Welfare of Laying Hens Directive

Huw Irranca-Davies Excerpts

Tuesday 13th December 2011 Westminster Hall

[Neil Parish]

I am sure the Minister will cover this matter in his summing up, because it relates to legal advice. As my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton said, one can get two or three lawyers in a room and have two or three opinions. I am interested to hear what the Minister has to say on legality.

I still maintain that we must look at the market; otherwise we will be left with inferior eggs produced under lower welfare standards. From a food point of view, there is probably nothing wrong with the eggs, but they are not compliant. We must ensure that they are driven down in price, so that it is uneconomic for farms to produce them across Europe, and in the end that becomes a matter of the market. If we can drive those prices down, so that those eggs are only worth half a grade A egg, it will not take too long. Farmers may be many things but they usually work out the law of economics, and they will soon find that it is uneconomic to produce those eggs, especially with the high cereal prices at the moment. That must be our main goal. I am happy to slate supermarkets when they do not get it right, but they have got it right in this instance.

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

The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful contribution to the debate. Assuming that the Minister will not say that he has found alternative legal advice and that we can have a unilateral ban, does the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) agree that it is right to have a live updated rolling register positively identifying those supermarkets that comply with the Minister’s request and, by implication, identifying those that do not? The only way to do this through a market as opposed to a legal mechanism is to name and shame, as mentioned by the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Glyn Davies). Let us recognise the good producers and processors and vilify those who do not maintain the highest standards of animal welfare and British food production.

[Neil Parish]

I could not agree more with the shadow Minister; it is a case of name and shame, and we need to know where the eggs have come from. I have looked at where all the beef, lamb and so on in supermarkets comes from. It would be good to discover not only the method by which the eggs have been produced, but where they have come from. I believe that the British public are more and more interested in where their food comes from and are keen that it is produced not only under higher welfare standards, but in this country. It would be a double-edged sword: we would look at not only non-compliant eggs, but where they were produced. That could be very good.

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

I will do my best to fill the available time, Mr Chairman, and will happily take interventions. This is a good chance to have a detailed debate.

I welcome the debate, and I genuinely congratulate the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh) on securing it, in her role both as a constituency MP and as Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee. I also congratulate the members of the Committee on making this very much a live issue. It should be attracting the attention of parliamentarians and the wider public, and I will consider in a moment how we should deal with the consumer and market issues. I also welcome the expert, knowledgeable and detailed way in which the hon. Lady introduced the debate, and I note—as the Minister will have done—the significant differences that have emerged between her, as Chair of the Committee, and the Government, even though their positions support each other in many ways.

I very much welcome the comments from other contributors, including the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford). Am I pronouncing the constituency name correctly?

[Dr Whiteford]

It is Buchan.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

Ah, it is a Welsh pronunciation, with the “ch” sound. I am dying to see how Hansard transcribes that. The hon. Lady mentioned the importance of recognising and rewarding good producers and the investment they have made, and that has been a common theme of the debate.

The hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) made a very good contribution about how UK producers’ investment should bear fruit, or at least produce good eggs. He was certainly supportive of the idea, and I saw nodding heads on both sides of the House, of clearly identifying which producers, processors, retailers, supermarkets and restaurants use not only good shell eggs but good liquefied and other processed eggs, and which do not. There is some scope for the Minister. We might have a way forward, together with the UK egg producers and the various representative organisations.

The hon. Member for Sherwood (Mr Spencer) spoke very well about his experience with free-range hens. My household has always had a few, just for our own consumption. It has been a long-standing tradition on our smallholding, but I cannot compete with the hon. Gentleman’s much more extensive expertise. He rightly pointed out that we could do a lot with the power of consumers and the markets, but we have a heck of a long way to go.

I draw parliamentarians’ attention to research by YouGov and the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. The RSPCA would like to go even further towards free range and away from any sort of caging, but it has done an interesting analysis, which the Minister might not be aware of because it has, I think, come out only in the past few days. It looked at people’s awareness of the legislation, and at their buying power as consumers; 69% of them wrongly assumed what the law would mean for hens and animal welfare. A further 19% had not heard about the legislation at all. A fifth wrongly assumed that all battery cages would now be banned; 8% thought that all hens would now be free range and 1% thought it was something to do with farmers having to play music to their hens. We have a long way to go, not only in working with the retail sector, including supermarkets, but in highlighting the issue to consumers so that they can genuinely drive change in the market, but that is not all that I shall talk about today.

[Glyn Davies]

I cannot allow that 1% figure about playing music to hens to pass without comment. I may be the only person here who has been a farmer, with 20,000 battery cages. It was unheard of not to play music. The whole point is that opening a door should not surprise the hens and make them jump around, so playing music in battery cages is common practice.

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[Huw Irranca-Davies]

I will not exhaust your attention, Mr Chairman, by asking what music the hon. Gentleman played. As an ex-punk, I think my taste in music might startle the hens, but I am glad to hear that music is played. Was it classical?

[Glyn Davies]

Springsteen.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

As we know, Council directive 1999/74/EC will make it illegal to have laying hens in conventional battery cages across the EU from 1 January 2012, after which date egg production will be allowed only in enriched colony or non-cage systems; for example, free range, barn or organic. We have heard today that Members on both sides of the House agree that that is appropriate, and there has been none of the discussion about gold-plating that we often have with EU regulations. The directive has been welcomed, both for animal welfare and for food production standards, and it might well benefit UK production and producers, if we can get it right. It is also good for the quality of the eggs and egg products that we eat every day. The significant problem is that not every EU nation will comply with the directive—13 of them will not—which poses enormous challenges for the UK egg industry. The industry’s response to the Minister’s written ministerial statement on 6 December 2011 was that it feels “totally let down” by Ministers on this important matter, and I want to look today at why it feels that way and at what must be done.

I compliment the UK egg industry on its responsible approach to the directive over a number of years, with investment in the region of £400 million to convert conventional cages to enriched ones. The capital cost of an enriched colony unit is between £20 and £24 per bird place, and the National Farmers Union has stated that for a producer with a medium-sized cage unit of about 100,000 birds the cost of erecting the new units is, on average, in excess of £2 million—not an insignificant amount. Free-range egg producers have also invested heavily in preparation for the directive, and that has been a draw on the industry, which, as has been mentioned, is a competitive market that does not receive EU support. The NFU has also stated that the majority of birds in the UK will be in enriched cages by January 2012, which is to be welcomed, and that all lion scheme producers will be converted in time.

A lot of work has been going on over recent years, with many people investing heavily to comply, but the problem is that the UK is not self-sufficient in eggs and egg products. We import 15% of our egg requirements, and valid concerns remain about whether imports from January 2012 onwards will come from EU nations that comply with the directive, and about the possible impact on the UK egg industry, including on prices. One of the industry’s fears is that prices will be driven down, with cheaper eggs and lower standards.

In a move that was openly welcomed by the UK egg industry, the Minister recently dangled the potential for a unilateral ban on eggs from EU nations that do not comply. However, in his statement last week, he decided that it was “not a realistic option”. Having raised that possibility, why can the Minister not now deliver it? It will leave many egg farmers feeling that he failed them.

What has the Minister delivered? He has given an unequivocal assurance that DEFRA and the devolved Administrations will enforce the conventional cage ban from 1 January 2012. I think that everybody in this debate will welcome that and how the industry, the devolved Administrations and DEFRA have risen to the challenge. He also stated that a risk-based surveillance scheme would be introduced to ensure that imported shell eggs from other member states produced in compliance with the cage ban would be in place from 1 January 2012. [Interruption.] He is nodding.

The Minister also said that Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency surveillance would be conducted on imports of shell eggs, using ultraviolet light analysis, to identify batches of caged eggs that are not from an enriched environment. However, he also acknowledged that due to the loophole in the egg marketing regulations, he could not prohibit the marketing of egg products from conventional cages sent for processing, nor could he prohibit the use of products made from such eggs. That is a significant loophole.

However, the Minister made the welcome announcement that retailers, food manufacturers, food service companies and processors have come out in public support of the UK egg industry. I do not make many puns in debates such as this, but those good eggs, reflecting earlier campaigns on the issue, are to be complimented on the steps that they have taken and will take. The British Retail Consortium, whose members include McDonald’s, Starbucks, the four major supermarkets and many other brand names, will ensure that they do not buy conventional caged eggs or use them in their products. Furthermore, he outlined that the Government would make necessary changes to the Government buying standards’ mandatory criteria to ensure that eggs produced in conventional cages are not used in any form, whether fresh, powdered or liquid.

After that seemingly wide-ranging set of measures, why does nobody in the industry seem happy? I suggest to the Minister that it may be a case of trying to look busy while failing to deliver the one thing that he strongly hinted was possible, a unilateral ban. The industry is now being overwhelmed with many different initiatives as a diversion. Perhaps they will forget the fact that they think they have been led up the garden path. It is a classic case of over-promising and under-delivering, which is never a good strategy.

[Sandra Osborne in the Chair]

The British Egg Industry Council says that the measures are not good enough and that the Government could have introduced a complete ban on all illegal products in the UK. Its chief executive, Mark Williams, said:

“The UK egg industry feels totally let down by the Government. Whilst we have received repeated platitudes of support from DEFRA, it has failed to back these up with any real action. Our legal advice has confirmed that the UK Government is able to enforce UK and EU law by banning illegal eggs and egg products, so why have they chickened out?”

That is his pun, not mine.

Although the National Farmers Union has welcomed the measures taken by Government, it has stated categorically that

“our members will certainly be bitterly disappointed that it has not been possible to take tougher action.”

One British egg farmer, Duncan Priestner, echoed the concerns of many, including the NFU, when he said this week that he feared some food producers would be tempted to buy eggs from illegal systems in Europe, because they will be cheaper. He said:

“It will drive down the prices that farmers get. Like the pig industry”,

which has been referred to,

“that will put us in a very difficult financial position."

[Mr Spencer]

The UK is clearly not the only country in the EU that will be compliant on 1 January. Does the shadow Minister know of any other Ministers in the European Union who will take unilateral action within their own country?

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

The hon. Gentleman raises a good point. I will come to that, if he will bear with me. There is a case, if not for unilateral action, then for doing what the Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee suggested and considering the possibility that like-minded countries might take multilateral action to enforce the EU directive much more rigorously and aggressively and in a joined-up way. There are like-minded countries out there. With my limited experience of EU negotiations, I suggest to the Minister that that is a fruitful way forward. We should be sitting down with those of the same mind and discussing how to work within the EU directive after 1 January. Even if we cannot do it unilaterally—I will ask about the legal advice in a moment—we could do it in a joined-up way with like-minded countries. As I have given him that forewarning, I am sure that he will be able to tell me what discussions are occurring.

The good work of the NFU Poultry Board has been referred to. Its chairman, Charles Bournes, said:

“We are concerned that although the Government has repeatedly pledged its support for the industry, it cannot prohibit the use of illegal egg products and food manufactured from such products.”

On the back of those comments, I have a series of questions for the Minister.

Given that the British Egg Industry Council and others have stated that their legal advice is that a unilateral ban is possible, will the Minister publish the legal advice that he received on whether the Government would be able to enforce a unilateral ban on the import of conventional caged eggs? As he knows, we requested that advice in a written parliamentary question last week. We expect the Department’s reply any day now, if not today.

In response to the intervention by the hon. Member for Sherwood, will the Minister update us on whether he intends to work with like-minded countries to see whether a rigorous form of enforcement or a multilateral ban could be employed by other countries that have complied with the directive and are concerned for their own industries? It is not only about supporting British industry; it is also about supporting higher animal welfare standards. I am sure that those countries would be willing to work on that, with some good negotiation and persuasion from the Minister.

In the absence of full compliance from 1 January, will the Minister commit to making a quarterly statement to the House about the progress he is making within the EU on negotiations, particularly on getting the 13 other members to implement the directive fully, and on what additional work he as a Minister, his officials at DEFRA and UKRep are undertaking to level up the playing field promptly? Will he also update Parliament on the level of non-compliant imports? I think that we will all be extremely concerned if, as a result of the non-level playing field after 1 January, imports increase, particularly eggs and egg products from non-conventional and enriched cages.

We have all seen the recent furore under this Government over humans arriving in airports and ports and being waved through. What hope is there for eggs? What assurance can the Minister give people who are sceptical that imports can be checked for compliance with the EU directive? As an hon. Member said in the debate earlier, what specific additional resources will the Minister make available for policing the directive, and at what cost?

AHVLA surveillance of imports of shell eggs will use ultraviolet light analysis. I understand that the method has not been used specifically to identify different types of caged egg production, although it has been used to identify eggs from alternative systems. What assurance can the Minister give that that type of monitoring is 100% effective? If it is not 100% effective, what level of surety do we have that it is an effective way to monitor and police egg imports? His recent statement made little mention of powdered or liquefied egg. What assurance can he give that imported powdered or liquefied egg will not come from hens in conventional cages?

Will the Minister push the European Commission to take swift action with meaningful financial penalties against any country guilty of non-compliance on shell eggs or egg products after 1 January? Will he take a hard line in discussions with the European Commission on non-compliant countries? That would give some assurance to egg producers in this country that there was at least an attempt, in the way we know other countries do with us, to try and level up the playing field rapidly. What can the Minister do to ensure that the UK egg industry will not be undercut on price by eggs and egg products from conventional cages from any of those 13 non-compliant states? We welcome the Government’s commitment to introduce changes to the Government buying standards mandatory criteria, but why did it take so long to produce them? Why were they so late? Will he guarantee that the changes will be completed and enforced by 1 January 2012, and that all Departments, without fail, will not be using, in this context, conventionally caged eggs in any form—shell, liquid or powdered? It would be wholly inappropriate for the Government to fail to introduce these measures properly, and to fail their own standards, after asking much of the egg industry and many retailers—food manufacturers, food service companies and processors—to invest heavily in preparation for the ban.

Given that the UK’s enforcement strategy is to ensure that all those in the industry have stringent traceability tests in place to ensure that they are not using conventional cage eggs, what assistance is the Minister giving them—not policing, but giving the industry—to ensure that they are fully prepared? Are there additional costs that the industry will now have to take on to ensure compliance, and what assistance is the Minister giving if that is the case? Is he undertaking further action to assist our whole supply chain in the UK to prepare for this directive, or is that now it? They are ready, up and running, and it is a competitive market.

The Minister promised much, but the results have fallen short, as we have heard from the industry. In EU negotiations, there was a failure to level the playing field upwards in favour of higher animal welfare standards, and, I have to say, in favour of UK producers and jobs. However, he had a plan B, which was nothing to do with walking out on negotiations; it was actually to impose a UK unilateral ban. Despite the good promises and the fine words, I wonder whether he has been “Sir Humphried” by his officials on internal legal advice. We must now rely on voluntary enforcement—a sort of big society approach to welfare in UK food production. Perhaps I could suggest to him a reliance on the good and bad in business, highlighted by the Leader of the Opposition in recent contributions.

Finally, when all else has failed, will the Minister work with the industry, hon. Members here today and us to produce a definitive and up to date rolling register of all those who source shell, powder and liquefied eggs from enriched cages? Food processors, retailers, restaurants and others on the list would be demonstrably good eggs, and by implication everybody else would be bad eggs. We would support the Minister strongly in that, but anything else will be seen as a slap in the face for the UK egg industry.

I have already written to all those in the supply chain in the UK, asking in detail what they are doing to comply with the EU directive, both those on the list produced by the Minister and all other significant players. I guarantee our support if the Minister produces a live rolling register, because that seems to be the only tool left in the box at the moment. We have a lot of work to do, as I alluded to with the findings of the RSPCA, and we will do it. If the Minister does not, I am convinced that the industry will do it separately and alone, and we will work with them.

This is by no means a complete list of questions or of the concerns of many inside and outside the UK egg industry, but they are some of the key questions left to be answered by the Minister. I hope that he can provide the assurances that many are seeking—in the industry and in the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, which has done such good work on this—so that we can drive up animal welfare standards and the protection of the very best in UK food production, as I know he is convinced we must do.

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

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh) for securing the debate and for the way in which she introduced it.

Obviously, I am aware of the importance of this issue. Hon. Members from all parts of the House have written to me about it in the past year to 18 months. Indeed, as I shall come to describe, it is something with which I have been closely involved ever since I took up my ministerial responsibilities. There is much on which I think we can all agree. However, before launching into that, I want to put on the record that I strongly resent and resist accusations that I have done nothing—as my hon. Friend suggested, when she said that I could do nothing, as was clear in my statement. I also reject the hysterical comments that have been made by those who allegedly represent the industry. They are not constructive, and they are not factual in a number of cases.

As hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies), have clearly stated, the provision has been in existence for 12 years, since the 1999 directive that bans the keeping of hens in conventional battery cages from 1 January. It has been widely welcomed on all sides of the debate, even from those who would prefer it to go further, as the hon. Gentleman has said. I have said in the Agriculture Council and in this country that every country has had 12 years to prepare. Even the newer member states, which were not members at that time, knew what they were signing up to. There is no excuse, in the Government’s view, for any country not to have done everything it could to ensure that its producers comply.

Clearly, the directive is a huge challenge and great concern to the industry. I join my hon. Friends and hon. Members from other parties in congratulating the producers who have invested approximately £400 million in preparing for the ban by converting either to the enriched systems or to other systems. We know that the vast majority of UK producers will be compliant by 1 January. Of the remainder, we expect many of them will be leaving the industry at the end of the year or shortly after that, as soon as they can get their hens into an abattoir. As has been said, there is a different picture across Europe, with 13 of the 27 member states saying that they will not be ready. It has taken a long while for the Commission to get that information. As several hon. Members have said, there could be approximately 50 million hens in conventional cages across the EU. On 1 January, those will be unacceptable conditions.

We have been working hard to try to protect our producers, who have invested £400 million. As my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) has said, that works out at about £25 per hen. I have said several times to the industry, and I do not resile from this, that we will do all that we can to protect it. I believe that we have done that within the bounds of legislation, and I shall come on to that. Alongside what we could be thinking about doing in this country, we are still pursuing the UK’s interests in Brussels. Despite the fact that it is not satisfactory, we have made some steps forward.

It is more than a year ago now—in fact, it was September 2010—when Commissioner Dalli visited this country and came to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. At that stage, I said to him that we were very concerned that member states would not be compliant. At that stage, the Commission felt that it would be “all right on the night”. However, early this year it began to realise that that might not be the case. It asked all member states for a status report by the end of April. Not all member states complied, but it has recently received more information, to which I will refer, and which is the origin of the 50 million figure that I mentioned just now.

We have had a number of further discussions, both privately between myself and the Commissioner and at Council meetings. In September, the Secretary of State wrote jointly with nine other concerned member states to the Commission, urging it to act quickly. However, at the October Agriculture Council—this is very important in light of what my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton has said—the Commission ruled out the option of an inter-community trade ban, which it said is not legally possible. That is clearly on the record as a result of that Council meeting. I have to emphasise that it has warned member states not to do so individually. The Commission has told us clearly that there is no legal basis for a ban.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

I thank the Minister for clarifying that point. Have he and his officials accepted that, or have they challenged it and sought alternative legal advice to take back to the Commissioner?

[Mr Paice]

I assure the hon. Gentleman that, of course, we have sought our own legal advice. I was going to mention that issue later, but I am happy to address it now. Please forgive me, Ms Osborne, if I read from my notes verbatim, but I need to get it right. I must stress that I am not reading out direct legal advice. Perhaps I can use this opportunity to say to him that I have answered his parliamentary question and that I suspect that he will get the answer today. As I am sure that he knows, I am afraid that the answer is no. Governments do not publish legal advice given to Ministers. That was not the case under the previous Government, and it is not the case under this Government.

The treaty on the functioning of the EU prohibits quantitative restrictions on imports between member states and all measures that have a similar effect, with limited exceptions to that general rule, including where they are necessary on animal health or human health grounds. The advice that we have received shows that it is extremely unlikely that a court would extend those exceptions to animal welfare grounds in these circumstances. The treaty also states that any restriction of trade must not constitute arbitrary discrimination.

Given the traceability issues around distinguishing between imported eggs that have been reared in conventional cages in other member states and those that have not—I will come back to traceability in a moment—any ban would have to be on imports of all eggs from a particular country, whether reared in conventional cages or not. That would clearly penalise compliant producers in other member states, which runs contrary to the principle of the free movement of goods. The hon. Member for Ogmore and my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton raised the ban on sow stalls, which we implemented a long time ago in this country. If we apply the logic of the argument that we are discussing to that, we would have had to introduce a ban on all pigmeat, including that not introduced in sow stalls. Neither the Government at the time nor the previous Labour Government believed that they had the power to do that. It is quite clear that we do not have the legal basis to take such action.

[Mr Paice]

My hon. Friend is right, but she needs to read that legal instrument to see what powers it gives member states to introduce a ban. The fact is that it does not give those powers. The Commissioner has been through this over and over again. I have had private meetings with him and with others as well. He is absolutely adamant that there are no powers available to him or member states to introduce the ban in the way in which my hon. Friend has advocated

I hope that I can clarify the matter by coming to traceability, which is right at the heart of the issue. Before getting to that, I shall finish my point about the Commission’s role. Once Commissioner Dalli realised that there was going to be a big problem, the Commission started looking for a robust enforcement approach that would avoid a large number of producers having to close down their operations. More importantly, as my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton has said, the Commissioner also wanted to avoid the destruction of millions and millions of eggs, which clearly would not have been right when many people are struggling to make ends meet.

At the same time, the Commissioner wanted to protect producers who have complied with the ban. He came up with the concept of what has been described as a gentlemen’s agreement, which does not have a legal basis. Most of those member states who were expecting to be compliant did not like the idea. Those who were not compliant reluctantly agreed to the idea. I took the view that, although we did not want any slippage in the timetable, we had to face up to the reality that there would be non-compliant eggs and therefore something had to be done. In fact, the gentlemen’s agreement died. There was clearly no prospect of a gentlemen’s agreement, and it has not been progressed.

The Commission has acted on the practical things for which the UK has been pressing. As several hon. Members have said, it has begun pre-infraction procedures. More importantly, it has also asked for the action plans from all non-compliant member states to contain measures to accelerate compliance. In answer to the hon. Member for Ogmore, its intention is for a monthly report of those plans to be given to the Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health, which is known as SCoFCAH for short.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

Once again, I thank the Minister for clarification on those points. Returning to the legal advice, has he sought clarification from his officials on the risk of the UK being found guilty and prosecuted for infraction for trying to abide by the very standards that the EU Commissioner wants to apply eventually throughout Europe? Considering the backdrop he has just explained about the EU Commission driving forward pre-infraction procedures, if the UK or other countries were to go for a unilateral ban or a multilateral ban with like-minded countries, what is the likelihood of the UK facing infraction? If a country is infracted for not doing something, it is different from being infracted for doing the very thing the EU wants countries to do.

[Mr Paice]

The hon. Gentleman makes a perfectly reasonable suggestion. Obviously, I cannot tell him what the risk is. This is an extremely important point and, to go back in history, his Government took such a view about earlier issues when the boot was on the other foot. It is very difficult for someone to argue that other people are not complying with the law if they then proceed to break it themselves. Someone would lose a great deal of moral standing if they did that.

I want to make a final point about the Commission before I come back to the key issues. The Commission’s Food and Veterinary Office missions will be targeted from the beginning of 2012 at non-compliant member states and, to help that, all member states have been asked to submit lists of compliant producers. We have asked for all those measures, because they will give some protection to compliant producers in the UK and across the EU. Clearly, that is not enough, which is why we have said that we reserve the right to take our own actions. Yes, we have thoroughly investigated the possibility of unilateral action and, when I have said in the past that we were considering the matter, I was saying it exactly as it was. I think that hon. Members who know me well enough will know that I would be keen to take action, but, unfortunately, the legal advice that I have had from within, plus the statements from the Commission to which I have referred, have led me to believe that we cannot do so. That is partly because of the practical issues and difficulties in enforcing such an approach.

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[Mr Paice]

They are European regulations—there is no question about that—as I am sure the advisers to the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee will have confirmed to my hon. Friend. We have, in recent months, asked the Commission—and we will continue to ask it—to amend those regulations. That has not happened so far, and I must confess that the Commission officials with whom we have had detailed discussions do not seem overly keen on the idea, so we are faced with having to operate within the existing legislation.

On the issue of what exactly is an offence, it will be an offence to keep hens in those cages, and we would prosecute under the Animal Welfare Act 2006. That is clear. However, it will not necessarily be an offence to be in possession of an egg from an illegal cage, but it would be an offence to try to pass it off as an egg from a legal cage. It is important to be clear about that.

On the efforts that we have made within the constraints, the hon. Member for Ogmore challenged me about the Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency and my description of the use of ultraviolet light. He is right that the technique has never been used directly in the way that we propose, but, as he has also said, it has been used to identify eggs from caged hens within batches that have been described as free range or barn eggs. Not until now has it been specifically used to identify different types of caged egg production, but we have had it independently validated, and I have looked at it myself. When an egg is laid, the shell is momentarily a bit soft and takes an imprint of the material on which it is laid. If it is laid on wire, it comes through clearly under ultraviolet light, which is obvious. If it is laid on any sort of softer egg-laying surface, which is a requirement of an enriched cage, that comes through as a completely different pattern.

I must also make it clear, however, that the use of ultraviolet light is simply a marker for us and would not, by itself, be the basis of prosecution. If any suspect eggs are found, we will ask the country of origin to confirm our suspicions about whether the producer—do not forget that the information will be on the egg—is compliant or not. That is how the system will operate. If the eggs are found to be from an illegal system, they will be prevented from being marketed as class A eggs and sent for processing—that is, as I have said, downgraded to class B. I have now explained the point about marketing regulations.

As of today, as far as we can establish, the average price per dozen of class A caged eggs, which are, of course, legal at the moment, is about 54p, while the average price per dozen of class B eggs is 29.4p. That is nearly 25p per dozen cheaper, which is close to 50% of the price. That is a massive price differential. I cannot believe that anybody will seek to import eggs from non-compliant cages and risk losing half the value of the eggs if we detect them. We have to be sensible. The economic impact on anybody who has their eggs downgraded will be absolutely massive, and I do not believe that they would risk it happening. As far as shell eggs are concerned, our measures will be sufficient.

Let me turn to the understandably more concerning issue of processed eggs, which, as has rightly been said, represent about half the imports of egg and egg products into this country and approximately 9% of total consumption. As I have said, they are much less easy to trace, because the eggs are not required to carry any identification. That loophole causes us immense problems, which is why we have been pressing, and will continue to press, to get it closed. In the absence of that, we have had to use what opportunity we have, which, as I have said, is to work with the industry. The hon. Member for Ogmore is right and that is why I published a list in my statement, and was happy to do so, unusually, on the basis of name and shame. I am happy to update the list and, as of today, can add two more processors—Bumble Hole Foods Ltd and D Wise Ltd. That now means that nine of the major processors are on board, reducing still further the likelihood of eggs from conventional cages or their products being imported.

That is the situation. I am approaching the end of my allocated time and have almost finished addressing the issues, but I am conscious that I also need to respond to a number of questions. In the absence of the ability to instigate a ban, we have tried, as I have explained, to throttle the market. That is what it boils down to—we have tried to make sure that there is no market in the UK for illegally produced eggs or egg products.

I have dealt with the issue of legal advice. To return to my earlier intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton, I have been in contact with like-minded countries in the EU. In the week before I made the statement, I telephoned them myself and not one of them is proposing any action yet. As far as we can establish, we are the only country proposing any measures from 1 January. Of course, I continue to work with them and, if there are prospects for more unified action, I will take it, but, as I have said, they are not minded to take action.

I have mentioned the regular monthly updates to the Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health and, in response to a question asked by the hon. Member for Ogmore, I will ensure that, somehow, that is brought to the House’s attention. I cannot give him the information about non-compliant imports, because of the issue of traceability, which I have mentioned. We do not know whether such imports are non-compliant, and we are trying to ensure that they are not. The European Commission cannot impose financial penalties, which is a matter for the courts following infraction proceedings. On the industry’s issues, it has not provided us with any form of costings. We are open about that. I am sure that if the costings had been onerous, the industry would have been quick to tell us.

Finally, I fully understand the importance of the issue. We have tried very hard to use the weapons available to us.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Paice]

I am sorry, but I must finish. The fact that I have been able to list not just retailers, but all the major bakery brands, such as the producers of Mr Kipling and all sorts of biscuits, and the major caterers, such as Compass Group, BaxterStorey, Sodexo, and a number of, if not all, the major importers of egg products, demonstrates that we have gone a long way to throttling the marketplace in this country for eggs from non-compliant cages. My final point for anybody who tells me that it is too difficult and that the eggs cannot be traced is that the importers of processed eggs have their own traceability systems, because that is what they are trying to do and, they have assured us, what they will do. However, when we are faced with an egg that has no indication of where it came from, we cannot trace it, which is the harsh fact. I hope that the House will accept that the Government are doing all that we can to protect our producers.