Jam and Similar Products (England) Regulations 2003

George Eustice Excerpts

Wednesday 30th October 2013 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (George Eustice)]

Thank you, Mr Owen. I also thank the hon. Member for Wells (Tessa Munt) for securing the debate, which has indeed gathered a bit of interest. The hon. Lady and I had a dry run of this discussion in the media this morning. I can understand her concerns about some elements of the proposed changes, but I feel that there is a degree of role reversal—as a Conservative who is sceptical about having the EU telling us what to do, I am all up for loosening regulations and letting markets decide, so to hear a Lib Dem taking such a strident position on the issue was surprising.

I come from a family involved in fruit farming. The jam industry is itself important, but having it as an outlet, a market, for the fruit industry is also important. One of the things that I learned, to my cost, while trying to grow strawberries is that a lot of things can go wrong in the fruit industry, whether bad weather, bruising of fruit or pallets of fruit tipping over, so having the jam industry market for some of the damaged fruit is very important. I ought to let the House know that my family’s business, Trevaskis Farm, makes jam for sale in small quantities through the farm shop. I have a little knowledge of the area through that.

To provide the context, the proposed changes to the regulations are part of DEFRA’s contribution to the Government’s red tape challenge initiative. The regulations were one of a number that were identified under the food and hospitality theme that could benefit from improvement and where potential savings could be delivered to businesses. The jam regulations were identified as an area in which we could consider changes that might provide businesses with greater flexibility and less restrictive rules.

One impetus behind the change was a request by some in the industry for the UK to consider taking up an optional derogation in the EU jam directive that permits—but, crucially, does not require—a sugar level lower than 60% to be set, which is something that a number of other member states have already done. The derogation allows member states to set a lower minimum sugar level for jam and similar products.

Organisations such as the Food Processors Association, an organisation that incorporates the United Kingdom Sweet Spreads Association and represents many in the jam industry, were keen for the Government to amend the regulations to ensure that the UK was on a more level footing with other major EU jam manufacturing countries, such as France and Germany.

[Tessa Munt]

The clue is in the title, the Sweet Spreads Association, and that is not jam. The Minister should come cooking with me—I do not know what else I can do, but suggest a master class in jam cookery in DEFRA. Let us have a go. Frankly, if people want to call something a fruit or sweet spread, they may, but they should not be calling that stuff jam.

[George Eustice]

All right. Since that original request, which was for a minimum permitted sugar level of 55%, others have requested that we consider lowering the minimum permitted level even further, to 50%, which would remove the so-called no man’s land that currently exists between sweet spread products, which are supposed to be below 50%, and jam products, which are supposed to be 60% or above.

After considering all the responses, we decided to reduce the minimum permitted sugar level for jam from 60% to 50%, but to retain the national provisions for fruit curds and mincemeat—an issue that the hon. Lady raised later in her speech. That will all be subject to the necessary clearances. The reduction in the minimum permitted sugar level to 50%, however, delivers the greatest flexibility to the industry as a whole, in a way that will not be detrimental to those who are in compliance with the existing regulations and can continue to make their jam as they do now.

The hon. Lady has expressed concerns about the possible impact on British jam, but I believe in the market—the market will dictate what does and does not sell. I mentioned earlier that my own family’s farm business produces small quantities of jam for sale through the farm shop. I took the liberty of talking last night to my mother, who is in charge of making the jams. She said that there has been a trend among consumers over the past 10 to 15 years to seek out products with lower sugar levels. They want products with more fruit and less sugar. We should not resist that, if there is a market demand for such products. They do not have to be the gunge or dreadful products that the hon. Lady mentioned —I assure her that the products sold in our farm shop are very good.

[Tessa Munt]

I have been contacted by diabetics and others who require products with a reduced sugar level and that is fine, but they are always accurately labelled on supermarket shelves and in farm shops as reduced-sugar jam. People know what they are buying. But if everything with a minimum sugar level of 50% and above can be called jam, there will be utter confusion about what is really jam and what is a fruit spread or whatever.

[George Eustice]

I understand that. The sugar content of a fruit spread is supposed to be below 50%, so we are removing that no man’s land between 50% and 60% and allowing products with a sugar content of below 60% but above 50% to be labelled as jam.

My hon. Friend pointed out that the 60:40 sugar-to-fruit ratio was recommended following research at the Long Ashton research station in Bristol in the 1920s. That was a long time ago and since then there have been technical advances and recipe experimentation. In the last few years, our market has included fruit spreads and jam with a sugar level of less than 60% with no increased spoilage reported. The reduction of the minimum requirement to 50% removes the current gap for products that fall into the 50% to 59% category. The flexibility delivered by the change will help to ensure that British jam manufacturers remain competitive because they will have the option to market their jam products with a higher fruit content on a level playing field with other member states.

It is worth reiterating that we are talking about a minimum permitted sugar level. That does not mean that existing manufacturers must work to the new minimum.

[Mr Ellwood]

I congratulate the Minister on his position. I do not know whether the Prime Minister had the foresight to appoint him knowing that this question about jam was coming his way. He seems perfectly placed to take the matter forward. If the producers of “Celebrity Masterchef” or the “Great British Bake Off” are watching, there may be some invitations coming through to pursue it further.

The Minister said that manufacturers, wherever they are based, in Dorset as well as other places around Britain, may continue to do what they are doing now. Will he confirm that no one in the industry will be affected by the prospect of a change in the regulations and that they may continue to do what they are doing now?

[George Eustice]

That is the case because these are minimum not maximum requirements. If there were a maximum requirement requiring all jams to have 50% sugar we would be having a totally different discussion. We are discussing minimum requirements and giving the industry flexibility. Those who want to develop products with a lower sugar level that they can market in Europe will be able to do so, and traditional jam manufacturers who want to retain a 60% level, are resistant to any change and do not accept that there have been changes in techniques or recipes may continue as at present and market their products as traditional jam with a premium in the market.

[Tessa Munt]

If the minimum level is set at 50%, all the organisations that are making jam with less than 60% sugar will be entitled under the regulations to call their products “jam”, not “reduced-sugar jam” or whatever else they are attempting to make. We need that clarity for the British public’s attachment to jam and what it means. I have bought stuff from supermarket shelves that is like mud—it has lost its colour, it is not the right texture and it is a completely different product. All those products will be entitled to be called jam.

[George Eustice]

I do not think it is in any company’s interest to market products that, to use my hon. Friend’s words, taste like mud. We must let the market decide. Makers of brands who passionately believe that a quality product must have 60% sugar will carry on with that. Nothing in the change will affect that. If my hon. Friend is right and brands with a lower sugar content will have an inferior product and if customers conclude that, as she suggested, they taste like mud, they will not buy it again. The market for that product will be small. In a free market economy, we should have a light-touch approach to regulation, and that has come out of the Government’s red-tape challenge. The market must decide. If my hon. Friend is right, the market for such products will be small.

Our changes will provide jam businesses with increased flexibility. We are keen to help small businesses that are trying to break into the market, and some exciting new products are coming on to the market based on the unique British Bramley apple. Jams made from it set more easily because of its high pectin content and do not need quite as much sugar. My hon. Friend said that the market for such products is small, but an internet search showed quite a number of products using Bramley apples as part of a mixed jam, such as Bramley and blackcurrant and Bramley and blackberry. There are exciting prospects for them, and there is nothing more British than the Bramley apply. We are almost unique in Europe in having specialist culinary apples rather than just generic apples. This is a good potential market for our excellent Bramley apples.

The regulations will be improved in respect of reduced-sugar jams. Since 2006, when new regulations on nutrition and health claims were introduced, there has been an overlap with the 2003 regulations that specify that a reduced-sugar jam must have a sugar content of between 25% and 50%. In contrast, the nutrition and health claims rules require all products labelled “reduced sugar” to have at least a 30% energy reduction compared with a standard product. To sort out this discrepancy, we are doing away with the specific rules for reduced-sugar jams so that they will need to comply only with the same rules as all other foods. That will provide improved clarity for the industry and consumers, and respondents to our consultation agreed it would be much simpler to work with one set of rules in this area.

We consulted on the proposed changes earlier in 2013 and received some useful contributions. One option that provoked strong opinions was in response to whether the UK’s national provisions for fruit curds and mincemeat—the sort in mince pies—were still useful or whether they could be removed. I can reassure my hon. Friend, who highlighted many concerns, that although she may not agree with our proposals to reduce the minimum sugar content of jam, we have acted on the evidence put to the Department and we will not change the regulations on fruit curds or mincemeat.

The main justifications cited were that curd and mincemeat standards help to maintain the production of these uniquely British products whose origins are firmly established and go back centuries. They are not part of other member states’ culinary culture and UK producers manufacture them to traditional recipes. The current rules reflect those practices.

The standards provide an important yardstick and their removal could result in a reduction in quality and could stimulate the introduction of products that are materially different from our current traditional curds and mincemeat products. So, as a direct result of the cogent arguments put forward in the consultation process, including a response from my hon. Friend’s constituent, Mrs Lloyd, we will retain unchanged the national provisions for fruit curds and mincemeat. That decision is positive and demonstrates the benefit of consultation to help to ensure that the final policy decision is fit for purpose.

[Mr Ellwood]

At the heart of the matter is a description of what is on the shelf so that people can recognise the sugar content and whether it is really British jam or from elsewhere with a different content. Will the Minister consider a jam kitemark or indication so that people can recognise true jam as defined at present and the different spreads that we may see more of from the continent?

[George Eustice]

As I said, I am a great believer in the market. Individual jam manufacturers who pride themselves on their brand and who passionately believe that jam must have 60% sugar to be good will be able to market their product as a niche, specialist product. If there is no market for products with less than 60% sugar, it will not develop. It is for the industry voluntarily to come together if they want to and jointly market traditional jams. I welcome this important debate, which has provided exactly the detailed scrutiny that the House should undertake.

Natural Capital (England and Wales)

George Eustice Excerpts

Monday 21st October 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (George Eustice)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart) for bringing this motion to the House. He has consistently championed the cause of the environment, and he made a number of incredibly important points in his speech. Like many others, I acknowledge the work done by my right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Mrs Spelman). It is important to recognise that a lot of the work we are doing now stemmed from the natural environment White Paper. After having been elected, one of the first things I did early in this Parliament was to attend the launch of that document at Kew. I remember it well. It was a very important piece of work, and she is to be commended for it.

To prove that there can be some cross-party consensus on this issue, I acknowledge the work that the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) has done through his chairmanship of the all-party group on biodiversity and his consistent interest in its potential. However, I must take a little issue with his strong criticism of the Secretary of State. I can vouch for the fact that my right hon. Friend believes passionately in these issues, of which he is a real champion. He regularly speaks to Dieter Helm, the chairman of the natural capital committee. I therefore do not agree with the hon. Gentleman’s criticism on that front, but perhaps we can come back to that later.

As every Member who has spoken has said, the state of natural capital is a crucial issue and the scale of the problem is great. Recent studies, such as the national ecosystem assessment and the “State of Nature” report prepared by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and others, drew on the excellent work of experts and volunteers across the country. They have reinforced the Government’s view about the worrying trends in the state of our natural assets.

We are constantly learning more about the complex mutual dependencies that underpin our vital ecosystems, but we are also finding evidence that shows that these intricate systems are, indeed, under threat. As many Members have said, 30% of the UK’s ecosystems are in decline. The numbers of specialist farmland birds, for example, have plummeted.

Although the overall condition of the natural environment is a cause for concern, we should also acknowledge that there have been some significant success stories that demonstrate what can be achieved when there is a will to do so. For example, environmental legislation has helped to transform many of our watercourses, and rivers that were once notoriously polluted now sustain a variety of wildlife. Of course, although these successes are heartening, important aspects of our natural environment are still in decline. The status quo is therefore not acceptable and a concerted effort on the part of Government and society is necessary to turn things around.

As part of their efforts to halt and reverse degradation of our natural environment, this Government have pledged to improve their understanding and measurement of England’s natural capital. It is, therefore, extremely encouraging to hear that the Government’s commitment to advancing the natural capital agenda is shared by Members from across the political spectrum.

A number of Members, including the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Joan Walley), have said that a Treasury Minister should be present instead of me. All I can say is that I am passionate about this issue and I am here to represent the Government. It is usually only one Minister who responds to this type of debate. Members have said that they would have preferred a Treasury Minister to be present and I will not take that personally, but I am afraid that tonight you’ve got me. It is important to note that the Treasury is heavily involved in this issue. The response to the NCC’s first report was co-signed by the Secretary of State and the then Economic Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid).

A number of Members have asked what we are doing to get the principles into the green book. I have three points to make in response to that important question. First, following the publication of the natural environment White Paper in June 2011, the Treasury and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs published in 2012 supplementary green book guidance on accounting, so consideration has already been given to including environmental impacts in cost-benefit analyses by Government Departments.

Secondly, I reassure Members that the NCC is currently in discussions with the Treasury and DEFRA about developing the green book so that we can take further steps. Thirdly, DEFRA has commissioned a baseline evaluation study to review how well recent impact assessments across government take into account environmental impacts. We are, therefore, taking a number of steps.

[Mr Graham Stuart]

I wonder whether the Minister took note of my point about the Government response—the letter. He has just laid out how the Government are responding in a serious way, but will he undertake that when the next state of natural capital report is published in nearly a year, it will receive as full a response as that which we would expect for a Select Committee report?

[George Eustice]

I hope my hon. Friend will find that the remainder of my speech will pick up on a lot of the themes of the 13 recommendations made by the NCC report.

[Mr Stuart]

I recognise that my hon. Friend is new to his post and that he is in a difficult position, but it really would be helpful if he could commit on the record to provide a full response to next year’s report. This debate was called not by the Government, but by the Backbench Business Committee, and we cannot rely on a debate such as this to ensure that the Government are held to account on something so important.

[George Eustice]

I take on board my hon. Friend’s point. Lord de Mauley leads on this element of the Department’s portfolio and I speak on it in the House of Commons. I will discuss the point that my hon. Friend has made with him.

It is not surprising that there is a consensus that natural capital matters. It underpins fundamental aspects of all our lives. We rely on natural capital for the air that we breathe, the food that we eat and the water that we drink. It is also a crucial source of energy and well-being. It will play a central role in mitigating the potential impacts of climate change. It may even provide the key to scientific and technological innovations. It is the foundation on which our economy is built. My hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) gave a fabulous quotation from John Aspinall:

“Nature is the bank upon which all cheques are drawn.”

That is very true.

Despite its importance, we have taken natural capital for granted. For too long, the value of our natural capital has been disregarded and, as a consequence, degraded. In the past 50 years, in spite of growing environmental awareness, many of the pressures on the natural environment have accelerated. Short-term, short-sighted economic gains have been prioritised. Too often, that has come at the expense of the natural environment. It is clear that if the habit of eroding our natural capital assets is allowed to continue, it will ultimately, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden said, be at the expense of future generations and their economic well-being. If economic growth is not sustainable, frankly, it will not be sustained. If we do not actively attempt to understand the true value of natural capital, we will continue to set its value, wrongly, at zero.

Many people in the UK already place a value on nature. Members may well have heard enough about the BBC for one day, but the growth in popularity of programmes such as the BBC’s “Countryfile” demonstrates that we are a nation that cares passionately about the natural environment. The widespread appreciation of nature’s intrinsic value, the importance of which many Members have highlighted, is demonstrated by the large memberships of groups such as the RSPB and the wildlife trusts. To those who say that unless we put a monetary value on something, it is not valued, I say that that is not the way that the public see it. They see a great intrinsic value in our natural environment.

Valuing our natural assets in terms of their worth to the economy in pounds and pence is a challenging exercise. We will have to involve the dedicated efforts of world experts to come up with the right calculations. However, it is important that we do not see valuing nature as just a dry, academic exercise that is performed by accountants. The natural capital agenda must, and will, have a practical application that will lead to real outcomes in our natural environment. If we want to protect nature, we need to make better decisions about how we use it. Those decisions will be better informed when we have properly measured and valued our natural capital.

That is why the Government set up the natural capital committee in 2012. In doing so, we were acting as a global leader. We now lead the way by having an independent group of experts that reports on where our natural assets are being used unsustainably. Ultimately, the committee will advise the Government on how we can prioritise action to address the most pressing risks to our natural capital. That advice will better enable the Government to fulfil their vision, first set out in the natural environment White Paper of 2011, of being

“the first generation to leave the natural environment in a better state than it inherited.”

With that vision in mind, I read with interest the committee’s first state of natural capital report, which was published in April this year. It set out a framework for how the committee would deliver its ambitious work programme. The report highlighted just how high the stakes are for the environment and the economy in work that the committee is doing. The committee argued powerfully that the environment and the economy are not rival priorities that have to be traded off against each other, but that environmental and economic interests can and must be aligned. The report set out how that beneficial alignment can be realised.

Although we have enough data to be confident that our natural assets, for the main part, are being degraded, we do not measure directly changes in their extent or quality on a widespread basis and we do not account for them in national or business accounts. It is therefore not currently possible to identify systematically which natural capital assets are being used unsustainably, but the work of the committee aims to get a better handle on that.

The committee’s first report not only set out the need for a framework to measure and value our natural assets, but contained a number of recommendations to help get that framework in place. When the report was published, the committee promised to follow up in its second and third reports—due in early 2014 and 2015 respectively—with more specific advice about where assets are at risk of not being used sustainably, and what needs to be done about it.

The Government support the analysis set out in the NCC’s first state of natural capital report, as detailed in the joint letter that my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness referred to from the Environment Secretary and the Economic Secretary to the Treasury. The letter stated:

“We welcome the report’s conclusions and we look forward to working with the Committee as they and others advance this agenda.”

I can report that good progress has been made on the recommendations contained in the report, by both the Government and the NCC. For example, in order to determine whether we are on a sustainable path, the NCC has commenced two pieces of work to help understand which assets are in decline—and to what extent—as well as which are most at risk. The NCC will report on its initial findings in its next report. We are interested to see how that might inform other Government policies, such as biodiversity offsetting, which a number of hon. Members—including my right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden—have mentioned.

On national and corporate accounting, which was mentioned by the hon. Member for Brent North, good progress is being made. On national natural capital accounting, the NCC is working closely with the ONS and DEFRA to implement the road map to 2020 that the ONS published in December 2012, setting out its timetable for producing natural capital accounts. On the corporate side, the NCC is engaging with a series of major businesses and landowners. It is about to undertake a series of pilot projects with a selection of those businesses in order to trial natural capital accounting in a real-world context and see whether it is an effective tool for encouraging businesses to operate on a more sustainable basis.

Let me touch on some of the points that my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness raised at the end of his contribution. He asked for a response to each of the 13 recommendations, and as I have said, I will take his comments back to my noble Friend Lord de Mauley. A lot of those recommendations are being taken forward by the NCC, and many others are addressed in the good “Accounting for the value of nature in the UK” report by the ONS.

A number of Members asked whether we believe that the framework should be developed, and the Government agree that it should be. That is a task for the NCC, which is working further on that. Importantly, the committee is not doing just a single one-off report that is then placed in the Government’s hands; it is continuing to work on many of these elements. Many hon. Members raised the importance of developing a risk register, and I confirm that the second report from the committee will look further at a risk register and at highlighting those areas where we use our natural environment in an unsustainable way. The next report will contain the first steps in that direction.

In conclusion, we are very much looking forward to the NCC’s second report, due to be published in spring 2014, and to the more specific recommendations we expect it to contain. We are particularly interested in what it might have to say about a proposal for a long-term strategic plan to ensure the preservation and recovery of natural capital in this country.

[Mr Speaker]

For a brief wind-up of the debate, I call Mr Graham Stuart.

Badger Vaccines

George Eustice Excerpts

Wednesday 16th October 2013 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (George Eustice)]

I welcome this debate, which my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (David Morris) called for. The number of people here today suggests that we could do with more than half an hour to debate some of the issues. I welcome the tone with which my hon. Friend approached the debate. He is right that some people take different views about whether we should pursue a cull strategy, but we all agree that there is a role for vaccination of both cattle and badgers.

I was pleased to have the opportunity to consider the matter in detail in my recent role as a member of the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. The Government’s response to its report was published earlier today and shows that we share a significant amount of common ground on the issue.

Bovine TB is the biggest threat to the livestock industry in England—I was going to say Cornwall, where it is also a threat, as the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George) knows. Having lived and worked in the farming industry in Cornwall, I know how difficult the problem is. My family run a herd of pedigree south Devon cattle and in the late 1960s, before my time, they had an incident of TB that wiped out more than half the herd and had a devastating impact on the family farm. My father still talks about it.

By the 1980s, we had almost eradicated the disease, but in the last 10 years there has been a severe deterioration. It has cost the country more than £5 million so far to fight the disease. Last year, we had to slaughter some 28,000 animals. Bovine control is not under control. In Lancashire, the county of my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale, we have seen an increase in the number of herds under restriction and the number of cattle slaughtered in the last year.

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

The Minister says that bovine TB is spreading more, and that is exactly why people are saying that culling is not the answer. Scientists involved in a randomised badger culling trial between 1998 and 2005 have shown that culling has not contributed meaningfully to a reduction in the disease and, if anything, has increased it because as the animals are shot, they run away and carry the disease with them.

[George Eustice]

It is generally accepted that, after the initial conclusions of the randomised badger culling trials, there was a significant reduction of some 16% in the cull area in the following years. On perturbation, which other hon. Members have also raised, there was an increase in TB in a ring immediately around the trial areas as a result of perturbation, but the incidence then dropped. Overall, there was a reduction. I point the hon. Lady to evidence in other countries, such as the Republic of Ireland, which has had a cull policy since 2000 with a reduction of around 45% in the incidence of the disease, and the number of cattle having to be slaughtered has halved.

There is no magic bullet and no single policy that can change the situation dramatically. Vaccination of badgers and cattle has a role; wildlife control has a role; dealing with the reservoir of TB in wildlife has a role; and routine testing, movement controls and better biosecurity all have a role. But none of them alone is the entire solution.

[Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)]

Part of the trial is taking place in my constituency. My first ministerial meeting when I was elected 16 years ago was with Jeff Rooker on this very subject, and only now is any meaningful action taking place. The Minister is absolutely right to say that a whole range of measures is needed to counter the disease, but it has been increasing and farmers have been suffering. We must get a grip on it.

[George Eustice]

I agree with my hon. Friend. I have painted a picture of how bleak the matter is. The disease is spreading and we cannot ignore it any more; we must take action.

Returning to vaccination, which is the subject of the debate, I think it is worth noting that successive Governments have invested more than £43 million on vaccine research and development since 1994. The coalition Government will have spent at least a further £15 million. I say “at least” because the figure excludes what is likely to be sizeable expenditure on the necessary work on cattle vaccine field trials.

[Tracey Crouch]

Is my hon. Friend aware that the response to a recent freedom of information request on 22 September shows a significant reduction in the amount of departmental investment in the oral vaccine particularly, but also in all other research into injectable vaccine and cattle vaccines? Spending on the oral vaccine will fall from around £2.5 million to £312,000 in 2015. Should that not be dealt with “drekly”, as the Cornish might say?

[George Eustice]

It seems that the word “drekly” is catching on in the House. I will deal with oral vaccination later. Right now, only the injectable BCG is available to tackle bovine TB and it does not fully guarantee protection. Some animals will be fully protected, some will benefit from a reduction in the disease, but some will get no protection. That is a shortcoming of a vaccination policy, but it would be a useful addition to the toolkit and we will use it to tackle the disease when we can perfect it.

[Angela Smith]

I welcome the Minister to his new role. He has mentioned the words “toolkit” and “all the tools in the box” more than once. Will he rule out one tool that most hon. Members believe is unacceptable—the gassing of badgers in any future cull?

[George Eustice]

We have made it clear that we would never use gassing as a means of controlling the badger population if we thought it was inhumane, but it is in the consultation for research. That does not mean that we will use it, but we will consider further research in this area.

The research is not on animals. It involves laboratory situations and simulated setts to work out how to get gas to go through a sett. The concern is not the gas itself, but the ability to deploy it throughout a sett. I assure the hon. Lady that that is the sort of research that was alluded to in the strategy. There is nothing new about it; it was in our published strategy in July.

[Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way?

[George Eustice]

I want to make some progress or I will not get to the points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale.

Laboratory studies have demonstrated that vaccinating badgers with BCG can reduce the risk of infection and transmission of the disease. A four-year safety field study of wild badgers showed a statistically significant indirect protective effect in unvaccinated cubs born into vaccinated social groups, but vaccinating a large enough proportion of badgers to reduce transmission of disease and bring about a reduction of TB in cattle would take time to achieve and be costly to deliver, at between £2,000 and £4,000 per sq km per year.

In practice, it is inevitable that not all badgers in an area will be trapped and vaccinated. There is no evidence that vaccination protects already-infected badgers, and there is a risk that badgers from neighbouring unvaccinated areas may act as a constant source of infection. Nevertheless, computer modelling indicates that sustained badger vaccination campaigns could be beneficial in lowering TB incidence in cattle, but quantifying that contribution is likely to need a large-scale field trial, and it would take some years to collect the results.

[David Morris]

I would like to put it on the record that should what I am proposing come together, I would like my constituency to be its first trial area.

[George Eustice]

That has been noted, and we will take it on board—[Interruption.] I do not want all hon. Members asking for their constituencies to be a trial area. Vaccination is a potential additional tool to reduce geographical spread of the disease, particularly on the edge of areas. My hon. Friend’s constituency is in not an edge area, but a low-risk area.

Vaccination could complement badger culling by providing a buffer to limit the impact of perturbation. It may also form part of an exit strategy from culling—for example, by vaccinating remaining badgers with the aim of establishing herd immunity in previously culled areas.

[Albert Owen]

I welcome the Minister to his place on the Front Bench. Will he assure the Chamber that his Department is working with the Welsh Government so that we can have some data on their trials, share information and eradicate the problem in the whole United Kingdom? His responsibility covers only England, but such co-operation would help both England and Wales.

[George Eustice]

We are keen to learn lessons from around the country and around the world, so we are looking at the work going on in Wales. I have to say that it is not that encouraging at the moment; a vaccination-only strategy is not seen to be working particularly well, but we will study the results closely. I am also interested in following what is going on in Northern Ireland, where they are trapping and then vaccinating badgers that they believe are not infected and culling those that are. We are also keen to learn lessons from countries such as Australia, which has pursued policies similar to ours.

[Ian Paisley]

I welcome the Minister to his new role. With regards to the vaccine for cattle and cows, which he touched on at the beginning—the hon. Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale also asked about this issue—will the Minister take the opportunity to make it abundantly clear that if a vaccine is given to a cow, it makes the cow test positive? That makes it indistinguishable from an affected beast when it is tested, which leads to one conclusion: the cow is slaughtered. We have to get away from pursuing the idea that there is some sort of magic bullet, or magic pill, that can be used to vaccinate a cow and not lead to its being slaughtered.

[George Eustice]

I do not want to get drawn too far into cattle vaccination, but the hon. Gentleman is right that we need to perfect the so-called DIVA test that differentiates between the two. It is clear that it will take some time. The European Commission has put a time frame of 10 years on getting to that stage. I would like that to be quicker, but we have to be realistic—there is a lot to be done.

I come back to supporting badger vaccination. DEFRA operates a badger vaccination fund; in the current year, that has prioritised support for vaccination in the “edge area”. The fund offers start-up grants of 50% to fund the first year of vaccinations. Having said that, it is true to say that applications this year have been a bit disappointing. We are now looking to understand precisely why that is, so that we can get it right next year. Coming back to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale, we are keen to work with all those groups, including voluntary groups, who would like to participate, and to work out how we can get them engaged in that.

I also intend to discuss a plan that the hon. Member for St Ives has on the issue—I have promised to meet him and Rosie Woodroffe. The Department has made a modest commitment to support some vaccination in that regard and he has some ideas; we are keen to pursue that option and look at it.

[Andrew George]

I put on the record my gratitude to DEFRA for the initial funding of the pilot, which is proceeding this week. The intention is to cover the whole 200 square miles of the Land’s End peninsula, and we are increasingly gathering the co-operation of farmers in the area.

[George Eustice]

I know that, and I look forward to discussing the matter further when I meet the hon. Gentleman. The training scheme has become more popular since, as part of the DEFRA-funded badger vaccination fund, we have offered grants of 50% to voluntary and community sector volunteers to train as lay vaccinators. That is another area that we would like to look at.

Finally, I want to say a few words about our work on developing an oral badger vaccine. A badger vaccine could be administered orally through baits. It would be more practical and potentially cheaper, which is why DEFRA continues to fund that. It is not true, as my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) said, that we have cut expenditure on that. We are, as I say, still spending about £4 million a year in total on developing cattle and badger vaccines.

There are things that we would need to resolve when it comes to the development of an oral vaccine. We would need to work on the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine formulation and make sure that we can deploy the bait to attract the maximum number of badgers. One of the problems is that badgers will not take the bait that is used, so it is important to have the right bait.

Another problem can be that one badger might eat all the bait and another badger might not get any, so there are challenges. We also have to deal with the potential impact and safety for other wildlife. There is still further work to do, but we are committed to taking it forward, and we are clear that that ongoing work will play a role in our strategy.

Sentencing Tariffs (Offences Against Animals)

George Eustice Excerpts

Tuesday 15th October 2013 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (George Eustice)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Weir. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Mr Sanders)—he is a fellow west country MP—on securing the debate and raising an issue that attracts a great deal of interest. He has always championed it, and I join him in praising the RSPCA for how it pursues some of the horrific cases that he outlined in his introduction.

I was personally interested in this area before I joined the Government. I served on the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, and earlier this summer, as part of my research, I read an interesting report called “Unleashed”, which was written by an academic called Simon Harding. It looked at the phenomena of status and weapon dogs and tried to understand why we are seeing an increase in some types of dog fights.

There are three key types of dog fight. First, there are those awful dog fights where bets are placed. They often take place in private venues, and that is the type of thing that my hon. Friend mentioned. Secondly, there is what they call “back of van” fights or trunking, which are awful. The idea came from the US, where they lock dogs in the boot of a car to fight it out. The third type, which some of the evidence suggests has had the greatest increase, is chain rolling, where dogs are used as an alternative to a knife and there are impromptu fights in parks. There has been a significant increase in reports to the RSPCA of illegal fights of that sort.

A further problem has been the growth of the internet, which has made some of these crimes easier to commit. That point has been highlighted by a great many of the animal welfare charities. We have the awful problem of the different terms and code words used in internet advertising for dogs designed to be sold for fighting, such as red-nosed, game-proven, game-bred and blocky. I welcome what the Pet Advertising Advisory Group has done to try to tighten that up by creating a new code of conduct for those companies that advertise pets.

The Government deplore acts of animal cruelty and believe that offenders deserve the full force of the courts. Our responsibility is to ensure that the legislation is fit for purpose. My hon. Friend asked whether we would review the legislation. We reviewed the main legislation that protects the welfare of kept animals—the Animal Welfare Act 2006—in 2010.

The report prepared by my Department and sent to the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee for its consideration concluded that there was broad agreement that the 2006 Act has genuinely had a positive impact on animal welfare. It successfully brought together a number of different pieces of legislation into a comprehensive whole and placed a duty of care on those who are responsible for animals. The 2006 Act also introduced a preventive measure that has allowed action to be taken without animals suffering unnecessarily. Although the consultation highlighted some concerns that more could be done to speed up court cases involving seized animals, it did not cast doubt on the adequacy of maximum sentences.

Of course, legislation must set maximum penalties. It is then for the courts—usually the magistrates court for animal welfare cases—to take a view on what sentence should be given. Judges and magistrates have a great deal of discretion in sentencing. In coming to a view, they are helped by specific sentencing guidelines produced by the Sentencing Council, which has been responsible since 2010 for providing detailed guidance to courts on the appropriate sentence for individual cases.

Sentencing guidelines help to achieve consistency in deciding the type and length of sentence and set out the factors that should be considered in those decisions. The guidelines set out how a judge or magistrate can decide on the seriousness of a particular offence, and then determine the appropriate sentence. Of course, the circumstances of different cases can vary quite widely and that can explain the different sentences handed out. The guidance to magistrates covers cases of animal cruelty for offences committed under the 2006 Act and helps magistrates to impose an appropriate penalty. Those guidelines were last updated in 2008 and reflect the current penalties available.

The Government’s responsibility is to ensure that the courts have the flexibility to impose the appropriate sentence within acceptable ranges. To that end, the 2006 Act makes it an offence to cause any unnecessary suffering to an animal. That offence carries a maximum penalty of six months’ imprisonment or a fine of £20,000 or, crucially, both. Someone found guilty of organising or participating in a dog fight, along the lines that my hon. Friend described, could receive both a fine of £20,000 and a prison sentence of six months. Six months is the highest sentence available to a magistrates court and the fine is much greater than the usual £5,000 limit.

In addition, the 2006 Act makes it an offence to fail to provide an animal with its welfare needs. That offence can attract a maximum penalty of six months’ imprisonment or a fine of £5,000, or both. The offender can also be disqualified from owning an animal in future.

[Chris Evans (Islwyn) (Lab/Co-op)]

As I was coming to work yesterday morning, there was a Staffordshire bull terrier-type dog dead in the Thames. I hear what the Minister says, and I commend the Government’s action on increasing fines and sentences, but what action has specifically been taken to stop the people involved from owning those dogs again, legally or illegally, and what action has been taken to stop these dog fights taking place?

[George Eustice]

There are a number of measures under which we can do that. Under the 2006 Act, which was introduced by the previous Government, people can be disqualified from owning dogs. Through that Act, Parliament tightened up the earlier legislation. The courts now have to state why they would not impose such a disqualification, rather than it being left entirely up to them.

[Chris Evans]

My concern is on the safeguards to ensure that someone who is banned cannot own a dog again by legal means. What evidence do we have that someone owns a dog, even if they are banned? How do we impose that ban? That is the issue that I was raising.

[George Eustice]

Clearly, it is for the courts and the police to enforce the bans. Other bits of legislation related to dog welfare and, in particular, breeding, contain anti-avoidance clauses, so that if someone has five litters of dogs being bred on a premises—regardless of who owns or claims to own those dogs—they are caught by the law and require a licence. There are elements of legislation that do that, and I am here to set out what the law states. I commend what the previous Government did in introducing the 2006 Act. As I said, it requires the courts to state why they would not impose such a disqualification.

I realise that some people would like to see the maximum limits raised, but we need to be clear why such a move is deemed desirable by those calling for such an increase. Is it because the maximum limits are considered to be low compared with other similar offences? If we make that point, however, we should compare them with the maximum penalties for other crimes, such as assaulting a police officer, which can attract six months of imprisonment, a fine of £5,000 or both. The maximum penalty available for acts of antisocial behaviour, under the new Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill, will be three months, a fine or both.

My hon. Friend mentioned the Animal Welfare Act provision to increase sentences to 51 weeks. I think that he was referring to a scheme called “custody plus”, but it is not quite true that that would relate to a custodial sentence of 51 weeks; in fact, the sentence was always intended to be a combination of community service and imprisonment. It was not simply an increase—a mixture was always intended.

Alternatively, is an increase intended to act as a deterrent? The Government, however, have received no indication from magistrates that the penalties for animal cruelty cases should be increased because they are having to impose more and more penalties towards the upper end of the range. Crucially, for no convictions has a judge handed out the maximum sentence of six months. We therefore have to ask, why increase the maximum, if the existing one is not being used by the courts?

To give an example of the penalties handed down by magistrates over the past three years, convictions under the Animal Welfare Act have been roughly 1,000 a year; typically, about 10% of those have been sentenced to imprisonment, with the remainder getting a fine. That does not indicate to me that magistrates consider that the maximum penalties for animal cruelty should be increased. I understand the points made by hon. Members about increasing maximum sentences, but there does not seem to be evidence to suggest that a review is necessary, especially given that the issue was reviewed most recently in 2008.

My hon. Friend has, however, brought up an important subject for debate, which we all recognise as a growing problem, and the Government have introduced additional bits of legislation to deal with dangerous dogs, such as community protection notices or criminal behaviour orders, which allow the courts to ban people from owning or breeding dogs, or to require dogs to be neutered—a whole suite of other policies applies there.

My hon. Friend asks whether I am willing to meet him and the RSPCA, and of course I am, although the area is the responsibility of my noble friend Lord de Mauley, so he might well take that meeting on my behalf or with me. Nevertheless, I thank my hon. Friend for an important debate.

Oral Answers to Questions

George Eustice Excerpts

Thursday 10th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

6. What recent assessment he has made of the provision of food aid in the UK.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (George Eustice)]

The provision of food aid ranges from small, local provision to regional and national schemes. There are no official figures for the number of food aid organisations or the number of people using them in the UK. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has commissioned research to assess publicly available evidence on food aid provision in the UK, and that work will be made available in due course.

[Alex Cunningham]

I congratulate the Minister on his appointment. In the past year, several new food banks have been opened in my constituency and the neighbouring constituency of Stockton South by excellent organisations such as A Way Out and the New Life church. Some are supported directly by the Trussell Trust, which states that the number of people relying on food banks has gone up from 41,000 to 350,000 since this Government came to power. What does the Minister think has caused that explosion in demand?

[George Eustice]

There are a number of complicated reasons for those changes and nobody is quite sure. That is one of the reasons we commissioned this report. The use of food banks has been going up for some time, and it also increased dramatically under the previous Government. This is a good example of the big society in action, and we are seeing some good organisations stepping up to help people.

[Luciana Berger]

I welcome the Minister to his new post, but I hope he will have time to refer to the facts and figures of the matter. Under this Government, the use of food banks has rocketed, and I hope he will read carefully the report from Oxfam and Church Action on Poverty that came out in May and shows that, this year alone, half a million people will access emergency food aid. I think that is a national disgrace. Does the Minister agree?

[George Eustice]

As I said, the reasons for the increase are complicated. The hon. Lady asks about the facts and figures, so let us look at them. The accepted way to measure household expenditure on food is by looking at the bottom 20%. We know that in 2008, when the previous Government were in power, the lowest 20%—the most disadvantaged households—spent 16.8% of their income on food. That figure is now 16.6%. If we look at the facts, spending on food as a percentage of household income for the most disadvantaged is no more than it was in 2007.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the provision of food banks in this country should be seen in the light of the tenfold increase in food banks under the previous Government, and will he commend the work of the Coalville food bank in my constituency?

[George Eustice]

My hon. Friend makes a good point, and we must recognise that if we want to tackle poverty we must help people get back into work and off benefits. That is one reason why the Government’s welfare reforms are so important.

[Mr Gary Streeter (South West Devon) (Con)]

I welcome two west country colleagues to the Front Bench and wish them every success. Does my hon. Friend recognise that food banks have careful rules about how much food they give to people and how often they give it, to ensure that people do not become dependent on food parcels? Surely giving a helping hand in times of need is a very good thing indeed.

[George Eustice]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. Two food banks in my constituency do very good work, and, as I said earlier, that is an example of the big society in action. We should support that and welcome it.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

2. When he expects bovine tuberculosis in England to have been eradicated.

--- Later in debate ---

[Simon Wright (Norwich South) (LD)]

9. What steps he is taking to encourage responsible dog ownership.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (George Eustice)]

We have a robust package of measures to tackle irresponsible dog ownership and improve public safety. New powers will allow local authorities and the police to deal flexibly with local dog issues. There will be new legal protection against dog attacks on private property and stiffer penalties for those who let their dogs kill or injure someone.

[Mr Amess]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on his appointment. With my rescue pugs, Bo and Lily, about to take part in the Westminster dog of the year show, does my hon. Friend agree that I will be responsible for their behaviour—may God help me—just as all dog owners are responsible for the behaviour of their own dogs?

[George Eustice]

May I wish Bo and Lily the very best of luck in the Westminster dog of the year competition? I was told by my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes) earlier that his own dog, Cholmeley, will be there offering competition.

My hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Mr Amess) makes a very good point. I had a rescue dog—a border collie called Mono, and these dogs make for loving and dedicated companions. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that getting responsible dog owners is the way to get good dog behaviour.

[Mr Speaker]

No doubt we will hear about the dog enthusiasms of Mr Andrew Stephenson.

[Andrew Stephenson]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I congratulate the Minister on his new position. Unfortunately, I do not have a dog, so I cannot enter one into the competition.

As for dog attacks, my own mother was attacked in the run-up to local elections by a dog on private property. As the Minister will be aware, around 70% of dog attacks on postal workers occur on private property. What effect does the Minister think the extension of the criminal offence of allowing a dog to be dangerously out of control on private property will have on all those whose jobs depend on visiting people’s homes?

[George Eustice]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. Volunteers in my own constituency, too, have experienced dog attacks. For the first time, this measure will give hard-working people such as postal workers and others who visit homes as part of their job the full protection of the law when they are confronted by an out-of-control dog. This Government support hard-working people—not just in words, but in deed.

[Simon Wright]

The ease with which puppies can be traded on the internet is bringing more and more poorly looked after and sometimes dangerous dogs into the community. Will the Minister update us on what progress has been made to ensure that animal welfare and responsible ownership are promoted when puppies are made available for sale online?

[George Eustice]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. My noble Friend Lord de Mauley recently met members of the Pet Advertising Advisory Group and they discussed a voluntary code to improve standards of internet advertising. Officials have looked at the problem of illegal puppies being imported through our ports—an area in respect of which I intend to have further meetings in the weeks ahead.

[Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)]

The hon. Member for Southend West (Mr Amess) will be pleased to know that my rescue German shepherd dog, Diesel, is not taking part in the competition this year. However, on a serious point, one way in which dog owners can act more responsibly is to make sure that they do not buy puppies from industrial puppy farms, which are often sold through pet shops or online and too often result in dog rescue centres bursting at the seams with the numbers of puppies and older dogs in them. Will the Minister agree to meet me and dog rescue charities—Marc Abraham has done a lot of work in this area—to look at how we address the disgraceful issue of industrial puppy farms?

[George Eustice]

I commend the work the hon. Gentleman has done on this issue. I know he hosted a recent meeting on the subject in Parliament, which I attended. I would indeed be happy to meet him about the problem. We all know that part of the problem with out-of-control dogs stems from them not being raised or socialised properly in the first six months of their lives. That is why we need to look at the issue of the responsibility of dog breeders. We should remember that good laws are already in place requiring those breeding puppies for sale to have a licence from the local authority. We need to ensure that that is enforced more widely.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

Will the Minister explain why he is ignoring all the dog charities and other agencies, including the RSPCA, the Royal College of Nursing and the police, and is not introducing dog control notices in the forthcoming Bill?

[George Eustice]

I have considered the issue carefully, and have concluded that, far from being more limited than the Scottish-style dog control notices, the community protection notices proposed by the Government have more scope and are more flexible. This week we have published guidance for practitioners. I think that there is concern not because the proposals for community protection notices are not good enough, but because there is not yet enough understanding of how they can be used.

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

11. Regrettably I have no four-legged friend entered in the House of Commons dog show today—[Hon. Members: “Aah!”] I know, I know. Also regrettably, the number of dangerous dog attacks on guide and assistance dogs—which cost £50,000 to train—is rising. What steps might my hon. Friend take to increase the sentences that are handed down for such attacks?

[George Eustice]

That is a very good point, which has also been raised by the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee. In the summer, we consulted on proposals to increase the maximum penalties for dog attacks on people and assistance dogs. Such attacks can have a devastating effect on the victims. Attacks on assistance dogs can cause them to lose their confidence and become unable to help their owners. We are currently considering what sentences would be appropriate for such attacks.

[Julie Elliott (Sunderland Central) (Lab)]

7. What plans he has to protect consumers from excessive rises in water bills.

--- Later in debate ---

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

A National Audit Office report today shows the response to the horsemeat scandal was hampered by confusion caused by the coalition Government splitting the Food Standards Agency’s responsibilities in 2010. It also raises concerns over the reductions in food testing, public analysts and local officers working on food law enforcement since this Government came to power. So will Ministers now accept their share of responsibility—or is this the fault of the badgers?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (George Eustice)]

The Department will look at this report from the NAO and study its recommendations very carefully, but I have to say there is no evidence that the division of the FSA’s role has contributed to this, and, more importantly, we have appointed Professor Chris Elliott to look at this whole issue in great detail and his report will be key.

[Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)]

T5. Given the importance of exports to the country’s economic recovery, what is my right hon. Friend doing to help producers and exporters open up foreign markets?

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

T2. My constituents who work at Tate & Lyle have been very appreciative of the Secretary of State’s efforts to secure a level playing field for cane sugar refiners in the European market. His former ministerial team were very diligent on this issue. I welcome his new team and wonder whether he can reassure the House that they will be equally determined on this issue.

[George Eustice]

I can, indeed, give the right hon. Gentleman that reassurance. The EU sugar regime is one of the most distorting parts of the common agricultural policy, and we had great success in negotiating the removal of sugar beet quotas in 2017. However, he rightly says that we need now to take those trade barriers down, and time is of the essence. We are therefore pushing the European Commission to ensure that all opportunities to secure additional trade concessions are taken at the earliest opportunity.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

T6. The Secretary of State will recall the petition I sent him that was collected by Climate Friendly Bradford on Avon; more than 1,000 Wiltshire residents were calling for a charge on single-use plastic carrier bags. How will the Minister ensure that neither the Chancellor nor the supermarkets cling on to the cash it collects?

--- Later in debate ---

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

T7. Whether or not the Government see sense next week and accept our amendments on dog control notices, that will not resolve all the issues relating to dangerous dogs, including controlling breeding, and ensuring that puppies are properly socialised and that children and adults are educated about dog ownership. Does the Minister agree that we still need a full dog welfare and control Bill?

[George Eustice]

Actually, I do not agree. There are lots of bits of legislation covering many areas, but the laws are in place. We need to ensure that they are better understood, which is why we have published guidance this week pointing out what community protection notices can do and how they can be used by practitioners.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[George Eustice]

I know that the issue is important for my hon. Friend and I would be more than happy to meet her and others affected by the decision.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

Wildlife Crime

George Eustice Excerpts

Thursday 10th October 2013 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (George Eustice)]

I am grateful to the Liaison Committee and to the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Joan Walley), who is the Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee, for securing this debate. It is a shame that it has taken so long to secure it. She explained to me earlier that part of the reason for that was that, with the summer recess coming, it was not easy to get a slot. She also made the point that it took the Government some time to respond to the Committee’s report. I am able to say that that was nothing to do with me, because I was not in the Government at the time. However, what I can say—a number of people have said this already—is that my predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon), was absolutely passionate about these issues, so I do not think anyone should read into that delay that there was any lack of interest in the issue of wildlife crime on his part.

As we have heard, wildlife crime is a matter that we all care deeply about. Hon Members are quite right to seek reassurance about what the Government are doing to tackle the issue. Efforts to tackle wildlife crime have moved forward hugely in the last 10 years, thanks to the commitment and enthusiasm of successive Governments, the enforcement agencies and the many non-governmental organisations that willingly share their expertise and experience. We should take a moment to reflect on what has already been achieved, and to put on record our appreciation of the contribution that has been made by everyone who has been involved. Their work has helped to make the UK the envy of many countries around the world on this issue.

The range and nature of the evidence submitted to the Committee’s inquiry—we heard from the Chair of the Committee that there were 57 submissions—showed how interested people are in this issue, and there was a range of perspectives. As the Chair of the Committee said, the threat from the international wildlife trade has come into sharper focus this year. I welcome hon. Members’ support for the action that the Government are taking to work with the international community to tackle this issue. The increasing levels of elephant and rhino poaching, and of illegal trade globally, are indeed very worrying. They not only threaten individual species but governance, national security and development goals.

The Chair of the Committee said that the illegal wildlife trade is the fifth biggest criminal activity globally. The figures that I have been given suggest that it is now the third biggest, behind only drugs and people trafficking. It has now been categorised by the UN as a serious organised crime. As many hon. Members have already alluded to, as part of our commitment to tackling this trade we will host a conference in London on 13 February 2014 to galvanise international efforts to tackle wildlife crime and to secure top-level global political commitment on this issue. In the run-up to the conference—

[Caroline Lucas]

Perhaps I will pre-empt what the Minister was about to say, but I wanted to pick up on the point that the Chair of the Committee made earlier about the London conference, which we all welcome. Can the Minister assure us that in addition to Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Ministers and officials being there and taking a lead as we would expect they would—we know the Minister’s commitment—will he ensure that the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice will play an absolutely key role at the conference too, because unless they are also on board I fear that we will not see the positive outcome that we all want?

[George Eustice]

I was about to go on to say that, although I cannot say exactly which Departments will be represented at the conference, in the run-up to it the Government are collaborating closely with other countries, the royal household, multilateral organisations and major NGOs to agree a way forward and to reach a consensus on the required outputs from the conference.

A number of Members have spoken in the debate. My hon. Friends the Members for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) and for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) spoke passionately about the problems of the ivory trade; it is clear that there is a very strong feeling about this issue. The Chair of the Committee asked specifically what the Government’s negotiating position on this issue was when it was discussed at the convention on international trade in endangered species conference. I must be honest; being so new to the job, I will have to write to her specifically to set out the precise position that we took. However, looking at the Government’s response to the Committee’s report I know that they obviously touched on some of these issues and made it absolutely clear that we want to maintain the existing ban on raw ivory, although they also highlight that there is a slight difference with some of the antique ivories, which tend to predate 1947; indeed, they are required to predate 1947. There is a slight difference there, but I will write to her to clarify precisely the position that was taken.

[Joan Walley]

I am sure that our Committee would welcome a formal response setting out that position. However, some of the evidence that we received suggested that the Government’s position might not make any difference to the reduction, or growth, of the particular species that we are talking about. So, before he writes that letter, may I ask him to have a second look at the evidence that we received and accordingly base his reply on that evidence?

[George Eustice]

Given the strength of feeling on this issue—there are Members who have already made that point—we will indeed look at that and we will get back, in detail, on it.

I remember that when I was given this job my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park sent me a text message saying that he needed to talk to me about elephants. Now I know what that meant and we are talking about it for the first time here. The Government have been a major contributor to the African Elephant Fund, which funds the African elephant action plan, agreed by all the countries that have African elephants. The first objective of that plan is a reduction in the illegal killing of elephants and illegal trade in their parts or derivatives. There is certainly a commitment on the part of the Government. I welcome and respect the passion that my hon. Friend has brought to that element of the debate.

The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North talked about problems of raptor persecution. A number of hon. Members mentioned hen harriers in particular and problems relating to those. The persecution of birds of prey is of grave concern. Although many of our birds of prey are doing well, their persecution is not acceptable. We remain committed to addressing the illegal killing of birds of prey. Persecution can take many forms, such as poisoning, shooting and deliberate destruction of nests, and it is totally unacceptable.

Bird of prey persecution remains one of the UK’s wildlife crime priorities and we will continue to work to ensure that we take the right steps to take enforcement action in respect of any offences being committed. DEFRA is working with the police and other stakeholders who are best placed to help facilitate a reduction in bird of prey persecution. The group working on this has been looking at types of offence that occur and, earlier this year, established maps that show where incidents of bird of prey poisoning have taken place. This will help detect to trends and inform decisions on where action might be targeted.

A main focus of our efforts will be the hen harrier, populations of which in England are critically low. No nests appear to have been successful this year. Hon. Members commented on the number of hen harriers. There are some breeding pairs in Scotland. Although full details are not available, there are apparently 12 breeding pairs in England and many more in Scotland and Wales. Persecution is regularly cited as a reason for failure for the hen harrier population to grow, so considering how enforcement tools can be best used to protect it is an important strand of work in assisting its recovery in England. Let me assure hon. Members that there is a robust legal framework for protecting birds of prey in England, with penalties including imprisonment for offenders.

There is almost universal agreement—the Committee’s report contained a strong recommendation for it—on recognition for the important work of the national wildlife crime unit. I recognise and appreciate the huge contribution that the unit makes to wildlife law enforcement, both in the UK and internationally. The unit is small, but its impact is big. It has helped raise awareness of wildlife crime and provided professional expertise and support for wildlife law enforcers across the UK, enhancing their ability to identify and tackle wildlife crime. It has also played an important part in a number of Interpol initiatives targeting particular species groups and has lent its expertise to and assisted in global efforts to conserve those species most at threat from illegal international trade. It clearly has strengths and expertise that would contribute to the UK’s response, which is another reason why we need to reach a decision on the future of the unit as soon as possible.

The hon. Lady asked specifically about the Association of Chief Police Officers head of the NWCU, wanting to know who has taken on the role. I am told that it is currently in the hands and under the leadership of acting Chief Constable Bernard Lawson from Cumbria, who took on the role temporarily from Chief Constable Hyde. A new head of wildlife crime for ACPO will take on the role permanently, once they are appointed.

The Committee recommended that long-term funding for the unit should be secured and the Government have confirmed that funding will be provided until the end of March next year. Many hon. Members agree strongly with the Committee—I have listened carefully to the points made, including by the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner)—about the importance of securing funding for it. I understand the frustration with the fact that it has not been possible to do that so far.

The funding is not as straightforward as it might appear. Hon. Members will be aware that the unit is currently co-funded by DEFRA, the Home Office, the Scottish Government, the Northern Ireland Government, ACPO and the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland. All these bodies are considering their position on the future of the unit and recognise how important it is that we come to a decision as soon as we can. We will advise the House as soon as a decision has been made.

The shadow Minister mentioned possession of pesticides, particularly in the context of harrier populations. The Committee raised this concern in its report. Specifically, there is concern about possession of carbofuran and other pesticide ingredients and whether we should follow the Scottish example and the approach taken there. The Committee recommended that possession of such chemicals should be an offence. I am grateful to hon. Members for raising this today, as it gives me an opportunity to clear up this matter.

The hon. Gentleman says that it is legal to store these chemicals, but not to use them. However, the advice that I have been given is that approvals for the use of pesticide containing carbofuran were revoked in 2001, which means that the advertisement, sale, supply, storage or use of carbofuran is already a criminal offence under existing UK legislation. Therefore we do not need to change the law. We simply need to recognise that it is already illegal to store it.

[Barry Gardiner]

Of course, this is not only about carbofuran, but about a range of other chemicals that can be used to poison wildlife, not just hen harriers. I agree that it is not necessary to change the law. There is a perfectly sensible provision, under the NERC Act, that would allow a list of chemicals to be drawn up that can be, and are being, used in this way. The Scottish experience shows that by putting chemicals on that list and applying the law, and then successfully enforcing it and prosecuting people, it is possible to target the criminals who are doing this.

[George Eustice]

I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point—I probed it when looking into this issue—but approval for the majority of pesticides linked to wildlife poisoning cases has been revoked, or they have never been approved for use. Carbofuran tends to be, as it were, the weapon of choice for those who want to poison these birds. It is already illegal under existing pesticides legislation. This legislation, together with the use of amnesty initiatives in place in some areas, already addresses this issue. Therefore there is no need to create a new offence.

[Barry Gardiner]

I appreciate the Minister’s engaging in a dialogue on this point. If prosecutions were taking place under the existing proscription of these chemicals, we would be more confident that the law was effective in stopping their being used for poisoning wildlife. Given that that is not so, and that the Minister will accept that they are still being used to poison wildlife—not just carbofuran, but the other ones I listed—perhaps it does make sense to put them on the list under NERC.

[George Eustice]

If, as the hon. Gentleman says, there is a low conviction rate for the illegal use of these chemicals, that suggests a difficulty in or lack of enforcement, not that the law is falling short in allowing prosecution. There is no material difference between being able to find that somebody is storing a chemical or having it hidden away in the garage or a farm shed and their having possession of it. Therefore that would not change the ability to get convictions on this front.

The Committee recommended that the Government introduce a new offence in England of vicarious liability—mentioned by the shadow Minister and other hon. Members—following the Scottish Government’s decision to introduce the offence in January 2012. The Law Commission has been considering the issue further as part of its wildlife law project. I understand that the commission will publish a report shortly setting out its conclusions following consultation, which will include its views on whether to introduce an offence of vicarious liability. It would probably be prudent to await that report before commenting further.

The Committee also recommended that the national wildlife crime unit be directed and funded to develop a wildlife crime database of incidents reported to the police and of prosecutions. Although I can see why the Committee made that recommendation, recording that information alone is not the answer. To better understand the nature of wildlife crime being committed across the UK, the unit works with Government Departments, police force intelligence bureaux and scientific and other organisations to produce an intelligence-based assessment of current, emerging and future wildlife crime threats, with recommendations for action. That approach ensures the best use of the unit’s time and resources and focuses attention firmly on intelligence, which is consistent with modern policing procedures and practices. I am concerned that if we diverted the unit’s efforts into developing a database, it might take effort and resources away from intelligence and the pursuit of leads.

The unit launched a new website in June 2013 that contains lots of useful information and background, and it is already proving to be a useful resource and source of information. I hope that hon. Members who take an interest in wildlife crime will look at that website, because it helps to share information.

The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North mentioned the rather technical issue of the proposed changes to the COTES regulations and asked specifically when that is likely to be concluded. There is an ongoing consultation, and the tweaks to the COTES regulations are quite technical. We had initially hoped to conclude at some point this year, but since then there have been additional EU directives that the consultation must take into account. As a result, we expect the consultation to be published some time in 2014. The consultation, nevertheless, is under way, which I hope reassures her.

As I draw to a close, I once again thank the hon. Lady for introducing this debate. I also thank all the hon. Members for their thoughtful contributions. Wildlife law enforcement is of course a wide-ranging issue. The law is sometimes complex and overlapping, arising as it does from international, European and domestic legislation. There will always be a balance to be struck, for example, between what we can achieve and where best to focus our combined energies and commitment to deliver the greatest benefit, and I suspect we will never all agree on where our activity should focus. I am absolutely convinced, however, that this is an area where we cannot reduce our effort and where we must continue to work together in partnership.

The UK has a good story to tell on its approach to wildlife law enforcement, and our general approach is widely respected across Europe and internationally. We absolutely cannot be complacent, however, and although the Government cannot accept all the Committee’s recommendations, we welcome the Committee’s interest and engagement in this matter.

Beef Cattle and Sheep (Carbon Footprint)

George Eustice Excerpts

Wednesday 26th June 2013 Westminster Hall

[George Eustice (Camborne and Redruth) (Con)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. Like me, he was a farmer before first entering the House and as farmers we are used to getting the blame for a lot of things. There are certainly environmental consequences to certain farming practices, but does he share my disbelief that farmers are in the dock for—of all things—causing climate change and being responsible for it, given that we all know that the real problems with carbon come from the transport sector, energy generation and general industrialisation rather than from farming?

[Neil Parish]

My hon. Friend and I should probably both declare an interest; I should certainly do so as I am a farmer, and proud to be so. He is absolutely right, because what we have with methane gas from ruminants in particular is a very natural gas. It may come out perhaps too much for people’s liking, but it is very much there. We are taking lower-quality proteins—I had better be careful what I say—and developing them into high-quality meat. Therefore, the animal is doing a great deal of good, and I want to balance the amount of methane gas that the animals might produce compared with the amount of carbon that is kept in the land. I repeat the fact that if we do not keep that land as permanent pasture and plough it up, we will release an awful lot of carbon.

Farmers feel that the real basis of livestock farming is almost under threat. The whole idea of this report is perhaps to try to flag up in advance where the world might go to in a few years’ time, and that scenario is what I am particularly keen to avoid. People need to know the benefits of livestock farming.

I will move on to the next paragraph of the report. Food security is one of the most pressing issues for Governments across the world. By 2050, the global population is estimated to reach 9 billion, and food production will need to increase to meet growing demand. However, that has to be achieved using the existing agricultural land, while making more efficient use of water and mitigating the existing and future impact of farming on the environment.

The challenge is no less great on the home front, with the UK population set to increase by 10 million in the next quarter of a century alone and after the percentage of agricultural land in the UK fell from 39% in 1989 to some 25% in 2009. This means maximising the value of available land, by getting the best possible outcomes in terms of food production. British agricultural land comprises many different land types, and not all are suitable for the production of arable crops. This point was eloquently made by the food climate research network in its evidence to the all-party group:

“Not all land can support crop production and the question then arises—what should be done with this poorer quality, more marginal land? Traditionally the answer has been to graze ruminants which then provide us with meat, milk and other outputs. This represents a form of resource efficiency—the land is being used to produce food that would otherwise need to be produced elsewhere”

That is particularly important.

Almost 65% of UK farmland is only suitable for growing grass where sheep and cattle are grazed. We should be utilising this marginal land, which cannot be used for arable crops but can grow good grass and provide good biodiversity and environmental benefits. Beef cattle and sheep play a vital role in food production, because of their ability to turn non-human food into edible proteins and nutrients. Limiting the role of British livestock will reduce the efficiency with which we use our land for food production and will therefore reduce our ability to be self-sufficient.

These points are often neglected, or at least not adequately considered, by those who advocate meat-free diets. If, for argument’s sake, we were all to switch to a diet free of meat, much of our agricultural land would be unfarmed and we would see a considerable drop in the efficiency of our land to food conversion, in addition to the negative impacts on biodiversity, as outlined above.

When the developing world is eating more meat, and choosing to do so, there is a greater need to produce meat across the world. Therefore, Britain should do its fair share of meat production, and grazing both sheep and cattle on grassland is essential, in my view. Grazing cattle and sheep are often given disproportionate blame for carbon emissions from agriculture, and there is not enough recognition among some conservation groups of the role that livestock farming, particularly of grass-fed beef and lamb, plays in storing carbon, protecting biodiversity and utilising marginal land that cannot be used for arable crops.

I thank you for listening to this debate, Mrs Brooke, and open it to colleagues to join in.

Dog Control and Welfare

George Eustice Excerpts

Thursday 13th June 2013 Westminster Hall

[George Eustice (Camborne and Redruth) (Con)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak, Mr Turner, and I am sorry that I was a few minutes late.

I was keen for the Select Committee to look at this issue, because there has been a sharp increase in the number of problems associated with so-called status dogs. The number of people hospitalised as a result of dog attacks has doubled—it went from around 3,000 as recently as 1997 to well in excess of 6,000 in 2010. That is a real problem, and I welcome many of the measures that the Government have introduced to date, all of which have been referred to already.

The decision to have compulsory microchipping and the strengthening of that proposal have been important, and I welcome the decision to make an attack on an assistance dog an aggravated offence—I agree that that is an important step forward. It is also right to make a dog attack on someone an offence, whether on private or public property.

My only concern is the possible final unintended consequences of such legislation, which we need to think about. I hope that the courts will have wide discretion to take into account individual cases. For example, a couple of border collies could be working dogs on a remote farm, running loose most of the day, but they might nip someone who is not trespassing and who might even be delivering a political leaflet. The implication of that becoming a dreadful offence might be that dogs would have to be locked up all day because someone canvassing for a political party might come round once every couple of years. We must be careful and give some discretion to the courts.

I want to focus most of my comments on dog breeders. My one concern about community protection notices is that there is too much emphasis on irresponsible behaviour by dog owners and the dog is treated as though it were an accessory to antisocial behaviour and crime in the same way as a knife or baseball bat might be.

As the hon. Member for Bolton West (Julie Hilling) said and as I have stressed, the issue is not as simple as that. So much about how a dog behaves and whether it is unpredictable and likely to bite someone depends on whether it was socialised in the first few months when it was a puppy and whether it was cared for properly. If it was brutalised in those first few months, it will never be right, however responsible the current owner might be.

The evidence from dog charities, such as Battersea Dogs Home, was very clear. Many of the dogs they receive were bought as puppies from a disreputable breeder who did not raise them properly. It might be a mastiff, and a year down the line the buyer finds that they have a huge dog that they cannot control. They do not know what to do with it so they abandon it and leave it on the streets.

Many dogs that go to charities have been abandoned by people who bought puppies from disreputable breeders and then did not know what to do with them, so abandoned them. That is a real problem; so many of those dogs end up being destroyed because their experience as puppies means that they are completely unsuitable to be rehomed with families.

As hon. Members have said, we recommended that one way of dealing with the problem was to change legislation so that the maximum number of litters that a hobby breeder could breed before having to be licensed with a local authority was reduced from five a year to two. The Government rejected that, and I want to press the Minister on the current position. Our understanding was that a hobby breeder could breed up to five litters a year. That is a lot of dogs; an irresponsible hobby breeder could send 50 dogs into the outside world and cause problems.

In their response, the Government thanked the Committee

“for the opportunity to clarify the legislation on dog breeding”

and said:

“The Government would like to stress that anyone in the business of selling dogs, which is anyone that a local authority justly believes to be trading must be licensed”

and that is the case whether it is five litters or even one litter. I am interested in what the phrase

“in the business of selling dogs”

means. Does it mean anyone who sells a dog? Does it mean that if someone breeds one litter of puppies and gives five away to friends but sells three, they would have to register because they had sold a dog? Does it mean someone who earns their full-time income in that way, or a part-time income, and is there an income threshold? Does it mean that someone receiving more than £500 from puppy sales must be licensed, but not if they receive less than that? The figure is vague and I would like to know what the phrase means. If there was clarity and someone breeding fewer than two litters would be a hobby breeder and exempt, but those breeding more than two litters would automatically be caught, that would remove the vagueness. That is important, and I would welcome the Minister’s comments.

After the publication of the report, I met some dog wardens who raised various issues with me. They said that the most important one was that doing what I suggested and reducing the threshold from five to two litters would be for the birds because they did not have the resources or powers to carry out the necessary surveillance to pick up such breeders. When I pressed them on how much such work they do, the answer was, “Not a great deal.” We must not delude ourselves into thinking that this simple tweak in the legislation would solve the problem.

Those wardens said that one obstacle to their looking into such problems is the difficulty, bureaucracy and complexity of obtaining the relevant authorisation from the right authorities to carry out surveillance on people they suspect of running illegal puppy farms. They said that what usually happens is that the police or a local authority decide to conduct surveillance on a household for some other reason—suspected cannabis growing, selling of drugs or dealing illegally in something else—and only incidentally do they find out that dogs are being illegally bred and sold, and that there is a business in dogs that is not properly licensed.

An interesting area that we did not look at in our last inquiry, and which I hope the Government will take on board, is whether more should be done to ensure that local authorities have the necessary powers to hand to obtain such authorisation, so that they can carry out surveillance and catch people engaged in back-street puppy farms, which are causing so many problems, as other hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Bolton West, made so clear.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Heath]

I most certainly will. I have the unprecedented benefit of having rather longer than usual to reply to the debate. I hoped that I was making use of it to provide the answers that hon. Members wanted, so I apologise to my hon. Friend if I was taking too long to get to the issue he raised. I have one more thing to discuss first, if I may—dog breeding—because it was raised by a number of hon. Members.

It is absolutely right that breeding is a key element of education, apart from anything else, which is exactly the point made by the hon. Member for Ogmore. People must know, first of all, what is and is not appropriate, and the consequences of breeding puppies. Buyers also need to know whether they are buying a breed that needs a 5-mile run every morning, so they do not keep it in a flat on the 17th floor. They need to know—the hon. Gentleman will know—how adorable a Jack Russell might or might not be before they buy one, and what special requirements it might have.

A sort of ignorant cruelty can be involved when people buy the wrong breed of dog in the wrong circumstances and then find that they cannot manage it. That is sad, because they probably bought the dog for unimpeachable reasons—they love the look of the dog and its nature—but they simply cannot look after it. Education is important.

Another important point was raised by the Committee and my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth about the threshold for needing a licence. I would love to be able to give him an absolutely explicit response, so that he could say, “Yes, that’s the answer.” It is not as simple as that, as is so often the case with licensing. Although there is a five-litter cut-off for what is, in any circumstances, considered a business, it is for the local authority to determine who is in the business of breeding and selling dogs when it comes to smaller numbers of litters a year.

There is no definitive term that has the sanction of statutory law behind it; it is for the courts to agree or not agree with the local authority. Actually, there are a variety of circumstances in which that sort of decision comes before the court: there is a degree of flexibility, and trading standards officials must satisfy the court that what they are dealing with is a business in the legislative sense. One litter produced in a 12-month period is unlikely to be considered a business; five litters almost certainly will be, but local authorities have a number of tests that they are asked to apply to determine whether somebody is trading. I will not go into them now, because that is for another Department to determine, but those are the criteria used, and they have the support of case law, if not statute law, in deciding whether somebody falls into that category.

I do not know whether I have satisfied my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth; I suspect that I have not, because it is a vague response. If he is not satisfied, I ask him to talk to his local trading standards officials about whether they feel they have the right legal criteria in place to do their job.

[George Eustice]

The point I was making is that there would be clarity if the number was simply two litters. Local authorities could work to that. The situation that the Minister outlined means that if a local authority has concerns about a breeder producing three litters a year, it must then go through a legal process. The breeder could use as a defence the fact that there were fewer than five litters. Then there is an expensive, difficult legal process, which does not incentivise local authorities to enforce standards in those areas.

[Mr Heath]

I do not think that it would be a defence to say that there were fewer than five litters. It would be about the circumstances of the breeding programme and the puppies being put on sale. I hear what my hon. Friend says. I will take the matter back to my hon. Friends in Departments with responsibility for that area to see whether clarification is necessary.

My hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds set out clearly why he is concerned about the canine and feline sector council. Let me be absolutely clear that it is not a Government organisation; it is independent of Government. I hope that immediately sets some of his concerns to rest. However, as an independent sectoral body, it could be a useful vehicle that pulls together the views of the sector and feeds them into the Animal Health and Welfare Board for England, which again is not a regulatory body. It simply provides advice for Ministers from the perspective of the users of welfare legislation in the widest sense. Therefore, what we are talking about is not a regulatory or a policy formation body, but a conduit for information, hopefully with the benefit of proper discussion within the sector.

The Kennel Club is one of the bodies represented, and the Dog Advisory Council, which my hon. Friend mentioned, has been invited on to the sector council. I hope that Sheila Crispin will take part, because I would certainly like her views as well. The one thing I stress again is that this is not a regulatory body set up for the purposes of excluding anybody or indeed including one sector to the disbenefit of others. I hope that satisfies my hon. Friend.

Agricultural Wages Board

George Eustice Excerpts

Wednesday 24th April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mary Creagh]

That was a good effort from the right hon. Lady. The HSE will clearly continue to exist, but I am citing a case that happened last year, not at some other point in time. I ask her whether she thinks that conditions will get worse or better when the AWB is abolished.

[George Eustice (Camborne and Redruth) (Con)]

The Agricultural Wages Board existed when that case came to light, so it clearly did not create the defence that the hon. Lady suggested it might.

[Mary Creagh]

The question for the hon. Gentleman is whether conditions will get worse or better when the provisions are removed. Will they be better or worse for a worker who does not have a bed guaranteed for their sole use? Opposition Members already know of conditions in which people are hot-bedding. Is that what we want to see in our farming industry? I certainly do not, and I am sure that the majority of farmers do not, but there will now be no legal requirement for an individual to have their own bed. I think that that is wrong; does the hon. Gentleman?

The AWB was set up by the Attlee Government in 1948. Even Mrs Thatcher did not abolish it. She understood that if someone’s home comes with their job, they are in a uniquely weak negotiating position with their employer. However, last week’s Bill ended nearly 100 years of protection for farm workers. In the Labour party, we believe that the people who pick the fruit should also be able to buy it in the shops, and not have to rely on food banks to feed themselves and their children. As many farmers themselves have said, in their responses to the consultation, this decision will not secure a stable and prosperous future for the food and farming industry or for those who work in it. The Prime Minister once said that we were all in it together, but time after time, ordinary working people are first in his firing line. If Members want a rural living wage, they should vote with the Labour party this afternoon. If they are happy with poverty pay for their constituents, they should vote with the Government.

--- Later in debate ---

[George Eustice (Camborne and Redruth) (Con)]

I worked in the farming industry for 10 years and was involved in this debate when the issue was last discussed some 20 years ago—I will come back to that in a moment. It is worth noting—this has been alluded to by some, including the Secretary of State—that in the early ’90s, all other remaining wage councils and wages boards were scrapped. There was no rationale for them. Some 26 remained in about 1993, and all were abolished. Many covered sectors such as hotels, catering, retail, hairdressing and clothing manufacturing, but as the Secretary of State said, there were also some rather odd-looking boards such as those for the ostrich and fancy feather industry, or rope and net manufacturers. One has only to read lists of some of the industries to which the boards applied to realise that the whole concept is anachronistic and out of date.

[Andrew George]

I should have said that, like my hon. Friend, I too was an agricultural worker and worked on our farm. He says that the agricultural sector is the one sector that has been left alone, but it is also the sector into which the Gangmasters Licensing Authority was introduced, which demonstrates that it requires some underpinning with regulation.

[George Eustice]

Equally, we could say that the introduction of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority deals with some of the working conditions problems that Opposition Members have highlighted in a way that makes the AWB ever more redundant.

To return to the 1993 debate, the then Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Gillian Shephard, held a consultation. A small number of us in the farming industry said that the AWB should go; that it was out of date and anachronistic; that farming should not be treated as a special case; and that the AWB read like something from the 1950s. It tended to be the larger, more forward-thinking farmers who took that view, led by a large salads company, the G’s group, which was run by Guy Shropshire. It was not one of my most successful campaigns. The Government had some 3,500 responses to the consultation, of which only 11 were in favour of abolition. I was one of those 11. That highlights the massive swing in opinion. Opposition Members have highlighted the current consultation, but 40% of people who responded to it have said that abolition is the right thing to do.

[Mr Henry Bellingham (North West Norfolk) (Con)]

I want quickly to comment on a point before my hon. Friend moves on. Surely gangs now have that protection. They are totally different from the average farm worker in East Anglia, where very often someone is in charge of £500,000-worth of equipment and on a very high wage, on a farm that 40 years ago might have employed 40 people, but now employs two people who are highly skilled, very responsible and well paid.

[George Eustice]

My hon. Friend is right and underlines my point that the GLA has made the AWB ever more redundant. Those at the bottom on those low incomes have new protections.

One big thing in this debate compared with the last one—it is important to recognise this—is that the National Farmers Union is on the right side. For once, it is saying that we should get rid of the AWB because it is out of date. In 1993, the NFU let down its members. David Naish, the then president, supported the retention of the AWB, and he was wrong to do so. The NFU board of directors at the time was out of touch and behind the curve, but the NFU now recognises that things need to change and fully supports and endorses the abolition of the AWB. If even the NFU supports the abolition of the AWB, it is time to act. Another big change since 1993 is, as many hon. Members have said, the introduction of the minimum wage, which is yet another measure that makes the AWB out of date and no longer necessary.

How does the AWB frustrate rather than improve career development in the agricultural sector? The most important thing is the huge lack of flexibility. The board is based on old-style wage grade rates dating from the ’60s and ’70s, and completely ignores the fact that, in the most progressive farm businesses, many people are paid a salary and have management responsibilities. The best farm businesses have profit shares and payment by results. Piece rates are increasingly used when people earn far in excess of the minimum wage rates. Those modern day pay practices are completely ignored by the agricultural wages order, which can frustrate the development of more progressive pay policies in the farming industry and keep it trapped in a 1950s mindset.

[Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

I am following the hon. Gentleman’s argument closely, but cannot understand why anyone would want to do away with the minimum. He suggests that, in many sectors of the agriculture industry, people are highly skilled and receive higher remuneration than would be set as a minimum by the AWB, but why argue for its abolition if it does not affect those people? Surely the AWB protects a group of people who do not receive such higher remuneration.

[George Eustice]

The group of people the hon. Gentleman is concerned about are protected by the minimum wage. That is already there and is set at roughly the same level as a grade 1 agricultural worker, so I do not think that that is an argument at all. What I am saying is that being too rigid can actually frustrate the development of more progressive pay policies.

The other point, which the Secretary of State touched on earlier—we had this in our farm business where some of the work was in pack houses—is that someone could be running a conveyor belt packing strawberries one minute and working in the field the next, with totally different wages rates applying. We ran a farm shop, in which different rates applied, even though there were sometimes shared staff.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

The hon. Gentleman states that this is a progressive pay policy. In the past 30 years, have a Conservative Government ever passed any legislation that has helped the working person, whether in terms of payment, work and conditions, or equality? Conservative Governments have never, ever advocated and voted for the rights of the working person.

[George Eustice]

I do not want this debate to get distracted, but even in the current Parliament the coalition Government have changed tax thresholds that help all working people, especially those on the lowest income.

Another problem with the rigid pay structure is that, as currently structured, it can discourage training and career development in small farm businesses. I will explain why. A small farmer might have two or three employees. He might not be able to afford to employ someone on grade 2, grade 3 or grade 4. He might not really have a need for those staff to be trained to those grades, but might nevertheless take the view that to aid the career development of a new employee—perhaps someone who has just left school and joined their business—he will give them time off work and support them in proficiency tests and training. At the moment, if they do that, the next thing that happens is that they suddenly have to pay that person more money. Is it not better if that person can develop and train, and has a farmer who wants to facilitate that, so that maybe, when a neighbouring farm needs somebody who has the proficiency test skills and a different type of skill set, they are able to progress and take a job that is higher paid in that neighbouring farm? The farmer will want that to happen; he will be happy to encourage somebody and see a career develop. At the moment, however, we are in a situation where the rigid grade structure discourages farmers from wanting to have their employees seek further training.

We have heard a lot in this debate, both from my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Andrew George) from my neighbouring constituency—we take different views on this, as people will have noticed—and others, about how difficult it is for farmers to negotiate with their staff, as if it is something that is dreadfully embarrassing and they cannot possibly do it. I reject that idea completely. Farmers, if they are still in business today, have to do all sorts of challenging things: they have to negotiate with people day in, day out; they have huge amounts of paperwork to deal with; and they have to negotiate and fight over the costs of their feeds, fuel bills and all sorts of things. The idea that they cannot sit down with the people they work with every day and have an intelligent conversation about their pay review is, frankly, ludicrous.

Farm businesses are no different from any other businesses. Even if they do not have to have discussions with their employees about pay rates, one can guarantee that there will still be times when they have to have discussions about people turning up for work late and staff who have problems at home and need some time off—all those sorts of issues. There is nothing different about farming. I was in the young farmers club in Cornwall with many of the farmers in my hon. Friend’s constituency. I know many of them and I can tell him that they are perfectly capable of having those conversations with their employees.

[Neil Carmichael]

I endorse what my hon. Friend is saying. I, too, was a farmer in the 1990s, and know that farmers can easily negotiate. It is also important to recognise that agriculture today is a modern industry that is moving forward, with added value products, retail sectors and so on. All of that is happening to farms, so we cannot anchor them down to something as archaic as the AWB. It is not just a floor, but potentially a ceiling—something to which my hon. Friend has referred.

[George Eustice]

My hon. Friend makes an incredibly good point. Farming has changed.

The biggest farm employer in St Ives is a firm called Winchester Growers, which does not receive subsidies like the large farmers and tends to rent land and employ lots of people. Quite often, young men who would have had farms themselves become managers and supervisors within such businesses and have a proper career structure, with profit options, share options—all sorts of things. It is very important that we modernise and move on. The AWB is a relic of the past. It is full of “bosses versus workers” rhetoric that is frankly 40 years out of date. It is right that it should go.

Oral Answers to Questions

George Eustice Excerpts

Thursday 7th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Richard Benyon]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. This matter was discussed at yesterday’s EA board meeting and we are in close touch with the EA and other organisations. There is a degree of confusion. That was brought out in the Pitt review. Some effort has been put in, and some progress has been made in addressing the problem, but I absolutely concede we are not there yet and there is still confusion about who is responsible and what the priorities are. We want to make sure that the priorities are protecting people and their properties and the environment.

[George Eustice (Camborne and Redruth) (Con)]

4. What recent representations his Department has received on tackling the problem of backstreet puppy farms and breeders.

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

In addition to a recent Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee report on dog control and welfare, my noble Friend the Under-Secretary, Lord de Mauley, has received a number of letters on the subject of puppy farms, irresponsible breeders and the internet advertising of dogs. The Animal Welfare Act 2006 provides the necessary powers for local authorities to investigate allegations of poor welfare among all dog breeders.

[George Eustice]

I am grateful for that answer. In the Committee’s recent inquiry, we received evidence that a contributory factor in respect of the problem of status dogs is the number of backstreet puppy breeders, because dogs are more likely to become aggressive and unmanageable if they are not socialised and cared for properly in the first few months. The law currently allows people to breed up to five puppy litters a year without licensing, but we recommended that the figure should be reduced to two. Will the Minister look carefully at that proposal?

[Mr Heath]

I have every sympathy with the reasoning behind the hon. Gentleman’s proposal, and I certainly deplore the irresponsible breeding of dogs. I can assure him that it is already the case that if a local authority considers that someone is in the business of breeding and selling dogs but they have produced fewer than five litters in a year, a licence would still be needed, and any dog-breeding establishment that produces five or more litters in a 12-month period will also need a licence regardless of whether it is considered to be in the business of breeding and selling dogs. Guidance on that was given to local authorities back in 1999, explaining precisely where those responsibilities lie.