Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between James Paice and Priti Patel(13 years, 9 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr James Paice)
The hon. Lady is getting a bit carried away. The consultation will start in January, and it is perfectly reasonable for us to discuss with experts in the field the possible implications of all the things that we are thinking of doing before we firm up the ideas that we put to the public for consultation. The hon. Lady must be extremely careful on this subject, because we have just discovered that the previous Labour Government sold 12,000 hectares of forest without any form of sustainable protection for any of it.
Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)
T2. Essex landowners and farmers contribute £1 million annually to the Environment Agency for sea defence and maintenance work, and they have provided information for the Essex shoreline management plan, but they have not been able to access the committees that have made the decisions and finalised that plan. Will the Minister ensure that in future my local farmers will have access to those committees and be fully integrated in the decision making? Will he also pledge to meet representatives in my constituency?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between James Paice and Priti Patel(14 years ago)
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Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)
T7. D. A. Clough and Son in my constituency has 12,000 laying hens and employs 10 people. Will the Minister reassure those people that he will vigorously oppose any attempt made by other EU member states to weaken their obligations under the laying hens directive, which would disadvantage British producers? Will he also consider measures to support British producers who are struggling to meet the costs of compliance?
Mr Paice
My hon. Friend puts her finger on an extremely important issue. The British egg industry has invested a very large sum of money in bringing its production systems in line with the obligations that will come in at the end of next year. It is a great tragedy that some other European countries appear not to have done that. We are delighted that the European Commission rejected the application for a derogation by Poland and we will be very robust in supporting the Commission against any other applications for a derogation. If the situation is maintained, we will press the Commission to ensure that there is protection for those farmers who have made that investment.