Food Fraud

Debate between Huw Irranca-Davies and Baroness McIntosh of Pickering

Monday 8th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

Select committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

Debate between Huw Irranca-Davies and Baroness McIntosh of Pickering

Thursday 3rd July 2014 Commons Chamber

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

There is much to be commended and debated in this welcome report, and I hope we will have the opportunity to do so in short order, not least the acknowledgement that:

“Food security is not simply about becoming more self-sufficient in food production.”

as well as the imperative for the UK to boost its productivity for domestic and export reasons.

Why does the Committee feel it necessary, as its first recommendation, to urge the Government to

“identify Defra as the lead Department for food security”

given that that should be the Department’s raison d’être and a core part of its mission? Why is it necessary to highlight that, even though it is welcome?

[Miss McIntosh]

I welcome the welcome from the hon. Gentleman, and we are grateful to BBC 5 Live for using such graphic language, which I felt would also be acceptable in the Chamber. We stated that DEFRA should be a champion and a lead Department because in areas such as farming and—dare I say it?—also outside farming in tourism, which impacts on the rural economy more broadly, policy often cuts across many different Departments. In this instance, the agri-tech strategy is important in promoting and boosting food security and increasing self-sufficiency, and it potentially goes to the heart of exports, and cuts across the three Departments I mentioned. We just want to give DEFRA a little bit of welly to go out and be confident in discussions with other Departments. Farming remains at the heart of DEFRA. It is our fourth priority to grow the rural economy, and I believe that DEFRA is best placed to lead on that.

Elliott Review and Food Crime

Debate between Huw Irranca-Davies and Baroness McIntosh of Pickering

Wednesday 2nd April 2014 Westminster Hall

[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.

Food Contamination

Debate between Huw Irranca-Davies and Baroness McIntosh of Pickering

Thursday 17th October 2013 Westminster Hall

[Miss McIntosh]

Perhaps I could set the scene in terms of the food industry. As of last year, there were more than 490,000 food businesses in England. In 2011-12, spending to protect consumers from food incidents was £241 million, 75% of which was spent by local authorities to enforce food law.

One issue the Committee identified was that the Food Standards Agency reports to three key Departments with responsibility for aspects of food policy. Furthermore, there has been a marked fall since 2009-12 in the number of local authority food samples tested. In addition, there are 12 different national and European databases on food intelligence.

Let me record a little of the history. In November 2012, there was a routine meeting between the Food Safety Authority of Ireland and the UK’s FSA. At that meeting, the Irish FSA mentioned that it was developing a new methodology for checking the composition of meat products. The first question the Committee asked—we are asking it again today—was why it took two months for our own FSA to authorise and conduct any testing.

Tests then found that there had been contamination; it was small in the UK, but it was widespread in the EU. In the UK, horse and pig DNA were found in a variety of beef products, including samples of Findus lasagne, which contained more than 60% horsemeat; Aldi lasagne and spaghetti bolognese, which contained between 30% and 100% horsemeat; and beef products certified as halal and supplied to prisons in England and Wales that contained pork DNA.

Those findings emerged only after extensive testing of beef products across the EU and by local authorities and industry in the UK. The EU tests revealed that 4.66% of products contained more than 1% horse DNA. The UK incidence of contamination in products tested was less than 1%. Although the contamination was small, and the principle was that this was a labelling and a fraud issue, there could so easily have been a food safety scare and a food safety scandal.

Complacency is not the best word to use, but we have seen no sense of urgency among the Government, which is why we welcome my hon. Friend’s appointment as Minister. The Secretary of State or another Minister told us in evidence that the perpetrators of this crime—if it was a crime, and everyone generally understands it is a crime—would face the full force of the law. What arrests have therefore been made? What is the role of Europol and, possibly, Interpol? What charges and prosecutions have been brought by the City of London police to draw a line under this issue?

If we are to boost consumer confidence, which I think we all want to do, we must show there is no further contamination and no prospect of further contamination. We therefore need to know at what stage the contamination and adulteration entered the food supply chain. We talk a lot in the two reports about controls in the food chain, to protect consumers from contaminated and potentially unsafe food, which did not work in the case in question.

Perhaps the most worrying aspect of the matter, as something following on from the BSE crisis, is that every 10 years we have either a food scare or a food crisis. In the early 1990s, it was BSE; in 2001, it was foot and mouth disease; and in 2012—we know that it started in 2011—it was the scandal to do with horsemeat contamination and pork DNA being found in halal meat. That was completely unacceptable.

One worry is identifying the supply chain, and traceability, and we drew some clear conclusions from the evidence. The chief executive of the FSA told us the contamination and adulteration could have been going on for almost a year, from March 2012, when desinewed meat production in this country was banned—there was also a so-called ban in the EU, although we believe it was being produced in the EU.

We concluded that the system for food traceability, including the requirement that at every stage in the supply chain operators must keep records of the source and destination of each product, has been breached; that retailers and meat processors should have been more vigilant about the risk of deliberate adulteration; and that trust is not a sufficient guarantee in a system where meat is traded many times before reaching its final destination. We have also noted our concern about the length of supply chains for processed and frozen beef products. We welcome the efforts of some retailers to shorten those whenever possible.

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

I commend the hon. Lady for securing the debate. Perhaps I can bring together two strands of her thinking. There will be public discontent if only a relatively few small players are investigated and prosecuted and become scapegoats for the industry. If larger players—whether they are meat processors, retailers or others—can be proved not to have used due diligence, or to have been negligent, ignorant or downright culpable, the size of the operation or its importance to the European market should not preclude investigation, including by Governments working together, if necessary.

[Miss McIntosh]

I welcome that intervention. The hon. Gentleman’s Front-Bench colleague, the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner), led a line of questioning in that regard, and we met a brick wall. I agree that the action taken should not be symbolic, against small retailers. We must go through the supply chain. When a major supermarket takes a supply chain on trust year after year, without inspecting identities and its integrity, there is definitely something wrong. As to traceability and the so-called labelling issue, I confess to being disappointed with the Government response. We have identified a problem of traceability and labelling, and I urge the Minister to go a bit further, so that we have concrete suggestions.

I have mentioned the number of relevant businesses and the food industry’s importance to the economy. We must accept, with respect to testing, the need for a risk-based assessment, but when we are told that there is a risk in a particular country we need, for goodness’ sake, to wake up, liven up and respond, because of the potential for a problem in this country.

The people we need to go out and do testing—the first in line—are food analysts. We learned in evidence that most of those are in the Association of Public Analysts. I want to dwell on that point for a moment. We found out that insufficient testing has been done by local authorities since 2009. We need to accept that, although testing must be risk-based, there should be some random testing to ensure that nothing slips through the net.

We also identified an acute potential shortage of public analysts. I want to take issue with the Government response to our second report at point 13:

“Officials from both FSA and Defra meet regularly with representatives from the Association of Public Analysts and local authorities to ensure sufficient laboratory capacity exists and suitable methods are in place”.

I want to quiz the Minister on that. The Association of Public Analysts has meetings with FSA officials twice a year. That is not “regularly”—it is only every six months. One meeting was attended by a DEFRA official, the implication being that the other was not, and laboratory capacity is not discussed. Even if it were discussed, it is not within the gift of individual public analysts, or the association, to prevent laboratory closures or to ensure sufficient capacity.

The Government response is flawed because it does not deal with the Committee recommendation that they should ensure that there are sufficient properly trained public analysts. Why does that matter? It is not only the Committee, which heard powerful and compelling evidence about it, that concluded that it is important. The National Audit Office report, published earlier this month, leant heavily on—I would like to think—our work and on the report’s conclusions and recommendations. It stressed, as we did, that budget cuts coupled with a two thirds rise in reported food fraud have increased the risk of another horsemeat scandal. The NAO also said that the cuts in testing led to a loss of intelligence information, so that the Government

“failed to identify the potential risk of adulteration of beef with horsemeat, despite indications of heightened risk.”

The NAO report questions whether there will be sufficient capacity to respond to future incidents. I am mindful of what the previous Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Mrs Spelman), said about DEFRA being the fourth emergency service, and of the possibility that, given the dramatic decline over recent years in the number of public analysts and laboratories, there will not be the capability for detecting food fraud. I urge the Minister to respond to that concern.

I have covered the question of Europol, Interpol and our police bringing people to book, and discussed traceability. I want to make a final point. There is a richesse before us, and I could dwell on every recommendation and conclusion; I am sure that the Minister will remember the passion with which the Committee adopted the recommendations. I want now to focus on what the FSA’s role should be.

In our first report, we conclude:

“Whilst Ministers are properly responsible for policy, the FSA’s diminished role has led to a lack of clarity about where responsibility lies, and this has weakened the UK’s ability to identify and respond to food standards concerns.”

We found that the FSA and Government reacted in a “flat-footed” way and were

“unable to respond effectively within structures designed primarily to respond to threats to human health.”

We did not much care for the Government response, but I am sure that the Minister will try to justify the rather disappointing response that the

“Machinery of Government changes in 2010 led to some changes”.

The response went on to tell us what they were.

In our more recent report, to which we have only recently received the Government response, we reiterate our previous conclusion and confirm that we need greater clarity about the role of the FSA in major incidents. The point is that we accept that this is primarily a food-labelling issue, but there is the suggestion of fraud, to which the hon. Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies) referred, on a massive scale, and we need the reassurance that the FSA is, in my words, fit for purpose. However, the Government response does not fit the bill.

We are told:

“The Government is concerned that the Committee may have misunderstood”—

I say to the Minister that that is a very dangerous allegation to make—

“the status and constitution of the FSA.”

We know, as the response states, that the FSA,

“as a non-Ministerial government department, does not report to any other department. The FSA is accountable to Parliament and reports…through Health Ministers.”

The National Audit Office confirms our initial conclusion that the problem is that the FSA reports to three different Departments. That is a source of concern. It is compounded by the fact that we are having review after review after review. We came to conclusions quite early on—in March, I think—about our fundamental concerns. We are now hurrying towards the end of the year. We have the benefit of Professor Pat Troop’s response to the incident. Her conclusions back up entirely what we say.

The question for the Minister is why the Government are not responding to our conclusions, to the review by Professor Troop and to the National Audit Office findings, but have called for another review. This is something that we used to say in opposition; it is not unfamiliar to me. Under the last Administration, as I am sure the hon. Member for Ogmore will remember, if there was a problem, we would have a review, then another review and then another review. Now, we need to see some action, so the fact that the Elliott review has been set up, will make an interim conclusion and will report finally only in the spring of next year is very disappointing and missing the point.

I would like to draw the strands together and confirm that this is not the time for another review. We need a fundamental rethink on the infrastructure, composition and role of the Food Standards Agency, what its relationships with the Departments are and who goes out and gives explanations to the public and to the industry in the event of an incident.

We need to see some movement on reducing the likelihood of future contamination by improving the traceability provisions and ensuring the integrity of each supply chain. It is very pleasing that in local butchers’ shops in my constituency and, I understand, across the country and in farm shops and at farmers’ markets, the purchasing of food has gone up incrementally. Everyone is buying local, because they know what they are buying. They know that it is beef or whatever the label says. As I said, that is very pleasing, but we need to restore public confidence in what is a multi-million-pound industry through supermarkets. We also need to look at the vexatious issue of there being a shortage of analysts and insufficient testing to put the consumer mind at rest.

I commend our two reports to the House. I have dwelt on three issues, but I would like to bring to the attention of the Minister and the shadow Minister our main concerns, which are set out in all our recommendations. Those have been supported by Professor Pat Troop’s review. She does not disagree with them one iota. We have also had the very powerful—it uses very strong language—report from the National Audit Office on “Food safety and authenticity in the processed meat supply chain”. I therefore now say to the Minister that this is a call for action, rather than for another review.

--- Later in debate ---

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

The Minister is a collective author of one of the reports, and there is no way in which he would seek, for whatever reason—under pressure from officials or his Secretary of State, or the lure of the red box or the trappings of a Minister—to resile from the positions that he laid out so very recently. He is a good and honourable man and will stand by his words.

This is a timely debate to look back at the lessons learnt to try to avoid repeating the same mistakes and to return confidence to an industry that was shaken badly. To put it bluntly, consumers were tricked, deceived and defrauded by criminals operating within or alongside the food chain. It is the same food supply chain that we trust to supply safe, nutritious, affordable food and drink to our household tables, our schools and hospitals, and our care homes and cafeterias. That supply chain betrayed us—nothing less. It would be wrong, particularly while criminal investigations are ongoing, to delve too deeply into specific companies and individuals. I think the public and consumer organisations will be rightly outraged if the criminals who infiltrated the supply chain are not brought to book. If complicity or duplicity is identified within the supply chain itself, those companies and individuals should also be brought to book.

[Miss McIntosh]

It would be interesting to know what the hon. Gentleman’s potential future Administration would do to check the integrity of the supply chain. I am mindful of the fact that it was a Labour Government who set up the Food Standards Agency, and one of the difficulties that I highlighted is that it reports to at least two, potentially three, Departments. I take the hon. Gentleman’s point about the retailers, but we rely hugely on the work of the FSA to test the supply chain.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

I welcome the hon. Lady’s intervention and the focus that she and the Select Committee have put on not only the FSA, but the overall issue of food governance and the integrity and coherence of it. We have repeatedly made it clear from the early days when its responsibilities were split up that we had concerns about what might happen. Her Committee’s report and the report of the National Audit Office have made it clear that those concerns did not cause the crisis, but contributed to a delayed reaction, which I will come to in a moment. There is confusion at national, local and intergovernmental level. I shall not call for a review today. I shall echo her call for action and for the Government to introduce proposals to change the structure of food governance.

Tesco, the UK’s market-leading supermarket, notably and admirably fessed up to its responsibilities. It said, “We get it.” It took out full-page advertisements coinciding—coincidentally, I am sure—with the NFU conference in February, and it is seeking to re-engineer its supply chains and get closer to primary producers. It has a way to go, as has already been mentioned. I visited Tesco’s headquarters and we went through this in detail. Although it has a journey to make, I do not doubt its sincerity and ambition to do so. It is consumer-focused; there is a reason why it is doing this. Other large retailers have already developed shorter supply chains or other methods of ensuring the provenance of their food.

In the early stages, many took a different approach and frankly said, “Not us, guvnor.” They pointed to abroad or to smaller suppliers, international criminals, other third parties and, frankly, anybody but themselves. It is clear that the criminal activities of some have damaged public confidence in the whole supply chain. The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee spoke for many in the country, when it reported that it could only

“conclude that British consumers have been cynically and systematically duped in pursuit of profit by elements within the food industry.”

Whether that was criminality, negligence, complicity or failure of due diligence through the whole supply chain, from major processors and supermarkets down to the very small players, all were to varying degrees at fault in causing the failures, and all have responsibility in rectifying them and restoring trust and confidence.

I welcome the letter that I received yesterday from ABP, a dominant player in the UK and European beef processing market, which tells me that it supplies more than 20 countries and has a network of over 15,000 farmers. In the letter, the company acknowledges—it cannot deny—the presence of horsemeat in some of its frozen beef products over the past year, but states:

“It was certainly not an activity sanctioned by ABP in any way at any level”.

It goes on to make it clear that the company is not subject to any ongoing investigations.

In some ways, it is unfair to pick out ABP, because it was not alone in a complex and vulnerable supply chain that put beef adulterated with horsemeat and, for good measure, with trace elements—thank goodness, only trace elements—of phenylbutazone or bute into our homes, hospitals, schools and canteens, as well as, through food distribution companies, into Royal Ascot and the royal household. When it comes to food adulteration, we are genuinely—and right royally—all in it together.

As the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton said, those who came out well from the crisis were the butchers, local abattoirs, and those in local food networks and short supply chains, whose customers could prove where their food came from and what it was. The upside of the crisis is that it has reignited a major debate about our relationship with the food we eat, which I hope will lead to changes in how we produce and value our food.

Much of the modern supply chain is long, complex and international, with multiple handling and processing operations and multiple opportunities for adulteration. The lesson for those in wider supply chains, especially the major and dominant supermarkets, processors and distributors, is that no one can escape responsibility for the mess we got ourselves into or avoid responsibility for restoring trust in those supply chains. It is not good enough to say, “It wasn’t us, guvnor,” because as far as the consumer is concerned, it was.

I want to turn to the issues of food governance identified by the Select Committee’s two reports and highlighted in a timely report by the National Audit Office, on 10 October, entitled, “Food safety and authenticity in the processed meat supply chain”.

I tell the Minister that the Government must clearly now take responsibility: they are also in the dock and must fess up. They must answer criticisms of their role in failing to ensure effective governance of the food manufacturing sector. Although I commend the industry for working alongside UK, Irish and EU agencies to strengthen the testing and tracking of food products in response to the horsemeat crisis, I cannot yet commend the UK Government, whose response to the crisis was hampered by structural problems of their own making. The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, of which the Minister was a member, put that succinctly in its first report, stating 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.”

The National Audit Office’s No. 1 key finding was:

“A split since 2010 in the responsibilities for food policy in England has led to confusion among stakeholders and no obvious benefit to those implementing controls.”

That split in responsibilities is, of course, the one that was devised and implemented in 2010 not by the Minister, who is only just in post, but by his coalition Government. They are the architect of their own misfortune, but more importantly, of what others have described as the flat-footed response to the food adulteration scandal. The food sector and the consumer deserve better. It is not the fault of the FSA, but of the Government who split its responsibilities.

Dog Control and Welfare

Debate between Huw Irranca-Davies and Baroness McIntosh of Pickering

Thursday 13th June 2013 Westminster Hall

[Miss McIntosh]

I think that the Committee would like to record our disappointment that it took so long to produce the draft legislation yet the Government were unable to wait. As Members will know, the one time when a Select Committee cannot meet is during Prorogation, between the House rising to represent the end of one parliamentary year and it reconvening.

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

Could the Government make good that slight on the Committee by introducing draft guidance—they have plenty of time—on the provisions introducing not dog control notices but other measures? Then we could see the draft guidance not on Report but in Committee. There is plenty of time and the Committee could give the scrutiny that it has given to the wider range of measures needed.

[Miss McIntosh]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, and I am sure that the Minister will have heard his remarks; I hope he will endorse what the hon. Gentleman has said.

We had only eight sitting days to conclude our work. We are grateful to the 40 or so individuals and organisations who sent written evidence on a tight time scale, and to those who gave oral evidence. That demonstrates the importance that many attach to finding better ways to tackle dangerous dogs. In our pre-legislative scrutiny report, we made numerous recommendations for improving the draft Bill, which we now expect the Government to amend. As I said to my hon. Friend the Minister, the Committee stands prepared to table amendments to improve the Bill if we think fit.

We feel that the Bill shows that the Minister has not fully understood the public concern about dangerous dogs, nor have Government policies matched the action required. Our headline findings are that the Government have failed to respond adequately to public concern about dog attacks and poor dog welfare; that legislation must be amended urgently to protect the public from dangerous dogs; that current laws have comprehensively failed to tackle irresponsible dog ownership; and that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs proposals published belatedly in February are too limited.

The evidence we received from DEFRA and the Home Office did little to reassure us that either Department is giving sufficient priority to dog control and welfare issues. The Home Office approach to tackling antisocial behaviour is too simplistic. Indeed, when we were in opposition, the Conservatives felt that antisocial behaviour was not the right vehicle. The legislation fails to reflect the impact that poor breeding and training by irresponsible owners can have on a dog’s behaviour.

We recommended that DEFRA should introduce comprehensive legislation to consolidate the fragmented rules relating to dog control and welfare. New rules should give enforcement officers more effective powers, and our key recommendation is to include dog control notices, such as those already in use in Scotland, to prevent dog-related antisocial behaviour.

We also found that local authorities need to devote more resources to the effective management of stray dogs or else consideration should be given to returning responsibility to the police. We stand by that recommendation. The Committee agreed that all dogs should be microchipped, as much for animal welfare as for controlling dangerous dogs, and that being able to link an animal to its owner was essential to clamp down on irresponsible dog ownership.

On a personal note, may I remind the House that when we had dog licensing—I am sure the Minister will confirm this—only 50% of dog owners bought a dog licence in any one year? The House and the public expect us to bear down on the irresponsible dog owners who did not purchase a licence and who may not microchip.

--- Later in debate ---

[Miss McIntosh]

The Committee and I welcome what the hon. Lady says. When I visited the Blue Cross home in my own constituency, which looks after stray cats and dogs, I saw how massive a bullmastiff is. It would easily have pushed me over if it had leapt up. It is a worrying issue, especially for those who cannot enjoy the safety of their own home and garden. We need to distinguish between responsible dog owners, who, for example, secure the gates to their back or front garden, and those who are negligent over whether their dog is allowed to cause injury.

We also recommended that the definition of an assistance dog be amended to prevent the erroneous application of the assistance dog measures to dogs that are not genuine assistance dogs. We are pleased that the Government amended the draft clauses to allow the exemption from prosecution for householders whose dog attacks a trespasser to apply whether or not someone was home at the time of the attack.

The Committee believes that the current legislation before the House has gaps and needs to go further. We concluded that the Government’s proposals were insufficient and that a comprehensive overhaul of the legislation is needed, including the consolidation of the several dozen statutes that impinge on the issues, and that remains our view. I am talking about not just the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 but the Dogs (Protection of Livestock) Act 1953 and a whole host of legislation that pertains to that area.

On Second Reading of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill on Monday, there was unanimous support for our recommendation that targeted dog control notices such as those in place in Scotland be introduced to give police and local authorities effective measures to tackle irresponsible dog owners before their dog inflicts harm. It is that preventive measure that is the key to controlling dangerous dogs and potentially dangerous behaviour.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

Once again, I commend the Chair of the Select Committee on her contribution. Does she agree that the Government have listened to many of the evolving concerns and have acted to respond to them, but the one remaining thing they need to do is listen to the Committee and not be governed by the directives of the usual channels? Should there be overwhelming consensus on a point such as dog control notices, they should listen and respond accordingly. We are not daft, because we have based our views on what we see in Scotland and elsewhere.

[Miss McIntosh]

I welcome the intervention by the hon. Gentleman; I am tempted to call him my hon. Friend. On a number of issues, this Government have proved that they listen. As I have mentioned, my hon. Friend the Minister is indeed a deeply reasonable man and I am sure that he will pass the test of reasonableness as the Bill goes through. It is, of course, a Home Office piece of legislation, but the clauses that I have referred to relate to DEFRA.

In our pre-legislative scrutiny report, we made a recommendation that a dog attack that injures any protected animal—such as other dogs, cats, horses or livestock—should be deemed an offence. I pay tribute not only to the dog charities but to Cats Protection, which supports this recommendation. It is very important that attacks on other animals—such as other dogs, cats and horses, whose riders might be seriously injured, and especially livestock—should be addressed.

The Committee was also concerned about the provisions under the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 that currently ban certain types of dog, regardless of temperament, while excluding other aggressive breeds. In our pre-legislative scrutiny report, we called for a focus on the owner rather than on dog type, given that any dog can cause harm if it has an irresponsible owner—deed rather than breed.

To tackle stray dogs, we need to have a properly resourced dog warden service in all local authority areas. We also need to be aware of the increasing number of aggressive dogs that are being abandoned and of the additional burden on local authorities and dog charities, which are already overstretched. I have mentioned the provisions of the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005 that might be leading to more stray dogs coming on to our streets.

On dog breeding, we criticised the Government for doing too little to tackle poor breeding practices. Relying on voluntary action has not delivered sufficient reform, and the Advisory Council on the Welfare Issues of Dog Breeding should be given a formal regulatory role to enforce standards.

--- Later in debate ---

[Miss McIntosh]

To put the hon. Gentleman’s mind at rest, I can tell him that when we looked at the issue in our second bite of the cherry, we focused much more, as I and hon. Members have said this afternoon, on the deed rather than the breed, for the simple reason that people can breed round a particular breed, so we would only be creating another loophole.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

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

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

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

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

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

Agricultural Wages Board

Debate between Huw Irranca-Davies and Baroness McIntosh of Pickering

Wednesday 24th April 2013 Commons Chamber

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

On occasions such as this, at the closing of a debate, we often hear words about what a fine debate it has been, what eloquent testimony Members have given and what a fine day it is for Parliament. There have indeed been some very fine contributions today, from both sides of the House, and I will return to some of them in a moment.

Today, however, I have to say that this is not a shining occasion for Parliament. Far from it. It is a disgrace that the Government seem to have been dragged kicking and screaming into the sunlight to debate an issue that they seem to want hidden from democratic oversight. That is no fault of yours, Mr Deputy Speaker, but entirely the fault of Ministers. The attempts to curtail debate, or even to bypass the elected House of Commons and the democratic will of the Government in Wales on the matter, have been shameful and truly desperate.

Today, the views of parliamentarians, including Members representing rural areas, will be revealed to their constituents through both the debate and the vote. Their views will be revealed on stripping away the protections of 152,000 workers in England and Wales—protections on pay scales and accommodation; sick pay, holiday pay and overtime; caps on charges for tied accommodation; protections for children under 16 working in the fields; and the simple and basic entitlement of an agricultural worker in a team of workers at the end of a long shift to their own bed—their own bed, for goodness’ sake. The Minister of State has argued that the national minimum wage has changed all that, but he knows that it was in place before he signed an early-day motion warning that the abolition of the AWB would

“impoverish the rural working class”.

We are now in the most preposterous situation. A Liberal Democrat Minister is working, I suspect—he will clarify this—against his own long-held and principled position; against the views and interests of more than 1,000 workers and their families in his constituency, many of whom will have lobbied him in recent weeks and months,; against the views of many smaller, hard-pressed farmers who see the abolition as an increase in complexity in wage negotiations; against the views of the Liberal Democrat lead on rural and environmental issues in Parliament, the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George), which prompts the question: will the real Lib Dems please step forward?; and in favour of an ideology that could well be one of “beggar the hindmost”.

[Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

I have been chairing a meeting of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee this afternoon.

I apparently have the largest number of agricultural workers in my constituency, and not many of them have contacted me on this matter. I do not think more than three have done so. Where is the hon. Gentleman getting his information from?

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

The hon. Lady says she has been contacted by just three, but three is three, and I know for a fact that a large number of Members—many of whom are, for understandable reasons, not present for this debate, but who will, I assume, be passing through the voting Lobby—have been extensively lobbied by agricultural workers in their communities. The question is this: how will they vote today?

In the midst of the economic gloom of Osbornomics—that is a commentators’ phrase—with the economy flat-lining and the rural economy suffering too, the Government’s own figures show that more than a quarter of a billion pounds could be taken out of the rural economy following abolition of the AWB, and as my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh) pointed out, we could well add to the burden by increasing rural poverty and the in-work benefits bill to the taxpayer. This is, indeed, the world turned upside down.

Animal Welfare (Exports)

Debate between Huw Irranca-Davies and Baroness McIntosh of Pickering

Thursday 13th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good intervention, which points to a long-term trend. Some of the reasons behind it were negative, in that the drive to improve standards in slaughterhouses and abattoirs meant that some of the smaller and—let us be honest—lower-standard ones were forced to close. We are fortunate, because the town I live in—Maesteg, which has a population of 17,000—still has a working, prosperous, thriving abattoir right in the centre, which is unusual nowadays. The abattoir services not only the local farmers, but the butchers in town, which are also thriving. However, that is unusual. The abattoir has had to increase its standards massively and absorb those costs or pass them on. Perhaps the Minister will return in his closing comments—I think we will have time—to what more can be done not only to protect the remaining network of abattoirs at the very highest standards, but to encourage, where possible, the resurrection of others. There are some worries—the pig sector has been mentioned, with the retreat of Vion from the market, but there are others as well. We want the resilience of the slaughtering sector to be maintained.

[Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

rose—

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

I give way to the Chair of the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

[Miss McIntosh]

As the Minister probably knows, an announcement on Vion is imminent, but does the hon. Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies) agree that the reduction in the number of small abattoirs probably contributed to foot and mouth disease spreading in the way it did? Small abattoirs are also hugely popular with farm shops and help the local farming community enormously.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right about the popularity of small abattoirs increasing as people become much more aware of the provenance and source of their food. Her first point is also valid, because of the biosecurity risks that result from increased animal movements generally. In my constituency, farmers would summer-pasture their sheep down in the lowlands and in the winter literally drive them on to the top. Come time for market, they would drive the sheep down the old drovers’ route into Blackmill for the market—a grass-based market, not a concrete market—from where they would go straight to the local shops and so on. Those days are gone. We now routinely—because of biosecurity, as well as for other reasons—shift animals in trucks. That brings with it the massive obligation of looking after their welfare.

--- Later in debate ---

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

Yes, the hon. Gentleman makes a point that is absolutely valid. We strongly believe in that focus, the Minister strongly believes in it and many contributors to the debate believe that the focus must be animal welfare. I did not touch on an issue that was raised consistently in this debate: that even if we take away the crossing of seas to Ireland, Northern Ireland, the highlands and islands and mainland Europe, we still have a massive internal trade of live animal shipments, and it is part of the integrity of our current livestock business. The hon. Gentleman is therefore right to say that we should focus on animal welfare.

I say that in the knowledge that, only yesterday or the day before, the European Parliament’s Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development voted strongly in plenary session to support a report on the protection of animals during transport, which had many recommendations. As I know from my meetings with European parliamentarians and Commission officials in Brussels over the last few weeks, this issue is of topical concern right across Europe, not just in the UK. It is a good and comprehensive report that makes some sensible recommendations on the effective and improved implementation of existing measures to safeguard animal welfare.

May I draw the Minister’s attention to the one part of the report that is causing great debate at the moment and that has been referred to in today’s debate—the growing momentum behind support for an eight-hour maximum for animals travelling for slaughter or for fattening across the EU? As has been mentioned, over 1 million EU citizens have now signed a petition that was organised by Compassion in World Farming and others.

[Miss McIntosh]

A local farmer recently approached me to say that for the first time he has won an order to transport a small number of cattle from Thirsk to Italy in excellent conditions. This would probably breach that petition, but would not breach animal welfare provisions. He would risk losing that trade, as would many others from Scotland and other parts of the north of England, if we strictly implemented what the shadow Minister proposes.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

That is not what I am proposing. What I am proposing is a live debate. Given the existence of a petition bearing more than 1 million signatures, I think that we need to consider the issue in considerable detail. That would include consideration of impacts such as the one cited by the hon. Lady, about which I shall say more in a moment. She has made a very valid point.

Common Agricultural Policy

Debate between Huw Irranca-Davies and Baroness McIntosh of Pickering

Thursday 1st November 2012 Westminster Hall

[Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

Welcome to the proceedings, Mr Chope. It is a great honour and a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. On behalf of the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, I am delighted to have secured this timely debate. Before I go any further, I draw colleagues’ attention to my modest entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, which is pertinent to this debate.

We are discussing our first report of this Session, which I commend to the House, on greening the common agricultural policy, and the Government response. Our debate is timely for a number of reasons. The next round of CAP reforms will build on those achieved by Commissioner MacSharry and Commissioner Fischler, and now on the proposals launched by Commissioner Ciolos. The European Commission package introduces numerous greening measures with which farmers will be asked to comply. One of the first conclusions of the Committee was that there is insufficient detail for us to do an in-depth analysis, although we managed as best we could. Some of the problems that I will discuss include potential problems of cross-compliance, the possibility that the proposals might overcomplicate rather than simplify the CAP, and our main concern that it should not be a one-size-fits-all policy.

The backdrop includes the unprecedented weather conditions faced by UK farmers this year. We started with a drought that then became the wettest drought, followed by a late harvest in which many crops rotted in the ground, and our current potato crop is virtually impossible to harvest. I recognise that not only the farmers in my community, but those across Britain and the whole of Europe, have suffered. That will affect falling farm incomes.

I am delighted to see the Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath), in his place, and I welcome him to his new position. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs will not publish farm incomes until January. I shall certainly watch them closely to see what the impact has been. One study on the area of northern England in which I grew up—I am sure that it is not dissimilar to the area that I now live in and represent—shows that hill farmers’ incomes have fallen to £8,000, which is unsustainable.

Two challenges form the backdrop for the next round of CAP reform: food security and climate change. Those twin challenges were identified by the outgoing Labour Administration. The Committee conclusions state that we believe that the Commission should allow member states to tailor environmental measures to their local environmental and agricultural conditions. I commend successive British Governments’ approach; we have a raft of agri-environmental measures that place our farmers ahead of many other European farmers. I believe that our agri-environmental schemes, among the best in Europe, deliver meaningful year-on-year environmental benefits. The Committee concluded that those benefits must not be watered down or diminished by the Commission’s greening proposals.

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

I commend the hon. Lady on her introductory remarks to this debate. It is a good opportunity. I agree entirely with her comments about flexibility. We support the Minister in seeking to achieve that flexibility for UK farming, but farmers in other EU nations should not be allowed any sort of opt-out. That would add further inequality to the playing field that we are trying to level.

[Miss McIntosh]

I absolutely take the hon. Gentleman’s point. It is essential that farmers in other European countries should catch us up. I will come to in-depth issues such as modulation in a moment.

I hope that the Minister will tell us where we are procedurally. I had the opportunity to visit Brussels last month, and I understand that MEPs have tabled about 7,000 amendments to the Commission proposals to reform the CAP. The agriculture committee in the European Parliament now has co-decision. It is vital that all of us with an interest snuggle up to MEPs of all nationalities and try to influence them to use that new power responsibly.

The European Parliament agriculture committee has set itself a deadline of the end of November for negotiating and voting on compromise amendments. Given the challenges that we face nationally—due to weather, falling incomes, rising fuel and feed costs—and globally, we must increase production significantly. We are asking farmers to do so by using both land and chemicals more responsibly, and by using less water.

Will the Minister consider the budget and procedure? The EU budget as part of the multi-annual financial framework proposes—I hope I am not being too controversial; I think we all agree that we must reduce overall expenditure on the CAP—that spending on the CAP will fall from 37% of the total EU budget in 2014 to 27% by 2020. It will still total €38.3 billion. I had understood that structural funds would undergo wholesale reform and would fall, but they are set to rise by 18% by 2020, to a total of €76.6 billion.

What will the impact be if we do not secure a freeze but move to annual budgets? What will the implications be for reaching agreement on the farm reforms if the debate on the multi-annual financial framework is delayed from November to December? The message that I am hearing loudly and clearly from farmers in my constituency—I am sure this is shared across the country—is that they need an element of certainty. They need to know what the reforms will be and they need sufficient time to implement them. Lead-in time is crucial.

The UK food system faces other problems. As I mentioned, prices are rising. I am told that food price inflation is running at 4%, but farm incomes are falling. We must grasp that.

Will the Minister say more about what will happen to the rural development programme for England? Is that programme bound up with the negotiations? Again, will farmers have an element of certainty?

I recognise that we have a new Minister and a new Secretary of State, but it would be helpful if the Minister set out the UK’s negotiating position. What discussions have been held with the devolved Administrations? Who are our main allies in the Council of Ministers and, just as importantly, the European Parliament? Will he update hon. Members on Commissioner Ciolos’s response to the original proposals and the British negotiating position? Does the Minister agree with the Select Committee’s view, which we set out clearly in our report, that the Commission

“should set the high-level objectives for the CAP and provide for flexibility of approach through delegating the details to Member States while ensuring that there are…safeguards to protect the competitive position of UK farmers”?

Does the Minister agree that the CAP is complex and burdensome? Will he agree to press for further simplification of the CAP? Does he share our concern that the proposals on ecological focus areas and the definition of “smaller farmer” will lead to farmers having a less clear understanding of the conditions with which they have to comply? Will he ensure that the policy is implemented and provides value for money for the British taxpayer?

What is the Minister’s response to the Danish bid for a rebate? Returning to the budget, will he confirm that the implications of the loss of the British rebate in the Blair negotiations are severe? The rebate was lost on the non-agricultural element, which, in the scenario I set out earlier, is due to increase, and the rebate that we kept is only on agricultural spending, which is due to decrease from 37% to 27%. The implications for farmers are very serious.

Will the Minister further ensure that the reforms to the CAP are coherent with the UK’s existing agri-environment schemes? Any greening requirement should take account of environmentally beneficial activities undertaken by a farmer under an agri-environment scheme.

To protect the competitive position of UK farmers, the Select Committee would say that modulation has gone far enough. In powerful evidence to the Committee, the national farming unions said that English farmers are already subject to a higher modulation rate, whereas continental farmers enjoy a higher direct payment rate. Obviously, if we are modulating to a 19% rate in England and 11% to 14% in the devolved Administrations, whereas most other EU countries are modulating only to 10%, the implications of the Government’s proposal to transfer money between pillar one—direct payments—and pillar two are extremely serious. Farmers told us in a previous inquiry that the higher rate of modulation creates unfair competition, and they advocated either equal rates or no modulation. DEFRA seems to argue that higher rates of modulation are needed in England to fund environmental stewardship schemes. How can the Minister convince hon. Members that, by doing that, we are not disadvantaging our farmers?

One of my main concerns is about the Government’s response to the CAP report, particularly to recommendation 28 that

“farmers currently in agri-environment schemes will receive no penalty for leaving…should either the design of or payments under those schemes alter as a result of ‘greening’.”

The Government response states:

“However, there is no legal basis for allowing farmers wishing to withdraw from their agreements ahead of the new programme (and before the five or ten years of their agreements has expired) and they would be required to return all payments received during the life of their agreements, plus interest, in the normal way.”

That seems flatly to contradict the Minister’s predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Sir James Paice), who told the Committee that no farmer will suffer a penalty from the new greening measures if they have entered a new 10-year scheme. That is a real and present problem, because our farmers are under great pressure to sign up to new agri-environment schemes.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

The hon. Lady is pursuing an important point, and I would be concerned if there was some contradiction, but does she agree that if protection is afforded by the Minister in the EU negotiations for those farmers who are in agreements, to ensure that they do not lose out and are not penalised, reciprocally we should expect them to continue in those agreements as long as they are not penalised? That is signally different from possible future schemes. We want people to continue in agri-environment schemes for the wider public good.

[Miss McIntosh]

That is the case, but farmers who are coming to the end of a 10-year agreement now face the prospect of receiving no agri-environmental moneys. What should we recommend to each individual farmer who comes to our surgery or whom we meet at auction marts on a regular basis? What is our advice to them? Will the Minister give a commitment that they will not be penalised? My recommendation is not that they exit a scheme that is still running, but my request is for confirmation that if they enter a new 10-year scheme, which I understand the Government are encouraging them to do—farmers would currently benefit from existing EU agricultural moneys—they will not be penalised. That is precisely the response that the previous Minister gave. I am afraid that the Government’s response set off alarm bells.

There are a number of other issues that I, and I am sure the Select Committee, wish to flag up. We need to ensure that the reforms do not damage food security and that we do not, as a result of the greening reforms, take land out of food production. I do not think that is the Government’s wish, but it could be the consequence of the Commission’s reforms. We want assurance that this country’s agricultural sector will remain competitive and viable so that our farmers do not lose out to competition from devolved areas of the UK or other EU countries.

Will DEFRA set out more clearly how it will reduce reliance on direct payments, and outline the tools it needs to do so? I have absolute confidence in the ability of the British farmer to go out, match and compete with the best in Europe and the world, but if we are taking our farmers out of direct payments, we want an assurance that other EU farmers are also coming out of direct payments and that there is that elusive level playing field.

If the Minister can give us new ideas on how to make UK farming more competitive, that will be welcome. I hope he will reject the Commission’s one-size-fits-all policy. The Committee favours greater flexibility for member states to develop measures that are better tailored to local environmental and agricultural circumstances, and we believe that any greening policy should enable that to happen. We also advocate that the Commission limit itself to setting out the high-level objectives, thereby allowing member states to implement how they will apply on the ground in each country. We also make the plea that DEFRA must stop gold-plating the regulations—something first identified by my noble Friend Lord Heseltine. I commend the work that DEFRA has done through the Macdonald taskforce. We watch with interest to see precisely which regulations will be removed or renegotiated. However, when the new proposals come before the House to be implemented at the end of the process, we must not gold-plate them. We must have a categorical assurance from the Government—from the Minister today—that that will not happen.

We set out our concerns relating to crop diversification and the Government responded, so I think they are alert to them. There were also issues relating to the retention of permanent pasture and ecological focus areas. I have a particular concern, which is shared by those who represent upland farmers and reflected in the Committee’s conclusions, about the role of tenant farmers in agriculture. Will the Minister ensure that any negative impact of CAP reform does not disproportionately affect them? I welcome the Government’s response, which states that the definition should relate to active farming of land, rather than the type of organisation. I mentioned the potential exit. I urge the Government to take the opportunity to explain how the exit strategy will work for those farmers who are signing up to new agreements.

On the definition of public good, I have to mention—colleagues would be disappointed if I did not—the project in my own area, the Pickering pilot scheme, which enjoys funding from a number of sources. If the scheme works, it could be rolled out across the rest of the country. I therefore hope that the Minister will look favourably on that type of project, under the definition of public good, and that the negotiations will allow that to happen.

The reforms greening the CAP have to balance the twin challenges of food security and climate change. The absolute bottom line is that greening the CAP should not damage the competitive position of UK farmers. I hope the Minister will respond positively to the debate, clarify the Government’s response to our report on the issues I have mentioned, update the House on the proposed timetable, and give us an assurance that the CAP will be agreed before the end of the Irish presidency, allowing enough time for our farmers to prepare and have the certainty of knowing when the reforms will be implemented.

DEFRA has a big agenda: CAP reforms, common fisheries policy reform, bovine TB, dairy package and so on—I will not list them all. However, EU plans to impose new environmental regulations must not damage the very good work that our farmers have undertaken to green our land. I hope the message will go out that we are very European and very green, and that we will not allow the Commission proposals to damage the work that our farmers have done. There should not be a one-size-fits-all policy. We cannot expect farmers from Finland through Britain to Sicily to be tied down by rules that are too prescriptive. We hope that the Department will not compound that with gold-plating. I commend our report to the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

Indeed. The hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) spoke with expertise, as always. He described how we got here with the CAP, and spoke about the diversity of approaches to payments in the UK. That will be a major factor for the Minister as he tries to steer a way forward. The hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton also spoke of his worry that his infatuation with the CAP and farming meant that the men in white coats would soon be coming. I assume he is not referring to officers of the Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency. He also referred to the madness of some of the Commission’s proposals, so there seems to be a running theme in his contribution.

My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East (Mr Bain) widened the debate significantly and spoke with a great deal of expertise about the increasing speculation in food markets by those who, frankly, have never set foot in a field or run a farm—other than a health farm, so that they could have their limbs massaged alongside their profit margins. There is a world of difference between commodity trading by farmers to enhance their profit margins and pure speculation, which my hon. Friend mentioned, which lines the pockets of traders to the complete disadvantage of not only farmers, but consumers, because it is undoubtedly having an effect on prices.

My hon. Friend also talked about the overriding priorities that we should be focusing on: food security, food price stability and removing trade barriers. Removing such barriers will help the competitiveness of our UK farmers and improve the viability of those in developing nations. It will help us to tackle the global food supply and shortage problems. He talked about innovation and the priorities affecting food supply chains, and their role in climate change, as well as the big social justice issues that we often miss when we talk about CAP reform. He also reminded us specifically of the market distortions of CAP, and their impact on developing nations in particular—the reason we are trying to change it and move away from it.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy), with a little instigation from me, introduced the concept of one-nation CAP reform, for which I thank her. The basic premise is simple: CAP reform is not only to do with farmers. It is to do with wider public benefits, and taxpayers have a prominent stake in it, as do consumers, NGOs and farmers. It must be a subject that inspires debate beyond the agricultural or food-processing community and this Chamber. My hon. Friend called for genuine environmental benefits, not greenwashing. I am sure that the Minister heard her, and I hope that that call is also heard in the European Parliament. It is a valid concern and brings us back to my initial point: let us have good reform, not just any old reform. One Europe-wide organisation, BirdLife, said that the rather purist original Luxembourg proposals

“would signal the end of any legitimacy of EU direct payments to farmers”.

I think we all agree that we need to avoid that result at all costs and explain to people the wide variety of reasons why it is valid to put those funds back into farming, not least of which is the environmental and wider public benefits.

The hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice), the closing Back-Bench speaker after a wide range of contributions, raised the issue of green tape, as opposed to red tape, and complexity. I agree with him that we need to find ways of simplifying things. He engaged with the detail of proposals and interestingly discussed the cap on CAP payments. That raises the question, for me, of what additional benefits in public goods for the taxpayer can come from very high-level payments. They might take the form of increased productivity on the part of the largest recipients of CAP payments. There is an increasing necessity to explain to taxpayers, day by day, why their money is being used as it is. We can do that, but we need, with the Minister’s help, to explain why it is a good use of money, and what extra we get from it, as opposed to large volumes of production.

The hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth also dwelt on the potential for greater regional management and subsidiarity, which is the direction under the common fisheries policy; I think it is slightly ahead of the CAP in that respect. It took a fair deal of persuasion to get where we are on the CFP, and NGOs, alongside fisheries people, did a lot of good work to articulate the fact that the approach could work scientifically as well as commercially. I think we will win in that case, and I hope that the process continues. Perhaps, some time in the future, we can reach the point of much more ownership, regionally and locally, among the farming communities, NGOs and others, of how we take things forward. Sustainability underpins all that is happening, and the scientific evidence. The hon. Gentleman also introduced the interesting concept, which raised quizzical looks between me and the Minister, of transferable obligations. That strikes me as having some similarities with carbon trading, which has advantages, but also loopholes and disadvantages. The concept is interesting, and worthy of further consideration.

The UK has long been in the lead among the more progressive nations on CAP reform. I am thankful for the leadership shown under successive Governments, in successive negotiations, including by my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) when he was Secretary of State. At the forefront of like-minded and progressive nations, he advocated strong reform of the CAP, to bring about enduring benefits for farmers, consumers, taxpayers and the environment from bold, ambitious, green reform—good reform.

[Miss McIntosh]

I should take this opportunity to thank all the witnesses to the inquiry, which I did not do before. There is a long list, as the hon. Gentleman mentioned. On the point about negotiations under successive Governments, it is important to recognise that this is the first time that co-decision has rested with MEPs and the Council of Ministers. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish), I served in the European Parliament, for 10 years, and—this is a secret, so I know it will not go beyond this Chamber—for six months as a stagiaire with the Commission, so I have even more chance of being carried off by the boys and girls in white coats. I am concerned that we may we overlook this point: MEPs so often feel ignored and neglected, and among the 7,000 amendments there will be some sensible ones on which we can possibly do business. It is incumbent on us all to use whatever contacts we can, in the most platonic of ways.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

The hon. Lady raises a strong point and is right. Although co-decision brings more challenges in negotiation, I welcome the fact that it is a great enhancement of democratic engagement beyond what has been referred to as the bureaucrats. It puts things into the hands of people who are democratically elected, and can speak up for their regions, including on international issues and trade. They can speak up for wildlife and farmers. We need to engage with and influence those individuals.

I was delighted that the head of the agriculture committee came to Westminster for a seminar, attended by various organisations, that brought us up to speed on the 7,000-odd amendments. He has his plate full, because he must work through the various Members who have tabled them and come up with his priorities, just as Ministers do. It is almost like adding a new but very democratic level to the previous tripartite arrangement. However, the hon. Lady is right that it gives an opportunity for a different means of influence. We should use that. Towards the end of the month, I shall be going out to meet European parliamentarians to discuss that very issue. I shall treat that as being as important as meeting the Commissioner.

We continue to believe that farmers should be supported by the Government for the public goods for which the market will not automatically reward them. As my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh), the shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, has said:

“Labour wants CAP reform to encourage growth, a secure food supply and environmental benefits”.

As the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee notes, those sometimes apparently contradictory aims can be difficult to reconcile, not least in the minutiae of EU negotiations, made more complex, as we have just heard, by democratic co-decision. However, we must reconcile them if we are to have good reform, not just any old reform—and especially not the old-style reform, which did not take us as far as we wanted. To do that we must have friends, and work with them, so I ask the Minister, as the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton did, to update us on progress on the greening proposals of the more progressive, like-minded states—our friends, including the Danish and Swedish Ministers—and on the extent to which their influence is being felt among the clamour of competing voices, some of which may be arguing for a more retro approach to CAP reform, a “déjà vu all over again” approach of protectionism and old-style production subsidy. By the way, the accidental use of the imported term “déjà vu” in no way indicates any one specific nation that may advocate a less bold set of reforms.

Common Agricultural Policy

Debate between Huw Irranca-Davies and Baroness McIntosh of Pickering

Thursday 8th March 2012 Westminster Hall

[Miss McIntosh]

rose—

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

rose—