’s just hope it all goes away.” I do not think that is good enough. I do not think that the UK Government took that view, but I am not convinced that others did not feel that once the storm had passed, it was easier simply to carry on as before. The trouble is that that meant that those people who were making an awful lot of money—we are talking about huge sums across a European nexus—continued to do so, which means that the problem will arise again.

We in this country and manufacturers and retailers across Europe made the situation worse because of the complexity of the supply chain. That has been mentioned time and again, and the more we looked into it, the more extraordinary seemed the number of different hands that some of these products went through across so many jurisdictions in Europe. One only had to look at the price of the finished product and the number of people who were supposedly making a profit to realise that that could not possibly be done in a legal way. Some of our big retailers, which have very sophisticated procurement offices, perhaps had some responsibility to ask more questions. They do now, but they should have been asking at an earlier stage about how so-called beef could travel all the way around Europe only to be sold as eight burgers for less than £1 on a British supermarket shelf. It could not be done legally.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

The hon. Gentleman is making a fantastic contribution to the debate. Does he agree that one of the strongest recommendations in Elliott is that part of the due diligence, for want of another term, from here on must be that when those in the supply chain see an offer that is too good to be true, they must ask why. When horsemeat was being sold at a quarter the price of good beef, anybody looking at it should have asked what on earth was going on.

[Mr Heath]

They should indeed. People should also be aware—the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) made this point in an intervention—that the more price wars we have in our supermarkets, the more dangerous it is for good, honest suppliers, and the greater the propensity for those in the middle to try to scrape an extra margin through unfair practice. That is why I worry when our major retailers engage in food price wars, because although it may seem that that is in the interests of consumers of modest means, it is not, because those people are just as entitled to get good-quality produce for the money they spend as those paying much higher prices.

Although they are beginning to do this, retailers need to raise the status and increase the independence of those they employ to carry out testing throughout the supply chain. That will mean that if the testers suspect that something is wrong, they can say, “This has to be looked at,” and the matter will be considered at board level so that appropriate action can be taken. I do not want to start a hare running or to suggest that something very wrong is happening in the catering industry, but I worry that the quality of products that sometimes find their way into catering establishments is not as high as those sold on retail supermarket shelves.

The Food Standards Agency has a crucial role to play, but one of the difficulties that I faced as a Minister—the current Minister will face the same situation—was that I had no responsibility for the agency, so I had to answer questions in the House that were strictly speaking nothing to do with me, in the sense that the FSA had an independent role. The distinction is important, because the food industry’s sponsoring Minister should not also be its regulator, and we saw many years ago that if that happens, the public lose confidence in the regulator. However, it is important that there is the greatest possible co-ordination between DEFRA and the FSA. We had that, and I pay tribute to the agency and its officers for the work that they did with me and for their help, which I appreciated. It is important that such co-ordination take place at a high level.

I worry that local authorities do not always play their part. We need a comprehensive local authority testing system. Some local authorities are very good, but others, frankly, are not. It is easy for anyone to say, “Oh, it’s about resources,” but there is no direct correlation between the resources available and whether an authority does a good or bad job. It is more a case of whether an authority recognises that it has an essential and primary responsibility to keep people in its area safe. Just as central Government have a responsibility, so does local government, so local authorities need to carry out testing. There is a question about the laboratory service—the recommendations on the laboratory and public analysis services are crucial aspects of the package—but I do not accept that local authorities should be let off the hook if they say, “This is a low-priority area and we want to spend our money elsewhere. It’s all the Government’s fault.” That is not the case, and local authorities must recognise their responsibilities.

[Mr Heath]

I entirely agree, although I suspect that the Food Standards Agency knows an awful lot of that information already because it works directly with local authorities from day to day and will know of the results it receives from local authority analysts.

We must not set out rigid structures for the FSA that impose testing regimes for no benefit. The system must be based on intelligence and proportionality. Earned recognition, if appropriate, is an important way of redirecting resources effectively but, as Professor Elliott says, that must be coupled with spot checks to ensure that what one thinks is going on is actually going on. Nevertheless, it would be foolish to redirect FSA resources, which are always under pressure owing to the extent of its responsibilities, to testing that serves no useful purpose.

I understand exactly what Professor Elliott says about the concept of a food crime unit, but I have a concern. Food crime and fraud cover a wide spectrum of offences, ranging from low-scale inadvertence and very minor adulteration—frankly, it is not difficult to pick up and prosecute such practice, and it should be well within local authority or FSA officials’ power to take appropriate action to deal with it—to the large-scale fraud that the horsemeat scandal revealed, which I think is based on organised crime. Such fraud might require action at a much higher level, such as through the National Crime Agency, and to deal with that sort of organised crime, we need a sophisticated approach and co-operation with counterparts throughout the world, such as Interpol and Europol. I worry that if we are not careful, the food crime unit could fall betwixt and between those two ends of the spectrum, and we might have something that is ineffective at dealing with the big guys, but over-designed for the little guys. The Government need to give serious thought to the terms of reference and composition of the food crime unit, as well as to how it reports and feeds into the gangbusters in the NCA.

The one thing that worried me enormously when I was a DEFRA Minister—it still worries me enormously, and I think it will worry me more and more—was the resilience of the Department itself. DEFRA is a good Department. It does an awful lot of good work and has to cover a huge number of contingencies, but its funding and resources are now such that it would find it difficult to deal with a major incident. I hope that the Treasury and leaders in government recognise that if we have a major incident to which DEFRA is unable to respond, the consequences could be enormously damaging. I am not saying that we are at that point yet, but we must be cautious that we ensure that we do not stretch what is already a thin line—a thin blue line, red line or whatever; let us think of a colour—

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

Green.

[Mr Heath]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for coming up with a suitable colour on the spectrum. We must not stretch the thin green line so taut that we are unable to deal with an act of God, or an act of wicked men, that might cause our nation enormous problems, but I just feel that we are getting close to that edge.

--- Later in debate ---

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

Let me put it back to the hon. Gentleman: when the coalition Government entered office in 2010, one of their first decisions in DEFRA was to split away authenticity testing. At that point, did they think it was appropriate to increase investment in it? We could go back and forth on this issue, but authenticity testing was still happening at that time, even if it had been reduced. I am interested in the detail, but it was continuing.

[Mr Heath]

It is very important to distinguish between the testing regime that remains within the province of the FSA and local authorities, which continued according to their priorities, and the policy developed by civil servants, which was moved to DEFRA in order to inform Ministers who were having to deal with very complex European issues of labelling and composition. That was perfectly logical. If there was confusion, it was not at the level of central Government; it may have been elsewhere.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

After the horsemeat scandal erupted in February 2013, the National Audit Office looked at the contributory factors to any delay or confusion. One of the things it pointed fairly and squarely at was the confusion about who was doing what. It pointed the finger at the machinery of government changes. The hon. Gentleman, who was a Minister, may be saying that he was not confused, but there was certainly confusion between local government and Whitehall, as well as within Whitehall, as to who was doing what. I agree with Troop and with Elliott’s interim findings that it should be put back together again, but we will have to differ on that. The question for the Government is: can they make this work if they are not going to do that?

One of our criticisms relates to the fact that just before we left government in 2010 we published what was at the time a ground-breaking, comprehensive food strategy, “Food 2030”, which followed on from our previous work on “Food Matters”. It mapped out a comprehensive and long-term strategy to ensure the provision of safe, nutritious, affordable and sustainable food, but it has been left on the shelf. Where is this Government’s overarching strategy to pull everything together? The answer is: there isn’t one.

Labour welcomes and supports fully all the Elliott report’s recommendations, and we will continue to urge the Government for full and speedy implementation. Professor Elliott sets out a new Government-industry partnership, some aspects of which will require a culture change in Government and in industry. He makes sound recommendations for a new food crime unit and a whole framework for national food crime prevention, encompassing Government, the FSA and industry. He calls for—it is interesting that he deals not just with the mechanics—a new mentality to meet the challenges of sourcing from complex international supply chains, and a zero-tolerance approach to food crime. He also fashions detailed proposals on whistleblowing, intelligence-gathering and co-ordinated laboratory and testing services, and stresses the need for leadership at all levels, including in Government. Most of all, he stresses—he puts this top and dead centre—the need to put the consumer first, and we agree.

Labour supports the report and all its recommendations. We believe that the industry is ready to drive the culture changes that Elliott demands and that the consumer and the public deserve. I say to the Minister, however, that we have reservations: we do not have the same confidence that the Government are serious about these changes.

Make no mistake: the Elliott report is not only a series of sound recommendations, but is an expert analysis and critique of the coalition Government’s policy on food governance and food crime. Since 2010 under this coalition Government we have seen the fragmentation of food governance; an ideological fetishism for stripping out regulation for the sake of it, whether that regulation is good for the consumer and industry or not; and front-line cutbacks in inspection at national and local level and in food-testing capabilities.

The Government have also been asleep at the wheel, reacting only when disaster happens, realising too late that cutting the brake cables and unscrewing the steering column was not a good idea. In 2010, one of this Government’s first actions was to split the responsibilities of the FSA, an agency that was, as I have said, previously regarded as the gold standard of consumer protection and industry regulation. It was deliberately fractured, which hampered clarity and leadership in food governance in the UK. It is not just me saying that; others are saying it, too.

The horsemeat scandal was the slow-motion car crash that showed how crazy that decision was. The NAO stated that when a prompt response was required to the breaking horsemeat scandal, there was confusion between, and lack of leadership in, Whitehall Departments and confusion between Whitehall and local government.

Similar, repeated concerns about the mishandling of the FSA and food governance have been raised for some time by the EFRA Committee and many other industry and food policy experts. Labour raised those concerns from the word go.

The interim Elliott report made it clear that the FSA responsibilities should be brought back together. That would deal with the NAO view that fragmentation had led to needless confusion and additional complexity. The final report has stepped back slightly, but it is still commendably forthright on the need to put rigour and reach back into the FSA.

On that and many other issues, the report carries implicit and sometimes explicit criticisms of this Government’s approach to food policy and food crime. It calls for a more robust FSA, retaining its independence, and for far greater co-ordination, which has been lacking, across government and industry. It highlights the absence of high-level round-table meetings between the chair of the FSA and the Secretaries of State for Health and for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which seems to me to be a shocking omission and a glaring fault bearing in mind the fragmentation of responsibilities since 2010.

The report cites evidence from recent local authority testing that appears to show high levels of failure, particularly in meat authenticity testing, which possibly indicates fraud or the criminal adulteration of food. That is deeply worrying when set against a near halving in the number of DEFRA officials working on food authenticity since 2010, as revealed by an answer given to me by the Minister in July. It is even more worrying in the light of the immense pressures on local authorities, which have led to severe cutbacks in local food inspections.

Professor Elliott does not pull any punches. He states on page 49 of his report:

“Enforcement activity is…very vulnerable when local authority services are cut to the bone.”

He also draws attention to the average 27% reduction in the number of trading standards officers dealing with food matters, and to the 40% cut in overall trading standards services during the lifetime of this Government. Concerns for consumer protection and for the reputation of the industry are heightened when, as Elliott notes, the number of public analyst laboratories has been reduced from 10 in 2010 to six today. I simply say to the Minister that he has his work cut out if he is to explain how, against the background of cuts in front-line FSA inspection, front-line local authority inspection and laboratory facilities, he can do what Elliott asks and put the consumer first.

Given that we are now four and a half years into this Government, the Minister must explain why the UK has been behind the curve and behind European counterparts in establishing a food crime unit. That led Elliott to note that the Dutch crime unit could find no one in the UK—whether in a crime unit or anywhere else—to speak to when the horsemeat scandal happened. Had the Government’s reluctance to place any burdens on industry given them an aversion to being proactive in such a way? Had Ministers looked at the threat of food adulteration and food crime since taking office? I understand that the Minister was not in office for the whole of that time, but I am sure that he has discussed it with his officials.

One month after the horsemeat scandal erupted, a survey by the consumer organisation Which? found that six in 10 shoppers had changed their shopping habits, and that trust had fallen by a quarter. A year after the scandal, an Ipsos MORI survey showed that 95% of consumers remembered the horsemeat scandal. As has already been mentioned, the latest polling by Which? has shown this month that 55% of people are worried that a food fraud incident will happen again, that a third of them do not have confidence that the food they buy contains what it says on the label—by the way, that goes up to half for people who have takeaways on a Saturday night—and a quarter maintain that they have changed the type of meat they buy. Seven out of 10 consumers have told Which? that more action needs to be taken. The damage is lasting, so we need to get this right.

Let me ask the Minister some initial questions; in the months to come, we will return with more. As the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton suggested, will the Minister publish a detailed timetable for the implementation of every recommendation in the Elliott review so that the Government’s warm words can be measured against actual implementation? Will he give assurances that the resources for the new crime unit and the crime framework to go with it can be found from within existing FSA funding?

Will the Minister now apologise on behalf of the Government for the decision to fragment the responsibilities of the FSA, or does he continue to ignore the argument that that decision damaged its power, authority and independence? Does he accept the Elliott proposal that the FSA should continue as a non-ministerial department so as to retain its necessary independence from the Government? How does he answer critics who believe that the FSA has gone beyond the necessary close co-operation with the industry and is now too close to the industry to be a useful and critical friend? The recent decision not to publish campylobacter rates is one such example.

Bearing in mind the need for a more robust and rigorous FSA based on the report’s proposals and the need for the FSA to have the effective and independent leadership identified by the Elliott report, will the Minister give us an update on the search for a new chair? Will he confirm that the person shortly to be proposed as chair will appear before the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee before final confirmation in post?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between David Heath and Huw Irranca-Davies

Thursday 4th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr David Heath)]

My hon. Friend is right, and through the recently announced third phase of the Courtauld commitment, the Government are working with retailers and manufacturers to design products in ways that help households reduce food waste and save money, including improved storage instructions. The Waste and Resources Action programme—WRAP—is working directly with consumers through the Love Food Hate Waste programme, to help people know how best to store different foods.

[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

The Government spent £25,000 on a consultation into sky lanterns which concluded that the fire risk is significant, and that they pose a risk to planes and a significant risk to the operation of coastal rescue services. With an estimated £6 million damage caused by a single sky lantern at Smethwick, and a fire that needed 200 firefighters and left only one spare fire tender to cover the whole of the west midlands, are the Government still seriously saying they will do absolutely nothing?

[Mr Heath]

The hon. Gentleman knows all about doing absolutely nothing on sky lanterns. I asked questions about sky lanterns year after year from the Opposition Benches, and within a month of taking office I commissioned a report into the potential harm they cause to farm animals. The report concluded that it was not possible to quantify the damage to animal welfare in ways that would justify a ban, but it indicated that there was a significant danger of fire. I have communicated that to my colleagues in the Department for Communities and Local Government, and I plan to meet them to discuss further action.

Common Agricultural Policy

Debate between David Heath and Huw Irranca-Davies

Tuesday 18th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Heath]

I am afraid that is an area where the National Farmers Union and the Government simply do not agree. I believe that we currently have extremely good higher level stewardship schemes within pillar two, and I want those to continue and to prosper. I want us to ensure that we can continue payments on some of the older schemes, where we have accrued benefit, which I do not want us to lose. I am absolutely clear that where we use the pillar two payments in the most effective way, we will be doing so to enhance the position of those who work the land and confer on it public goods. For instance, one of my priorities will be to see what we can do in upland areas, where people farm in less favourable conditions and where it might make all the difference, but I simply do not agree that the best way to distribute money is necessarily through pillar one.

[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

Will the Minister expand on that? Farmers have expressed their concern to me in recent weeks and months over the transfers to pillar two. How can more effective use be made of the arrangements so that those farmers are not put at a competitive disadvantage? What fine-tuning can be carried out? How can we get more bang for our buck in the pillar two funding?

[Mr Heath]

A simple answer—I appreciate that it might be considered a simplistic one—is that we target the funding better towards the places where it will have the most effect. We have a highly efficient and effective agriculture industry and we do not need to target funding at all sectors. We need to ensure that it reaches the places where it will have the greatest effect. As I have said, this is where we part company with the National Farmers Union, which would like us to maintain the maximum funding within pillar one. We believe, however, that pillar two is the most effective vehicle for benefiting environmental interests, which are important, and for directing support to the areas of this country’s agriculture that need it most.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Heath]

I should perhaps continue with my speech for a few minutes, rather than take any more interventions.

We do not believe that the original proposal for greening direct payments offered the same value for money as our existing agri-environmental schemes, and we have been working hard to move the negotiations in a positive direction. Any greening must be meaningful, administratively simple and deliver real environmental benefits for the taxpayers’ money that is spent on it. Value for taxpayers’ money is vital, which is why I am also opposed to proposals under which it would be possible to get paid twice for carrying out the same greening measures under both pillar one and pillar two.

No decisions have been taken on how greening will be implemented but, importantly, the position we agreed at the March Council included, as I have said, increased flexibility for member states and regions to deliver greening through a national scheme, if they so wish.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

The Minister is being very generous in taking interventions. Will he respond to the concern of many farmers that the flexibility that the UK Government have understandably negotiated for our farmers could be interpreted very differently by farmers in other member nations and that it could, in fact, be interpreted to the disadvantage of our own farmers?

[Mr Heath]

Obviously, we try as far as possible to eliminate potential disadvantages. I cannot say that we will be successful across the board, because this is a negotiated settlement. Where possible we try to make sure that we all play to common ground rules, but with local interpretation. It is clear, for instance, that lowland dairy farming in this country is very different from growing olives on a Greek island. Different criteria apply and we want to make sure that we recognise the differences as well as the common basis.

--- Later in debate ---

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

My hon. Friend, who has great knowledge of this area, is right. It is as though the Government are playing with one hand behind their back. I have great sympathy for the Minister, because although he has great knowledge and wants to work in the best interests of UK farming, his colleagues are not making it easy for him.

[Mr Heath]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for those kind words. I am interested to know what is the position of the Labour party today. Does it support or oppose the budget reduction? Would it have failed to argue for the budget reduction, or does it agree that the Prime Minister had a success in those negotiations?

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

The Minister ought to go back and look at the voting record, because the Labour party voted collectively on that matter.

The thrust of the Minister’s speech was about a more competitive farming industry. We do have a strong farming industry. The question is whether he and his Eurosceptic colleagues can carry that forward through the negotiations. I commend the work of UKRep officials in trying to get the very best outcome from a misguided ministerial approach to the EU. They have stuck their fingers in diplomatic dams, while Ministers have been digging away the foundations. I suspect that the Minister has been somewhat dismayed and has done his best among a very bad lot, but it has been a model exercise in how not to win friends and how not to influence people.

Dog Control and Welfare

Debate between David Heath and Huw Irranca-Davies

Thursday 13th June 2013 Westminster Hall

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

I welcome that intervention, and the fact that the Committee’s thinking has evolved based on more evidence. That is the right approach. We should explore such things to get the right evidence-based policy outcomes.

I want to spend a little time on the detail in dog control notices. The other day, I pointed out on the Floor of the House that we are not convinced by the Government’s explanations why dog control notices are not necessary and will not work. I will go through some of the reasons. Neither the Secretary of State for the Home Department nor her Minister could respond in detail to some of my questions, but my point was that they need a pretty compelling case why the Government’s approach is better than the one everybody else has lined up behind—all the organisations I spoke about. Everybody is arguing against it on the basis of not only what the Scottish Government have done, but the other examples of similar animal welfare measures that are used effectively in England already, and to which I alluded in the debate the other day.

We will have to test the measure to the point of destruction in Committee and test the Government on why they are sticking with it. We will try to persuade the Government of the arguments and persuade them to go further, and I shall explain why. We are far from being convinced that the Government’s proposals based around community protection notices and public space protection orders will deal with the individual circumstances of problem dogs and problem owners, rather than tackling all dogs and all owners in an area, district or region and so on, or that the proposals can be individualised to allow for early intervention.

We need to see that the proposals can be personalised and individualised, including aspects such as an individual dog needing to be muzzled in certain circumstances, a fence around a garden being maintained to an adequate condition, an owner being sent on a training course, a dog being neutered or restrictions placed on off-lead activity. We will be testing all those things.

We also need to see that the response before there is an attack and public safety is compromised is flexible and proportionate, so that the proposal does what all the organisations have been asking for: protects public safety and the dog’s welfare, rather than steps in afterwards. We are trying to get at the owners who are repeatedly termed “irresponsible”, which could be for a number of reasons, such as ignorance, lack of awareness or general malicious intent. We need to go towards them and their dogs, rather than having a blunderbuss approach.

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr David Heath)]

indicated assent.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

The Minister is nodding, so I know he is going to say a lot of good things in his response.

Are CPNs and the PSPOs—sorry for the jargon—a version of what has been termed a “DOGBO” for problem dogs and owners? If so—the shadow Home Office team will also ask Ministers about that in Committee—given the scale of the challenge and problem identified by the EFRA Committee and other hon. Members, what assurances do we have that such measures will be prioritised among the plethora of other powers in the Bill? An individual police chief constable, or his officers on the ground, must decide with the local authority and other community safety partners that dogs, among all the other challenges, are the pressing priority on an estate or in an area where there is a problem. Without a focus on dog control notices, the worry is that the issue will not be a priority and will become mixed up in the whole.

[Mr Heath]

indicated dissent.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

I see the Minister shaking his head and I know that he will come back on that issue. I am glad to see him suggest that that will not be a problem. He will explain today why that is the case.

Will there be adequate resources? I asked on the Floor of the House whether the problem with the dog control notice is that it instantly sends shockwaves through Whitehall and down to local government that resources must follow. If that is the case, let us be honest about it. If that is the problem, which it is, and if we agree on the scale of the challenge and the need to turn things round, which we do, let us have a frank discussion about how we resource this. We have rising dog attacks, injuries and fatalities; rising kennelling costs for local authorities and the police; and more people washing up in A and E units and costing the NHS money. The proposal has to be resourced; otherwise, we can pass all the legislation and regulation and employ all the nudge factors or whatever in the world, but we will not have an effect on the ground, as the hon. Member for The Cotswolds pointed out.

In the absence of dog control notices, how will the Minister ensure that the measures he proposes, among the plethora of measures in the Home Office Bill, will be adequately understood, not only by the police and community safety agencies, which are expected to enforce them, but by the public, who will come to our constituency offices and say, “We know of a problem,” or by a postal worker who says to my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West, “We’ve identified a dog; I don’t know what to do about it.”? Will it be properly explained and understood, so that they can use the mechanisms at hand?

Are the measures too bureaucratic? One great advantage of a flexible early intervention approach is that we can get in early, without having to go back to a magistrates court or get another type of permission that requires 20 forms to be filled out. There can be early, gentle, soft, clever interventions, such as saying to an owner, “He hasn’t done anything yet, but there is a problem. You’ve had a visit from the RSPCA and the local health worker. They have both said that there is a problem. When you have visitors in your property, will you please muzzle that dog. What you do otherwise is up to you.” Will it be that sort of approach, or will a massive bureaucracy have to be gone through to take any action under the proposal?

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr David Heath)]

We have had an excellent debate. I commend the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh) on introducing it and on the work of her Committee on a crucial issue. I am also pleased to commend the Liaison Committee on choosing the subject as suitable for debate today.

Perhaps I should start by saying that there is much more that unites us on this subject than divides us. We are working to the same end, and have shared much thinking in policy formation. The hon. Lady was kind enough to point out areas where the Government have not only listened, but acted, to bring in measures that will, I hope, make a difference to the minority—I agree with the hon. Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies) that it is a minority of dog owners—who, whether through ignorance, neglect, or sometimes, I am afraid, malice, end up with dogs that are a danger to others and a nuisance to the community. Such measures are what we need to achieve.

The hon. Member for Ogmore repeatedly asked me to declare myself “the one”, in a Mourinho sort of way —“the special one”—in relation to dogs. Rather shamefacedly, I must say that I am not actually “the one”: my noble Friend Lord de Mauley is. He has responsibility for those matters in the Department. However, I am happy to be “the one” as far as this House is concerned, and to respond to the debate.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

Will the Minister confirm that Lord de Mauley—great chap that he is—chairs some cross-Whitehall group that pulls all the strands together?

[Mr Heath]

Lord de Mauley has certainly been working closely with others, including the devolved Administrations, but particularly with the Home Office. There is a shared responsibility with the Home Office, and it is important that we speak with one voice, and come to the same conclusions. I assure the hon. Gentleman that such liaison has happened.

A Bill is before the House that will enact parts of our response to the undoubted issue raised by hon. Members, on which some have campaigned for a long time. I welcome the support that the Committee has been able to give to the Government’s position. There are several aspects of the matter on which we have gone further than was perhaps originally intended, in recognition of the strength of the Committee’s arguments. There are some areas on which we still do not have 100% agreement, and I shall deal with those.

The Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill, which amends the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991, had its Second Reading on Monday, and there was an excellent debate. The House broadly endorsed the Government’s approach. The Bill includes provisions that will extend the 1991 Act to all places, including private property. It provides legislative backing for the police and Crown Prosecution Service to pursue prosecutions for attacks on private property. That will reassure victims and their families that the law is on their side. I hope that once the Bill is passed the circumstances that the hon. Member for Bolton West (Julie Hilling) is all too familiar with, and which she spoke about forcefully in the House, will never again arise.

The Bill for the first time incorporates an aggravated offence, under the 1991 Act, of an attack on an assistance dog, recognising the terrible consequences of such an attack. That is important: an assistance dog is almost an extension of the person with whom it works. It is part of that person’s being, and an attack on a guide dog or hearing dog makes a huge difference to their life. It is right to clarify and extend the law in that way.

The Bill will also clarify the fact that courts should consider the character of the owner when taking decisions about dogs of prohibited types, and dangerously out-of-control dogs. That point was raised by several hon. Members: it is not the breed, but what the individual dog is doing, that is important. There is no breed that cannot be dangerous in the hands of an irresponsible owner. Sometimes that fact is taken to considerable lengths, because there are people—a very small number—who deliberately have dogs that they use as weapons, to intimidate and on occasion actually cause hurt to another person.

That leads me to a point raised by the hon. Member for Bolton West: new legislation is not needed to deal effectively with a dog being deliberately set on a person to injure them. It would be covered by the Offences Against the Person Act 1861, and the maximum penalty would be life imprisonment. The question of the appropriateness of the maximum fine level does not apply: the law treats such action as a very serious offence, and the prosecuting authorities have the capacity to deal with it.

The Bill would also provide the police with discretion to use the civil route in cases involving prohibited types of dog, with improved welfare, reduced kennel time and police savings in time and money. It would provide comprehensive powers for the authorities to take preventive action to stop dog attacks and nip issues in the bud, through, for example, a community protection notice.

That issue was raised by many hon. Members in the debate, and we need to discuss the fundamental question whether our proposed measures in the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill treat the same issue and have the same rigour as the so-called dog control notices that many advocate. My answer is that they do. In fact, they are an even more flexible tool.

I accept, however, that we need to substantiate that position and satisfy people’s concerns. One thing I would say to everyone involved in the debate is, “Please let us not get hung up on the label of dog control notices.” It is profoundly unhelpful to the debate about providing protection if the only thing people are arguing for is something with that name, rather than something that does what they want to see done. That is my first point.

Secondly, many people have pointed with approbation to what is available in Scotland, saying, “That is the answer. Why on earth are the UK Government so stupid or obstinate as not to follow the Scottish route?” Of course I respect what the Scottish Government do and the measures they introduce, but we need carefully and critically to consider whether the dog control notice legislation in Scotland achieves the objectives it was set. There is some evidence from Scottish local authorities that the notices are not working as well as hon. Members would believe—if, indeed, they believed everything that was sent to them.

At the 21 May meeting of the cross-party group on animal welfare in Edinburgh, Scottish local authorities expressed a number of concerns, which highlighted the ongoing problems with the dog control notice—or DCN—system. The meeting was also attended by a number of dog welfare organisations from across the UK, and a series of detailed problems were identified.

A dog control notice in Scotland must be served by two officers, and any breach needs corroborated evidence from two officers to pursue a case, which is a limiting factor in bringing successful conclusions. A person who is served a dog control notice must attend the council offices, or two officers must visit their home, so it is hardly the on-the-spot mechanism that some have suggested it is. A dog has to have been out of control on at least one occasion before a DCN can be served, so the measure does not nip the issue in the bud. Since some people have strongly advocated that we need to be able to identify the problem before it happens, I am not sure that the notices satisfy that test.

Another problem is that the police in Scotland have no powers to serve DCNs; only local authorities do. Importantly, there is no requirement for a dog owner to advise their local authority if they re-home a dog with another owner, or to inform it of the new owner’s address. A potentially dangerous dog, therefore, can easily appear in a different local authority area with absolutely no recourse.

We need to make clear what the DCNs in Scotland do that we do not and, likewise, what we can offer that DCNs do not. When we have done that critical comparison, I hope that hon. Members will take a view as to whether we are working on the right lines. I perfectly understand the concerns, but I ask people to treat the arguments with the necessary respect and care, rather than simply adopting the slogan that this is the only possible solution to the problem.

[Mr Heath]

That is where we need detailed and careful examination of the proposals. I accept the point that the hon. Member for Ogmore made—that part of that process will be to consider the guidelines—but I cannot give him an absolute commitment that the guidelines will be ready for Committee. I wish I could, but there is a very good reason why I cannot: we are working carefully through the issues, with the various dog welfare interests, the police, the local authority associations and everyone with a professional interest in the matter, so that we get the guidance and the compass of the notices right, and the hon. Gentleman’s demands are met.

I do not want to speak out of turn or put words into the mouths of other organisations—that would be inappropriate—but we have generally found that when we have been able to explain the benefits to interested organisations, and have done a “compare and contrast” between what they hope could be achieved through dog control notices and what we believe we can achieve through the new orders, they acknowledge the facts.

I hope that hon. Members do not see this as patronising, because that is not my intention, but there is sometimes a lag between what hon. Members are aware of as concerns and the solutions to those concerns. I hope that there will be a catching-up regarding the briefings that some people have received—from the Local Government Association, for instance, which now welcomes the antisocial behaviour measures and accepts that they will enable local authorities to do a lot for dogs.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

I am tempted to use, or subvert, an old adage, and say that I have been patronised in better places—as indeed I have.

If the Minister cannot introduce the guidance at short notice, I suggest that he introduce in Committee, or even before, the comparisons he has talked about, along with any other detail. The more we have in black and white to work with, the more we might be assured. Alternatively, we might say that we are far from assured; nevertheless, we need in front of us whatever he has.

[Mr Heath]

I very much understand that, having sat in more Bill Committees over the years than I care to enumerate. I recognise that that is exactly what the Public Bill Committee will wish to do, in examining the notices. What I hope will emerge is that the antisocial behaviour measures provide a flexible package that will deal effectively with irresponsible dog owners, and will do everything available under a DCN, and more.

When the hon. Gentleman was saying, “Will it do this, will it do that?” he saw me nodding. That was because I had a sort of mental checklist, and was thinking, “Yes it will do that, yes it will do that.” It could include, for instance, positive requirements for an individual to attend training classes or to keep their dog on a lead—that sort of specificity.

There is a view that we are talking about a broad-brush area-based measure, but that is not the case. The measures are intended exactly as we are saying—to address the issues of a person with a dog that might get out of control, and to be able to deal with that at an early stage. Crucially, they are personal to the owner and not the dog—a point stressed by everyone—which is an important difference between our measures and the dog control notices. The focus must be on the individual understanding of the person’s responsibility for the animal under their control, and what they need to do to improve their management of that animal.

My expectation is that once people understand both the flexibility and the compass of the proposals, they will accept that such matters are covered. However, it is not for me to pre-empt discussions in Committee. I simply invite Members in each place to approach this with an open mind and to see whether the items on their individual mental checklists are ticked off.

Incidentally, public space protection orders will directly replace dog control orders, which will enable local authorities to impose the same restrictions, while also consulting on other issues in the vicinity.

I think that all that will do the job, but I completely recognise that Members need to be persuaded, which is why I invite them to consider the evidence carefully.

[Mr Heath]

That is difficult for me to answer, because it will be in the hands of local authorities in combination with the police. I can only express the hope that such behaviour will be a key area, but we will not give it a greater priority just by giving it a different name. Either it will be seen as something that local authorities and constabularies need to address, or it will not. I hope and expect that local authorities will address it because of all the cases that hon. Members have recited, which we all recognise as extremely serious. If they do not do so, I hope that they will swiftly be reminded by their constituents that they need to give that matter proper care. It would be meaningless for me to give her a blanket assurance, other than to say that that is certainly my expectation.

Another issue that has repeatedly been raised, with several Members covering common ground, is consolidation of legislation. I perfectly understand the argument that it is nice to have a neat legislative bundle with everything that relates to a particular subject. The fact is that English and Welsh law is not like that, and never has been. Consolidation is quite difficult to achieve, and we have sometimes found that consolidated legislation misses out important elements of former legislation. To be perfectly honest, I am not convinced that the substantial resource required to consolidate legislation is worth it, because practitioners perfectly well understand the legislative tools at their disposal.

We should instead concentrate on consolidating our approach to, and our strategy for dealing with, dog control and welfare issues. That is different from getting the legislation into some sort of legal Napoleonic code. For instance, when we considered consolidation, we found that the provisions are reasonably accessible and that there is no great confusion. It certainly has not been brought to my attention that there are significant confusions in existing legislation.

If we consolidated, would we retain all the civil and criminal options currently available? Some people ask why on earth we rely on legislation from 140 or 150 years ago, but such legislation is sometimes a good basis for dealing with illegal activity. Many practitioners have told us that it would be a great mistake to consolidate the Dogs Act 1871 into current legislation because it is very useful and covers some areas that are not obviously covered by other legislation.

I hear the arguments for consolidation, but, first, we could not have introduced the measures before the House in the time scale available—that is important, because this is urgent—and secondly, it would not necessarily achieve anything. I agree with the hon. Member for Ogmore that we must ensure that we provide perhaps a single set of guidance—I shall talk to my noble Friend Lord de Mauley about whether that is appropriate—so that everybody knows what applies, how it applies and how best to use it to achieve Parliament’s objectives.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

I thank the Minister for his explanation. To give him some comfort, when I was in his position and I was asked to consolidate legislation, wise civil servants always said, “Keep well away from it. If you do that, we will not be able to do a dozen other important things, because of the timing.” If that is his approach, I urge him to consider how to bring forth a more consolidated strategy across Government, and not just have a piecemeal approach. All the issues that we have talked about show the clear necessity of having a joined-up approach—not just in Whitehall, but in local government and agencies—to deal with a range of measures. If we are not going to have consolidated legislation, we certainly need a joined-up strategy that is down in black and white.

[Mr Heath]

Having now conceded the fact that when the hon. Gentleman was in my position in government he received exactly the same advice about consolidated legislation, which he has just called for, he has now mirrored my advice to him that there is a case for a consolidated strategy. That is a clever bit of opposition—he first asks for something on which he knows that the answer will be no, and he then, when I give him something on which the answer is yes, asks me to do it.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

Will you do it?

[Mr Heath]

I will certainly discuss with my noble Friend whether the matter commends itself to him, and he will need to work on it with other Departments. I can see the strength of the sentiment behind being very clear about how we bring together holistically the various elements relating to dealing with dogs. I simply reject the view that we should spend a lot of parliamentary time on trying to fit together various bits of legislation that do not fit well together, some of which have criminal standards of proof and some of which have civil.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

It would be a great test for the Minister’s civil servants.

[Mr Heath]

It might be a good examination question—we sometimes refer such matters to the Law Commission for their erudite musings—but I do not particularly want my Department to spend time on that at the moment. I am not being flippant; I am simply saying that that is not the most pressing thing, because it would not improve the effectiveness of what we are doing.

On microchipping, which several Members mentioned, I am grateful for the support expressed for what we are doing. It is absolutely essential to get it right and that implementation is successful. We are working closely with everybody who has a direct interest, such as the Association of Chief Police Officers, local authorities, Battersea Dogs and Cats Home, Blue Cross, the British Veterinary Association, Dogs Trust, the Kennel Club and the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. We will ensure that, as far as possible, we get the message across to the great bulk of the public that they now need to do microchipping. We are working with database operators and the microchip manufacturers and implanters to address standards and ensure quality and consistency.

My hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) made the point that the onus is on owners to maintain the data on the microchip. It will be an offence not only not to microchip a dog, but, just as for a vehicle registration, to have inaccurate information on the registered database.

We have addressed the issue that some dog owners do not have much financial resource available and may see microchipping as a difficult cost to bear: free microchipping is accessible through Dogs Trust, Battersea Dogs and Cats Home and Blue Cross centres—35 in total—and some local authorities also offer free or discounted microchipping. I am grateful to everybody working on that, and to the Kennel Club for providing free microchip scanners to all local authorities.

This is a good opportunity to promote national microchipping month. Its launch a week ago was most successful. It was hosted by my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton, who is not in the Chamber at the moment. We are progressing on the issue in what I hope is an effective way.

I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury—

[Mr Heath]

I am sorry; I am behind the times. It was Tewkesbury. I say to my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) that we would love to move more quickly, but all the advice says that we are moving at the most sensible rate to get to our objective. We will ensure that microchipping starts with puppies and is extended to the whole dog population. In my view, the most important thing is to get it right and have something that is usable in tracing back to their owners not just all the dogs that go missing each year, but those that cause nuisance. Hopefully, we will be able to connect them to an owner rather more easily than at the moment.

Of course, some owners will not microchip, just like the huge number of people mentioned by the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton who ignored dog licensing procedures when they were in place. There will be some who will simply not want to do it, but at least now there will be an offence. When a dog is found, if it does not have a microchip and we can trace it to an owner, that owner will have committed an offence. No licensing system is perfect, but this will certainly go a long way.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

I thank the Minister for his detailed responses. I do not want to pre-empt subsequent Committee consideration of the Home Office Bill, but if a microchipped dog identified to have been part of an attack on a companion dog or an individual is traced back to an owner, what will the repercussions be?

[Mr Heath]

That pre-empts not only the legislation, but the secondary legislation that we are introducing, although of course we will answer in due course. It will be an offence, so there will be a penalty. The offence, in the first instance, will be failure to keep the information up to date, but if the information is there and we can trace the dog back to the owner, it will depend what the dog has done and the circumstances.

I should mention an important point. Having discussed the circumstances, I should give some reassurance to my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice) that the courts will be able to take into account the circumstances of the case. We will have to return to the discussion about what comprises curtilage of a property, what a dwelling is and so on.

There is a difficulty of definition. We certainly want to deal with the issue of the postman or the political canvasser who gets bitten by a dog out in the yard or garden, where they have perfectly legitimate business, but we also do not want to penalise the householder whose dog is doing its job of protecting property against an intruder who has no business there. Getting that balance right is critical. When someone is within a house, it can reasonably be assumed that unless they have been invited in, they must give a strong argument for why they have legitimate business in the house rather than being an intruder.

It is different for a garden, or sometimes even a shed. A child going to pick up a football that has been kicked into a garden should not be set upon by a dangerous dog. They may be an intruder, but they are nevertheless not a burglar or anyone with malicious intent. A public interest test must be satisfied before a prosecution can be brought. I hope that the guidance to the prosecuting authority will make that distinction clear. It might satisfy the difficulty that Members have correctly spotted with the definition of what exactly comprises the area that we are discussing.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Heath]

I cannot answer that because the council is not a body of Government; it is independent of Government. Perhaps my hon. Friend needs to have a discussion on this matter with Michael Seals, the chair of the Animal Health and Welfare Board for England. I am happy to try to arrange that for him if it would help. It would be wrong for me as a Minister to assume responsibility for something that is not within my control, but I am, none the less, happy to try to oil the machinery that allows him to get the answers he wants.

I have, as my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds reminded me, spoken for some time now.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

rose—

[Mr Heath]

Obviously, the hon. Member for Ogmore feels that I have not spoken for long enough, so I give way.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

The Minister is being generous. I do not want to take time away from the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton who will be responding to the debate, but I am not sure whether I missed the Minister addressing the question of cattle, horses, llamas and alpacas. Will he explain the Government’s current thinking on them?

[Mr Heath]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, because I did miss that out. At the moment, there is no evidence to support the necessity of extending the definition of livestock in the Dogs (Protection of Livestock) Act 1953 to include camelids. Obviously, we will keep the matter under review. I do not wish to trivialise the matter, but, in my experience, camelids generally are quite capable of looking after themselves in most circumstances and would not take kindly to a dog yapping round them. If there is evidence that they need adequate protection, I am happy to provide that.

I reassure hon. Members that we do not need specific legislation if there is an emerging problem, because there is recourse to justice through the Dogs Act 1871, which I mentioned earlier, the Animal Welfare Act 2006, and the Criminal Damage Act 1971. Indeed, the new antisocial behaviour measures that we are introducing could be brought to bear as well. We will continue to talk to all the organisations that are involved. If there is a strong view that further protection is needed, we will give it consideration. At the moment, though, we do not feel that a case has been made. I absolutely agree that we do not want a new prescribed list; that is not the way to do this sort of legislation. The generic protections that are in place are more useful than anything else.

I hope I have answered exhaustively all the questions that have been raised—looking at the exhausted faces around the room I think I probably have done so. This has been an extremely useful debate. I thank the Committee for its care in introducing the report and the valuable points it raises. I hope that during the proceedings on the legislation before the House we will be able to tease out yet more details of what is proposed, and that at the end of the day we will have in place exactly the sort of holistic legislation that people have been calling for and which is crucial to deal with the small minority of dog owners who simply are not up to the task.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between David Heath and Huw Irranca-Davies

Thursday 7th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

How I wish that I had a pair of the Minister’s rose-tinted spectacles. In fact, the Government’s national economic strategy is shot; rural growth is further constrained by inflation running at double the national average, higher costs of living and working; and the slow roll-out of rural broadband is leading to open warfare around the Cabinet table. How does the Minister believe that taking another quarter of a billion pounds out of the rural economy and the pockets of low-paid farm workers by scrapping the Agricultural Wages Board will jump-start the rural economy?

[Mr Heath]

I spent 13 years on the Opposition Benches trying to press the case for rural areas. The then Labour Government did not listen to what was said in rural areas then, and I note that the hon. Gentleman is not listening now to the realities of what is happening in those areas and the realities of what is happening in the agricultural industry. If he did, he would take a very different position.

Groceries Code Adjudicator Bill [Lords]

Debate between David Heath and Huw Irranca-Davies

Tuesday 26th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Heath]

It is important that people understand what that advice is and what the data suggest. It has been set out very clearly by the chief medical officer, and I do not want anyone to go away from this debate believing that one in 20,000 people are subject to serious medical consequences from consuming bute. It is clear that the highest level that could be found in food products is, by a factor of thousands—by a factor of 10³—lower than that shown to have any adverse consequences for human health. Moreover, those adverse consequences affect only a very small proportion of people receiving pharmaceutical doses of the drug. It is very important that we understand the risk factors, and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman does not wish to misrepresent them.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

rose—

Horsemeat

Debate between David Heath and Huw Irranca-Davies

Wednesday 30th January 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mr Heath]

I am sure that that is absolutely true, as it is of other retailers. Waitrose, for instance, wished to point out that its contracts require its own-label burgers to be made on the first run in the morning, to ensure that there is no cross-contamination from other products later in the day. Retailers take the matter terribly seriously, and we should not give the impression that they do not, because that would be a false impression.

Ultimately, however, the Irish authorities did pick up a serious example of adulteration, and I congratulate them on that and on communicating the facts to us, so that we and others have been able to work closely with them to investigate what happened. While I do not diminish the point made by the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) about those whose religious dietary requirements may be affected, the trace findings of porcine and equine DNA elsewhere were a much lower level of contamination than the burger containing 29% horsemeat, which appears to have been a case not of cross-contamination but of deliberate substitution.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

One confidence restorer that consumers will expect is that those responsible for the current adulteration will face the full weight of the law. People should not be let off the hook. There has been an element of pointing the finger further and further down the supply chain. If a processor in the Republic of Ireland or elsewhere did not follow due diligence down the supply chain and used an unauthorised supplier, I hope that they will be prosecuted—I am interested in the Minister’s comments on this—by the supermarkets and others because of vicarious liability for negligence down the supply chain. Someone is responsible, and the finger should not be pointed to the nth degree at someone in Poland if some culpability lies within the supply chain in the Republic.

[Mr Heath]

The hon. Gentleman must be careful to distinguish between prosecution and litigation. Civil litigation may follow—I do not know—if there is prima facie evidence. When I responded in the House to an urgent question, I said that it seemed to me, without being in possession of all the facts in Ireland, that there was a possibility of criminality. That is a matter for the Irish authorities, and it would be absolutely wrong of me to assume any responsibility or to encourage the Irish in one way or another in their prosecution policy. However, they will no doubt consider whether fraud has taken place, and trace the perpetrators, whether they are the supplier in Poland, as it seems if their tracing is correct, or the people in Ireland who took receipt of the meat. That is for the Irish to decide, and I cannot interfere in that process. I can only express a view, which I think is shared by many people, that if criminal activity takes place on something as important as the food that people eat, we should use whatever powers are available.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Heath]

The distinction I was trying to make for the hon. Gentleman—I accept that he has been given figures—is between the number of samples and the number of tests. The samples have gone down, and that is what I think he is quoting. In 2009-10, there were 105,556 samples—and that is down—on the local authority side, to 78,653 in 2010-11. That is the diminution that he refers to, but the number of tests done on them has gone up to 92,181 in comparison. It is not quite as clear a picture as crude figures sometimes suggest. As I say, I accept the fact that the number of people working in local authorities has reduced, which is a proper cause for concern for me and others in central Government. What I do not accept is that it is on the scale suggested by some commentators, who are perhaps taking crude figures and interpreting them in an inappropriate way.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

The Minister has rightly drawn attention to the success of testing in the meat processing and abattoir sectors, but what is his view on the situation we have just come across involving five horses that were tested and identified as having bute in them, and although they did not enter directly into the UK chain, it was too late to stop them potentially entering the food chain elsewhere in the EU? Is that acceptable? What has gone wrong? They should not be entering the human food chain at all.

[Mr Heath]

I was going to move on to the issues about phenylbutazone and horse passports, as that was the other factor that has been referred to several times in the debate.

Let us be clear about phenylbutazone: it is a potentially harmful substance—in fact, there is little evidence one way or another, but we cannot say it is safe. That is why it is excluded from the food chain and it is quite right that it should be. It is principally excluded via the horse passport system. If the horse passport system is being properly applied, it will be excluded at the point of the abattoir. It should not enter the food chain and it should be simply disposed of in other ways. It is not the only drug residue that is occasionally tested for and that we need to be aware of. The Veterinary Medicines Directorate checks for a string of residues that we would also wish to exclude from the human food chain. The evidence from sampling suggests that a small quantity of phenylbutazone is making its way through, in some samples. That is concerning and it has to be investigated, which is exactly what we are doing. The Food Standards Agency is now looking at that in detail to see whether it can get a clearer picture.

There is a problem with the fact that it takes a long time for the test results to come through. I am afraid that I cannot explain why that is, but I am advised that it takes about three weeks to get the results back. During that time, it is entirely possible for food to be passed across the English channel to French markets, where it could enter the food chain. As soon as we have a positive confirmation, we advise the French—or whoever it is—authorities in the same way that they advise us. We have a wonderful network of agencies around Europe. They are constantly in communication and advise one another, which is why we knew about the Irish issue and why we would always notify the French—to ensure that that is the case. However, there is a delay, and the hon. Gentleman raises a point that I accept I need to look at further, to see if there is more that we can do.

[Mr Heath]

That would require all 9,000 horses that are killed for human consumption—the vast majority of which go abroad, as the hon. Gentleman will appreciate, because there is no appetite for horsemeat in this country, generally—to be kept in cold storage over a period of time while tests are being conducted. That is an option. What we have to do is be proportionate—we are required by law to be proportionate about what we do, because there are costs involved for exporters—and we can only do that if the evidence shows that it is a proportionate action to take. We are collecting that evidence at the moment and I will then take advice. If at any stage, the chief medical officer or the Food Standards Agency advises me that taking any action of that kind is necessary for the protection of human health, I will take it. I have not received that advice at the moment.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

I welcome the Minister’s candour. In the couple of minutes that are remaining, will he deal with the other issue about horses and the food chain? In July 2012, the Veterinary Residues Committee, which reports to him, said:

“Defra’s follow-up investigations in recent years have found that some vets are still prescribing phenylbutazone without checking the passport or ensuring that the horse is subsequently signed out of the food-chain. Phenylbutazone residues have also been found in horses that have changed owners prior to going to slaughter, and whose passports do not indicate that they have been signed out of the food-chain.”

Does he have a view on that, and will he take action?

[Mr Heath]

I am very happy to look at the operation of the horse passport. However, the national equine database is a red herring. It never provided any information on the food-chain status of individual horses, and therefore, it really is not relevant. What is relevant is that passports need to be robust. They need to have the information, and people need to respect the fact that if they do not put that information in, the passports cannot serve as the sort of check and balance that we need. It is wrong to falsify a document such as a passport. Its purpose is to protect the public, but there is evidence of occasions on which people have falsified them.

We have a very complicated system of issuing horse passports. The hon. Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray) discussed it, and the hon. Member for Ogmore did not seem to recognise that his Government set it up. I understand why they set it up, because there are EU rules on the matter. Each breed society can issue a passport, because they keep the stud book and therefore, there is a proliferation. If we can take action to ensure that there is no duplication, it would be a good thing. Let us look at that, but again, I emphasise the point that if people want to defraud the system, they might do so. Our job is to try and pick that up, but let us not pretend that we can stop anyone from trying to defraud the system—sometimes they will.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Croydon North on securing the debate. I hope that it has been helpful in outlining some of the actions that we are taking. We will take more, because we need to make sure that the consumer is best served by labelling, and that what it says on the packet is what they get on their plate.

Animal Welfare (Exports)

Debate between David Heath and Huw Irranca-Davies

Thursday 13th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

My hon. Friend makes a perfectly formed point.

I shall proceed at a rate of knots now, because I want to touch on the points that have been raised. The hon. Member for Montgomeryshire talked about the Spanish diet given to exported sheep. I am intrigued to know what it consists of; I suspect that it is not tapas. My hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) spoke with the benefit of his experience as a well loved and well respected food and farming Minister, although he was not quite so well respected by publications such as Horse & Hound. He made a considered and well balanced contribution, in which he rightly praised the higher standards generally to be found in the UK. He also echoed other Members’ call for a wider review, in the interests of animal welfare and of the industry. He made detailed points about the Ramsgate incident, as did others, and I hope that the Minister will be able to respond to them.

The hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire also has huge experience in this area. I do not think that my father-in-law’s sheep ever mingled with his; there was a little obstacle in the way, known as the Brecon Beacons. He focused on animal welfare considerations and raised the issue of zero tolerance. I am looking forward to hearing the Minister define that concept. What does it mean, particularly in the context of repeat offending by individuals, companies or organisations? Are we going to step in and take action much more rapidly in those circumstances? I hope that the answer will be yes.

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr David Heath)]

indicated assent.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

I am glad the Minister confirms that.

My hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty), a member of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, made a very good contribution. He talked about getting a fair price for meat exports, which could help to continue the downward trend in live exports. If farmers are able to get a good price for meat on the hook, rather than on the hoof, they will certainly go for that market. I am glad that he also mentioned the importance of listening to the views of the devolved nations and Administrations.

The hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) rightly spoke about end-to-end protection for animals throughout their whole journey. He also mentioned the importance of the right provision of animal welfare being in the right place at the right time. The Ramsgate incident illustrates that need. Having lairage facilities in the right places along the route, for example, is critical. I hope that the Minister’s internal review of the Ramsgate incident will throw up some of those issues for wider discussion. The hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton also said that live animal exports represent only a tiny proportion of the export market. He is right to say that live exports are declining as a part of the overall meat sector, but they are nevertheless vital for certain farmers, especially those who are not big, wealthy barley barons.

The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) made a good contribution. We have to respect those whose ethical reasoning leads them to form different conclusions from those of other Members who are also exercising their own ethical reasoning. She went into quite some detail about the importance of maintaining animal welfare standards from end to end. She also referred to the very good initiative between Compassion in World Farming and the NFU on the treatment of young calves in the pink veal trade. That initiative has enormous potential, but we need to take consumers with us as well and to brand that. We have done that successfully in other meat areas over the years, but it has usually taken a few years to get there. It is great to see animal welfare organisations working hand in hand with farming organisations to try to create that market.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) talked about patterns of behaviour leading to regular problems. That links back to the question of zero tolerance. I welcome his support for an inquiry, whoever might carry it out. I hope that the Minister will change his mind and express an interest in such an inquiry, but if not, I look forward to hearing the response of the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh), to whom I have recently written on this issue. My hon. Friend also raised the vital issue of the capacity of the animal inspectors at the Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency to carry out inspections in the light of the cutbacks and of the rise in concern about confidence in the trade. How will such inspections be sourced, given that DEFRA has already had cutbacks, along with every Department, and is now facing more?

The hon. Member for Southend West (Mr Amess) spoke eloquently about the RSPCA campaign, and I thank the RSPCA, the NFU and many other organisations for contributing to the debate and providing briefings for it. Interestingly, he raised the issue—nobody else did—of the labelling and provenance of meat that is transported to various destinations and rebranded as indigenous to an area different from where it was raised and produced.

I think we all agree that animal welfare considerations in the movement of live animals for trade, for slaughter, for breeding or for other reasons should be absolutely paramount. Logically, the volume and duration of the movements of live animals should therefore be kept to a minimum. That is why in opposition now, as when in government, we want a growth in the trade and export of meat or germ plasm rather than of live animals. That is why in opposition, as when in government, we believe it best that animals are slaughtered as close to the point of production as possible so that the transportation of live animals is minimised and the welfare considerations are lessened. In short, more exports on the hook, not on the hoof, is the right aim.

The trade is legal, and any attempt to ban it, which has wider European and UK-Ireland implications than the focus on any one transit route such as the one through Ramsgate might suggest, would break on the rocks of article 34 of the treaty of Rome. That was the consistent legal advice we received in government—my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse would have received it—so I invite the Minister to intervene to say whether that advice has changed in any way.

[Mr Heath]

indicated dissent.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

The Minister shakes his head, so the advice is still the same. In that case, our focus must be on the paramount issue of animal welfare considerations for a trade that will continue, to and from the UK and across other parts of the Europe, for the foreseeable future.

Groceries Code Adjudicator Bill [Lords]

Debate between David Heath and Huw Irranca-Davies

Monday 19th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Heath]

I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point, and that is clearly something we can discuss.

The hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford) mentioned the very bad news about Vion UK, which I understand will affect not only her constituents in Strath of Brydock, but many others in Livingston, Portlethen and Broxburn, and my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnorshire mentioned the situation in St Merryn in Merthyr Tydfil. I can certainly give an assurance today that we will happily engage with colleagues in the devolved Administrations—most of those jobs are situated in Scotland or Wales—to see whether there is anything we can do to assist them in dealing with what will be a very significant event in the local economy. If there is anything we can do, I can give an assurance that we will do our best.

My hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnorshire also talked about—

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

I would not want the hon. Gentleman to miss the opportunity to respond to the 20 Members who spoke in succession about strengthening the Bill by introducing fines, which was also referred to the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh), who chairs the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee.

[Mr Heath]

I was about to move on to that, and it is a great shame that the hon. Gentleman took up some of the time I was going to devote to it.

Common Agricultural Policy

Debate between David Heath and Huw Irranca-Davies

Thursday 1st November 2012 Westminster Hall

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr David Heath)]

Thank you for calling me to speak, Mr Havard. I do not deal in soundbites; I deal in solid policy and solid negotiation. We will leave soundbites to the hon. Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies).

It is a delight to serve under your chairmanship today, Mr Havard. I also want to say a big “thank you” to my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh), the Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, first for committing her Committee to the report—the very compendious report—that it has produced, and secondly, for having the good sense to apply for the opportunity to debate it here in Westminster Hall today. It has been extremely useful for us to debate the report, not least because my official title is the Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, so I am responsible for both agriculture and the environment, and it is nice to have a topic that clearly places both parts of my job description in the frame.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making it clear in her early remarks that we have these priorities of food security and climate change, and they are part of our background thinking in this sector. I am also grateful to her for drawing attention to the difficult weather conditions in the past few months, which unfortunately may continue, and to the need for certainty. Nothing would please me more than to say—through her to the farming communities, the people who are looking at this debate in terms of social policy and the people who are desperate to have answers to the environmental questions—that we have a degree of certainty, but the reality is that we do not. The negotiations that we are involved in are still very much in play and I will try to give the House the benefit of our experience, to say where we are and what our objectives are. However, I am afraid that what I will not be able to do, with any degree of certainty, is to say where we shall end up, because there is still an awful lot to play for.

I start by making it clear that the Government are very much in agreement with the majority of the EFRA Committee’s findings and with the conclusions in its report; that was also very clear in the formal Government response to the Committee’s report. If I may paraphrase, the Committee’s two key conclusions are that the UK’s existing agri-environmental schemes should not be undermined by greening, and that greening should be applied in a simple, flexible way that recognises local circumstances. As I say, we could not agree more with the Committee on either of those aspects. May I say how much I value the agri-environmental schemes that we have in this country? It is not being complacent to say that they are of a very high standard and that in many ways we achieve a higher level of outcome than many other EU member states.

Of course, I would always like us to do better and there are ways in which we can continually improve, not least by recruiting more people to higher-level stewardship schemes, but I will not say anything other than that we do a pretty good job at designing those schemes and we have done so for some time. The hon. Member for Ogmore said “Happy 50th birthday” to the common agricultural policy. I am not sure that that many people will be lighting candles in support of that contention, but I hope that more people might like to have a small celebration at the 25th anniversary of the groundbreaking agri-environmental schemes in England. I want to make it plain that we want to preserve and extend that legacy for future generations.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

In light of the earlier comments by various hon. Members today, does the Minister agree that the success of the HLS schemes—albeit they might need to be tweaked again as time goes by—and the welcoming of that success is a result of DEFRA officials being out there on the farms, in the fields, with people, fine-tuning the schemes until the eleventh hour to get them right? Actually, the success of those schemes gives us a lesson about the need for there to be as much subsidiarity as possible within the CAP reform greening proposals. They need to be worked in the UK, for the benefit of UK farmers and the UK public.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Heath]

I am happy to give my hon. Friend a letter. Again—I am not trying to avoid the question—there may be some uncertainties at the moment, as we are discussing transition, a key issue, with the Commission. It is giving us all sorts of potential headaches in the administration of schemes. We have a limited time horizon, and we simply do not know at what point new arrangements will kick in and what those new arrangements will be. Until we know that, it is difficult to make longer-term plans. However, I will happily write to her and set that out if it is helpful.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

I get the hon. Lady’s point. What we need clarity on—I understand if the Minister cannot give it today—is where the cut-off point is and at what point in the process it occurs. We need that clarity so that we and he can encourage farmers to keep signing up for existing schemes without fear that they will lose out.

[Mr Heath]

The hon. Gentleman has grasped that we need to understand from the Commission what will and will not be acceptable. We need to know how we can make a satisfactory transition. I assure him and my hon. Friend that my intentions are to maintain that continuity in a way that is fair to everybody. I am not resiling from the difficulties; I am simply saying that we are trying to find ways of ensuring that that is the case.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Heath]

It is certainly an awful lot better than the pronunciation of the hon. Lady’s constituency from the hon. Member for Ogmore, so I would not worry too much, Mr Havard.

The hon. Lady is right. To be absolutely clear, one of the big bones of contention in the negotiations is that we think the Commission’s direction of travel on the issue is precisely wrong, and we have to push very hard back the other way. One of my drivers for that—I am sure my counterpart in Scotland feels the same way—is that I simply want to ensure that we can implement the CAP effectively and efficiently when it is introduced. I do not want the Rural Payments Agency in England to go back to the dark days of a few years ago, when it was incapable of doing the job set for it because it was insufficiently well equipped to meet the complexities. I want to ensure that on the day when the arrangements are implemented, whatever they may be, we can deal with them. That means a long implementation time and simplicity in the construction and design of what is proposed.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

Will the Minister return to the point that I raised about the Commission’s impact assessment suggesting that the proposals would add about 50% to the costs? He can extrapolate from that to complexity and bureaucracy as well. Is it his intention that the final outcome of the negotiations will entail no increase in complexity or costs to farmers, or will he accept some complexity if that is the only way to finalise negotiations?

[Mr Heath]

There are all sorts of competing interests. The hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) is keen to ensure that member states cannot simply slide away from the commitments that they make. It is difficult to answer on what the final outcome will be. We are clear about our objectives, which are to simplify the proposals dramatically to achieve the environmental objectives, but with enough flexibility to ensure that we do not engage in complications that would jeopardise some of the things that we have in this country. We certainly do not want to increase costs. At the moment, I can give no assurance to the hon. Gentleman about the result of the negotiations. All I can give him an assurance of is our best endeavours toward that end.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

I seek the Minister’s graciousness in giving way again only to highlight the fact that his answer sounds remarkably like the answer that the Opposition gave when we were in government, which was, “We would love to have no increase in regulation, but there just might be some, because that might be where we end up.” We took a lot of flak when we were in government over regulation and gold-plating. Sometimes there is good regulation as well.

[Mr Heath]

There is, but it must achieve the right objectives, and our concern about some of the proposals is that they increase the complexity and the regulation and do not achieve the beneficial effects. That seems axiomatically wrong, and I think the hon. Gentleman is agreeing with me.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

Absolutely.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Heath]

Precisely so. Time and again people pay lip service to a “very good idea” but somehow it then does not apply to their own circumstances. We have to be wary of that and not fall into the same trap.

If we are to go down a route of some form of greening by definition—to which there is some advantage, in reducing complexity and allowing for easier systems—it has to be on the basis of something that shows the environmental benefit. I would argue, for instance, that our stewardship schemes do that. We could demonstrate beyond anyone’s reasonable doubt that our environmental schemes show a clear commitment to environmental benefits on the land within their compass. If we extend the self-definition too far, however, we get to the point at which simply having a hedge is sufficient qualification to be a greened farm. That is not an adequate definition.

Other member states share our view that this is basically the right direction for the CAP to be moving in, but that the Commission’s proposals are too blunt, too inflexible and too complex in their implementation. We have heard a few examples of that. The hon. Member for Banff and Buchan talked about the definition of “active farmer,” and my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) pointed out that quite a lot of Scotland is not farmed as intensively as most parts of England because of the nature of the ground. Yes, that is true, but the Scots have a case with, for instance, grazed heather, and we are helping to press that case strongly in the negotiations on behalf of the Scottish Government, with whom we have very close contacts, as we do with the other devolved Administrations.

With tenants, there is a question of who is the active farmer. It is far more important to identify the activity, rather than the status, of the person doing the farming. I hope we can move in that direction. I have already mentioned hill farming, and in the negotiations we have to be alive to the interests of less favoured areas. I said as much when I was in Cumbria recently and, not surprisingly, I received a measure of support, but we have to be conscious of the fact that there are many different types of farming, and we need to have something that, as far as possible, can accommodate those differences.

The hon. Member for Ogmore and others mentioned capping—I am sorry, but I cannot remember who provided the response. With the proposals on capping and young farmers, for instance, it is all too easy for lawyers simply to adjust the holding to fit the policy, rather than change what is happening. I am wary of that. I want to maintain the incentives, the competitiveness and all the rest. Although I can sometimes see the advantages of such proposals, I do not want the nominal ownership of an enterprise to be changed simply to create a money stream that would not otherwise be there, because that is not in the interests of efficient farming or the objectives that we have set.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

I urge the Minister to keep his mind open, because the larger arable farmers would argue that they are already the most productive, that they invest the most in innovation and that they collaborate the most extensively. On that basis, they should be the most susceptible to an argument that, for the largest payments in the country, they should easily be able to prove that they are adding value, not purely on acreage or hectarage, but in the productivity and innovation of their farms. I urge him not to close his mind, because that is a sharp and intelligent argument for the good use of CAP payments.

[Mr Heath]

I never close my mind to anything. I am always open to a discussion, but the hon. Gentleman’s proposal is not that different—if, indeed, it is different at all—from something that the Commission proposed right at the start of the negotiations.

There are difficulties, but I am happy to have further discussions with the hon. Gentleman, because I never rule out proposals until I can see clearly that they are not in the wider interest. In return, I ask him to consider the potentially significant problems with artificially fragmenting landholdings or artificially transferring titles, which are not helpful things to encourage.

If there is a consensus among member states, it is that greening is too complex an issue on which to rush to agreement. I have already indicated that, in setting out the timetable, there are still wide differences in approach, and few support the proposals as they stand. It seems to me that there is still a lot of work to be done, and the negotiations need to continue. The one thing in the Select Committee’s report that I would take slight issue with is the implied criticism that Ministers and DEFRA have not been as active as we might be in Brussels on greening. I simply do not recognise that in the case of my right hon. Friends the Members for Meriden (Mrs Spelman) and for South East Cambridgeshire (Sir James Paice), who are the predecessors of the Secretary of State and me. They were very active in Brussels on CAP reform in general and on greening in particular. The Secretary of State and I are taking that forward and engaging at all levels. We are working with the Commission, the European Parliament and other member states.

My hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton enjoined me to cuddle up to MEPs. I do not know about cuddling up, but I do have conversations.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Dai Havard (in the Chair)]

I am not sure where “snuggling” and “cuddling” fit in the lexicon of Hansard.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

The Minister should put on record to whom he was snuggling up.

[Mr Heath]

An eminent member of the European Parliament’s agriculture and rural development committee, whom I hope can advance our cause. It is important that we keep in contact because of the co-decision process that has changed the way such things move forward. It is important that we understand what is being talked about in the European Parliament, what the positions that are being adopted look like and whether we can, at the earliest stage, influence the way that those positions develop and where coalitions form to ensure that, as far as possible, our interests are served not only in the Council but in the Parliament, because ultimately we need to persuade both of what we want. Greening is on the agenda for pretty much everything that we do in Brussels on CAP reform at both ministerial and official level.

We are also working with stakeholder organisations on greening, because it is important to hear what they have to say. My message today is that achieving the right outcome will not be easy, and I am not going to pretend that it is. There are so many viewpoints to accommodate across the EU, and there is always a risk that we may not fully agree with every element of a wide-ranging package of measures. I find it reassuring that there is no discernible fundamental difference between the Select Committee and the Government on greening, but in some ways it is even more reassuring that there is no discernible difference in attitude between all the Members who have spoken in this debate and the Government or between the parties. We are clear on what the British position needs to be; the question is whether we can persuade others to adopt a similar position.

I am coming to the end of my contribution, but I want to mention agri-science, which was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton. In a way, agri-science is only tangentially relevant, but in another way it is fundamental. If we are talking about food security and measures that could benefit the environment within a context of higher food production, we have to embrace the best technologies to make that happen. I do not say that lightly—sometimes we have to adopt clear precautionary principles when we embrace new technologies—but the agri-science consultation launched by my Department and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, which has responsibility for science and technology, is important. Finding ways to get the research community and higher education properly engaged in those areas will be crucial to finding solutions in the long run.

My hon. Friend mentioned blight-resistant potatoes. I went to a research laboratory a few weeks ago and spoke to the only man in Britain who was really pleased about potato blight. That is perhaps being unkind to him, but he was researching blight-resistant potatoes and told me, “Look, everyone’s got potato blight this year—and we haven’t! I have a crop that has been shown to be resistant to potato blight.” There are things that can be done. It is not just about genetic modification or novel foods; we need to be engaged with, and make progress on, a range of areas.

Not only do we owe it to people in this country to make sure that we persist with the sustainability of our agriculture, but we owe it to people in other countries who will be facing much bigger difficulties—something mentioned by the hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Mr Bain). There are people across the world who need to be fed, and they will find it more and more difficult as the effects of climate change are realised. We are in a unique position because of what we can achieve with the quality of our research and technology. Our skills will provide some of the solutions to the questions that will increasingly be asked. I want this country to be in that position, I want the European Union to be in that position, and I hope that it is axiomatic to what we are discussing.

This has been a fascinating and positive debate. I hope I have been able to cover most of the issues raised and to indicate where we stand. At the moment, this is an incomplete and difficult negotiation. I will not be able to be certain about the outcome until the point at which we have an agreement, first on the budget and then on the CAP. However, I assure hon. Members, and the Committee in particular, that the concerns they have expressed are very much at the heart of our negotiating position. Dealing with those concerns is precisely what we are attempting to do as Ministers engaged in those discussions.

Agricultural Wages Board

Debate between David Heath and Huw Irranca-Davies

Tuesday 16th October 2012 Westminster Hall

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr David Heath)]

On a point of order, Mr Caton. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman so early in his speech. Just for the convenience of the House, I think that it is important to note that I have released a written ministerial statement on this subject today, opening a consultation. That being the case, and given that the statement cannot be released until 9.30 am and hon. Members will obviously be in Westminster Hall today and unable to get to the Library to see a copy, I have arranged for them to have a copy of the written ministerial statement. I can provide further copies if other Members have need of one.

[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

Further to that point of order, Mr Caton. I also apologise for interrupting my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Mr Reed) so early in his speech. I welcome the fact that the Minister has made that statement at the beginning of proceedings today; I am literally reading the written ministerial statement as we begin, having just been handed it by him. It is welcome; we have been waiting for it for some time. However, welcome as it is, I want to ask the Minister a question. The announcement on the consultation is the fundamental part of today’s written ministerial statement, but when was that announcement originally due to be made?

[Mr Heath]

We were planning to make that announcement today; it is coincidental that this debate was called for today. However, that being the case, I thought that it was very important that all Members had full possession of the facts, rather than debating in the dark, as it were.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

Further to that point of order, Mr Caton. I will not delay proceedings any more than I need to. I apologise again for interrupting my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland. My understanding is that the announcement on this consultation was first talked about last spring, running into the summer, under the Minister’s predecessor, the right hon. Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Sir James Paice). So, welcome as the announcement is on whatever date we are today—

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr David Heath)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Caton. I express my genuine gratitude to the hon. Member for Copeland (Mr Reed); as it turns out, it is useful and timely to be having this debate today.

From the start, I should say that I entirely understand hon. Members’ concerns. It would be odd if I did not, and that is not just because of what the hon. Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies) described as my general loveliness. I have represented, grown up and lived in one of the most rural parts of the country for a long time. I know that this issue is not only totemic for a lot of people but important to get right for a lot of people who work in agriculture.

Before coming to the more detailed points of my speech, I want to say first that I have introduced the consultation today because I am convinced that the proposals are in the interests of people who work in the agricultural industry. We simply cannot look at agriculture today through the eyes of somebody in 1948, or indeed, of someone 20 years ago. Agriculture has changed massively, and for the better, in many respects. It is a highly skilled industry in which people have to adapt to new ways of working all the time. I genuinely believe that the present set-up, which is unique in this particular area of employment, is grounded in times when agriculture and social conditions were very different. Most important, employment law was very different too, which we have to keep reminding ourselves. As a House, we have made huge changes to employment law over recent years, which has transformed the landscape in which we approach such discussions.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

I acknowledge the Minister’s good intentions in speaking for his constituents and the farming community, and I accept that employment law has changed. However, we are currently faced with new proposals for changing employment law, including watered-down versions of the Beecroft proposals on hiring and firing, under which people can buy shares in companies in exchange for giving away their employment rights. Does it not worry the Minister, as a Liberal Democrat, that the employment rights that have been put in place over the last 20 years are now being denuded at the same time that we look to abolish the Agricultural Wages Board?

[Mr Heath]

The hon. Gentleman will not tempt me into commenting on other Departments’ areas of responsibility. I am dealing with what falls within my ministerial responsibilities, and as I have indicated to hon. Members, we gave a commitment to consult on the board’s future. The written ministerial statement that I have issued today, and made sure that Members had before them, informs the House of the launch of the public consultation on the abolition of the Agricultural Wages Board for England and Wales, as well as the related 15 regional agricultural wages committees and 16 regional agricultural dwelling house advisory committees in England. The hon. Member for Ogmore picked up on the fact that my written ministerial statement describes the agricultural wages committees as “now largely redundant”. It does so because they are now largely redundant. I hope that he will look carefully at exactly what they do.

The point that underlies all this is that, in the absence of the Agricultural Wages Board, agricultural workers will be protected by the national minimum wage and working time regulations. I accept entirely what hon. Members have said—that that is not the sum total of the Agricultural Wages Board regime. It is not simply a safety net underneath the least well-paid workers. I shall come on to the other aspects, but that is certainly an important part of why it was set up in the first place. It was set up at a time when people working in rural areas were the least well-paid of the least well-paid and had very few protections. It was right, at the time, to give that protection. The question is whether it is still right to have that arrangement in this unique sector of employment when in other areas it has been abolished.

The hon. Member for Copeland talked about Baroness Thatcher’s Government removing a raft of wages boards, and that is correct—they did remove them—but surely he is not suggesting that that was necessarily a bad thing. I am not trying to reduce this debate to the absurd, because I know that there are genuine and important issues, but did he think that the Aerated Waters Wages Council, the Coffin Furniture and Cerement-making Wages Council, the Flax and Hemp Wages Council or the Ostrich and Fancy Feather and the Artificial Flower Wages Council really had a place in the 1990s?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Heath]

The job of Ministers when responding to a consultation is to listen to all the voices that are raised, to try to understand the points that are put forward and then to make a decision on whether to introduce appropriate legislation. It is then for the House to decide whether it supports that legislation, so let us be clear about the process. It cannot have come as any great surprise that we were going to go ahead with the consultation. Indeed, the hon. Member for Ogmore chided me gently for not having brought it forward earlier. I say to him that I would have brought it forward slightly earlier if there had not been a recess, but we are now ready to consult and ready to listen.

An impact assessment of the abolition of the Agricultural Wages Board has been published as part of the consultation package. I hope that hon. Members will take the opportunity to consider it carefully and to comment on the document and provide their own evidence on the likely impact for both individuals and the industry as a whole. The impact assessment suggests that abolition of the Agricultural Wages Board could lead to increased employment, which would have potential ripple-effect benefits for the wider rural economy.

Let me deal with some of the specific issues that were raised. A lot of hon. Members were understandably concerned that the proposal might mean workers losing their existing rights. Of course, that is not the case. Anyone in permanent employment will be protected by their contract. They will have exactly the same rights after the day on which the legislation is passed as they had before. They do not lose any of their contractual rights and the employer loses none of their contractual obligations simply by the passage of the measure. Of course, it would apply to new entrants and new contracts being negotiated, but it would not apply to anyone who was already in employment. It is very important that people understand that. Let us also recognise that permanent workers constitute about two thirds of agricultural workers, so for the vast majority of workers, there will be no change in terms and conditions as a result of the board’s abolition.

For new contracts, yes, I accept that there may be an impact. That is reflected in the estimates in the impact assessment. However, it is difficult to assess what that impact will be until we see it in action. My feeling is that there is a high level of competition for skilled workers in some sectors of the agricultural industry, and it is important that people attract workers who have both the necessary certification and the necessary skills, given that they are operating, as one hon. Member said, incredibly expensive bits of machinery, let alone dealing with livestock, which requires husbandry skills. It is important that people attract and retain the best workers. Therefore, I am clear that we shall not see a drift towards the national minimum wage in contracts in the agricultural industry. In addition, new entrants to the industry will have exactly the same levels of employment protection as workers in all other sectors of the economy.

In fact, there are potentially some direct benefits from abolition of the rigid structures of the Agricultural Wages Board, let alone the bureaucracy, in terms of what is permitted under contract. One example involves annual salaries. It is extraordinary that at the moment it is difficult to provide an annual salary basis for a contract under the rather rigid systems in place. In today’s employment market and particularly because I am optimistic about agriculture—we have a growing sector and there is huge potential in agriculture—farmers need to offer attractive remuneration packages that are competitive with those in other rural sectors if they want to retain skilled and well-qualified staff. I would be very surprised if employers did not recognise that they had to pay appropriately for skills and experience. That is already reflected, of course, in the banding in the Agricultural Wages Board system. The majority are paid above agricultural minimum wage rates. In 2010, about half of workers were paid more than 10p above the agricultural minimum wage. I do not see any reason why that should change in the absence of the board.

Of course, there are other protections as well. The gangmasters licensing legislation is both relevant and important in this debate. The hon. Member for Copeland talked about the Agricultural Wages Board specifically providing protection for migrant and seasonal workers, but he will find that it is the Fixed-term Employees (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Regulations 2002 that provide such protection—passed by a Government that he, of course, supported. I recall supporting those regulations too. They will continue to provide protection, and it is important to know that that is the case.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

I thank the Minister for reminding us of that fantastic piece of legislation. Will he comment on the future of piece-rate workers should the ABW be abolished?

[Mr Heath]

I am not sure I recognise that abolition of the Agricultural Wages Board will necessarily affect those workers. The hon. Gentleman is right to raise the issue and we will look at it closely in the consultation. Let us look at it in more depth and when we come forward with legislation, we will consider whether we need to look at it further.

We know that the agricultural work force are an ageing population, and that is not sustainable in the long run. I want to attract young people into farming, agriculture and horticulture. There are signs that more people are taking up courses at agricultural colleges, which is a good thing. We want to attract and retain new entrants—young workers—and to do that, farms must offer wages and conditions competitive with other sectors.

The hon. Member for Ogmore made an important point: most farmers and farming employers are good employers and want to do the best for their workers. Let us get away from the slightly Dickensian view that the only purpose of an employer is to grind down the workers. That is not the case and not the relationship that he and I see every day when we talk to people in farm businesses and those engaged in the sector.

What will happen to advice for farmers if the Agricultural Wages Board is abolished? The NFU has already indicated that it intends to provide economic indicators, which I hope will help.

I am not sure that I entirely accept the point about contractors, which I think was made by the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Tom Greatrex). People subcontract their work in lots of other businesses and industries without experiencing the difficulties that the hon. Gentleman anticipates. It has been said that such arrangements will simply stop. I do not believe that is the case, because I do not believe that agriculture works that way. People will find an appropriate level for such employment, as they do in the building industry and other industries where plant and specialist skills are often needed by contractors on a wider front. We will find ways of accomplishing the same objective without the bureaucracy involved.

I stress that we will specifically instruct the Low Pay Commission to include the agricultural sector in its range of indicators. If we go ahead with abolition, it will watch closely to ensure that we do not see a detriment at the lowest end of workers’ pay and conditions.

The board is the last remaining wages council. Does it serve a useful purpose? The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) says, with his knowledge of what happens in Northern Ireland, that it does not. I have looked carefully at the issue, and provided that we have other protections, which we do, across all sectors, it is difficult to argue that there should be a lone system for the agricultural sector providing separate minimum employment terms and conditions.

The regime is overly complicated at the moment. Its provisions are wide-ranging and restrictive, hampering the ability of the industry to offer modem, flexible employment packages. It effectively dissuades employers from offering annual salaries, which is disadvantageous for workers as it hinders long-term financial planning. It is a one-size-fits-all approach that imposes a rigid structure on a diverse and diverging industry.

If we lose the Agricultural Wages Board and the agricultural minimum wage regime, farmers will be able to agree terms and conditions with workers that fit particular circumstances and take account of the specific requirements of the farming sector. It would make it easier for farm businesses to employ workers, encourage longer-term employment, boost growth and create job opportunities. It would also simplify employment law.

An issue that has not been raised in the debate is the confusion for farm businesses around whether activities fall within the national minimum wage regime or the agricultural minimum wage regime. For example, livestock and poultry rearing would normally be considered agricultural activities and covered by the agricultural wages order, but that is not necessarily the case for slaughtering operations. In farm packing businesses, the agricultural wages order covers the packing of produce grown on the farm, but not the packing of bought-in produce. There are strange anomalies at the boundaries of what is and is not covered.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

Before time runs out, I should like to say that I have not met a small farmer—certainly not in Wales—who has been confused by the current functioning of the AWB.

Will the Minister address a point of real significance? Under Section (9)(7) of the Public Bodies Act 2011 consent is required from the Welsh Assembly Government. Alun Davies, the Agricultural Minister, made a brief statement on social media this morning:

“Welsh Govt are determined to maintain the AWB structures in Wales. We have not consented to any abolition in Wales”.

I ask the Minister directly: will he commit now not to abolish the AWB and the functions of the AWB in Wales without the consent of Welsh Ministers?

[Mr Heath]

I work closely with Welsh Ministers and I am always happy to do so. I share information with them; for instance, before the event, I shared the fact that we were bringing forward the written ministerial statement and the consultation process. I had the advantage of meeting Alun Davies only yesterday to discuss the matter, and I will continue to discuss with him and the Welsh Assembly Government what they have in mind. I will not go into the constitutional issues, because they are outside the scope of today’s debate.

It is clear that the matter is not a devolved one at the moment. The hon. Member for Ogmore looks askance—agriculture is devolved, but wage control is not. However, that does not stop us having a perfectly sensible dialogue with Welsh colleagues on the subject or stop them having a dialogue with the Wales Office on the constitutional issues. He says that we are obliged to use the 2011 Act, but we are not. There is a range of different legislative processes that we could use. He was firmly against the Act, so it would be strange if he now insisted that it is the only way that we can reform public bodies.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

rose—

[Mr Heath]

We are running out of time. I will continue dialogue with the Welsh Government to find a way forward. I am clear that it is perfectly proper for us to consult as we are doing on the abolition of the Agricultural Wages Board for England and Wales. We shall listen to the responses, including those from the Welsh, and will take appropriate action when it comes to legislation.

I again thank the hon. Member for Copeland for initiating the debate. We will return to the subject. I hope that hon. Members will take advantage of the opportunity to express their views in the consultation, as many outside the House will. It is a serious issue and I want to get it right for the prosperity of all who work in the agricultural industry, with a view to reducing unnecessary regulation, without reducing necessary protections.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between David Heath and Huw Irranca-Davies

Monday 21st June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman also take into account the extra-curricular activities of MPs of the better kind, such as contributing to VSO overseas? I have reluctantly cancelled a two-week engagement with VSO this summer because of the uncertainty. It is undoubtedly the case that the additional activities that MPs undertake—for example, on promoting workers’ rights overseas—are to be protected. Will the hon. Gentleman take that into account as well, in looking at how we manage our timetable?

[Mr Heath]

I am not sure that we can guarantee to protect the timetable for all the extra-curricular activities of hon. Members, but the hon. Gentleman makes a valid point. We indicated at the earliest opportunity what we would be doing this summer, but hon. Members want a degree of certainty about the parliamentary calendar, so far as that is possible. I hope the hon. Gentleman will contribute to the review that we will set up to look at that.