Oral Answers to Questions

Huw Irranca-Davies Excerpts

Thursday 30th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

My right hon. Friend has made an excellent point about Ireland. A similar policy has been pursued in New Zealand, where numbers have also been reduced; and Australia, whose comprehensive strategy involved culling in the wildlife population as well as improved movement controls, has eradicated bovine TB. It is vital to the future of our dairy and beef industries that we eradicate this terrible disease. We are the Government who are prepared to make difficult decisions, rather than repeating the outrageous failures of the last Government. They left us with the highest rates of bovine TB in Europe: that is the disgrace.

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

Notwithstanding the Secretary of State’s bluster, it is a fact that, following the catastrophic failures in year one—last year’s failures were catastrophic—in year two the Secretary of State abolished the independent expert panel, which was too independent for the Government. The Government watered down the estimates of the badger populations, and threw out the Secretary of State’s own original guidance, which involved culling 70% of badgers within six weeks in year one. Why did the methodology used to calculate the number of badgers change from year one to year two, why does the methodology applying to Somerset differ from that applying to Gloucestershire, and why were the methodologies not subject to independent scientific review? Let us go on the evidence.

[Elizabeth Truss]

An independent audit of the culls is currently taking place. A review is also being undertaken by our chief veterinary officer, which is important. The British Veterinary Association fully supports our comprehensive strategy to deal with bovine TB, and it is about time the Opposition thought about how they would deal with this terrible disease rather than criticise our policy, which has been shown, using international evidence, to deliver.

Food Fraud

Huw Irranca-Davies Excerpts

Monday 8th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Roger Williams]

My hon. Friend is completely right that food fraud is price-driven—there is no doubt about that. Food adulteration and fraud are as old as history, as we know from many centuries of experience. The watering down of milk was one such example, but an even more heinous crime is the watering down of beer, which should carry an especially heavy penalty!

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

Is there watered-down beer in Brecon?

[Roger Williams]

We do not have any examples in Brecon; it is mostly down in south Wales! But the history books are full of examples of this sort of thing.

As I was saying, it essential to safeguard this industry. Food and farming is the UK’s largest manufacturing sector, contributing £96 billion to the economy and employing almost 4 million people. It is essential to keep up confidence in the UK, while also protecting the reputation of our food abroad.

Another point inn Elliott’s proposals is the setting up of a cross-Cabinet Committee on food safety and food crime. I fully agree with that recommendation and I am glad that the Government have accepted it.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate and thank him for giving way. Particularly in the light of the splitting of the roles and responsibilities of the Food Standards Agency in 2010, was he surprised that some sort of cross-Government or cross-Cabinet regular systematic group was not established to take account of that fact?

[Roger Williams]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point—one that is addressed in the Elliott report and one that the Government have accepted, as I said. I am very pleased that the Government have accepted all the report’s recommendations, so we should pay tribute both to the report and to the Government’s response to it.

Following on from the hon. Gentleman’s point, there was such a cross-Government forum for co-ordination on food at Cabinet level until May 2010. Up to that point, there was also more clarity on the responsibilities for food, as the FSA then had the responsibility for authenticity, testing and policy on compositional labelling of food, as well as on nutrition policy, which subsequently went to the Department of Health.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for generously giving way again. In his interim report, Professor Chris Elliott made it clear that he wanted to see both responsibilities returned directly to the FSA. In his subsequent final report—he has made it clear that it is because of the political difficulty—he has stepped back a little from that, but the suggestion is that he would still like to see this done. What does the hon. Gentleman think about that? Should these responsibilities be returned to the FSA?

[Roger Williams]

If the hon. Gentleman reads the full report by Professor Elliott, he will find that he responds to the concern that the final report took quite a long time to come out. He makes it very clear that none of the recommendations in the final report is the result of any political pressure, but are the result of his committee looking at the issue and coming up with what he believes are the best proposals for protecting food and consumers.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

No doubt the Minister will correct me later if I am wrong, but I believe that Professor Chris Elliott said he was loth to include the full recommendation in the interim report—that is, the recommendation that all the responsibility should be returned to the FSA—and made it clear that that was because of the political difficulty of doing so. I make that point purely for the sake of accuracy.

[Roger Williams]

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will develop his point further when he makes his own speech, and that the Minister will do so as well.

--- Later in debate ---

[Roger Williams]

My hon. Friend has put his finger on it. As has already been pointed out, price is the driver of food crime, and as Professor Elliott said in his report, if major retailers or processors have a deal that is too good to be true, they should trace it to its source. Both processors and retailers have a real responsibility in that regard. It is no good saying that they have not the facilities or the wherewithal; they have the ultimate responsibility.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

The hon. Gentleman is making a very good and wide-ranging speech on the basis of his experience. He mentioned European and international co-operation, whose importance Professor Elliott has stressed strongly and repeatedly. Did he share my concern when, only a few months after the height of the horsemeat scandal, the European Commissioner for crime and justice—who deals with such collaborative approaches—remarked how preposterous it was that, at a time when we were seeking international collaboration, the coalition Government were seeking opt-outs on 130 areas of European co-operation on that very issue?

[Roger Williams]

I think that the hon. Gentleman is trying to introduce a political point which is far outside the scope of the debate.

--- Later in debate ---

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

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

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

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

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

[Mr Heath]

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

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Heath]

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

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

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

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

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

[Mr Heath]

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

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

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

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

[Mr Heath]

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

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

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

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

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

Green.

[Mr Heath]

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

--- Later in debate ---

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

I congratulate all right hon. and hon. Members who have contributed. We may be few in number, but we have had a very insightful debate with a lot of quality in the speeches, with more to come as well.

The hon. Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman), in response to an intervention, accused me of bringing politics into the debate—heaven forfend! That is my day job; I am a politician. I try to deal with evidence and rationality, but I am also elected democratically and I am a politician. If the hon. Gentleman, who is no longer in his place, does not understand that, I will happily sit down with him over a coffee.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Roger Williams) on introducing the debate. We go back a very long way. He talked about the 2001 election, which was delayed because of foot and mouth. I recall that well, because we were sparring partners, but he was also seeing daily, alongside farmers, the horror of the burning carcases. He has great experience in this area. He reminded us of the importance of Elliott, food fraud, food criminality, traceability and all the aspects of this to the farming community. As many hon. Members have said, those who are often hit really badly are the primary producers—farmers. It is they who get squeezed, whether in price wars or in burdens being laid on them. We need to guard against that.

The hon. Gentleman, like many others, strongly supports the proposals in the Elliott report. As hon. Members will know, I have spent my weekend poring over every line and word of it, as well as other briefings and so on. Professor Elliott makes it crystal clear that not only the eight pillars of food integrity but every detail must hold together. These proposals are not to be cherry-picked; equal effort must be put into every aspect.

During an intervention on the hon. Gentleman, we briefly discussed the FSA’s interim proposals, which some would argue have a different emphasis from the final report. However, it is about more than degrees of emphasis, because the Troop proposals mentioned by the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh), who chairs the EFRA Committee, among others, expressed a preference for putting these responsibilities into the FSA. Even though this is slightly modified in the report, Elliott makes it clear that if that is not going to be the case, he wants the matter to be pursued in a different way with equal rigour and clarity. Let us see how it emerges.

My hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) has great experience in these matters. I served alongside him when he was the Minister responsible for food, farming and agriculture. He brought a great deal of experience to bear, as he always does in these debates. He talked about not having the full impact of this falling on farming communities. He discussed, as did others, including the hon. Member for York Outer (Julian Sturdy), the importance of the red tractor assurance scheme. That is an important element of some of the briefings from the National Farmers Union, the Food and Drink Federation, and Which? magazine—I am sorry, not Which? magazine but Which? the consumers association. It used to be a magazine when I was a young man but now it is far more than that.

My hon. Friend said that Elliott is proposing not to increase burdens but to reduce the burdens on the good guys and put the burdens on to the bad guys and the criminals. He talked about the importance of a strategic laboratory service, which is crucial. He asked whether the resources were sufficient for this very wide-ranging set of proposals to do Elliott justice. He referred to the machinery of government changes in the FSA. Like many Members, he queried why prosecutions are so few and far between and often do not go after the big fish in the pond.

The hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton has a great deal of experience in this area. I commend not only her speech but the work that the EFRA Committee has done over time on putting a spotlight on to this issue with considerable detail and forensic analysis. She opened her remarks by paying tribute to a friend of all of us right across the House—the late Jim Dobbin. We are all very sad and our thoughts are with his family. One of his great causes related to DEFRA—open access and the right to roam. There is nothing more political than putting one foot in front of the other and walking out into the countryside. He was a great believer in that. In fact, I have a debate about such matters on Wednesday afternoon in Westminster Hall, and anybody who wants to can come and take part.

The hon. Lady talked about the desirability of shorter supply chains. A lot of the retailers have “got” that now, but we have to keep the pressure on. On the day of the National Farmers Union conference a year ago, one retailer—I will not name it for fear of embarrassment but it knows who it is—took out full-page adverts with a big banner headline saying, “We get it”, that talked about how it would transform its business. I have met it subsequently, and it is trying to do that. It is our biggest supermarket chain. A lot of farmers are now watching for it to carry that through relentlessly.

In an intervention on the hon. Member for Upper Bann (David Simpson), the hon. Lady talked about penalties, which the hon. Member for York Outer also mentioned. We need to consider not only what the Sentencing Council is doing, and stronger penalties, but broader penalties so that some of these cases do not have to end up in court. That could be to do with naming and shaming, but there might be McCrory-style types of penalties that deal in the right way with relatively minor offences early on and deal in a heavy-duty way with the big offenders as well.

It was asked whether more incidents have taken place post-horsemeat. It is interesting to refer to the very good House of Commons Library briefing, which draws on Elliott’s observation that in 2007 there were 49 reports of food fraud to the FSA’s food fraud database, while in 2013 it received 1,538 reports. According to the National Audit Office, local authorities reported 1,380 cases of food fraud in 2012, up by two thirds since 2010. That is the scale of what we are looking at. That emphasises the importance of local authority intelligence, which a few hon. Members mentioned, and of how this ties together. It will not all be carried out by serious crime people; local information on the ground will open it out.

[Miss McIntosh]

As I hope the hon. Gentleman will confirm, there is not sufficient intelligence. A lot of the testing is done purely on the basis of risk assessment. The key is not just the food crime unit but the fact that there will be spot checks—unannounced audits. Surely that has to be a good thing.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

I could not agree more. I hope that the Minister will also say that that is the way forward. It is not only about routine checks or risk assessment-based checks but turning up unannounced.

The hon. Lady rightly made a point about Troop and the FSA leadership, and clarity of roles. She also talked about the police’s powers of arrest, and I will be interested in the Minister’s response to that.

The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath), a former Minister in the Department who also has great experience, discussed the importance of cultural change, which is crucial. He rightly talked about the importance of driving this through every area, including catering. It has to go deep into every individual sector and employee as well as the bosses and the leadership. The importance of caterers was brought home in the horsemeat scandal, because horsemeat was appearing not only in hospitals and schools but in the food used by caterers who were supplying Royal Ascot and the royal family—so at least we were all in it together.

On the complexity of the supply chain, Elliott says that we have to recognise that, even though it is more desirable to have shorter supply chains and to encourage food retailers and providers to move towards them, we are in a global system, under which global intelligence and the pursuit of crime come into play. He also says, wisely, that ultimately the food price wars that take place from time to time, including now, are not good for the consumer if they jeopardise food authenticity or—heaven help us—food safety.

The hon. Member for York Outer spoke up strongly for British farming and food produce. He talked about the gold standard of British farming and I agree with him. Curiously, when we were on the Government Benches, others would shout at us about gold-plating, but that is exactly the gold standard he was talking about. That is the reason our exports to many other countries are doing well—they demand the standards of animal welfare, hygiene and testing that this country delivers. Regulation is a darn good thing when it protects the consumer and allows us to export around the world. Curiously, the FSA has traditionally been looked on as the gold standard of food regulation.

The hon. Gentleman also talked wisely about the importance of knowing where our food actually comes from. There is a great deal of work to do on that right across the population, ourselves included. There is real value in knowing where food comes from; it ties into so many good things.

The Labour party is very clear—as we were when we were in government—that the consumer has always to be put first. That is why, when in government, we established a strong and independent Food Standards Agency, which had a powerful reach right across Government to regulate this vital industry that creates so many jobs and that wants the very highest standards. However, the changes brought about by tinkering with the machinery of government have jeopardised that.

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

Professor Elliott says in his report that when the FSA had control of authenticity testing in 2007-08, under the previous Government, it took the decision, as an independent body, to cut spending on the testing programme. If the hon. Gentleman had been a Minister at the time and had received a submission recommending such a cut, would he have agreed with it or might he have questioned it?

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

I was not the Minister at the time, but I would like the hon. Gentleman to continue to make his point, because Professor Chris Elliott was unable to address the detail. Will he confirm whether authenticity testing continued even though it had been reduced?

[George Eustice]

Yes, it continued, but the point Elliott makes is that the FSA, as an independent body, took the decision to start winding down authenticity testing.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

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

[Mr Heath]

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

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Miss McIntosh]

indicated assent.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

They will, which is great.

What other foodstuffs are of primary concern for authenticity fraud, and which are on the priorities list for criminal activity at present? How will the Minister guarantee that the high number of authenticity failures can be identified now and in future against the backdrop of cuts in the front-line services involved in food authenticity? As so many hon. Members have asked, 18 months after the horsemeat scandal erupted, why have prosecutions been so few and far between? Does he share the public’s frustration that criminals appear to be getting away with messing with their food?

Elliott repeatedly argues for improved co-operation on an international and especially a European level to tackle food crime and fraud. Does the Minister expect us to believe that the Government’s general approach to European co-operation and the specific Tory proposals to opt out of 130 areas of European policing and justice measures will help the fight against international food crime? If so, has he done an impact assessment of those proposals? Will he support calls for an urgent review of criminal, financial and other penalties to toughen and widen the measures against rogues and criminals, and to protect the many good food businesses? Finally—for now—will he guarantee consumers and the industry that another horsemeat scandal or the like will not happen in the short time left of this Government?

Let me end by saying that this Government have their work cut out to persuade the industry and consumers that they are serious about tackling food crime and fraud because, as they say in police dramas, this Government have got “previous”. Their track record of delay and dither when facing a crisis, their ideological aversion to effective regulation and their wholesale absence of leadership and strategic thinking on food mean that they are in the dock as a serial offender. We urge the Government to get serious about food crime, food governance and food strategy. We will support them if they drive through all the recommendations with the rigour they deserve, because consumers and this vital UK industry deserve no less.

Genetically Modified Organisms: Labelling

Huw Irranca-Davies Excerpts

Monday 1st September 2014 Ministerial Corrections

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what the Government's position is in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership negotiations on labelling of products containing GM in the UK food chain; and if she will make a statement.

[Official Report, 22 July 2014, Vol. 584, c. 1063W.]

Letter of correction from George Eustice:

An error has been identified in the written answer given to the hon. Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies) on 22 July 2014.

The full answer given was as follows:

[George Eustice]

This issue has yet to be discussed in detail within the framework of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiations. The Government will consider its negotiation position based on a range of factors including the environmental impact and public health benefit of such anti-microbial treatments that can reduce potential for foodborne illness.

The correct answer should have been:

Oral Answers to Questions

Huw Irranca-Davies Excerpts

Thursday 17th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend about that, which is why we are focusing on opening up more markets to British food—the US market is being opened to beef, which is a fantastic opportunity. But we also need to be encouraging more of our young people to look at food, farming and agriculture as a career, because fantastic skilled jobs are available and we need to make the idea of working in food and farming much more mainstream.

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

I welcome the Secretary of State to her post and wish her well. She will know that food fraud and authenticity issues and crises, such as the horsemeat scandal, which was presided over by her predecessors, can quickly destroy the value of UK food exports and the confidence of UK consumers in our food industries. Why, then, has the final report of the Elliott review of the horsemeat scandal, promised in the spring, not been published? Will she undertake to publish it before we go into recess?

[Elizabeth Truss]

We have received the Elliott report and we are looking at it at the moment; it is something that I am absolutely working on. We have made a priority of biosecurity and of ensuring that our food is safe, and we are working hard on that area.

Common Agricultural Policy

Huw Irranca-Davies Excerpts

Monday 7th July 2014 Commons Chamber

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

I am delighted to take part in this very important debate.

I thank the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh) for providing a comprehensive analysis of her Committee’s report in relation to CAP. She took it a stage further with some detailed technical points to which I am sure the Minister will respond. She also raised issues relating to broadband access to the new IT system, which will in many ways be universally rolled out overnight. There are great concerns about that. The issue was picked up by other hon. Members, including former Ministers, was digital by default.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) also raised that issue and asked how people would be able to access the new IT system when it is the only game in town. She spoke with passion about the financial and IT challenges facing her hill farmers, pointing out that 40% of them have no access to rural broadband. She called for something that I think we can all agree on: a useable and farmer-friendly system of payments.

The right hon. Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Sir James Paice), with his expertise in the Department, bemoaned, rightly, the lack of progress on real reform. He supported the idea of moving payments uphill—I think that that has universal support across the Chamber, with many hon. Members speaking to that point—and described the three-crop rule, another matter raised by many hon. Members, as pointless and bureaucratic. It has received universal condemnation not only from farmers but from environmentalists too.

The hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Roger Williams) spoke up for direct payments to support hard-pressed farmers. I think that at one point he was talking against modulation of pillar two, but he then flipped it around and said that there could, and perhaps should, be common cause between environmental groups and farming organisations to argue for greater pillar two payments to support very hard-pressed farmers. That was an interesting twist at the end.

The hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish), in a very good contribution, said in response to an intervention that we are limited in how much we can decide. I will come on to that in a moment, but I think that even with this mish-mash, as it was described by the right hon. Member for South East Cambridgeshire, there is scope for some decisions within England and in the other nations and regions.

The hon. Member for Sherwood (Mr Spencer) praised the CAP, praised farmers and praised Ministers—it was a very praiseworthy speech. He spoke well for his constituents and farmers.

The hon. Member for York Outer (Julian Sturdy) opened his remarks by calling for a balance to be struck between the environment and farming and food security. That relates to the gist of what I want to talk about in a moment. It is fair to say that although there has been praise in various areas, there has also been a feeling of weary resignation among many of the contributions tonight. I think the phrase he used was “the best of a bad job”. I say to Members on all sides that in the next stage of reform we really have to do better, go further, take a lead and do a much better job.

This round of CAP reform has been criticised by all sides. Peter Kendall, the president of the National Farmers Union until February this year, complained last year that the Secretary of State had disadvantaged farmers with his stance on CAP negotiations. He complained that the Secretary of State had come back with

“less than he started with”

for British farmers. The NFU described the round last year as “disappointing” and as a “missed opportunity”.

The newly-elected NFU president, Meurig Raymond said more recently that we now have

“a CAP package which has huge practical hurdles for all concerned in agriculture. It’s not the promised simplification; policy measures distort farmers’ commercial decisions and do little to help us gear-up to the long-term food production and environmental challenges which we know are ahead.”

The criticisms from farming unions come from one perspective. Environmental organisations come from another viewpoint, but they have also derided CAP reform. In particular, they have derided the greening measures as so much “greenwash”. The greening proposals linked to direct payments are described as

“so vague as to be useless”

in a study by the authoritative journal Science, which estimates that as many as nine out of 10 farms would be exempt from key greening measures.

[Mr Spencer]

As the hon. Gentleman commented, I am an optimist and I was optimistic in my speech, but surely he must recognise the challenges of linking agricultural systems such as those in Greece, where it is so arid it is only possible to grow olives, and the large plains of East Anglia?

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

Yes, indeed. That is why it is essential that the framework works in respect of what CAP reform has always set out to do—to break the link between pure production subsidy and the targeting of the subsidy at public goods, increased innovation and productivity, and not just production. It cannot be a one-size-fits-all model. The framework has to be there at an EU level, but the implementation at the level of the nation state is critical. We should not be afraid to take the lead on that and to try to get our balance right as between the environment, farming and food security.

The conservation director of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, Martin Harper, observed that the proposals

“failed to maximise the amount of money that it could have invested in wildlife-friendly farming and now it has made the greening measure meaningless.”

So we have “meaningless” and “useless” from the perspective of environmental organisations; and “deeply disappointed” and “a missed opportunity” from the perspective of farming unions. A change is needed in Europe and in the UK on how CAP is done. We need to show real leadership and real direction on both farm productivity and sustainability—it is not happening.

The key question is whether the more than £15 billion annual subsidy payment to farming in the UK—and £11.5 billion in England specifically—provides the best value for taxpayers’ money. A study last year suggested that sensitively adjusting the focus of the subsidy in the UK to enhance environmental and public goods, including things like flood alleviation, rather than purely units of production, could produce annual additional benefits of over £18 billion in the UK. The study did not take into account the additional benefits of cleaner air and cleaner water, which would further improve the net gains.

The Secretary of State—one would think he would find favour with that sort of approach—said last year:

“I do believe there is a real role for taxpayer’s money in compensating farmers for the work they do in enhancing the environment and providing public goods for which there is no market mechanism.”

He also said specifically last year:

“I believe that transferring the maximum 15% from Pillar 1 to Pillar 2 would be the right thing to do where we can demonstrate it would deliver worthwhile and valuable outcomes for farming and society and contribute to rural economic growth and enhance the environment”.

He was quite specific on that. When the Secretary of State said that repeatedly, wildlife and environmental groups had every right to be optimistic at least on pillar two funding, even with their disappointment on the greening elements of direct payments. As the RSPB said in its response to the consultation earlier this year:

“We…welcome the Secretary of State’s assertion that Pillar II ‘unquestionably represents the better use of taxpayers money’”,

and it went on to urge the Government to

“follow through on their intention to maximise the benefits that Rural Development can deliver.”

The Secretary of State, then, was unequivocal, unyielding and unbowed all the way through—until he crumbled, U-turned and settled on 12%. I have to ask why he was outflanked and outgunned by other forces; what happened to his unequivocal stance?

The Government have signalled that they will review the situation in 2017, but I have to say that this looks like a smokescreen to cover the Secretary of State’s embarrassment at being forced to retreat from the repeatedly stated 15% modulation that he had repeatedly promised. That is not the only sign of weakness either, as the decisions on degression and capping of CAP are also spectacularly lacking in ambition and vision.

[Jesse Norman]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

I cannot, I am afraid; I do not have time.

The Secretary of State’s minimalist position, choosing to go no further than the bare minimum prescribed by the European proposals, shows a worrying lack of leadership as well as a depressing lack of ambition for the best use of public money. Farming unions and landowning associations must understand—I hope they do—and have to engage with the growing public discontent of hard-pressed people and families who face a cost-of-living crisis at public money going to some of the wealthiest and most powerful landowners in the country on the basis of the size of land that they farm.

Last year, more than 35 of the wealthiest and most powerful landowners in the UK claimed over €1 million each a year in farm subsidies. A couple of hundred others claimed in excess of €300,000 a year. That is divorced from the reality of what we have heard about today—the reality of small-scale upland farmers struggling to get by; the reality of medium-sized mixed, traditional family farms that are vital to the fabric of our rural economy struggling to compete; or the reality of tenant farmers struggling to get their first foot on the rung of purchasing land against a backdrop of rising land prices fuelled by lucrative subsidies. It is certainly a world away from squeezed UK consumers facing rising food bills, and the exponential growth in food banks in every town and village in the country.

There might be some rationale if the biggest payments were tied to additional investment in agricultural innovation, to productivity improvements, to encouraging new entrants to farming, to pioneering environmental improvements in large-scale arable agri-businesses, or indeed to any marginal improvement. However, those payments are not for “additionality”; they are for scale and units of production, pure and simple. They are a reward for being big, and the bigger you are, the more European money—I am sorry; public money—you get.

As long as there is still subsidy flowing through the common agricultural policy to farmers across the EU, we must ensure that the right share of that funding comes to our farmers in the UK, but placing rigorous demands on the highest CAP payments is about demanding more—in productivity, environmental innovation and entry to farming—for the public money that is spent on the very biggest of the biggest subsidy recipients.

This is a value-for-money argument, and a fairness argument. I am talking about fairness for smaller and tenant farmers who lose out as the big money goes to the biggest landowners, fairness for the public who want real and transparent value for the money that they pay out each year, and fairness for this and future generations who are concerned about the environment, about the countryside that they love, and about sustainable agricultural production.

It is time to challenge the accepted wisdom, and to shake off any sense of the cosy complacency adopted by the Secretary of State. We must not assume that this is the way it must be. We can change things for the better for farmers, for the public, and for the good of the nation. If we do not do so, the voices of discontent over CAP payments will grow and grow. We need to do better than this.

Let me end by again thanking the Select Committee for the very good report that was introduced by the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton. I am sure that the Minister will respond to the detailed points that have been made.

Elliott Review and Food Crime

Huw Irranca-Davies Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd April 2014 Westminster Hall

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

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this timely debate. Does she agree that an innovative suggestion from the Elliott review is that data and intelligence gathering should be done centrally within some independent body? While respecting commercial confidentiality, commercial operators should be asked to pool what they can, so that we can scan for problems. That would be a great and helpful innovation.

[Laura Sandys]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. That is both incumbent on the food sector and in its interests, because the horsemeat scandal has led to a major erosion of trust.

I am concerned that supermarkets sometimes make the excuse that they are too large to monitor their supply chains. We must be clear that they have a responsibility; if they feel that they are too large to be responsible for their supply chain, we must ask whether they are too large to be responsible for public food and well-being. I am sure that the Minister has discussed food crime with the Minister for Policing, Criminal Justice and Victims, because the problem requires Home Office, Europol and Interpol co-operation. We must consider the matter as we would other large organised crime problems. What has been the UK’s involvement in Operation Opson, the pan-European food crime and food vulnerability operation?

The future is what matters, and the Elliott review will form a crucial part of our new armoury. What is the Minister’s response to Elliott’s first report and how will DEFRA respond to its key recommendations? In particular, what is the Minister’s response to Elliott’s recommendation to set up a food crime unit within the FSA? The Dutch have 111 staff dedicated to food crime. I hope that such a unit would be properly resourced and would have the capacity to enforce and investigate. President Eisenhower said that the uninspected quickly deteriorates, so we need a new sense of ambition in this area.

In conclusion, I hope that we are not living in the past. Before 2008, food was cheap, but the world has changed, and will change even further as food prices are expected to rise year on year. The business model wrapped around cheap food is creaking. Now that drug dealers are starting to move into our food system, I hope that the Minister will recognise that business as usual is not good enough for our food producers and consumers.

--- Later in debate ---

[Miss McIntosh]

As my hon. Friend has pointed out, scrutiny of the issues is split between more than one Department—the Department of Health and DEFRA in the present case. What is particularly galling is that desinewed meat is still produced from non-ruminants as Baader meat in other European member states. There should be the same rule throughout the European Union.

There have been several reports, including the Select Committee report to which the Minister contributed, as well as the Troop review, the National Audit Office review, an internal FSA review and now the Elliott review. We need definitive action now. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman) said, there was a remarkable short-term boost for local butchers and farm shops, and I hope that that will last.

To address the point made by the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field), as well as by my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet, people may eat cheaply by buying a roast and eating it in various forms during the course of the week. Frozen and processed foods, the real villains of the piece in food adulteration, are more expensive than buying fresh meat from the local butcher.

The interim Elliott review was so important because it looked at and pulled out the various conclusions of Select Committee and other earlier reports, bringing them all together and, in particular, highlighting issues such as slabs of meat in cold storage or the transporting of food over long distances, which we now know were often the cause of the problem, but had not previously been focused on. In responding, I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will update us on where we are with labelling. In response to the Select Committee’s fifth report, on food contamination, the Government state:

“New labelling rules have just been agreed by the European Union and the Government must meet its legal obligations on implementation of these EU labelling regulations.”

That poses a particular problem for the Malton bacon factory, because what we are trying to do with one meat product, beef, perversely has implications for other products, such as pork. It would be helpful if the Minister updated us.

On the call for shorter supply chains, the complacency in the evidence that we heard in Committee was breathtaking. The supply chains were taken as read; they were not visited—not once every three months, not once every year and not even once in three years. We need reassurance from the supermarkets and the bigger food retail chains that that is now happening. Traceability and labelling go to the core of the issue: we must learn the lessons from BSE and keep our markets open. The European Union is, after all, our largest market for fresh meat, frozen food and processed food products.

The Elliott review is also important for highlighting the role of food testing, as commented on by the hon. Member for Bristol East and my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet. The reduction in the number of food analysts and the closure of food laboratories is causing great concern throughout the farming community and in the profession.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

The hon. Lady is making a good contribution. May I take her one step back? She made a point about the importance of the industry’s reputation domestically, but we also need to get things right because, with credit to the Government, work on the export market is very much predicated on the strong reputation of UK meat produce. We need to get that right, because it will drive our export market. If we get it wrong, the corollary is that we could be sacrificing some great balance-of-payments input for this country.

[Miss McIntosh]

The hon. Gentleman—I might dare to call him my hon. Friend—makes a powerful point. The key to everything is that there was nothing unsafe: it was fraud, adulteration and mislabelling. We may pride ourselves on the safety of food production from farm to plate. The long supply chain was the villain of the piece.

There is now more testing than ever, as the Committee has said. There had probably been a reduction in testing before, and the evidence we heard was that certain local authorities, which shall remain nameless, had not done any testing for a number of years. That is simply not on. Where retailers are testing, it is extremely important that they share the results with the Food Standards Agency and post them on their website, so that the consumer knows what is safe. We await the final report from Professor Elliott with great interest.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is a pleasure to contribute to the debate, and to do so under your chairmanship, Dr McCrea. I assure you that my phone is on silent and will not interfere with my contribution to the debate.

It is a pleasure to speak in the debate secured by the hon. Member for South Thanet (Laura Sandys), because this issue has caused much concern in the past, and still does. We have seen some improvement, and I am sure that the Minister will set that out in his response. The other contributors, the hon. Members for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) and for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh), also outlined some of the changes that have taken place. The hon. Member for South Thanet set the scene clearly for us all.

At the time of the horsemeat contamination incident, back in January 2013, I was among the first to state that we needed changes to ensure that the same thing did not happen again. Along with many other hon. Members, I was concerned that the issue had arisen at all. Apart from putting many people off buying burgers, the scandal revealed that there was no adequate policing of the food chain in the globalised market. Although we can take action on our home soil in Westminster, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, there is a globalised market out there over which we have no control.

We must do better at home and ensure that the produce that comes to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is controlled. Gone are the days when a person knew the farmer who slaughtered for the butcher who sold them their meat, but I am glad that there is a re-emergence of interest in and commitment to our local butchers—not before time. We are living in times when meat from Spain, Portugal, Brazil or Argentina is as popular as good, British beef, due to the rise of the supermarkets and their long-reaching arms.

My hon. Friend the Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell) and I were talking before the debate, and we were saying that a housewife who has three or four children to feed and must put meat on the table faces a quandary when she goes to the supermarket. The hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton said that it is cheaper to buy a roasting joint, from which a reasonable meal can be made, and which lasts for one or two days, but if the housewife sees a £3.99 and a 99p version of a product in the supermarket, often the cheaper will win because it puts meat on the table for her family at a cheaper price. It may not be as good quality as the £3.99 product, but at the end of the day it provides a meal. No matter what we do in legislation, it is hard to affect the housewife’s choice in the supermarket, and we must be aware of that.

Unfortunately, the checks process has been diluted; that was highlighted by the scandal. It was made clear at that time that we desperately need a more effective approach to ensure that best use is made of limited resources, and to prioritise consumer interests. It is vital that the Government and every Member of the House ensure that we use the opportunity to make lasting changes. In the Minister’s response, will he tell the House how he is working with the Northern Ireland Assembly—three of us here represent Northern Ireland—and the Scottish and Welsh Administrations to ensure that what happens in England happens in the other regions and applies to everybody?

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. He has a particular perspective on this issue because, like me, he comes from an area of devolved Administration. One of the lessons that was flagged up by the scandal and that Elliott touches on is the necessity for trans-border, transnational co-operation, not only on food standards and food safety, but at the level of political leadership. If we do only one thing, we must ensure that this works across borders, at a European level.

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the shadow Minister for that sensible contribution, which we can all endorse. When the Minister responds, I hope he will provide more detail about how that will work.

When I spoke in a debate on the subject last year, I used the analogy of spilt milk: we should not cry over it, but fix the jug handle to make sure it does not spill again. We have the chance to fix the handle, and we must do it. I am pleased to say that Professor Elliott is based at Queen’s university in Belfast—all good things come from Northern Ireland, as you and I know, Dr McCrea. Queen’s university has had many good things happening in the field of health—it has had world firsts and innovations in cancer research and treatment. In December, Professor Elliott published the interim findings of his wider review of the integrity and assurance of food supply networks, which was commissioned by the UK Government. It took a “consumers first”, zero-tolerance approach, to ensure that industry, the Government and enforcement agencies always put the needs of consumers above all other considerations. The review recommended that a new food crime unit be led by the Food Standards Agency, and that the agency and local authority staff develop a coherent approach across all areas of hygiene and standards. That includes improving the guidance and training of enforcement officers that is co-ordinated by the FSA and other professional bodies.

The initial findings of the Elliott review emphasise a need for local authorities and the FSA to work together more effectively, which has not happened in the past. We look forward to seeing how they can knit together better in the regions of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and, as the shadow Minister said, across Europe and globally.

The most recent research by Which? shows that about half of consumers changed their meat eating habits as a result of the horsemeat scare in 2013. Local butchers to whom I have spoken say they are getting a younger clientele, who would have shopped in the supermarket in the past but now go to town to get their meat. That is a positive sign that augurs well for the future. Many local butchers have been making the most of the new trade by diversifying into creating meals. For many busy families—those in which both partners work full time—it is handy to have a meal that can be cooked quickly and is easy to prepare and put on the table. I am not saying that it should always be cooked in the microwave. The meals that the butchers have been creating are easy for younger people to make, and they have simplified the packaging so is easier to understand. Local butchers have been making the most of the new situation, but have we done so, at a parliamentary and regional level? It is vital that we take action to ensure that consumers are confident about the food they buy. We must feed into that process with robust checks. I welcome the re-emergence of the local butcher.

In my constituency of Strangford, we have some of the foremost food producers in not only the whole of Northern Ireland, but in the UK. A couple come to mind. There is Mash Direct, whose motto is:

“From our fields to your fork”.

There is Willowbrook Foods in Killinchy, which has another factory in Newtownards. These are growth industries. The quality is five-star, and they offer a good choice of vegetables. We also have top-quality lamb, beef, pork and poultry—all produced locally and sold in supermarket chains and across the water. Most of what we produce is exported to the Republic, England, Scotland or further afield. Every day, our fishing fleet in Portavogie lands the finest fresh prawns. There is Pritchitts foods in Newtownards, which is an example of the powdered milk industry. It sources all its milk from farmers in Northern Ireland, from a catchment area of 40 to 50 miles. That top-quality powdered milk is exported all over the world—as far away as China, Asia, South America and all over Africa. Food manufacturing and produce are intertwined, and Northern Ireland leads in the field.

The Which? report stated that consumers need to be reassured that businesses’ controls are checked and that legislation is reinforced. Only 56% of those surveyed were confident that the food they buy contains exactly what is stated on the ingredients list.

--- Later in debate ---

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

The hon. Gentleman is making some extremely good points. Does he accept that one of the interesting facets of the debate is that it cannot be divorced from fair reward in all parts of the supply chain, and from measures that we took on a cross-party basis in this House, such as the Groceries Code Adjudicator? There is a race to the bottom and a relentless squeeze on prices. As Billy Bragg said, if anyone wants an example of where out-and-out, unlimited, unrestricted capitalism takes us, it is horsemeat.

[Jim Shannon]

Again, the hon. Gentleman makes a valuable contribution that I endorse and support. It is not right that manufacturers and producers should be squeezed over and over; it should not happen. We cannot expect farmers or producers to produce products at a negligible profit and remain in business. We then wonder why other countries are able to produce similar products and sell them here. Price matters, but so does quality.

--- Later in debate ---

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

It is a great pleasure, Dr McCrea, to serve under your stewardship this morning in what has been a good and wide-ranging debate. I will try not to diminish the quality of the contributions. I congratulate the hon. Member for South Thanet (Laura Sandys) not only on securing the debate, but on her introduction to it. She has been a consistent campaigner on this and related issues. Her expertise showed in how she comprehensively went through a range of issues. I will start with some of the comments that she and other colleagues made.

The hon. Lady wisely said that we should have been able to see the problem coming, not least through the disconnect between commodity prices and the retail offer. There were other things that could have been seen, not least the disappearance of horses from Ireland, Northern Ireland and Wales. They ended up in north Wales or elsewhere, but they did not emerge somewhere else. Some connectivity of intelligence would have suggested that something was happening. There were also wider European issues. The hon. Lady made the point exceptionally well that we should have been able to see the problem coming, and that is one of the big lessons in the recommendations in the Elliott report.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) is also a long-term campaigner on food and related issues. She raised a vital issue that was picked up in the Elliott report. There are worrying reductions in the capacity for testing, which are linked to the capacity for detection, investigation and early intervention. That is not simply about Europol, it is about what is happening down on the ground at the grass roots, in local authorities and at a co-ordinated UK level. It is worrying if that capacity is diminished, and it is not just my hon. Friend who says that—as she said, the Elliott review also says that clearly.

The hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh), who has great expertise from her constituency background and knowledge, made some good points about the inconsistency in how some meat production is treated at EU and UK level. I strongly agree with her call for definitive action after a series of reports into food fraud and food crime, and an end to the hiatus and vacuum in the FSA chairmanship. That is critical, because if the Elliott report says nothing else about the FSA, it screams out for leadership not only within the Government and internationally, but at the heart of the matter, which includes the FSA. That leadership is needed to drive the issue forward, not least when the full report is produced. Someone—not just the Minister, but the head of the FSA—must take a steer and say how strongly the recommendations will be pushed through.

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) brought a different perspective to the issue, and I thank him for talking about the need for consistent application of what eventually comes out of the Elliott review regardless of national borders. That relates to the big issue of long supply chains. We cannot suddenly make them disappear. There will be long global supply chains—that is the reality we now live with, even with the approach that Tesco and Asda are taking of shortening supply chains and so on. We therefore need commensurate transnational measures to deal with supply chains and to ensure that we can give consumers confidence on not only provenance but safety. A year ago, the issue was primarily provenance; the next one may be food safety. We must ensure that good crime analysis is comprehensively pushed out transnationally. We can do a lot about that.

All hon. Members who spoke referred, in various ways, to squaring the circle of cost, and having safe, affordable, nutritious food, while also having fair reward for producers. Those matters are not unconnected. They hang together coherently, or they should. The hon. Member for South Thanet referred to her consistent theme about the need for education and awareness so that people can do a lot with good food affordably. She is right, but that must be balanced against the reality of, for example, a single parent rushing between a couple of jobs and dealing with child duties. They will look for convenience foods, so our frozen, convenience meat products must be safe, nutritious and affordable—not simply cheap, but affordable. I know that she accepts that, and getting it right is important.

The Elliott review is important, and if we look at the scale of the industry, we see why it is critical to get the matter right. It involves not just consumer confidence but jobs and industry. According to the most recent figures from the Library, the food and drinks industry is worth £188 billion. The food and drink manufacturing industry is the single largest manufacturing sector in the UK, with a turnover of £92 billion and gross value added of £24 billion, accounting for 18% of the total manufacturing sector by turnover. It employs just over 400,000 workers, which is 16% of the overall manufacturing work force in the UK.

The latest figures that I have—I admit that they go back to 2012, so I suspect that they are slightly bigger now—suggest that just in the sectors responsible for the processing, production and preservation of meat, poultry, fish, crustaceans and molluscs, as referred to by the hon. Member for Strangford, there were nearly 3,500 enterprises of various size and scale, with more than £32 billion spent, employing more than 176,000 people. We therefore need to get things right—post-horsemeat and post-Elliott review and its final recommendations—not only for consumer confidence but because if we do not, that is what is at risk. Our deserved reputation for good, safe, well provenanced food was shaken last year. We need to get it right back in kilter for the domestic market, consumers, the industry itself and our export potential.

We know that there has been an impact on consumer confidence over the past year, because although frozen meat and poultry sales grew, those of frozen and processed meat products plummeted by as much as 40% for some sellers immediately after what happened, and there has been a slow recovery since. According to Euromonitor, consumer confidence in frozen and processed meat food is still low. As hon. Members have mentioned, the situation has been a boon for butchers, farm shops and the like, but it has also caused re-engineering towards shorter supply chains by organisations such as Asda and Tesco. I recall, as everybody will, Tesco’s “We get it” advert last year, which came, not coincidentally, at the same time as the National Farmers Union conference saying, “We get it. We will change the way we operate”. However, it was not simply Tesco—that was the biggest organisation to be confronted with the problem, but others have also started re-engineering. There is work to be done, and I keep a close eye on that, but they are starting to change how they operate.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I am somewhat baffled about how there can be such long supply chains in the manufacture of food products and yet the price is still so low. It seems common sense that the more travel is involved, and the more countries and the more different elements, the more the price will be bumped up. I suspect that I am putting my hon. Friend on the spot, but I very much welcome the fact that supply chains are being shortened, so that we know where our food is coming from.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point, but I think we have to accept that in international food transactions, some food products do not have a UK market. There are some products created in the UK that UK consumers do not consume. For example, if we look at some of the products that are consumed in other nations from the slaughter of chickens, there is currently no UK market for them. They are exported. Conversely and curiously, many of our farmers are finding at the moment that the premium prices for Welsh lamb, pork and so on are not primarily in the UK, so the market is operating in a way that is turning some of the product flows on their heads. Although I welcome a drive towards shorter, more clearly identifiable food supply chains, there will always be an element of longer supply chains, and that is why we need to deal with the issue in both ways.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I want to clarify that I am not really talking about us exporting our products or importing products, but at the time of the horsemeat scandal, when we were looking, for example, at what was in lasagne, about 11 different countries seemed to be involved. Meat might have started out in Ireland, but then it went to Spain, Romania and so on. Surely lasagne can just be made in one or two countries, rather than having to be sent on a tour of Europe before it gets to us.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point—I am sorry, I did not realise that she was referring to that specific example. She is right; in fact, in some examples, as many as 20 transaction points were in the food cycle, which is astonishing. Meat was hurtling across Europe for different parts of its processing. I suspect that it went beyond Europe as well, because there was an important, interesting sideshow going on. The US had banned the slaughter of horses for meat production, but most people had accepted that all they had done was exported that to South America—and where was it going from there?

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. One welcome move from some supermarkets and retailers is that the big ones are now following the established practice among others, such as Waitrose, Morrisons and the Co-op, of not only identifying local and UK sourcing—within England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and, I have to say, Ireland as well—but being much more specific for consumers. They are saying, “We can tell you where the product comes from and how close it is to market”. That is a welcome innovation.

I turn to the evidence of growth in food fraud and food crime. As hon. Members have mentioned, when the FSA set up the food fraud database in 2007, it received less than 50 reports of food fraud, but by last year it had received more than 1,500. According to the National Audit Office, local authorities reported 1,380 cases of food fraud in 2012, which was up by two thirds since 2010.

Professor Elliott wisely makes the distinction between food fraud and food crime. There have always been elements of food fraud going on; some noticeable ones are currently pending prosecution in different parts of the UK. However, food crime goes beyond the

“few random acts by ‘rogues’”—

they have always been out there operating, unfortunately, and they need to be stamped down on—into what Professor Elliott calls

“an organised activity perpetrated by groups who knowingly set out to deceive and or injure those purchasing a food product.”

It is on a grand scale and it is worrying.

[Laura Sandys]

The hon. Gentleman is making a very important point. It is absolutely crucial, when looking at international organised crime, which is part of the system, that we in the UK are not seen as the easy touch, and that the message goes out from Government to ensure that we are not seen as an easy-entry proposition for those sorts of crime organisations.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

The hon. Lady makes an absolutely valid point, and we should be leading on the matter. We have to do it alongside European colleagues and others, but we should be leading on it.

We understandably focused very much post-horsemeat on meat products, their provenance and so on, but Operation Opson II, the joint Interpol-Europol initiative two years ago, dealt with the seizure of potentially harmful products such as soup cubes, olive oil—a massive area of potential food crime—caviar, coffee and many other products. We need to be wise to the fact that the issue in the UK, post-horsemeat, is coloured by that, but it is a much wider issue, and whenever those involved can see the opportunity for criminality, they will try and get in there.

I turn back to the issue of horsemeat for a moment, because there are some particularly instructive points for how we can respond to Elliott and what comes out in his report. When the horsemeat crisis broke, it is undoubtedly true—I have to say this, and I have said it consistently—that there was a delay in Whitehall among Ministers. It is not just me saying that; others have, too. At the time, the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee said that

“the current contamination crisis has caught the FSA and Government flat-footed and unable to respond effectively within structures designed primarily to respond to threats to human health.”

Lord Rooker, speaking only last month at a major food symposium, said:

“There was confusion in the first three or four days about who was responsible for what…There was a hiatus in the first few days. But the slowest place it went in the food industry was Whitehall. The Department of Health, DEFRA…and Number 10 blamed the FSA for the problem in the first three weeks. It’s always the issue—blame the regulator—”

in his words—

“as happened in the flooding crisis with the Environment Agency. But it is not a very good way to operate.”

Labour’s and others’ call for another look at the powers of the FSA is supported by the former chairman of the FSA, Lord Rooker, and the same concerns have been raised in the Elliott report, in Professor Pat Troop’s inquiry for the FSA, in the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee report and by the National Audit Office. I say to the Minister that there is a real strength of voice saying, “Look at the governance of the food industry again, and at how it has been fragmented.” The lack of clarity about that is not the reason why we are where we are, but it is certainly a contributory factor, as is the lack of clarity between Whitehall and what is happening locally on the ground. Labour therefore welcomes the report. It must be a wake-up call for the Government—for all Governments, whoever is in government.

Twelve months after the horsemeat scandal, we see in the papers today that no prosecutions have been brought, as hon. Members have commented today. They are right—no major prosecutions have been brought, but a couple of what might be deemed peripheral cases are under way. However, it seems to me—I may be wrong—that those cases involve the small guys and fringe operators. They do need to be brought to book, but I am not seeing any follow-through at the moment. Perhaps the Minister will tell me of something more major, with serious criminality behind it.

The hon. Member for South Thanet made a point about the penalties that are available. It is interesting that currently, under the various food regulations, there are penalties such as fines of up to £20,000 under the General Food Regulations 2004, which seems a lot, and imprisonment of up to two years. If we are talking about real, serious-scale criminality, is a £20,000 fine enough? Most well organised, transnational, serious criminals—the ones that were targeted by the Serious Organised Crime Agency, as it was previously known—would laugh at that penalty. One question that comes out of the Elliott review, the horsemeat scandal and any prosecutions that might be pending is whether we need to look again at penalties in a much more serious way. Should more severe penalties be available not only in the UK, but across the EU? Is there scope, for example, for confiscation of assets and so on?

Of course, all that work goes alongside European initiatives. The European Union food fraud unit is doing good work, and it will be interesting to see whether the Minister refers to that. The need for centralisation of the horse passports system has been identified, and the Government have been considering for some time what they should do in that respect. They have always been scathing about the old equine database and have said that they see the need for a centralised database. We accept that, but is it coming forward and how does it tie in with the European approach to horse passports? There is also the option of extending country-of-origin labelling to processed meat. The second round of DNA testing of meat products will take place this spring. I hope that the Minister will respond on some of those matters in his summing-up speech.

European Commissioner Borg said in an interview last week:

“We want to ensure that the actions that we have taken have borne fruit, otherwise we will have to introduce even stricter measures”.

Does the Minister think that we are on course now? Are we responding effectively? If not, what will those stricter measures be, and what impact will they have on both burdens on the industry and consumer prices? It is in our interest to get this right and to go forward without disproportionate burdens. I welcome the EU food integrity initiative and the lead role of the UK’s Food and Environment Research Agency—one quango that, quite rightly, was not burned in the bonfire.

I want to ask the Minister about the UK’s current position not only on food safety and food provenance, but on “wholesome” food. I suspect that many hon. Members here today are not aware of what is currently going on in the European Union, but there is a debate about the definition of wholesome food and the need to ensure that we have wholesome food in the supply chain. We understand that UK Ministers are supporting a drive to weaken the framework whereby meat and food inspections for abscesses, tumours and so on—the “unwholesome” parts of a carcase—mean that they are prevented from entering the food chain. The carcases are split open and inspected, and any contaminated meat is cut out. That is under European regulation 882. Why would the Government, after the horsemeat scandal and while we are considering the Elliott report, even consider ending the requirement for official controls that ensure that food of animal origin is free of diseased, or “unwholesome” in Euro-speak, animal material?

On the interim Elliott review proposals and the questions that arise from them, I entirely agree that Elliott puts consumers first. He asks for a zero-tolerance approach. I agree about that, and I suspect that we will need to look at the range of sanctions that we have available. Should we include seizure of assets, longer sentences and suspension or exclusion from the food manufacturing sector, for example?

On intelligence gathering, Elliott talks about the need to involve stakeholders, including industry, but says that there should also be cross-border intelligence gathering. We agree. On laboratory services, as hon. Members have mentioned, Elliott raises major questions about the reductions in UK laboratory and testing capacity. On audit, we agree with Elliott’s recommendations, as we do on Government support and on leadership. We have been playing catch-up during the past year. We now need to get ahead of the game on leadership, politically as well as within food governance. On crisis management, Elliott says that when a serious incident occurs, the necessary mechanisms must be in place so that regulators and industry can deal with it, and I agree.

We need to champion the consumer and the industry and get this right. The Elliott report takes us on significantly, and I hope that the Minister will say today that he is extremely positive about the recommendations and will tell us when we are likely to see some implementation to take them forward.

Oral Answers to Questions

Huw Irranca-Davies Excerpts

Thursday 27th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paterson]

I raised the issue with Commissioner Borg on my first day back, a week last Monday. We are pressing on with the development of a cattle vaccine but, sadly, it will take some years: we have to develop a vaccine that is valid and works; we have to develop a DIVA test to differentiate between vaccinated cattle and diseased cattle; and we then have to get a legal process. I am afraid that that is going to take at least 10 years.

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

I genuinely welcome the Secretary of State back after his operation. It is good to see him back.

When the Government’s approach to TB was resoundingly rejected by Parliament two weeks ago, the Secretary of State was on a chocolate factory visit. He had previously stormed out of a debate before another Government defeat on badger culls, muttering, “I’ve had enough of this.” If he has really had enough of this, as more and more Government Members have, will he at least have the courage of his convictions and give Parliament a vote in Government time before proceeding with any more of these failed badger culls?

[Mr Paterson]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his kind comments.

I do not recollect storming out of anywhere. We have been punctilious in keeping Parliament informed through regular statements, and the issue comes up regularly at questions. The last vote, with a majority of 61, very clearly endorsed our strategy, which is very wide and encompasses other actions. [Interruption.] The last vote on a substantive motion showed considerable support, with a majority of 61, for our strategy. The hon. Gentleman has got to get beyond the issue of culls. Our strategy encompasses vaccination of both species, significant changes to our cattle movement regime and tighter biosecurity. He should concentrate on the whole strategy, which was endorsed in Parliament by 61 votes.

Badger Cull

Huw Irranca-Davies Excerpts

Thursday 13th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker—[Interruption.] Will Opposition Members listen to my point of order? I have been listening carefully to my hon. Friend quoting figures from an independent report. Are you aware, Madam Deputy Speaker, whether that independent report has been placed in the Library of the House or on the Table, so that hon. Members taking part in the debate may reference it? I was not aware that the report had been published.

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

Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I may be able to help the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) and the House. Today, I received a response from the Minister who is present, the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice), which clarifies that the report has just arrived on the Secretary of State’s desk. The pursuant question is why, when it was due to be published in February, it has not been published in time for today’s debate.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

I thank the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) for his point of order. It is not in fact a point of order for the Chair, but it is a point that the House has noted. The hon. Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies) has been helpful in providing information to the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)]

Unlike those of the previous speakers, my constituents have cattle. They also have experience of TB and are wrestling with the problem.

I am sorry that the debate is taking place at all. I have a great deal of respect for the Backbench Business Committee, but it would have been considerably more helpful if it had waited to hold the debate until after the report had been published. If we have a scientific report, it is worth reading it before having the debate.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The hon. Gentleman has mentioned once again the IEP report and it might help the House to know that we now know, as I have had a response today, that the report is available and on the desk of the Secretary of State. May I ask through you whether the Minister and officials, through their good offices, could produce that immediately and put it in the Library? We still have time to look at it and consider it in the debate. That would help all Members.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

That is clearly not a matter for the Chair, but the Minister will have heard the hon. Gentleman’s point and, as he has said, there is plenty of time left in the debate at the moment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

The Minister has it.

[Simon Hart]

I have a huge amount of respect for the shadow Minister, as he knows. It is all very well for him to point at the Minister and say that he has it, but we cannot just look through a lengthy report in one morning or during a debate and reach a solid conclusion.

--- Later in debate ---

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

I thank the Backbench Business Committee for choosing the debate and the hon. Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) for introducing it—with great fortitude, I might add, and I commend her for that. I also thank the cross-party group of MPs who secured the debate, which is hugely significant and timely, because the Minister is considering wider roll-outs. We have seen cross-party support for a new way forward and a new consensus based on vaccination and cattle measures.

I thank all Members who have spoken, even those whose opinions I respect but disagree with. There were many good contributions, including by the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh), who has great experience, and the hon. Members for North Herefordshire (Bill Wiggin), for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown), for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart), for Brecon and Radnorshire (Roger Williams)—we go back a long way—for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski) and for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish). I may not agree with many of the points that they made, but they spoke with passion for their constituents.

Those who have spoken for the motion today and for a considered, cross-party and scientific consensus on the way forward include the hon. Member for St Albans, who made the point that this is not a case of one side against another; my hon. Friends the Members for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith), for Dumfries and Galloway (Mr Brown), for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman), for Coventry North West (Mr Robinson), for Copeland (Mr Reed), for Newport West (Paul Flynn), for Derby North (Chris Williamson), for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick), for Inverclyde (Mr McKenzie), for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) and for Llanelli (Nia Griffith); the hon. Members for St Ives (Andrew George), for Southend West (Mr Amess), for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch), for Torbay (Mr Sanders) and for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas); and the right hon. Members for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Burstow) and, lately, for Hazel Grove (Sir Andrew Stunell). In every part of the Chamber, on every Bench, there have been calm, rational and methodical arguments on why we should have a different way forward.

A number of questions face Ministers today. Why continue to pursue a policy of eradicating bovine TB in cattle involving mass culling of badgers? It proved hugely costly to taxpayers and farmers and was critically flawed, from the first principles, through the methodology to the application in the field. It failed to meet the Government’s own limited tests of effectiveness and humaneness. In short, not enough badgers were culled, and too many were not killed cleanly, but suffered before dying. Culls have diverted stretched police resources from front-line duties to deal with protesters and to ensure public safety, prompting police and crime commissioners to speak out in opposition. Culls are deeply unpopular with the public throughout the country, in town and country alike. Culls are scientifically controversial to the point of flying in the face of mainstream, expert advice, from which, as we have seen today, increasing numbers of Government MPs are making the right and intelligent choice to seek alternative, workable strategies for TB eradication.

Why pursue such a policy when it is so clearly contested scientifically, so deeply flawed methodologically and so evidently failing, and when there are proven alternatives, which are more humane, more effective, cheaper and more publicly acceptable? Why do that when scientists, many farmers, MPs from all parties and Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition are willing to work with the Government on an alternative strategy that will be enduring and effective and garner widespread stakeholder and public support? In all sincerity, despite—in fact because of—those flawed and failed culls in Gloucester and Somerset, it is not too late for Ministers to think again and for us to work together on a better way forward.

Before addressing what has gone wrong with the culls and what can now be done, let me make it clear that Labour agrees entirely and unequivocally that the scourge of bovine TB must be eradicated. It must be eradicated because of the terrible waste of productive cattle, the destruction of pedigree herds, the cash-flow and wider economic impacts on family farms, the psychological trauma for farmers and their families, and the unsustainable cost of compensation payments. Some have pointed out that many more tens of thousands of cattle are slaughtered each year for many other reasons—mastitis, lameness, old age, inability to calve and so on. That is true, but 1% of the total cattle herd, dairy and non-dairy, in the UK is slaughtered because of bovine TB, and that is unacceptable. What also distinguishes that from other reasons for slaughter is that it is a notifiable disease. We have a public and legal duty to bear down on it, and pressing trade reasons to do so, too. On that, we are at one with the Government.

We support the UK and the Welsh Governments for their increasingly stringent efforts, working with farmers, to clamp down on the disease by use of cattle measures. As this is a disease in cattle, the primary resolution will be in cattle measures. Some Ministers give the impression that badgers are the main culprits, yet we know from exhaustive in-field studies that although there is some direct transmission of TB from infected badgers to cattle—it is about 6% of the total—and that that may indeed play a role in subsequent onward transmission, cattle-to-cattle transmission is the major element.

We know also that the most significant spike in TB was linked to the rapid spread of the disease in the immediate aftermath of foot and mouth disease, when the restocking of cattle took place northwards and westwards, often from areas further south where TB was present. In addition, there have been sporadic occurrences in parts of the country and farms where there has been no history of TB, and we must note the presence of TB-free farms in the midst of hotspot areas. All that reinforces the scientific conclusion that stringent cattle measures are key to a successful strategy of eradication. Movement restrictions, risk-based trading, rigorous biosecurity and other measures will play the most substantial part in eradicating the disease.

However, we also need fully to recognise the need to tackle reservoirs of the disease in wildlife, where appropriate. Our disagreement with the Government—it is a profound disagreement—is over the best means of addressing the wildlife reservoir. We believe, as do many farmers and leading scientific opinion, backed by mounting evidence of success, which has been set out before the Minister today, that there is another way to tackle badger TB which has greater certainty of success and avoids the significant risks of a mass-culling programme.

Before I expand on an alternative approach, we have to examine what went wrong with the Government’s culls last year. There was a sequence of dire policy miscalculations, each of which compounded the other and led to wholesale failure. The crucial baseline population of badgers was first overestimated, then underestimated; a risky and wholly untested “free-shoot” approach was adopted, which promptly but predictably failed; more costly cage-trap-shoot methods were rapidly then introduced, yet still too few badgers were culled in the time frame allowed, posing an increased risk of spreading TB; the six-week time-frame was then controversially extended and, again, still too few badgers were killed; and, meanwhile, police patrolled the country trying to maintain order for deeply unpopular culls, and running up bills for the taxpayer.

We now understand from a delayed but leaked Government report that too many badgers died inhumanely, enduring suffering before death. As an aside, I note that the British Veterinary Association, of which I am proud to be an honorary member, predicated its support on these culls being humane—watch this space.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

Between 1998 and 2010, the number of herd breakdowns tripled from 1,226 to 3,334, and the number of cattle slaughtered rose sixfold, from 4,102 to 24,000. Given what I am hearing from the Labour Front-Bench team today, can our farmers, who are suffering so terribly from this disease, expect more of the same?

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

No, and I refer the hon. Gentleman, who makes a valid point, to the figures for the past three years, which have shown a downward trend.

I say to the Minister that the two key tests for the Government of effectiveness and humaneness have been failed. So let us not keep inflicting this costly policy failure and public relations disaster on farmers, taxpayers and wildlife. Let us learn the lessons from these two failed and costly culls, stop them now and look at the alternative way forward, which can be cheaper, more humane and more effective.

Look instead to Wales, where there has been a significant and substantial reduction in TB, at twice the rate of the decline in England. That happened without culling, but with vaccination and stringent cattle measures. Look to Northern Ireland, where BTB is declining faster, without culling, than in the Republic, where culling is taking place. Look closer to home, in England, where the incidence of BTB began to decline even before the culls started. We repeatedly pointed out that trend to Ministers, who either ignored or denied it. The trend is even more apparent now that Ministers have admitted that the figures incorrectly overstated BTB.

More and more MPs from across the parties, including independent-minded Government MPs, are calling on Ministers to pause and think again. There is a different approach to tackling TB in cattle and wildlife, if only Ministers would listen to the evidence, and to the increasing numbers of MPs of their own party who have lost faith in these deeply flawed culls. We want the Government to work with the science and across political parties to seek a new, lasting consensus on the way forward. Labour, scientists, and many farmers want to do that, so I repeat the offer that I made to the Secretary of State in writing in December: work with us, with farmers, and with the evidence to agree a new, better way forward.

--- Later in debate ---

That this House believes that the pilot badger culls in Gloucestershire and Somerset have decisively failed against the criteria set out by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in guidance to Natural England for licensing of the culls, which stipulated that 70 per cent of the badger population should be culled within a six-week period; notes that the costs of policing, additional implementation and monitoring, and the resort to more expensive cage-and-trap methods over an extended period have substantially increased the cost of the culls, and strengthened the financial case for vaccination; regrets that the decision to extend the original culls has not been subject to any debate or vote in Parliament; further regrets that the Independent Expert Panel will only assess the humaneness, safety and effectiveness of the original six-week period and not the extended cull period; and urges the Government to halt the existing culls and granting of any further licences, pending development of alternative strategies to eradicate bovine TB and promote a healthy badger population.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Parliament has today expressed a very clear view that the mass culling of badgers is not appropriate as part of a bovine TB eradication strategy. I also learnt today, from a response to my named day question, that the Secretary of State has now received, and is now considering, the delayed independent expert report, which will likely condemn the culls as ineffective and inhumane. May I therefore ask the Minister, through you, Mr Deputy Speaker, to confirm that a full debate and vote in Government time will now take place before any decision to proceed with an existing or new cull takes place?

Oral Answers to Questions

Huw Irranca-Davies Excerpts

Thursday 13th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice]

My right hon. Friend highlights an important point, which is that this issue around food banks touches on many different Government Departments. It is why, at the debate before Christmas, my hon. Friend in the Cabinet Office responded to that report. My right hon. Friend is right that a number of Government Departments have a role in this matter, but, focusing on the bit that is relevant to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, it is important to recognise that food price inflation is now falling. It was 1.9% in December, and that was below the average level of inflation, and food is now 4.8% cheaper in the UK than in France, 14% cheaper than in Germany and 18% cheaper than in Ireland. On food prices, the UK is in a better position than most other European countries.

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

That is extraordinary complacency. In December, a group of doctors and leading academics from the Medical Research Council wrote to the British Medical Journal with concerns over the surge in the numbers of people requiring emergency food aid, the decrease in the calorific intake of families and the doubling of malnutrition cases presenting at English hospitals. The Government are presiding over a national scandal in public health as well as a failure of social economic policy. When will the Minister publish that delayed report on food aid? Publish and be damned!

[George Eustice]

Let us look at the facts on food price affordability. In 2008, the poorest 20% of households were spending 16.8% of household income on food. In 2012, they were spending 16.6%, so the truth is that the poorest households are spending roughly the same amount of their household income now as they were under the previous Government. The Government have a number of projects to help them. Through the healthy start scheme, the Government are providing a nutritional safety net in a way that encourages healthy eating, which has helped more than half a million pregnant women and children under four years old who are disadvantaged and come from households on very low incomes. We also have a number of other projects under way.

Rural Communities

Huw Irranca-Davies Excerpts

Thursday 9th January 2014 Commons Chamber

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

It is a pleasure to take part in this excellent and wide-ranging debate. There have been experienced and knowledgeable contributions from all Members who have taken part. I thank the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, under the sterling stewardship of the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh), for its sixth report on rural communities. There are 143 pages of recorded evidence—written and oral—from, among others, the Rural Coalition, the County Councils Network, BT, the Dispensing Doctors Association, Calor Gas, the Consumers Association, the Plunkett Foundation and all other groups with strong rural interests. It is a thorough piece of work that should be commended.

This has been a good debate, and I want to touch briefly on some of the contributions. First, the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton summed up all the matters raised in the sixth report, which was a real tour de force, and I will return to some of them in a moment. Interestingly, her proposal for an annual debate on rural communities received good feedback from all parts of the House. In fact, there has been a great deal of support for it in the Chamber today. I am sure that you, Madam Deputy Speaker, will have noticed that, as will have the Leader of the House and the Minister. It is certainly something that we would support in line with other good debates we have on matters such as fisheries.

Let me turn to the contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen). I can vouch for the beauty of his constituency, which he waxed lyrical about. It is second only to the beautiful hidden gem of the sources of the Rivers Ogmore and Llynfi and the surrounding acres of heaven.

My hon. Friend mentioned the fact that transmission costs of energy are much higher in rural areas such as north-west Wales. He also talked about off-grid energy costs. More than 126,000 people in Wales rely on off-grid energy, and they are not all in areas that we would customarily regard as peripherally rural. They are often in mining communities such as my own. I pay tribute to him for championing these off-grid energy issues for many years.

Like other Members, my hon. Friend raised the issue of petrol rebates. He made the interesting observation that the rebates seem to be going to those areas that are of a particular colour on the political map of this country. I am sure that that will change over time with his strong representations.

The hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) spoke well for his constituents and highlighted the fact that poverty and deprivation can be hidden behind this idyllic rural image of thatched cottages and leafy lanes, or even, as he mentioned, hedge-fund millionaires’ mansions. He also talked about the additional costs of living in rural areas and of accessing services and said that 20% more is spent on everyday goods than in urban areas. That theme was picked up by other Members including the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford), who also mentioned petrol costs.

The hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Glyn Davies) —we had a lot of Celts here today from the Celtic fringes, from the south-west of England, through Wales and elsewhere—talked about the costs of providing rural services such as health in places like Powys and the need for good cross-border work on this and on other aspects such as transport. I certainly subscribe to such a view as my wife works for the NHS in Powys. It is a very real issue.

The hon. Gentleman also talked interestingly about a potential review of the red meat levy and how it is properly allocated around the regions and nations of the UK. He recognised, though, the good work that is done centrally. His call on that matter is timely, and hopefully the Minister will have heard him.

My hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith) powerfully reminded us that some rural communities, including my own, were previously at the heart of the industrial and extractive industries such as steel and coal. Curiously, they are often missed from these debates on rural areas. In a fairly short time frame, those areas have been exposed to all the problems characteristic of rural isolation and peripherality, so it is good to see them strongly represented today.

My hon. Friend also picked up on the abolition of the Agricultural Wages Board, which was opposed in Wales not just by Labour but by the National Farmers Union in Wales, the Federation of Young Farmers and others, but I suspect that that matter is for another day. She also touched on the fears over the long-term future of rural post office deliveries and the link between Royal Mail and the health of the post office network.

The hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr Williams) spoke well for his constituents, but was slightly derogatory about the fact that his area had not been included in the rural derogation for petrol proposals, and a few other Members picked up on that, and put in pitches for their area as well. He also talked about the additional costs of living in rural areas.

No one has talked specifically about the research that has been done to show the additional cost of food in rural areas, which was mentioned in the report. I am sure the Minister will remark on that matter when he comes to speak. The hon. Member for High Peak (Andrew Bingham) talked about the power of rural communities to come together to help and protect each other. It reminds me of much of the co-operative movement or even, dare I say it, the old slogan used by Labour and the union movement, which says, “In unity is strength.”

The hon. Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart) observed that the numbers in the Chamber were not as high as we would all like. Perhaps they will be in future debates. We may be in few in number, but we are among the best. He summed up well the false and dangerous metaphorical wall that we put up around “rural” issues and communities. In fact, the health and wealth of our cities, market towns, hamlets or crofts and all points in between are seamlessly interwoven, a point also made by the hon. Member for Salisbury (John Glen).

The hon. Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire mentioned in closing that 2% had been suggested as the proportion of the electorate represented by rural MPs. I would challenge that, as it depends on how we define rurality. As I said earlier, a wide range of rural issues also affect places with industrial parts. My area is 20 miles from the M4 corridor and the main south Wales rail network, yet it has issues with off-grid energy, rurality, isolation and so on.

The hon. Member for Salisbury talked about the roll-out of superfast broadband and said that it would be the measure of success as the election approached. At that point, I looked across and I am sure that I saw the Minister gulp. I know that he is not at all worried about it—[Interruption.] The Minister is indicating from a sedentary position that he was smiling.

The hon. Member for Macclesfield (David Rutley) talked with passion about his constituency and mentioned the Wincle trout races. He also mentioned the Macclesfield sheep dog trials—not guilty, say I. The old ones are the best. He talked with some fluency about the economic impact of the Ramblers, and I declare an interest as president of the Glamorgan Ramblers and vice-president of Ramblers Cymru. We need to do more and to see a speedy and resourced roll-out of the England coastal path. That will be a huge benefit for rural coastal communities.

As I was preparing for today’s debate over my breakfast, I picked up my daily breakfast reading. I was surprised by the fact that who knows what glorious conjunction of the stars had brought about, on the same day as we were to debate rural communities, the front-page headline, “Coalition’s legacy could be harm to the countryside.” I spluttered over my Weetabix. One might expect such a headline ripping into the coalition’s record from the Morning Star, or from revolutionary pamphleteers such as The Guardian or The Independent, but from the Telegraph—The Daily Telegraph, the voice of the Tory shires? Incidentally, I must say that the Telegraph’s rugby coverage is very good.

One might expect such a headline to have been generated by a clarion voice of the left—a flag-waving, “Red flag” singing, barricade-storming sentinel of socialism, attacking the serried ranks of landed privilege and wealth—but I spluttered again over my breakfast, this time toast and jam, when I read that it was inspired by the criticisms of the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi), a Conservative Member of Parliament and, apparently, an adviser to No. 10, too. I have cancelled my subscription to Socialist Worker, so taken am I by the successful attacks on the Government by this new revolutionary cell in No. 10 and our fourth estate. Rumours are circulating that the hon. Gentleman is what we term a “sleeper”, who has spent years burrowing into Tory high command and is now under instruction to tear the house of cards down from within. Time will tell.

Ultimately, the debate is set against a rural backdrop of tough times, including for working families. We know that across the UK working families are struggling because of the impact of the policies being pursued. A typical family will be £1,600 worse off at the end of the Prime Minister’s tenure, but research shows that there is an added impact on rural communities across the country, where wages fell in real terms by £1,300 between 2010 and 2012. The nature of rurality means that rural families are spending £2,700 more on everyday goods than their urban counterparts.

We know that the bedroom tax hits rural households disproportionately severely, as working families, who are already struggling to find affordable homes where they were brought up, close to where they work and to their families, are displaced further and further afield, weakening community ties, driving up the cost of living and working and ultimately undermining the sustainability of those rural communities.

The viability of rural communities is intimately tied up with their ability to access markets, to sell goods, to trade, to access services and to engage with Government and agencies remotely and digitally. Whether we are talking about a farmer sorting out forms for single farm payments on his handheld device or at the kitchen table on a laptop, a bed and breakfast or a field of yurts selling accommodation, a surf school in Cornwall, a school-child accessing online educational materials for homework, or just Mr and Mrs Jones trying to take up the Prime Minister’s advice to switch energy providers and save money or looking to make a fleecy purchase after taking up the Energy Secretary’s advice to wear a jumper to cut down on heating costs, they all need access to the internet. However, the National Audit Office damned the Government early last spring for being two years behind schedule and £200 million over budget, a point that has also been picked up by the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee in its work.

Things might be changing, but as the days of autumn closed in last year, the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath), who was in the Chamber earlier, freed from the shackles of DEFRA ministerial office, said:

“A man with a stick would be quicker at delivering a message than my so-called broadband”

and as we approached Christmas, he further complained:

“The rural equivalent of waiting for Godot is waiting for high-speed broadband”.—[Official Report, 4 December 2013; Vol. 571, c. 912.]

Those words came from a former Minister. At least with “Waiting for Godot” some deep philosophical point is being pondered—the wait is the very thing—and there is ultimately an end point as we all return home from the theatre. People in rural communities cannot see the end of the long-running broadband and mobile drama.

I realise I risk sounding a little negative about the Government’s record on rural communities, so let me be a little more positive by suggesting some ideas that would help the hard-stretched rural communities, businesses and households struggling under a prolonged cost of living crisis. We know that the Government have turned their back on one proposal that would help many rural households by refusing to accept a price freeze while the market is reset for the consumer—we will have to wait for the next election for that—but they could do something for off-grid energy users in two ways. First, they could bring off-grid under a regulatory structure to bring long-term thinking to the sector and give certainty to consumers and investors that their interests are being looked after. Secondly, they could bring forward payment of the winter fuel payment so that vulnerable elderly householders could purchase oil and gas outside autumn/winter when typical costs can increase by hundreds of pounds, as I know from experience. The Government could also look at the lamentable delivery to those same households of the energy company obligation and green deal installations on energy efficiency. Of 379,297 measures installed before the end of October 2013, how many have been delivered under the carbon saving community obligation rural sub-obligation? Only 51. That is not good enough.

Labour would, with no additional spending commitment and within existing resources, transfer £75 million from the super-connected cities programme into a digital inclusion fund of clear and direct benefit to the businesses, communities and households in rural areas that could make the internet work better for them. As my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins), the shadow Business, Innovation and Skills Minister, has made clear, Labour’s proposals on business rates would lead to an average reduction of £410 in year one for the 1.5 million businesses with turnover below £50,000, a disproportionate number of which are in rural areas. That initial saving would be followed by a business rates freeze the following year.

Affordable housing has been talked about by many Members from all parties. As we have heard, purchasing a home in a rural community requires six and half times the rural average wage. More must be done.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

So, a Labour Government are going to transfer resources and funding from marginal seats in the great cities to Conservative seats in rural areas, are they?

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

The point raised by the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee on funding allocations in rural and urban areas is interesting and merits consideration. There are pockets of deprivation.

The point I was making about affordable homes when the hon. Gentleman intervened is that we need to build more homes, but they need to be the right homes in the right place, well designed and with bottom-up input from communities. We need to get on with it. The hon. Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire made exactly that point: the obstacles to planning and providing affordable houses to rent and purchase are stopping those communities growing and forcing young people to move away from the area.

I do not have time to touch on the cultural, social and economic importance of farming, on the food and drink sector or on transport, education and so on. Other Members did.

If I have been provocative in parts, let me be consensual in conclusion. I think we can all agree that this has been a good and strong debate and we thank the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton and the Select Committee for securing it. Perhaps we can all support her call to make it a regular fixture in the parliamentary calendar.