Badger Cull

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Thursday 25th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

I challenge Government Members’ attempts to portray this subject as an urban against rural issue, as they did with fox hunting. I am a west country MP. Admittedly, I represent an urban constituency, but I occasionally venture outside Bristol. I know from representations made to me from people in south Gloucestershire and the Forest of Dean area, Somerset and around the west country that there is widespread opposition to the badger cull, including opposition from people in rural areas, from farmers who do not want the cull on their land, and from people across the board. It is totally wrong to say, “Only townies who don’t understand the country or farming are opposed to the cull.” It is incredibly patronising to say that the many people who have written to me and MPs who represent rural areas do not understand the science. I have looked at the science.

[Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)]

The Chair of the Select Committee, a Conservative, spoke of one nation and one countryside. Does my hon. Friend agree that the device of dividing the country between town and country is unhelpful?

[Kerry McCarthy]

That device is completely unhelpful. I have taken an interest in food policy in my time in Parliament—I introduced a Food Waste Bill. Food policy is about farming only to an extent, but people eat food, including in urban areas. Food policy is also about food distribution networks and supermarkets. It is completely ludicrous to portray the issue as one that is just for farmers.

[Richard Drax]

rose—

[Kerry McCarthy]

I will take one more intervention.

[Richard Drax]

There has never been a view among Government or Opposition Members that this is townies versus country folk. That has never been said or suggested. The hon. Lady—dare I say it?—is stoking up a political animosity that does not otherwise exist.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. If we are to have interventions, they must be short, but those Members who intervene and wish to speak should recognise that they will go to the bottom of the list. That is just a warning for all.

[Kerry McCarthy]

The hon. Gentleman is completely wrong, as we have heard in the debate and in the statement on Tuesday.

Many hon. Members will want to discuss vaccination. I am pleased that, in the west country, there have been efforts to roll out badger vaccination programmes. They seem to have been successful, although it is the very early stages. Many hon. Members will discuss the scientific evidence, which seems to me to be overwhelmingly in support of the notion that badger culling would have a limited impact if any—I believe it says there would be a 16% reduction in bovine TB over nine years.

However, in the time available, I want to focus on cattle-to-cattle transmission. The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) probably misspoke when she said that if every single badger were eradicated, we could eradicate bovine TB—she went on to say that we could not eradicate all badgers and mentioned cattle-to-cattle transmission. In response to a question from the shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in September this year, the Government accepted that about 50% of cases of bovine TB in areas where the randomised badger culling trial took place were attributed to badgers. The other 50% were attributed to cattle-to-cattle transmission. In areas where there is lower incidence, there is a much higher rate of cattle-to-cattle transmission.

It is important to address that point. I was concerned that the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs did not seem to be willing to acknowledge in Tuesday’s statement the very significant role that cattle-to-cattle transmission plays in spreading the disease. Indeed, when he was asked a question about cattle husbandry, he said that the problem was that badgers can get into sheds. He also said that famers grazing cattle in fields cannot prevent badgers from getting to them. That is not what the cattle husbandry issue is about—the Secretary of State was focused totally on badgers, rather than on what happens when cattle spread disease. The fact is that many of the badgers that carry TB are not particularly infectious—[Interruption.] I can cite evidence on that.

[Andrew George]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Kerry McCarthy]

I do not want to give way again in the time I have left.

I was concerned that the new Secretary of State seems not to have got to grips with cattle-to-cattle transmission, but I accept that tighter controls will be introduced from next year, which I welcome. When his predecessor as Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Meriden (Mrs Spelman), made a statement on the cull just before the Christmas recess, she failed to mention cattle-to-cattle transmission, as I pointed out to her at the time, although she did mention it in her statement in July. There is a degree of complacency in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on cattle-to-cattle transmission, which needs to be addressed.

On the history of bovine TB, it is clear is that, in the 1960s, when strict quarantine rules and the rigorous testing of cattle were in place, bovine TB was almost eliminated from the UK. However, farmers were not happy with the regime and complained, and, to quote George Monbiot:

“TB returned with a vengeance”.

Professor Graham Medley of the university of Warwick has said that the only way to eradicate TB in cattle would be a return to the stricter and more effective controls that were in place 40 years ago. Professor John Bourne, who led the randomised badger culling trial—which, as we know, concluded that badger culling could make “no meaningful contribution” to controlling bovine TB—agrees with Professor Medley. Professor Bourne has said that only stricter biosecurity can control bovine TB. The RBCT report states:

“Weaknesses in cattle testing regimes mean that cattle themselves contribute significantly to the persistence and spread of disease in all areas where TB occurs, and in some parts of Britain are likely to be the main source of infection. Scientific findings indicate that the rising incidence of disease can be reversed, and geographical spread contained, by the rigid application of cattle-based control measures alone”.

A European Commission report of September 2011 revealed significant evidence of bad practice in English farms. It found that failure to abide by cattle TB prevention measures was widespread. The Commission gave the UK €23 million in 2011 for bovine TB control measures. Its inspectors found that the removal of cattle with TB was below the target of 90% in 10 days, and that, in the first half of 2011, more than 1,000 cattle had not been removed after 30 days. It found that there were 3,300 overdue TB tests as of May 2011 and that many calf passports, which are used to track movements, were incomplete. It also found that only 56% of disease report forms had been completed on time. Funding cuts were cited as the reason for the failure of local authorities to update their databases.

The Commission report concluded that local authority surveys provided evidence that

“some cattle farmers may have been illegally swapping cattle ear tags, ie retaining TB-positive animals in their herds and sending less productive animals to slaughter in their place.”

A couple of Government Members are shaking their heads, but farmers have been prosecuted for that in the west country.

[Mr Gray]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Kerry McCarthy]

I am not going to give way.

The Commission found that there were missed targets on rapidly removing cattle with TB, and on the follow-up of missed tests. It found numerous shortcomings and

“weaknesses in cleaning and disinfection at farm, vehicle, market and slaughterhouse levels, exacerbated by lack of adequate supervision”.

All those problems increase the risk of TB spreading between cattle.

David Fisher, who was a DEFRA-funded TB inspector in Wales until 2011, has said:

“It is an open secret that isolation of [TB] reactors and inconclusive reactors is rare.”

He has said that DEFRA’s database showed that, in 2009, there was 20.8% non-compliance on bovine TB issues. There was only one instance that year of a dairy farm being checked for compliance with an isolation notice.

I welcome the fact that DEFRA has indicated that new rules and a crackdown on cattle movement, and increased TB testing, will take place from 1 January 2013, with restrictions on farms where a TB case is identified, but I support Mark Jones, a vet and executive director of the Humane Society International UK, who has said that Ministers should wait and assess the impact of tighter biosecurity measures. As has been said, in Wales, bovine TB has fallen since the badger cull was stopped in Wales and tighter measures were introduced. He says:

“There is some evidence…that TB in cattle is coming down. There needs to be time to see if there has been an impact, before going ahead with a massacre of badgers…It is cattle, not badgers, that are the main transmitters of bovine TB so it is utterly outrageous for badgers to pay the price for farmers’ failure to abide by proper biosecurity measures.”

I could not end on a better note than that.

Bovine TB and Badger Control

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paterson]

I commend my neighbour from Shrewsbury and Atcham for his stalwart support on this matter and for the very public stance that he has taken. The answer is emphatically yes. I want the two pilots to go ahead and to conform to the science. I am confident that they will prove to be safe and efficacious, and that we will see a reduction in TB. That is what we want to see rolled out across the country.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

On 8 May, I wrote to the then farming Minister, the right hon. Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Sir James Paice), to highlight how complex it was to assess the number of badgers in the pilot areas and received very glib reassurances in response. Why is the Secretary of State now telling us that it was only in late September that concerns about those numbers came to light?

[Mr Paterson]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for that question, but I did answer it earlier. It appeared in September that Natural England was not happy with the figures that had been provided locally. That is why it asked FERA to do a full survey, which took some time. That shows how deadly serious we are in respecting the science. It would not have been right to go ahead on the basis of numbers that Natural England believed to be inaccurate, so it was right to take more time and to do a thorough survey, and that came up with dramatically larger numbers.

Oceans and Marine Ecosystems

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Wednesday 11th July 2012 Westminster Hall

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray.

This debate is important for the opportunity not only to highlight in Parliament the plight of our oceans but to focus more on the international dimension of protecting them, including the high seas beyond national jurisdictions. Thankfully, the issue is now coming to the attention of international policy makers—it was not even raised at Rio in 1992, but became one of the most high-visibility issues at Rio+20 this year. Although Rio fell a long way short of the actions identified by scientists as crucial, its decisions were, in the words of Professor Alex Rogers of the International Programme on the State of the Ocean,

“urgent, important and game changing measures which should be immediately implemented by governments as a direct response to the oceans text.”

I hope today’s debate is timely in focusing on the role that the Government should play in making progress. Britain can make a real difference. The United Kingdom, through its overseas territories, is responsible for the world’s fifth largest marine area after the US, France, Australia and Russia, amounting to nearly 2% of the world’s oceans. We are, therefore, a major player, with a duty to act.

I will outline the scale of the crisis facing the world’s oceans. Oceans and seas are of course critical to sustaining the earth’s life support systems and to our survival. Covering 72% of the earth’s surface, oceans and seas moderate our climate by absorbing heat and around 30% of global CO₂ emissions. They are the habitat of nearly 50% of all species and, as a result, are vital for global food security—providing 2.6 billion people with their primary source of protein—and for the well-being of many national economies, especially in developing countries.

The health of the oceans, however, is under threat. Organisations such as Greenpeace, with its “Defending our Oceans” campaign, the World Wildlife Fund—WWF—and many others have been campaigning to raise awareness of the findings of marine scientists, which I hope to give expression to in this Chamber. The findings in the IPSO report published last June are particularly shocking. It said that the seas are degenerating faster than anyone had predicted because of the cumulative effect of a number of severe individual stresses—from climate change and sea water acidification to widespread chemical pollution and gross overfishing. In particular, it said that the world’s oceans are facing an unprecedented loss of species, from large fish to tiny coral, comparable to the great mass extinctions of prehistory. Approximately 90% of the big predatory fish in our oceans, such as sharks and tuna, have been fished out since the 1950s. The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation estimates that 85% of global marine fish stocks are fully exploited, overexploited or depleted, a subject to which I shall return.

Scientists are also discovering growing areas of the ocean that suffer from hypoxia—regions that are starved of oxygen—caused by warmer sea temperatures, which is also increasing sea levels and changing ocean currents. Whole species of fish are at risk due to the temperature rise. They simply cannot survive in the changed conditions. Pollution is also damaging our seas. Although oil spills from tanker accidents are among the more visible and more talked-about pollutants, their impact is less than that from other sources, which include domestic sewage, industrial discharges, urban and industrial run-off, accidents, spillage, explosions, sea dumping, plastic debris, mining, agricultural nutrients and pesticides.

Not only are there severe declines in many fish species, and an unparalleled rate of regional extinction of some habitat types, such as mangrove and seagrass meadows, but some whole marine ecosystems, such as coral reefs, could disappear this century in what has been described as

“a first for mankind—the extinction of an entire ecosystem”.

[Mr Andrew Smith (Oxford East) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this vital debate. I do not want to anticipate the rest of her speech, but does she agree that the evidence shows that rigorously enforced marine conservation zones can make a real difference in starting to turn things around? The lesson is that we, internationally, and the world need to be more ambitious about the scale of such zones and more rigorous in restricting the activity that can take place in them.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I shall come on to marine conservation zones mooted in the UK and what we can do internationally to persuade and join up with other countries to have larger zones.

One of the reasons why I am interested in the issue is that I am a keen scuba diver. At an anecdotal level, I have heard stories about the decline in coral reefs. I was speaking to someone the other day who has been running trips from Bristol for about 30 years. He said that the Great Barrier reef is now almost unrecognisable as the place where he used to dive 20 years ago, because of bleaching and reef damage and disappearance.

Around one fifth of global coral reefs have already been damaged beyond repair, including catastrophic mass bleaching in 1998 when scientists watched between 80% and 90% of all the corals die on the reefs of the Seychelles in a few weeks. Professor Callum Roberts said that

“outside the world of marine science, this global catastrophe has passed largely unseen and unremarked.”

It is predicted that 90% of all coral reefs will be threatened by 2030 and all coral reefs by 2050, if no protective measures are taken.

That goes some way to outlining the scale of the problem, so I now want to discuss the solution. Although Rio was disappointing—I think most people agree—and it mostly reaffirmed existing commitments and promises, it marks a point from which countries should now focus on action and implementation. The High Seas Alliance and the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition have set out the key commitments that Governments now need to act upon. I hope that the Minister can make a firm commitment today to implement those decisions and to set out how the Government will do so.

The top commitment was

“to address, on an urgent basis, the issue of the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction”—

in particular through networks of marine protected areas—

“including by taking a decision on the development of an international instrument under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea”

before the end of the 69th session of the UN General Assembly.

More than 64% of our oceans are beyond the jurisdiction of any one country—the so-called high seas. UNCLOS, the UN convention on the law of the sea, provides the legal framework for governing such areas, but the current structure is highly fragmented and has huge governance gaps. It is widely acknowledged that an agreement under UNCLOS is needed to assist the creation and management of marine reserves; to set a framework for environmental impact assessments to be undertaken before damaging activities are allowed to take place; and to co-ordinate a highly fragmented structure of regional organisations that currently regulate human activities.

The Arctic ocean provides a strong case for reform of UNCLOS as it becomes accessible to deep-sea oil drilling and large industrial-scale fishing fleets with the melting of the permanent sea ice. Regulation of such activities is entirely inadequate. The Environmental Audit Committee has been hearing evidence as part of its inquiry into protecting the Arctic, highlighting grave problems with responses to an accident or major oil spill, which would have even more serious environmental consequences than a similar incident in warmer water.

The biggest disappointment at Rio was that an unholy alliance of the US, Venezuela, Russia and Japan blocked a decision on an agreement under UNCLOS for a maximum of two years, until the 69th session of the UN General Assembly in 2014. Although action is desperately needed now, that at least sets a deadline towards which Governments in favour of an ocean rescue plan can work. The 2014 deadline should not, therefore, be seen as a target date to start looking at how we protect and rescue our oceans, but rather as a deadline by which to have completely decided on the way forward for formal negotiations.

What steps will the UK now take, with the others that spoke in favour of an agreement—such as Brazil, Australia, the European Union, South Africa, India and the Pacific Islands—to move the agenda forward and to urge the UN General Assembly to convene, as a matter of urgency, a diplomatic conference to deliver a new implementing agreement under UNCLOS? What steps will the Minister take towards establishing marine protected areas and marine reserves, creating offshore oil and gas no-go zones in the Arctic, and agreeing a mandatory polar shipping code?

Marine protected areas, which have been mentioned, are underwater national parks that help areas to recover and rebuild, and help fish stocks to be replenished and marine ecosystems and coastal communities to have breathing space and better protection from the effects of climate change. Just before Rio, Australia announced its plan to create the world’s largest network of marine reserves, an area encompassing one third of its territorial waters, where fishing will be restricted and oil and gas exploration banned in the most sensitive areas.

In addition, all 1,192 of the Maldive Islands will become a marine reserve by 2017. The UK’s overseas territories provide an opportunity to designate large marine reserves, such as that created in Chagos under the previous Government. I would be grateful if the Minister reported on the progress the Government are making in supporting overseas territories in designating more large-scale marine reserves in the near future.

What discussions has the Minister and his ministerial colleagues in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office had with other nations that have overseas territories, such as France, about the creation of marine protected areas or about joint working with them to join up areas where our territories coincide?

[Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)]

I commend my hon. Friend on an excellent speech. Does she agree that it is important that the UK show leadership in this regard, and that it is very disappointing that our network of 127 marine protected areas is two years late? There are even suggestions that the Government might drastically reduce the number of such areas, thereby rendering them completely useless in environmental terms.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his intervention. He has done a great deal of work in this area and, indeed, has been trying to get a debate on the topic since Rio.

I was just about to come on to the subject of the UK’s marine conservation zones. If we are to try to encourage other countries to sign up to marine protected areas, we need to get our own house in order. The Government have delayed designating any new marine conservation zones until 2013, failing to fulfil the promise they made at the 2002 Earth summit to do so by 2012. They are now shifting the goalposts by raising the evidence bar for designation. There is real concern that the Government may be preparing the ground for designating between just 27 to 40 sites out of the 127 sites that were originally recommended. However, we are already committed to 127 sites, which have had buy-in from all marine industry stakeholders following the regional project consultation, and were recommended where they had the least socio-economic impact.

The Science Advisory Panel, appointed by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, stated that all 127 marine conservation zones need to be designated if the UK is to follow its own guidance on delivering an ecological network. Without those 127 zones, the seas will not have the necessary chance of recovery. How will the Minister achieve such a network if he does not designate all 127 sites?

In the few minutes left to me before I ask the Minister to respond, I shall talk about overfishing, the one area of the debate that has been discussed in Parliament in some detail. There have been debates about overfishing and fish discards, so I will keep my comments fairly brief. Rio agreed to maintain fish stocks at levels that would at least produce the maximum sustainable yield and eliminate destructive fishing practices. I was pleased to see that progress was made on that at the recent EU fisheries council, with agreement to a ban on discards and to legally binding limits on fishing levels. The timetable for phased implementation of that agreement is too lengthy and the decisions were more politically than science-led, but some good progress was made. I hope that we can take that forward.

I would like to raise with the Minister his Government’s failure to protect marine protected areas by sanctioning destructive fishing practices, such as scallop dredging, in areas recommended for designation as marine conservation zones and special areas of conservation.

[Katy Clark (North Ayrshire and Arran) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on a most powerful speech. In the part of the world I represent, scallop dredging is a significant problem. At one time in North Ayrshire there were huge numbers of fishing fleets, but we now have none. Does she agree that we need to consider that, but that we also need to look at other species such as dolphins and whales? Does she also agree that it is concerning that the Scottish Government are not including such species in their network of marine conservation areas?

[Kerry McCarthy]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I was not aware of what was going on with the Scottish Government in that regard. It sounds like very disappointing news. Any of us who have seen films such as “The End of the Line,” which talks about the huge impact overfishing is having on species—particularly dolphins, tuna and some of the bigger fish that she mentioned—would regard that as very disappointing. Has the Minister’s Department assessed whether scallop dredging and trawling is in breach of the EU habitats directive, which states that site integrity, not features, must be conserved?

My final point is that commitments were made at Rio to eliminate illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing. Some 15% of all sea catch is from illegal fisheries. I know that the EU is starting to play its part by demanding strict traceability on all fish sold in Europe, but, globally, more effort is needed to address suspicious consignments landing at ports. The Environmental Justice Foundation estimates that Sierra Leone, where coastal communities are dependent on fishing for their food and livelihoods and where fishing represents around 10% of GDP, is losing almost $29 million a year to pirate fishing operators.

There is also concern that illegal fishing off the coast of west African countries such as Senegal and Mauritania is contributing to growing levels of piracy in those countries, and that they could end up like Somalia, with armed pirates attacking ships. As the President of Puntland said at last year’s conference in London on piracy:

“the violation of Somali waters by foreign trawlers triggered a reaction of armed resistance by Somali fisherman, whose livelihoods were disrupted by the illegal fishing fleets. Over time, payment of ransom by the foreign trawlers to the poor fishermen of Somalia encouraged the escalation of pirate attacks to current levels”.

That obviously does not excuse piracy, but it goes some way towards explaining why it has increased to such dramatic levels.

Turning to my final questions to the Minister, what assessment have the Government made of the impact of illegal fishing on increased levels of piracy around the shores of Africa? What steps are the Government taking to help build the capacity of local communities in affected countries to end illegal unreported and unregulated fishing? What steps are they taking to collaborate internationally to develop national, regional and global monitoring, control surveillance, compliance and enforcement systems?

Food Prices and Food Poverty

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Monday 23rd January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mary Creagh]

I agree. Sure Start has been an amazing tool in the fight for good food in families, and for cooking lessons. The 20% cut imposed by the Government centrally can only make that more challenging for those dedicated workers.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern that the Secretary of State for Education has decreed that free schools and academies do not have to meet the same nutritional standards in school meals as state schools?

[Mary Creagh]

Yes, it is slightly bizarre that that should be the case. I do not understand why, having battled so hard to secure minimum standards across the sector, the Secretary of State should think it acceptable to water them down, unless it is about saving money in pursuit of an ideological objective, but that could surely never be the Government’s intention.

I have mentioned “Richard Corrigan on Hunger” and the hospitalisation of children. People also talk in that programme about lunch boxes containing last night’s cold chips and ketchup. In government, we set up the School Food Trust, whose latest research shows that the average local authority-catered school dinner has gone up by 5p in the past year to £1.88 in primary schools, and by 4p to £1.98 in secondary schools. Councils are forced to charge more as their Government funding has been cut. We have heard today about councils that are doing their best to prioritise children’s nutrition. Those price rises could force parents to take their children out of school-meal provision and make do with a lunch box. If someone has three children who do not qualify for free school meals, £6 a day or £30 a week is an awful lot of money to find.

Food will be a defining issue for this century. The price spike in food commodities in 2008 showed that the era of cheap food may not be with us much longer. Increases in commodity prices—oil, fertiliser and pesticides—all contributed to year-on-year food price inflation of 6% last September: the second-highest increase in the EU, apart from Hungary. That 6% added £233 to the food bill of a family of two adults and two children. Food inflation, currently at 4%, remains higher than most pay rises that people will receive this year. As prices rise, people are eating less beef, lamb and fish, and more bacon. People are shopping around and trading down, and there is less supermarket loyalty. Figures from DEFRA reveal a 30% fall in the consumption of fresh fruit and veg by the poorest fifth of families since 2006. Those families are eating just 2.7 of their five-a-day fruit and veg.

We need a better understanding of what is driving up food prices, and how costs and risk are transferred across the supply chain. However, shopping is confusing and labels do not always show the true costs. Supermarkets are not required legally to show the unit cost on special offers, so they give the price pre-discount, which makes it impossible to compare prices on the shelf; or they give the price per unit of fruit, rather than by 100 grams, making comparisons impossible. We want supermarkets to be more transparent in their labelling to ensure that shoppers get the best deal. We want them to help people to eat healthily. Our traffic light system was rejected by significant players in the food industry, who have turned their back on what consumers want and need to make healthy choices.

We want a fair and competitive supply chain for growers, processors and retailers. The Competition Commission in 2008 found that there was an adverse effect on competition from unfair supply chain practices. It recommended that supermarkets with a turnover of more than £1 billion a year should be prevented from imposing retrospective discounts and from changing terms and conditions for suppliers. That leads to an unfair spread of risk and cost down the grocery supply chain, and to short-termism in relationships. [Interruption.] I thought I heard a phantom sedentary intervention, but that is not the case. We wanted a voluntary approach, but the supermarkets were unable to agree a way forward. That is why Labour in government secured cross-party agreement for a groceries code ombudsman to ensure a fair deal for farmers and producers. This Government’s delays and procrastination mean that the adjudicator will probably not be up and running until 2014-15.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

As we have heard, people in the UK are facing the biggest squeeze in living standards since the war. They are being hit on all sides. They are losing their jobs or their overtime or having their pay frozen. If they are self-employed, they are struggling to earn the sort of money that they used to earn. They are being hit by cuts to public services, rising fuel bills, rising rents, cuts to housing benefits, cuts to tax credits, and as we have heard today, they are being hit by rising food bills too. All those things add up and have a devastating impact on household finances.

Food prices in the UK have been rising at well over twice the rate of the incomes of the poorest. Over the past five years, food prices have gone up by 32%, rising at well over twice the rate of the national minimum wage and twice the rate of jobseeker’s allowance. Around one in every 16 people have been forced to skip meals so that the rest of their family can eat. In Bristol that represents 26,500 people in the city having to go hungry because of financial hardship. Eight hundred people in Bristol have used a food bank in the past year. Oxfam South West has reported an increase in demand on its food banks, with some reporting a 100% increase on the previous year’s total of applications for help. As we have heard, the Trussell Trust estimates that the number of people using food banks could increase from 100,000 this year to up to 500,000 by the end of this Parliament.

I congratulate the charities and Churches that run the food banks on the work they do. During the half-term recess I will be visiting the food bank in Bristol run by FareShare, which is an excellent organisation. Those charities make an immeasurable difference to people’s lives, but as Kate Wareing, Oxfam’s UK poverty programme director, has said,

“Everybody in the UK should have enough money to feed themselves and their families, whether they are in or out of work. It’s an outrage that increasing numbers of people in our country are having to visit food banks to feed themselves or put a hot meal on the table for their children.”

So although I welcome the work of those running food banks, I—unlike the Secretary of State—do not welcome the need for their existence.

Families are not only turning to food banks. The Child Poverty Action Group has found that for a quarter of the children in the UK, school dinners are their only source of hot food. In Bristol the number of children eligible for school meals has been rising. Fortunately, the local schools forum agreed to maintain funding after this Government discontinued the ring-fenced school lunch grant, but schools too will be affected by rising prices. The value of breakfast clubs is often overlooked, despite the fact that 32% of children regularly miss breakfast. The simple truth is that too many children arrive at school each morning having not eaten a proper meal since lunchtime the day before. Research by London Economics found that breakfast clubs led to a statistically significant increase in attainment and improvements in punctuality that clearly outweigh the costs. A survey by Magic Breakfast, a charity that provides breakfasts at 22p per child at 200 primary schools, including some in Bristol, found that 88% of schools see improved attendance.

In the limited time I have left, I want to talk about the problem of food waste. Many people would regard it as immoral that good edible food is thrown away when people are going to bed hungry. On a global scale, all the world’s 1 billion hungry people could be lifted out of malnourishment on less than a quarter of the food wasted in the US, the UK and Europe. Charities such as FareShare and FoodCycle are taking concerted action to tackle the problem, and doing so in a way that also encourages healthy eating, community involvement and volunteer engagement. I am proud to be a patron of FoodCycle.

Much of the problem lies in the supply chain—farming, feeding livestock, transportation, supermarket supply, restaurant policy and expenditure, and a demand for out-of-season food free from visual imperfections, as we heard from the hon. Member for South Thanet (Laura Sandys). I congratulate her on her Ugly Food campaign.

In its most recent report on the grocery market in 2008, the Competition Commission concluded that supermarkets are guilty of passing unnecessary risks and excessive costs on to their suppliers—for example, through forecasting errors by supermarkets. They might tell a manufacturer a week in advance that they will probably want 100,000 sandwiches, but on the morning the sandwiches are to be delivered, they substantially reduce their order, leaving the supplier with a pallet-load of sandwiches that they cannot sell. Worse still, many products carry the supermarket’s own brand name and supermarkets will often forbid the manufacturers to sell the products on, insisting that they must be sold to them exclusively. There is also concern that if they give the products to charity, that will damage the brand.

Particularly shamefully, supermarkets often agree a price for a product with their supplier, but when sales are less than predicted and products need to be put on price reduction, the supermarket will turn around and require the supplier to share the burden of the reduced revenue. Even worse, there are the notorious take-back agreements, whereby supermarkets return to the manufacturer produce that they have failed to sell.

Although the work of food redistribution charities is invaluable, their very existence implies an acceptance of the level of social inequality that creates the coexistence of food poverty and food waste. With more than one in five workers earning less than a living wage, low pay is so pervasive that tax credits and food parcels are required to give hard-working families the support they need simply to put food on the table. That is why I strongly support calls for the draft Groceries Code Adjudicator Bill to be brought forward in this year’s Queen’s Speech.

I will also bring forward a ten-minute rule Bill in March calling for action to enforce the principles of the food waste pyramid, which deals first with the reduction of food waste, then with the distribution of surplus food to redistribution charities, and then with sale or donation for feeding livestock, rather than food waste being sent for anaerobic digestion, or—even worse—landfill. I will be happy to talk with other Members who are interested in the Bill, and I hope that they will join me in supporting it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Thursday 19th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

The Minister will know that there is widespread opposition in the south-west to badger culls in our local communities, not least because the scientific evidence shows that such culls are completely ineffective in curbing bovine tuberculosis. Now that the two pilot areas have been announced, what steps will the Minister be taking to consult local people?

[Mr Paice]

The answer to that question is in the written statement, but let me repeat what the Government have announced this morning. There are two areas in which the farmers will be invited to apply for a licence. The process from here on is in the hands of Natural England, and it includes a consultation with local people to ascertain their views. That will happen before Natural England decides whether to grant licences to those groups.

Bovine TB

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Wednesday 14th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Spelman]

I have had very careful conversations with the Home Secretary and with the Association of Chief Police Officers regarding security. Like members of the public, people who are licensed to undertake a cull have every right to expect their safety to be protected. Careful analysis has been undertaken by the police and I respect their expertise and thank them for their assistance.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

Let me follow on from the question of the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas). There is nothing in this statement about dealing with the problem of cattle-to-cattle transmission. All the evidence shows that that is a significant factor in spreading bovine TB. What does the Secretary of State plan to do about that? It seems that the only solution on offer is shooting badgers.

[Paul Flynn]

But the alternative would upset the farmers.

[Kerry McCarthy]

Exactly.

[Mrs Spelman]

I refer the hon. Lady to the statement that I made in July, setting out the other important elements of the bovine TB package, of which controlled reduction of the badger population is just one part. We have strengthened measures on controlling the movement of cattle and expanded the areas for the testing of cattle. I know that that was very much wanted by the industry. As a west midlands MP, my farmers came to me and said that they would prefer to be part of the annual testing because they want to know more frequently whether their cattle are clear. In my July statement, all those strict measures were cited.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Thursday 24th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paice]

I am afraid I cannot give my hon. Friend a figure at this stage because we are still developing our final response. We are going through all 214 recommendations and are determined to be bold and ambitious, as we were urged to be by Richard Mcdonald. Much of the cost to farmers is the result not of complying with regulations, but of the bureaucratic burden of the process of complying, and that is what we are trying to address.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

11. What steps she is taking to curb the hunting of endangered species.

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

No native endangered species can be legally hunted in England. Although we cannot intervene directly in legal hunts of endangered species allowed by foreign Governments, the UK pushes for international co-operation through the convention on international trade in endangered species—CITES—in order to ensure that any trade in endangered species is sustainable. The UK also strongly supports the International Whaling Commission’s moratorium on commercial whaling.

[Kerry McCarthy]

Will the Minister therefore join me in condemning the trophy hunting of endangered and vulnerable species such as that carried out by the millionaire banker and Tory donor, Sir David Scholey, who was pictured in The Sun recently, posing by the bloody corpse of a lion under the headline “Who’s the bigger beast?”? Does the Minister condemn that?

[Richard Benyon]

We recently had a debate in Westminster Hall about lion trophies and importation to the UK. There are certain areas of Africa where lion populations give real cause for concern, and we are working through colleagues in CITES to ensure that the concerns in that debate and throughout the House are raised. Yes, I will condemn any hunting of an endangered species, for whatever reason, if it puts that species at risk, and this Government have responsibility for—

--- Later in debate ---

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman join me in congratulating the Bishop of London on his support for the “Feeding the 5,000” event in Trafalgar square last Friday? That organisation looks at how we can use the phenomenal amount of food that goes to waste in this country to feed people who are in food poverty.

[Tony Baldry]

The Bishop of London’s leadership on that initiative is excellent, and it is an excellent initiative.

World Vegan Day

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Tuesday 1st November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

I start by expressing my sympathy for the Minister tonight. It can never be much fun doing the late night Adjournment debate, and I am fairly sure that this is not an issue dear to his heart.

This is the first time that world vegan day has been marked in Parliament. The chefs have also done a sterling job, with vegan dishes in the main restaurants on the parliamentary estate every day this week. Earlier today, the Vegan Society event was swamped by MPs and staff lured there by the promise of free vegan cupcakes. The cakes came courtesy of the award-winning Ms Cupcake, who has just won contracts to supply her cakes to the Olympics and Paralympics, not because her cakes are vegan but because they are delicious.

As a vegan of nearly 20 years’ standing, I am very fortunate to represent a seat in Bristol, because it not only plays host to the largest vegan fayre in Europe each year but has some great restaurants and shops catering for vegans, such as Cafe Kino, Cafe Maitreya, Wild Oats, Better Foods and the Sweetmart. I am pleased to be joined tonight by my vegan comrades, my hon. Friends the Members for Derby North (Chris Williamson) and for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Cathy Jamieson). We are apparently the largest vegan caucus in the world.

In response to a survey by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in 2007 on public behaviour and attitudes towards the environment, about 2% of respondents said that they were vegan. The number of converts is growing. The former fast-food lover Bill Clinton has adopted a vegan diet for health reasons, saying that previously he had been playing Russian roulette with his health, and last week both Ozzy Osbourne—the man who used to bite the heads off bats—and Russell Brand announced that they had decided to become vegan after watching the film “Forks Over Knives”. Other celebrity vegans include Joaquin Phoenix, Alicia Silverstone, Ellen DeGeneres, Carl Lewis, Woody Harrelson, Bryan Adams, Chrissie Hynde, Alanis Morissette, Benjamin Zephaniah and even Mike Tyson—so when people say to me, “You don’t look like a vegan”, I am not quite sure what they mean.

A vegan diet means not eating meat, fish, dairy, eggs or products derived from them. Ethical vegans also avoid wearing leather, wool and silk, and buying or using products that are tested on animals or contain animal products. I think that it is a personal choice how far people want to take it, and some vegans are much stricter than others, which is fine.

Among the many prejudices against vegans is the belief that they are always preaching to others and trying to convert them. I do not think that is true; we are incredibly tolerant. We are always polite when others ask, “Don’t you ever get tempted by a bacon sandwich?”—as the Whip did to me only a moment ago—and we always pretend that we have never heard anyone tell the “Spock from Star Trek vegan/Vulcan” joke before, even though we hear it practically every day. In fact, most vegans I know are rather coy about explaining why they are vegan, mostly because the question tends to be asked when we are sitting a dinner table full of meat eaters, and it seems rather impolite to answer. However, seeing as we are not at a dinner party now, here is the ethical case, the health case and the environmental case for being vegan.

If people are vegetarians for ethical reasons—because they believe that killing and eating animals is wrong—they really ought to be vegan, too. The average human eats more than 11,000 animals in his or her lifetime, but millions of calves and chicks are also killed every year as “waste products” of milk and egg production. I confess that, for me, it took a long time for the penny to drop that cows are not constant milk-producing machines. Just like every other animal, including human females, cows produce milk only to nurse their young. The dairy industry means artificially forcing loads more milk out of cows—10 to 20 times more than they need to feed their calves, with their huge udders causing painful mastitis and lameness—and taking their calves away early, or, in the case of male dairy calves, which are useless to the dairy industry, either shooting them at birth or exporting them live to the rest of the EU for the veal trade. The average lifespan of a dairy cow is six years, compared with a natural lifespan of 20 to 25 years. Some 100,000 male calves a year are deemed a surplus by-product on Britain’s dairy farms because they cannot give birth or produce milk. An undercover investigation by the Bristol-based vegetarian campaign Viva! showed a calf taken from its mother and shot in the head at Halewood Gate dairy farm near Bristol, which supplies milk for Cadbury—something that was reported in The Sun of all places.

Hens are forced to lay 20 times as many eggs as is natural for them. Male chicks are useless to the egg industry. Millions of day-old chicks are killed, with many thrown alive into mincers—known as “homogenisers”. This also happens in free-range and organic systems, despite their claims to be cruelty-free. I have previously raised with the Minister my concern that, having made progress in areas such as banning battery cages, this country is now moving to embrace industrial-scale intensive farming, with the Nocton dairy mega-farm, housing thousands of cows in something that resembles a multi-storey car park, and the huge pig farm planned in Foston, Derbyshire, with more than 20,000 pigs and piglets. I know the Minister’s views on that well, so I will touch on it only in passing.

[Chris Williamson (Derby North) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the case for eating less meat or becoming vegan is reinforced by the fact that major companies are buying up vast tracts of land in developing nations to grow grain for animals, displacing subsistence farmers from their land? When 2 billion people on this planet are going hungry every night, would it not be better to use the food that we produce more efficiently by feeding it directly to human beings, rather than to animals, which is an inefficient way of using land?

[Kerry McCarthy]

I agree entirely with my hon. Friend, and I will come to the environmental and food security case for being vegan in a moment.

[Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

Can the hon. Lady point to any peer-reviewed science to support her allegation about the UK livestock industry, rather than giving us the mantra of the animal rights or vegan movement? If she can do that, her argument might carry a bit more weight.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I am about to cite some scientific research on the health case, and I also have some very authoritative sources for the environmental case. The ethical case is about people’s personal opinions on whether it is ethical to treat animals in such a way or to eat them. It is not science-led; it is led by people’s morals.

[Simon Hart]

So is the hon. Lady saying that the assertions she has made about agricultural practices are a personal opinion, as opposed to there being any evidence to support them?

[Kerry McCarthy]

I am not quite sure which practices the hon. Gentleman is referring to. If he is talking about the average lifespan of a dairy cow, that is something that I have researched and it is in the public domain. I know that DEFRA is looking to get the average lifespan of a dairy cow up to eight years, but six years was the average cited in the research that I looked at, while the figure for cows suffering from mastitis is 33%. I could go on—although I do not have the footnotes before me—but it is all in the public domain and well researched.

It can be quite difficult to nail down the facts and figures on the health benefits of a vegan diet, particularly when organisations such as meat marketing boards and milk marketing boards spend millions on counter-promotions. As I have mentioned, the recently released film “Forks Over Knives” puts the case that switching to a wholefoods-based vegan diet can prevent and even reverse serious illnesses. The film gives an overview of the 20-year China-Cornell-Oxford project, which found that a number of diseases, including coronary disease, diabetes and cancer, can be linked to the western diet of processed and animal-based foods. It is certainly true that the traditionally very low rates of breast cancer among Japanese women are increasing as they adopt western diets with a higher consumption of animal fats. In Japan, affluent women who eat meat daily have an 8.5 times higher risk of breast cancer than poorer women who rarely or never eat meat.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

How would the hon. Lady respond to the statement by my GP and many others that we need a balanced diet, and that a balanced diet should include meat?

[Kerry McCarthy]

I will come to that in a moment. The World Cancer Research Fund carried out an authoritative study which found that people should avoid processed meat altogether, and eat red meat in moderate amounts only. That is the most authoritative study that I have come across. Cancer Research UK is co-funding a massive study called EPIC—the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition—which has found that people who ate two daily 80-gram portions of red or processed meat increased their risk of developing bowel cancer by a third, compared with those who ate just 20 grams a day. The same study found that people eating more than 100 grams of meat a day had over three times the risk of getting stomach cancer.

As I mentioned, the World Cancer Research Fund reviewed 263 research papers and concluded in May this year that there was convincing evidence that red and processed meat increased the risk of bowel cancer. When those findings emerged, the National Beef Association and the National Sheep Association, in conjunction with the National Farmers Union, issued statements accusing the fund of misleading the public. The fund retaliated by accusing the British meat industry of potentially defamatory and deliberately misleading statements, and repeated its message that it was best to avoid processed meat and to eat red meat only in moderation. It stated:

“The fact is that our report is the most comprehensive and authoritative review of the evidence that has ever been published and it found convincing evidence that red and processed meat both increase the risk of bowel cancer”.

As I have mentioned, there has been a significant rise in the number of people who are becoming vegan—[Interruption.]

[Cathy Jamieson (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (Lab/Co-op)]

Just before my hon. Friend moves off her point about balanced diets, will she tell us—perhaps for the benefit of those on the Conservative Benches who seem to be heckling about what is or is not a case for veganism—whether she agrees that it is entirely possible to have a healthy, balanced diet without eating any animal products whatever?

[Kerry McCarthy]

That is true. As I said, I have been a vegan for nearly 20 years. My hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun has been one for 15 years, and my hon. Friend the Member for Derby North has been one since time immemorial—well, since the 1970s, anyway. I think that we are all testament to the fact that people can survive perfectly well on a vegan diet—[Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun referred to the heckling. It is strange to have heckling in an Adjournment debate, and I think it is perhaps testament to the strength of our argument that people feel they have to mock what we are saying rather than joining in the debate.

I deal now with the environmental case for switching to a vegan diet. The 2006 report by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, “Livestock’s Long Shadow”, stated that the livestock industry was responsible for 18% of global greenhouse gas emissions. That is more than the transport sector, including aviation, which produces 13.5%, yet there is a huge public debate about aviation and virtually no debate about livestock. I secured a debate on this issue in Westminster Hall in 2009, and my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Robert Flello) subsequently made a valiant attempt to put the Sustainable Livestock Bill through the House, only for it to be blocked by the Government. I hope that the Minister will have time tonight to update the House on the progress of some of the promises that he made when he responded to a speech by my hon. Friend almost a year ago today.

Meat consumption is an incredibly inefficient way to feed the planet. It takes 8 kg of grain to produce 1 kg of beef. It takes 100 times as much water to produce 1 kg of beef as it does to grow 1 kg of vegetables. It takes almost 120 calories of fossil fuel energy to produce 1 calorie of beef, compared with 2.2 calories to produce a single calorie of plant protein. It takes almost 21 square metres of land to produce 1 kg of beef, compared with 0.3 square metres to produce 1 kg of vegetables.

We hear a lot about biofuels and deforestation, but whereas in 2009 about 100 million tonnes of crops were being diverted to create biofuels, around 760 million tonnes were being used to feed animals. As Raj Patel wrote in his excellent book “Stuffed and Starved”:

“The amount of grains fed to US livestock would be enough to feed 840 million people on a plant-based diet. The number of food-insecure people in the world in 2006 was, incidentally, 854 million”.

I am conscious that I have not mentioned fish at all during this debate. I would refer the House to the extremely powerful documentary “The End of the Line”, and also to the series “Fish Fight” by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, which highlights some of the issues to do with the sustainability of our fish stocks and the impact of over-fishing on our marine environment.

I conclude with some questions for the Minister. It was disappointing that at the climate change talks in Copenhagen, the environmental impact of the livestock sector was given little prominence. What steps are the Government taking to ensure that this issue has a higher priority on the agenda at Rio next year? Will it also be on the agenda at the climate change talks in Durban next month?

What discussions has the Minister had, or will he commit to having, on these issues with our EU counterparts, particularly in the context of reform of the common agricultural policy? According to Compassion in World Farming, at least 80% of the EU’s animals are factory farmed. What vision does the Minister have for the future of farming across the EU in terms of animal welfare standards, environmental impact and sustainability?

In respect of development policy and global food security, what consideration has been given to the health and environmental factors I have mentioned in terms of feeding the world’s growing population? Is this something that is ever discussed between DEFRA and the Department for International Development? What assessment have the Government made of the health benefits of a diet low in meat and dairy consumption? What guidance is given in the public sector—in schools, hospitals and prisons, for example—on the availability of vegan food with a view to meeting the needs of those who have chosen a vegan diet, and with a view to the health benefits?

What further progress can be made on food labelling so that vegans know whether the products they purchase are ethical or not? Can the Minister also confirm that when the EU directive on animal experimentation is transposed into UK law, it will not mean a lowering of standards? And finally, there is concern that the proposed network of marine protected areas to be established under the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009 next year will not adequately protect wildlife and that some of our most important marine wildlife sites could even be missed off altogether. Can the Minister provide reassurance on this point and perhaps tell us more about what he or his Department is doing to tackle over-fishing?

I appreciate that I have at times strayed somewhat outside the Minister’s brief, but I hope he can give clarity on at least some of the issues I have raised. I thank him for his patience in listening to me.

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

May I genuinely congratulate the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) on taking the opportunity to raise the issue of vegans on world vegan day and to elaborate on her thoughts and the views that she and her colleagues hold? She rightly identified at the outset that she and I will not agree on some of these issues, but I respect the intensity of her views, which she and I have exchanged several times over the Dispatch Box.

May I say, however, that I do not think hon. Lady helps her cause by some of the quite wide exaggerations she made in her speech? To talk about an intensive dairy farmer as being akin to a multi-storey car park is, frankly, ludicrous. There is no suggestion—

[Kerry McCarthy]

They are piled on top of one another.

[Mr Paice]

The hon. Lady is saying something from a sedentary position—I will need to get this on the record, Mr Speaker—about cows on top of each other. There is no such question. The proposal at Nocton, which is now dead as a proposal anyway, did not involve a multi-storey facility. It does not do the cause any good to exaggerate like that.

I hope I can answer some of her questions. As she said, some of them have strayed a little from my brief. I think many of the answers are in the Foresight report, which was the Government’s chief scientific adviser published in January this year. That is all about the future of food and farming. It looks not just at the UK, but at the global demand and supply for food over the next 30 or 40 years up to 2050. We are having this debate on the day after the 7 billionth person was born on this planet; it is quite right to think about the security of our food supply across the globe.

There is no doubt that, as the Foresight report made clear, the current food system is consuming the world’s natural resources at an unsustainable rate. I agree with the hon. Lady about that. At this rate we will continue to degrade our environment, compromise the world’s capacity to produce food in the future, and contribute to climate change and further destruction of our biodiversity.

The status quo is not an option, which is why we in DEFRA have put the importance of sustainable food and farming at the forefront of what we are doing. It is the first priority of our business plan. It underpins everything. We are looking at the food chain in its entirety, with the aim of helping to secure an environmentally sustainable and healthy supply of food and creating the conditions for the agri-food sector to succeed. The Foresight report—this is relevant to one of the hon. Lady’s questions—highlighted the significance of dietary changes to the sustainability of our food supply, given that, as the hon. Lady rightly said, some foods require more resources for their production than others. We all need to play our part.

The most important people in all this are consumers. As the hon. Lady suggested, they can best be helped to make the choices that they want to make when they are receiving consistent messages about what constitutes a sustainable balanced diet, and, indeed, what the products that they are purchasing contain. By providing a robust evidence base, we can work closely with a wide range of partners to try to ensure that they are given that information.

The issue of diet is complex. Across the world, cultural, social and religious factors influence the make-up of what we eat. The Government do not believe that we should undermine those influences. We see value in encouraging people to think carefully about the environmental impact of the food they eat. Groups such as the Vegan Society provide information for consumers and help to increase their knowledge. However, we also need to recognise that a vegan diet is not for everyone.

I must tell the hon. Lady that I was a bit confused about whether she was advocating veganism, was concerned about animal welfare, or was simply recommending a balanced diet involving a lower proportion of processed meat—with which recommendation, incidentally, I would entirely agree. We know that there are recommendations suggesting that people should not eat too much processed meat. However, that is a long stretch from the more extreme position of a vegan, which, as the hon. Lady said, means eating absolutely no products of animal origin. There is a great difference between the two positions. The Government recommend a balanced diet. We are not going to tell people what or what not to eat; we want people to be given information that will enable them to make informed choices.

The hon. Lady raised the issue of food labelling. As she knows, we are committed to improving it: that has been one of our prominent policies both in opposition and in government. As she also knows, there is currently no definition in law of the term “vegan”, and labelling products as vegan is entirely voluntary. However, if such labelling is used, consumers are protected by the law, because it is illegal to mislead them through false or misleading labelling. A new European Union regulation on the provision of food information to consumers will be published in the next few months, and will then enter into force in all member states. It covers the rules for general food and nutrition labelling, and requires the European Commission to draft a set of measures governing use of the terms “vegetarian” and “vegan”. I hope that that reassures that the hon. Lady that the issue is being, and will continue to be, addressed.

The Government’s promotion of advice on a balanced diet applies to vegetarians and vegans as well as to those who eat much more livestock products. A well-planned diet based on anything can be healthy as long as it contains the right balance of foods. The main issue that we face is, of course, obesity, which is a leading cause of serious diseases such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease and cancer. It also costs the national health service £5 billion a year. The Government’s recently published document “Healthy lives, healthy people: a call to action on obesity in England” sets out how obesity will be tackled in the new public health and NHS systems, and the role that partners can play. Obesity is a serious problem, and it is the responsibility of individuals to change their behaviour to benefit their health. Most of us are eating or drinking more than we need to, and we are not active enough. Being overweight or obese is a consequence of eating more calories than we need.

[Mr Paice]

No, I do not accept that. The hon. Member for Bristol East reeled off a list of vegan organisations, businesses and retailers in Bristol. They all have a right to advertise their wares as long as they are selling something that is lawful. I do not believe that it is for Government to tell them they should not do so.

What matters is that we encourage people to reduce the amount of calories they consume, in whatever form. As part of the Government’s ongoing Change4Life campaign, we are encouraging people to make the key simple changes: eat more fruit and vegetables; cut down on fatty foods, particularly unsaturated fats; reduce calorie consumption; and, of course, be more active.

[Kerry McCarthy]

This section of the Minister’s speech sounds like filler to avoid talking about the issues I have raised. He said that it is important that people get the right balance in their diet. What do the Government regard as the right balance for eating red meat and processed meats in a diet?

[Mr Paice]

I cannot tell the hon. Lady that precisely. Such matters are the responsibilities of the Health Education Authority and the Department of Health. As she rightly said in her earlier comments, they are not part of my remit. There is a wealth of information, however, about balanced diets and recommended proportions and amounts, and 70 grams a day of meat is established as being a good figure.

The hon. Lady does me a disservice by suggesting I was not going to answer her questions, as I will do so. However, the points I am making now are important, and they are relevant to the question of balanced diets.

Returning to the Foresight report, which I mentioned earlier, it is clear that we need to achieve a sustainable food supply and to use the whole range of measures available to us. The hon. Lady made a point about the consumption of grain to produce meat. I have to say to her that two thirds of the world’s farming area is grass, and the only way to turn grass into food is to feed it through livestock. If we were to remove all that livestock from the system, the world would be a lot shorter of food. That is a simple fact, so what else is the hon. Lady going to do? She looks askance, but she should understand that large parts of the world will not grow grain as the terrain or climate is wrong, or the soil is too thin. Therefore, grass is the only option if that land is to produce food.

The hon. Lady also referred to the figure of 8 kg to produce 1 kg of beef. On the face of it, that is correct, but only if all the cattle are fed is grain. However, as I have just implied, a large proportion of the beef—and the sheepmeat—in this world is produced from grass. Many of the livestock never see a grain of cereal in their diet. That is the reality. Yes, there are beef feedlots in America where the cattle are fed only on grain, and in that context the figures the hon. Lady cites are right. However, to use them as if they apply to the whole industry across the world is entirely misleading. In fact, the bigger consumers of grain are pigs and poultry because they eat nothing else. They can be fed only on grain and soya bean.

On the subject of soya, the hon. Lady talked about the increasing desecration of the rain forest to produce arable crops, but the main such crop is soya bean, which is what most people who do not eat meat eat. How can one have a haggis made of soya? [Interruption.] As my right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) points out, it is possible to find vegetarian haggis. However, the point is that soya is the staple diet of people who do not eat meat.

Environmental Protection and Green Growth

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Wednesday 26th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mary Creagh]

I am sure that would be a great idea in a perfect world, but we are living in the real world and need to comply with the EU waste framework directive so as not to incur huge EU infraction fines. I will come on to what that means.

The three devolved Governments have all adopted an ambitious target of 60% of waste being recycled by 2020, and Scotland and Wales are aiming for 70% by 2025. That leaves England with the weakest recycling target in the UK, which is the target for the UK as a whole to meet the bare legal European minimum of 50% by 2020. There is a bitter irony in that, because the more the devolved nations achieve, the less England will have to deliver to reach the UK target. House of Commons Library research conducted for my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Mr Reed) shows that if the devolved nations meet their targets, England will need to recycle only 47.6% of waste by 2020 to meet its target.

Last week I visited the Rexam can manufacturing plant in Wakefield. Rexam works continually to develop its environmental performance, focusing on objectives including reducing the consumption of resources—I think that was the point that the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George) was making. Over the past year, the plant has reduced its gas consumption by a quarter and its electricity consumption by 30%. The cans, which are ones that we all drink out of, such as Coca-Cola cans, are manufactured to a width of 97 microns, the width of two human hairs. That is another little fact that I can share with the House.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that supermarkets have a role to play in reducing waste, by reducing food packaging, by not encouraging people to throw away food on unrealistic sell-by dates, and by supporting projects such as FoodCycle, of which I have recently become a patron? That project takes unused food from supermarkets to community cafés and helps to feed people who would be unable to feed themselves. Does she agree that that is an absolutely brilliant project, and that supermarkets ought to be doing more to support it?

[Mary Creagh]

I do indeed, and I know that many of them are doing that. I have had a debate with the Co-operative about its naked cucumbers. [Interruption.] I pay tribute to charities that are working to recycle unwanted food.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Benyon]

My hon. Friend is prescient; I am about to come to that point.

We have published the cross-government natural environment White Paper, the first in 20 years. It seeks to put the value of nature at the heart of our decision making in Government, local communities and businesses, properly valuing the economic and social benefits of a healthy natural environment while continuing to recognise nature’s intrinsic value. It set out 92 commitments, and we published an update on progress earlier this month. This has made us a world leader in this field.

[Kerry McCarthy]

The Minister has just mentioned the natural environment White Paper. What does he think of the criticism of the White Paper, and of the “England Biodiversity Strategy: Biodiversity 2020”, by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, which stated recently that

“both are singularly lacking in implementation plans”,

and that

“we need more than fine words, we need a clear delivery plan and we need it soon”?

Are the Government not simply giving us more greenwash, to give the impression that they are the greenest Government ever?

[Richard Benyon]

I think the hon. Lady shows a churlishness that is not in her character. She is usually among the most generous of Members. May I suggest that she looks at the natural environment White Paper and its 92 commitments and understands how we are valuing nature as part of how government works. I am happy to quote the recent remarks of the Chancellor who said:

“we need to know what the problem is before we can set about finding a solution. Better and fuller information is a crucial…step towards promoting environmental sustainability.”

He was talking about accounting for sustainability, and getting natural capital hardwired into Government at every level has been a crucial part of taking forward this work through the natural environment White Paper, which I commend to hon. Members.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

I want to start by taking issue with a couple of Members who said that we should not get political about this issue. First, I would say, “Try telling that to the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate change and the Chancellor of the Exchequer”, who seem to be in open warfare in today’s newspapers. Furthermore, this is one of the most crucial political topics we face, and if we wrap it all up in warm words and a coat of greenwash without questioning or challenging some of the progress, we will be in danger of letting the whole agenda slide.

In the limited time available, I would like to focus on a couple of issues. A number of Members have commented on the “Nature Check” survey, which gave the red light to the Government on a range of issues, three of which deal with planning. There is real concern that the Treasury is dominating and overriding the environmental agenda in respect of planning issues. The Budget of 2011 said that

“The Government will introduce a powerful new presumption in favour of sustainable development, so that the default answer to development is ‘yes’.”

We also know that the Chancellor said at the Conservative party conference in Manchester:

“We’re not going to save the planet by putting the country out of business.”

He believed that, rather than leading the way in pushing a green agenda in Europe, we should only rise to the standards of other European countries, which I think is entirely wrong.

Simon Jenkins, the head of the National Trust, gave evidence to a Commons Committee the other day, saying that the “fingerprints” of rich builders were all over the planning reforms, while The Daily Telegraph, which one would expect to be on the side of the Conservative party, talked about an elite forum of property developers who were charging key players in the industry £2,500 a year to set up breakfast, dinner and drinks with senior Tories. This club raises £150,000 a year for the Conservatives. I would appreciate it if the Minister responded to that in his summing up, and explained what influence is being exercised. We have seen the influence of people behind the scenes in health and defence policy and other aspects of the Government’s agenda.

One subject that has not been mentioned much in the context of planning is the new biodiversity offsetting regime. In Bristol, there has been real concern about the local authority’s failure to spend section 106 money. It is estimated that between £10 million and £12 million that should have been allocated to community projects, infrastructure and schools is sitting in the council coffers. As a result, not only will environments that have evolved over centuries and could be described as part of our natural heritage be replaced by artificial new landscapes, but there will be no means of ensuring that the offsetting actually happens and is maintained for many years to come. We need to know whether the regime will be effective, or whether it is just an excuse for developers to be able to destroy natural habitats and the environment. As the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds pointed out, we need a system that filters out habitats that are irreplaceable, as opposed to those that can easily be created elsewhere.

The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) expressed concern about the lack of certainty in relation to feed-in tariffs. Support has already been scrapped for large-scale projects, and it is rumoured that the Government will announce a halving of tariff rates tomorrow. Let me give an example. The Royal Bath and West of England Society was due to develop a solar photovoltaic park, for which it had already received planning permission and which it wanted to use to kick-start a rural regeneration project that it expected to create about 1,500 jobs. It had structured the project on the basis of the expected revenue from profit on the feed-in tariffs. Critically, it was interested in a loophole provided by the Department for Energy and Climate Change that would have allowed the project to proceed if it plugged in 10% of its electricity generation by 1 August 2012. Thankfully, it had not made a decision before the deadline was moved to 18 October 2010. The chief executive, Dr Jane Guise, told us today that “shifting goalposts” were making it impossible to invest in and plan for the future. She also wondered why the Treasury was involved at all.

I am afraid I have no time to give the House any more information about that, but I urge Members to talk to people who had spent months planning a project that would have brought huge benefit to the local community, but is now being—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. The hon. Lady’s time is up.

Badgers and Bovine TB

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Tuesday 18th October 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Glindon]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising that point on animal welfare and criminality, which relates to public safety as well as to the badger community.

Under the randomised badger culling trial, culling took place over a short period of two weeks. It was found that a longer period of culling saw greater effects from perturbation. Unfortunately, the Government’s new proposals include a longer period of culling. Natural England has expressed concern at the lack of evidence available to demonstrate that a farm-led cull can replicate what has only been undertaken previously by Government.

The Government have designated Natural England as a licensing authority for the cull. Under the proposals, farmers and landowners will be expected to cull at least 70% of badgers in designated areas. However, there is no accurate information about the badger population, so the number to be killed cannot be specified. Without accurate data, culling could lead to extinction in some areas or, where too few badgers are killed, an increase in the negative effects of perturbation. Furthermore, it has been estimated that, as has been mentioned, the policing cost of dealing with protesters who are against the cull will amount to more than £200,000 per year, but Ministers have not specified where that amount will come from.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

On the subject of cuts, a number of dairy farmers have approached me to say that the Government cuts to trading standards are having a real impact on cattle testing at market. I am sure that my hon. Friend will come on to the point that, while there is a responsibility on farmers to ensure that they are not transporting infected cattle around the country—there have been concerns about farmers swapping infected cattle and non-infected cattle—apparently there has been a decline in the effectiveness of testing at cattle markets, because trading standards are not being funded. Does she share my concern?

[Mrs Glindon]

Other important measures must also be upheld if we wish to curtail the incidence of bovine TB.

[Mrs Glindon]

I thank the Minister for his intervention, but I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) is representing her constituents as truthfully as she can in this debate.

[Kerry McCarthy]

Certainly, I have been approached by dairy farmers who are opposed to the badger cull. They have told me that they are concerned about the cuts to trading standards, which mean that cattle markets are not being supervised in the way in which they should be. I do not know whether that is specifically about testing at markets or assessing in other ways whether infected animals are being sold there, as opposed to clinical testing, but I have certainly been told—I can put this on the record—by dairy farmers who go to market every week that that is having an impact.

[Mrs Glindon]

I hope that the Minister has noted my hon. Friend’s concerns.

The Minister and the Secretary of State should listen to the experts and the scientists and, instead of pressing forward with plans for culling, refocus their efforts to eradicate bovine TB by concentrating Government resources on developing vaccination methods, along with other measures that are currently being deployed. Other countries where bovine TB is a problem, such as New Zealand, Ireland and the USA, are all working on vaccines. The Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust has carried out vaccine trials in Gloucestershire, as has been mentioned, so momentum is growing in that direction. Culling is not the answer. Sound scientific evidence tells us that we must move in a different direction and try to work with the measures, some of which the current Government are carrying forward, put in place by the previous Government, which definitely work.