Common Agricultural Policy
Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts(12 years, 11 months ago)
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Sir James Paice
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. May I too apologise for forgetting to refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Is there anybody else while we are on the record? If not, I call Roger Williams.
Roger Williams
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am glad that my contribution has caused so much interest in the Chamber.
The shadow Minister was rather fierce in his criticism of the Minister. Only yesterday, a Minister from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs came to the House to make a statement on the common fisheries policy. That was always seen to be intractable, yet the outcome seemed to have the support of the whole Chamber. Indeed, we hope that the CAP negotiations will meet with the same success.
It has been said that little progress has been made in reforming the CAP—the hon. Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham), who is no longer in his place, said so at the beginning of the debate—but I must remind everybody that 25 years ago CAP expenditure amounted to 75% of EU funding, whereas it now amounts to just over 40%. In that time, the amount spent by the average UK family on food has decreased from 25% of disposable income to about 15%, although sadly that trend is moving in the opposite direction because of the increases in commodity prices. Back in the 1980s, the CAP depended on market support and intervention through export subsidies and import tariffs, which were really trade-distorting implements and very unfair on developing countries. Things moved on, however, and in 1993 the MacSharry proposals introduced direct payments that were not so trade distorting, and in 2003, the Fischler proposals decoupled support, which was another step forward.
Why do we still need a CAP? It was first introduced to ensure that people working in agriculture and the countryside had incomes comparable to those in more urban and industrial occupations. Sadly, it has been unsuccessful in doing that, and incomes in the countryside are still less than in towns. Many farming businesses in this country would be making no profit at all, if it were not for direct payments.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. There are four speakers and 16 minutes left.
Pollinators and Pesticides
Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts(13 years ago)
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Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. May I suggest each speaker takes around 10 minutes?
Badger Cull
Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts(13 years ago)
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Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. I remind hon. Members that there is a six-minute limit on speeches—[Interruption.] It is not a shame; we just want to get everybody in.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. We do not need enticement from the Front Bench. The Secretary of State does not need to get angry, as he will be coming back later, no doubt. Mr Wiggin, we do not need any extra help from you.
Nia Griffith
The European Commission has set out an indicative 10-year timetable for the cattle BCG vaccine and DIVA test to be available for use, but as the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh), Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, said, the timetable is precisely that: indicative. I ask the Government to put every effort into further research into the steps necessary to make the vaccine and the test both effective and usable in the international context. That is the way to make sure the farmer is in control, which is the real way to deal with the problem.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. I will have to drop the time limit on speeches to five minutes. [Interruption.] It is no use tutting. It is either that or I will have to knock someone off the list. With fewer interventions everyone might just have a chance to speak, so it is up to everybody to show some self-restraint.
George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)
The Opposition have called Members to the House for this debate, and the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow Front-Bench team have proposed the motion:
“That this House believes the badger cull should not go ahead.”
This is the biggest animal health crisis is Britain and it is costing £1 billion, with 28,000 cattle slaughtered last year—and the Opposition have no policy, no alternative. Do they have a feasible alternative that they would like to put forward?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. I have suggested short interventions, and if Members want to pass judgment on others, it would be better if they had been here at the beginning.
Chris Williamson
If the hon. Gentleman had been in his place and listened to my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield, he would have heard her set out the alternatives. There are alternatives, and that is the point that we are making. The Government are taking the wrong course of action. It is not just me saying that as a trustee of the League Against Cruel Sports; this is the scientific evidence. Let me quote some of the scientific evidence for the record.
Lord Krebs, who chaired a review team that originated the idea of the RBCT, said on 12 October 2012 on the “Today” programme:
“The scientific case is as clear as it can be: this cull is not the answer to TB in cattle. I have not found any scientists who are experts in population biology or the distribution of infectious disease in wildlife who think that culling is a good idea. People seem to have cherry-picked certain results to try and get the argument they want.”
Lord Robert May, a former Government chief scientist and president of the Royal Society, said:
“It’s very clear to me that the government’s policy does not make sense.”
He added:
“I have no sympathy with the decision. They are transmuting evidence-based policy into policy-based evidence.”
The recently retired Government chief scientist, Professor Sir John Beddington, has also refused to back the cull.
A letter published in The Observer on 14 October 2012 and signed by more than 30 scientists, including Professor John Bourne, former chairman of the ISG, Professor Sir Patrick Bateson, president of the Zoological Society of London, Professor Sir John Lawton, former chief executive of the Natural Environment Research Council, Dr Chris Cheeseman, formerly of the Food and Environment Research Agency, Professor Denis Mollison, former independent scientific auditor to the RBCT, and Professor Richard Kock of the Royal Veterinary College, states:
“the complexities of TB transmission mean that licensed culling risks increasing cattle TB rather than reducing it”.
The letter ends:
“culling badgers as planned is very unlikely to contribute to TB eradication.”
The Government are taking the wrong course of action. Government Members have spoken as though they were somehow the friends of the farmer, but they will make matters worse and cause incredible suffering to the badger population. They are enraging the vast majority of the British public and they are wasting police money. They have cut the police service to the bone and yet they want the police to waste resources policing the culls—estimated at about £2 million per cull. This is absolutely bonkers. It is criminal and it should stop.
I urge the Secretary of State, having heard the cogent argument put forward by my hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State, to pause for a moment, to think what he is doing, to consider her words, to consider the scientific evidence, to think again and to take a different course of action.
Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab)
The hon. Gentleman is speaking with great knowledge. He mentioned the importance of cattle movement control. Does he accept that the shift of bovine TB to remote areas is a result of—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. It is up to Members speaking whether they give way or not, but those intervening, from whatever side of the House, should show self-restraint and make their interventions short. I call Neil Parish, who I presume has nearly ended.
Neil Parish
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I will not take any more interventions. I think that the hon. Lady was asking whether cattle spread disease to areas that were uninfected. Yes, they did to a degree. We have to tackle the disease in the hot-spot areas—where we have to cull—to make sure that cattle are not infected and that there is no chance of their being moved. We have to use every weapon available.
The key thing is what happened in the Republic of Ireland. While the number of cases of TB in Northern Ireland doubled, the number in the Republic halved over the same period. What did the Irish do? They culled their badgers. We have to be sure that we do all the relevant things.
Many of us are countrymen and countrywomen who would love to have the badger around. However, we want them to be healthy. We cannot leave diseased badgers in the field, to infect cattle and each other. Once we have reduced the number of badgers in those red-hot areas of TB, we will see a much healthier badger population. I also believe that we will not see as many badgers trying to mix with the cattle; there will not be the pressure on feed, which is paramount. We are not talking about a national cull of badgers. Our aim is not to exterminate badgers, but to cure cattle and badgers of TB and make sure that we have healthy food and livestock for our future.
The farming community feels despair because of the years of inaction from the previous Government. The community is not divided as the shadow Secretary of State tried to claim earlier; it is very much united by the fact that the disease has to be eradicated. That can be done by using all the methods, including a cull.
Finally, I go back to the Republic of Ireland, where statistics show that herds are half as likely to be reinfected with TB in areas where badgers have been culled. The beauty of the system there is that it involves badgers to cattle and cattle to badgers. Farming practices in the Republic are very much the same as those in Northern Ireland, which shows that a controlled cull of infected badgers will work. The farming community is behind the cull and I believe that, when it is explained, the public will also understand that the issue is about disease control and healthy cattle and wildlife.
Groceries Code Adjudicator Bill [Lords]
Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts(13 years, 3 months ago)
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Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. Mr George, I am sure that you are not listening to a message while you are in the Chamber. I hope that we do not see a repeat and that your phone is completely switched off.
Ian Murray
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.
We know the origins of the code came from the Competition Commission report in 2008; we have already discussed the excessive risks to suppliers, particularly overseas ones. The practices behind that would have had the potential to harm those producers overseas who are the most vulnerable and to be an obstacle to progress on the pay and conditions of, and innovation by, farmers and farm workers in developing countries. UK shoppers rightly enjoy the widest range of choice, via large retailers. The outstanding quality of produce cannot be in doubt, but the Bill has the opportunity to ensure that there is protection for all territories and to make a large contribution to the development of other countries. Amendment 30 asks for the code to be extended to other territories and asks the adjudicator to look at this matter when making recommendations to the OFT.
The subsidiaries issue is also worth exploring, as it shows clearly that the large retailers have different arrangements in place. That has to be taken into account, which is what the amendment seeks to achieve. It would be good to get clarity from the Minister on what the process would be if difficulties were identified with regard to the code in these subsidiaries or other territories. The relationship of the code in the complex matrix of buying and production is from the large retailer to the immediate supplier. As the Bill stands, that means that the large retailer is able to set up subsidiaries to buy apples from X Ltd rather than directly from the supplier.
Amendment 34 stands in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies), and it goes to the heart of some of the main issues that have been discussed in the House over the past few months. Our amendment calls on the Government to ensure that the GSCOP, which the adjudicator referees, covers the issue of commercial pressures that can be put on suppliers and that drive down quality and safety, creating possible food scandals, such as the recent revelations around horsemeat in beef products.
The amendment would explicitly enable the adjudicator to include in its annual report details of any incidents where it had become aware that commercial pressure had been applied to suppliers to drive down costs, standards and health and safety, resulting in a drop in food standards or authenticity. To answer some of the criticisms that will probably come from the hon. Member for Shipley and his like, I should say that the amendment is directly related to clause 14 and the annual report to the OFT, not necessarily in the sense of the issues arising where someone takes a case to the adjudicator to deal with in terms of the code.
Amendment 35 would require the adjudicator to send its annual report to the Food Standards Agency. That would create an important link between the adjudicator and the FSA in terms of some of the issues related to the horsemeat scandal that we have seen in recent weeks. As has been reported, the UK’s National Beef Association has blamed what it called the “bullying culture” that retail buyers have used for decades for the presence of horsemeat in beef products. Its national director, Chris Mallon, has said the public and retailers were paying the price for
“short-sighted, price-led purchasing tactics”.
He said that buyers had
“adopted a bullying culture aimed exclusively at securing as much farm food as possible, for as little cost as possible, and the result is tortured supply chains that add so much unnecessary cost that short cuts on quality and traceability, and even cheating by some suppliers, was inevitable.”
That quote shows how important it might be to include the amendment in the Bill.
Consumers must have confidence that the food they buy is correctly labelled, legal and safe, but over recent weeks that confidence has been hit hard. Many of the problems in this particular scandal have been outright criminal, and, of course, the criminal courts will deal with those, but Ministers have been slow to act, as has been shown in our debates in this House. The Food Safety Authority of Ireland has been ahead of the UK every step of the way. By having an annual reporting requirement on food safety and hygiene through the adjudicator, some of the issues that have been raised eloquently by the national director of the UK NBA could be dealt with.
The amendment has another link with the Food Standards Agency, as its budget has been cut from £143 million to £132 million. Although we should not get into a debate today about budgets of particular Government agencies or Departments, it would be an important step to say that the adjudicator, in its report to the OFT, could refer some of these cases. That might help to soften the blow caused by the reduction in resources.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. I am sure that we do not want to continue this debate and that the hon. Gentleman is desperate to get back to the subject of the amendment.
Huw Irranca-Davies
Absolutely. I make the point to illustrate how important this amendment is in terms of food safety and provenance. I just want to correct the record. The Minister said that it was one in 20,000, but it is roughly one in 2,000. I repeat to the Minister that the advice given directly to the Government was that there is a possibility of adverse effects—
Mr Deputy Speaker
Order. Do not test my patience any more. We can both agree that you are desperate to speak to the amendment and now you are going to go back to it. We do not want to have to bring someone else in just yet, do we?
Mr Chope
My hon. Friend anticipates the argument that I am going to put. I was in discussion about whether an amendment referring only to “outside the United Kingdom” would be in order and selectable. On advice—obviously, I am responsible for deciding whether to act on advice—I decided that my new clause was much more likely to be selected if, instead of referring to the United Kingdom, I referred to the European Union. That is because of single market and European Union rules. Obviously, I wanted to ensure as far as possible that my new clause would be selectable, but my hon. Friend makes a good point. He is saying that the whole public debate is about why cannot we buy British—buy UK food and thereby avoid the risk associated—[Interruption.]
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. May I gently remind Parliamentary Private Secretaries —[Interruption.] Order. A Member is speaking, and unfortunately every time a PPS walks past, it is at eye-level of the camera. The first time it is not too bad, but it is happening constantly. We all want to hear Mr Chope, and I am sure the PPSs would like to hear a little more from him.
Mr Chope
The only comfort that I take is that my remarks are evidently creating such confusion on the Front Bench that Ministers need an enormous number of messages sent to them from the Box. I take some consolation from that.
It is incumbent upon the Minister when she replies to explain how the Bill will help UK producers while not giving benefits and privileges to producers from the rest of the European Union, let alone from outside the European Union. I should like to give the Minister the maximum amount of time to respond to the debate.
Amendment 27 seemed to be warmly endorsed from the Opposition Front Bench. I do not understand why the Opposition did not table such an amendment themselves in Committee or on Report. The amendment proposes that the Bill come into force two months after Royal Assent. Then it would be clear on the face of the Bill when it would come into force. If this is such fantastic legislation, why do we not bring it in in the normal way—the whole Bill, two months after Royal Assent? I hope the Minister will respond to those points and particularly to the powerful argument advanced by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) in relation to new clause 2.
Horsemeat
Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts(13 years, 3 months ago)
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Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. May I just mention to Members who want to catch my eye that we are introducing an eight-minute limit?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. I shall have to lower the speaking limit to seven minutes in order to enable everyone to speak. Members will keep intervening!
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. May I just say to Mr Parish that he has five minutes, as we have to start the wind ups at 20 minutes to 4?
Mr Harris
I look forward to the right hon. Gentleman reappearing in the Chamber, but I am grateful to the Minister of State for that clarification. I know that the Secretary of State has a busy schedule—he told us so. He said that he was meeting again today with the food industry, his second such meeting in four days. I thought that might be the meeting that took him away from the Chamber, and I would have congratulated him, but I realised that today’s meeting was not convened at short notice, or even as a response to the horsemeat scandal; it was convened last October to give the Secretary of State the opportunity to talk about waste and genetically modified food. It is good to see that, at least when it comes to his diary, the right hon. Gentleman has no problem with changing the label.
It is vital that we as consumers have full confidence that what we are eating is exactly what is stated on the packet and that Ministers are fighting our corner, but consumers watching the Secretary of State’s performance today and his statement yesterday will not have been encouraged. Many questions remain unanswered, so I hope that the Minister of State will answer them in his response. Some of them were asked yesterday but were left unanswered or were ignored by the right hon. Gentleman, who felt unable to answer them even today.
The Secretary of State told the House yesterday that he first became aware of the horsemeat problem on 15 January. Early in his statement, he said:
“On 15 January, the FSA was notified by the Food Safety Authority of Ireland of the results of its survey of processed beef products”.—[Official Report, 11 February 2013; Vol. 558, c. 608.]
Will the Minister of State clarify whether that communication on 15 January was the first time the FSA was aware that such tests were taking place? Was the FSA contacted by the Irish authorities at any time between mid-November and 15 January to alert the FSA to the fact that concerns about the adulteration of beef had sparked an analysis? If so, when was that first contact made? Were Ministers told at the outset? If not, why not?
I did not pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) at the start of my speech because I wanted to make special mention of her terrific speech, which the hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North described as an excellent advert for vegetarianism. I tried vegetarianism once, but gave up after about a month because I really cannot stand mushrooms. After the statement yesterday, my hon. Friend asked a sensible question, which my hon. Friend the Member for Brent North repeated today, about an EU regulation that would limit to 50% the amount of fat and connective tissue that can be used to bulk up mincemeat. She asked about reports that the Government are seeking a derogation from that regulation. The Secretary of State dismissed her in an extremely curt and arrogant manner, which I am sure he, being a gentleman, now regrets. Will the Minister of State now answer that question? Are the Government seeking to exempt the UK from a measure that is aimed specifically at protecting the rights of consumers?
I know the Minister of State, who will respond to the debate, takes a keen interest in the Food Standards Agency. I know that because he told the “Food Programme” on Sunday not once, but twice, “I can only go on the information given to me by the Food Standards Agency.” Fine. Good. So will he now accept the advice of the chief executive of the FSA, who has said that retailers
“need to test significantly across the product range, across wider meat-based product ranges”?
She was talking about chicken and pork products. Will the Minister, who prides himself on listening to the advice of the FSA, heed her advice? Do the Government have a view on this at all? [Interruption.] The Minister will get his chance to respond. He does love to chunter from a sedentary position. I spent two years on the Science and Technology Committee with the hon. Gentleman, and he was a veritable ray of sunshine during those many overseas visits. He was great company and I have to say that he seems to have gone into an awful bad mood since he went on to the Government Front Bench. I am sure that after the next election—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. I am sure we want to get back on to the subject of horsemeat. Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that the Minister has been eating it?
Mr Harris
I am getting back in the saddle right now, Mr Deputy Speaker.
The Minister of State warned Members a few weeks ago that we should not talk down the British food industry, and he is right, but given the huge number of jobs that the industry supports and its importance to our economy does he recognise that the industry can be undermined by other factors? Does he accept that ministerial inaction and indecisiveness can be far more damaging to the industry?
In mid-November Irish authorities were concerned enough about contamination of meat products—sorry, adulteration of meat products—some of which were headed to the United Kingdom, that they initiated tests without, according to UK Ministers, informing the UK Government of their initial concerns. Four weeks ago Irish authorities alerted the UK Government that they had discovered horsemeat in burgers stocked in a number of UK supermarkets. Last Monday it was revealed that pies and pasties labelled as halal and served in UK prisons had tested positive for pig DNA. Last Thursday, reports emerged that the scandal had spread from frozen burgers to frozen ready meals.
Cue a sudden blur of belated action from the Secretary of State. On Saturday, he finally got round to meeting the British food industry to discuss the growing crisis. His food Minister had a least got round to meeting the industry before, once, one week previously. As my hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State said yesterday, “Crisis, what crisis?” At last, yesterday, the Secretary of State deigned to come to the House to berate Opposition Members for having the audacity to question him about this mess. As with the ash dieback issue, he has taken a very laid-back and relaxed approach to the issue—an attitude that, I have to tell him, is not shared by British consumers and their families.
When sales fall, when confidence in our food industry plummets, no doubt Ministers will reach for the nearest microphone to decry “scare mongering” by Opposition politicians. Who knows? Perhaps an unfortunate young relation of the Secretary of State will be encouraged to eat a Findus lasagne live on telly! But it will not be those on the Opposition Benches who are responsible for the collapse in trust. Consumers, yes, and voters well know where the blame lies.
A number of Members have highlighted the lack of an active criminal investigation. When pressed on this yesterday by my colleague, the shadow Secretary of State, the Secretary of State said that
“she went on and on about the police”.—[Official Report, 11 February 2013; Vol. 558, c. 613.]
Really? Does the Secretary of State really think that such a patronising and condescending manner is the way to win support in the House on such an issue? May I suggest to the Secretary of State and to his deputy that a bit of humility would not go amiss? I say this as a non-practitioner myself, but I hear it works wonders. Even if ministerial action had so far been above criticism, such a manner would be inappropriate, and Ministers’ actions so far have been far from being above criticism.
The shadow Secretary of State was right to go on about the police. The Secretary of State himself has repeatedly stated that the adulteration is a result of “an international criminal conspiracy” and “a straight fraud”. In line with this, the Irish Government confirmed on Monday 4 February that the Garda and fraud specialists had been called in to investigate.
The shadow Secretary of State passed the details of more British companies alleged to be involved in the scandal to the Serious Organised Crime Agency last Friday and to the FSA on Saturday. On the same Friday, the FSA revealed that the police were involved, but that no live criminal investigation was active. Yesterday, the Secretary of State said that until there was criminal action in this country, the police could not take action. Is that really the case? Will he confirm that he thinks criminals are present everywhere in Europe except the United Kingdom?
I delayed reference to the first-class and powerful speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott). I want to echo some of her comments. I hope we will not use this debate and crisis as an excuse to tax supermarkets, which, despite their drawbacks, have made affordable, quality food available to ordinary families throughout the country. However, with massive retail power comes huge responsibility—to make sure that the items sold are precisely as described as on the labels. I was glad to hear the Secretary of State echo that sentiment.
We all see the value of sourcing products locally. Many Members have understandably used this debate to promote local produce, but that is far too complacent—ignoring the realities of economic and time pressures on modern families, simply to advise consumers to buy the ingredients of lasagne in their corner shops rather than a ready meal at Asda or Tesco. It is also too easy for the Secretary of State to dismiss his responsibilities by saying repeatedly that retailers have ultimate responsibility for the content of food. Unless he wants the “F” removed from DEFRA, it is incumbent on him to carry out the responsibilities he already has.
I know that the Secretary of State believes in a laissez-faire form of government—he thinks that the Government should not get involved in the running of people’s lives. He seems to have taken that a step further, seeming to believe that the Government should not get involved in the running of the Government. The FSA is independent, but that does not prevent the Secretary of State’s from asking it what kind of testing it plans to carry out.
I shall wind up now, Mr Deputy Speaker. There are two types of Government: the one whose Ministers are so confident, competent and on top of their briefs that from the Opposition Benches government looks easy. Then there is the other type—the Government whose members never seem well briefed or surefooted, but always seem to be behind the curve, making the wrong decisions too late. Such a Government leave the Opposition with the distinct impression that almost anyone else could do a better job. There is no doubt about which category this Government fall into.
Horsemeat (Food Fraud)
Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts(13 years, 4 months ago)
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Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)
I thank the Secretary of State for an advance copy of his statement. Four weeks ago, the Irish authorities alerted the UK Government that they had discovered horsemeat in burgers stocked by UK supermarkets, including Tesco, Iceland and Lidl. Last Monday, we discovered that meat labelled as halal and served in UK prisons had tested positive for pig DNA. On Thursday, the scandal spread from frozen burgers to frozen ready meals, as we discovered that Findus beef lasagne contained up to 100% horsemeat. On Friday, this incompetent Secretary of State and his food Minister went home—[Interruption.]
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. Everybody wants to make their contribution, and the only way they will is by being a little quieter. People may not like what is being said, but they should at least have the courtesy to listen.
Mary Creagh
On Friday, No. 10 told the press that the Secretary of State was working hard at his desk, getting a grip on this crisis. But in fact he had to be called back to London from his long weekend—crisis, what crisis? Until Saturday’s panic summit, he had not actually met the food industry to address this crisis. The food Minister had met with the food industry just once, exactly a week ago.
On Friday, I received information that three British companies were involved, potentially, in importing beef that actually contained horse. I wrote to the Secretary of State, offering to share the information with him. I also handed it to the Serious Organised Crime Agency. On Friday, the FSA said that the police were involved, so I was reassured. However, on Friday night the Met police said that they had had talks with the FSA, but that there was no live criminal investigation. On Saturday, after a conversation with one of the food industry representatives, I realised that the Secretary of State had not revealed the names of those firms to the food industry at the meeting. Why not? If the Government want the food industry to test on the basis of risk, why did the Secretary of State not share the names of those companies at Saturday’s meeting?
On Thursday, DEFRA announced its statutory testing regime, with 28 local councils purchasing and testing eight samples each. Does the Secretary of State seriously expect people to wait 10 weeks for the results? Can he confirm that that will be the first survey of product content that his Department has carried out since his Government removed compositional labelling from the Food Standards Agency in 2010? He talks about the FSA’s operational independence, but it is not responsible for the content of our food—he is. When will he stop hiding behind civil servants and take some responsibility? Does he think that surveying just 224 products from across the country matches the scale of this scandal, when he has asked the supermarkets to test thousands of their products by Friday? Can he confirm today to the House that not all of those thousands of tests will be completed by Friday?
Can the Secretary of State tell the House how many products the large public sector catering suppliers will test and how many lines the members of the British Meat Processors Association will test? In his letter to me last Friday, he stated that some members of the British Hospitality Association and the British Retail Consortium have withdrawn products as a precaution. Can he tell the House which members have withdrawn which products, and whether any of them supplies schools, prisons and hospitals? The supermarkets have acted with speed and a degree of transparency on this that puts him to shame. I am disappointed that the hospitality industry and caterers have not been as candid.
In his letter to me, the Secretary of State said that the FSA is taking up individual suspicious incidents with authorities and the police across Europe. He said in the media this weekend that there is an international criminal conspiracy at work. Does he think that international criminals are present everywhere in Europe apart from in the United Kingdom? The French Government estimate that the Findus fraud alone has netted criminals €300,000. This is clearly big criminal business. Why have the UK police not investigated on the basis of the intelligence supplied? Has he had the full results of the tests carried out by the Irish authorities?
At Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs questions nearly three weeks ago, I asked the food Minister about horses contaminated with bute slaughtered in the UK and entering the human food chain. It has now been confirmed that of the nine UK horses that tested positive for bute, one was stopped, five went to France, two to the Netherlands and one to the UK. However, when council officials approached the people who had supposedly taken the horse to eat it, they had no knowledge of what had happened to it.
There has been talk of an EU import ban, but has the Secretary of State considered the possibility that horses are going to UK and Irish abattoirs and entering the food chain in the UK? Which horse abattoirs in the UK are on the FSA’s cause for concern list? Have any horses presented for slaughter in the past month been rejected by officials because of concerns over their passports? If so, where and how many?
The Ulster Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has clear evidence of illegal trade in unfit horse from Ireland to the UK for meat, with horses being re-passported to meet demand for horsemeat in mainland Europe. It says that there are currently 70,000 horses unaccounted for in Northern Ireland. Unwanted horses are being sold for €10 and sold on for meat for €500—a lucrative trade. It is convenient to blame the Poles and Romanians, but so far neither country has found any problems with its beef abattoirs.
When will the Secretary of State get his story straight on bute? This horse medicine is banned from the food chain for a reason. On Friday, he said:
“I would have no hesitation at all in eating these products.”
Yet on Sunday he said that this food could be injurious to human health. The Health Secretary said it is just a labelling issue. Is this not symptomatic of the Government’s dangerous complacency?
I note the chief medical officer’s advice to people this morning. What levels of bute have to be present in the meat for it to be a human health risk? Will the Secretary of State tell us what the safe limits of bute consumption for human beings are, given that it is banned from the human food chain? The British public must have confidence that the food they buy is correctly labelled, legal and safe. When Ministers came to the Commons to answer my urgent question on 17 January, the food Minister said:
“It is important that neither the hon. Lady nor anyone else in this House talks down the British food industry.”—[Official Report, 17 January 2013; Vol. 556, c. 1027.]
These invisible regulatory services protect our consumers and our food industry, and allow it to export all over the world. [Interruption.] I think Government Members would do well to listen as this issue is of interest to their constituents and the lack of information from their Government has been nothing short of a disgrace.
This weekend consumer confidence in British food was sinking like a stone. Food is a £12 billion industry that supports hundreds of thousands of UK jobs and exports. In common with No. 10, it is rapidly losing faith in this Secretary of State’s ability to lead them through this crisis.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. Questions and answers must be very brief from now on.
Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)
When he cited the Irish example, my right hon. Friend spoke of the importance of intelligence. May I urge him, in his discussions with the slightly sleepy FSA, to challenge it on its whistleblowing procedures and incentives? We need as many people as possible to come forward, and he would be taking a great step if he asked the agency how it currently manages its whistleblowing.
Animal Welfare (Exports)
Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts(13 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. We are now 25 minutes into this debate, when 10 to 15 minutes was expected. The hon. Lady has taken many interventions, but I am sure that she must be coming to a conclusion as she wants to allow other Members to enter the debate.
Badger Cull
Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts(13 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. A lot of Members want to get in and interventions will slow us down. I am sure that the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) will want to get to the end of her speech very quickly.
Caroline Lucas
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.
I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s reminding us that farmers are deeply concerned about the matter and feel frustration, but that frustration is because we have had years and years of inaction. Suddenly pulling a badger cull down from the shelf is the wrong way to respond to that frustration. The Government should have gone to the EU and made the case for the DIVA test so that we could get on with vaccination. All the evidence suggests that vaccination, combined with biosecurity, better hygiene and better husbandry, is a much better way of eradicating this horrible disease. No Member is complacent about the seriousness of the disease, but we differ on the most effective way of addressing it. The science is on the side of those who oppose the cull, because it shows that it is not the most effective way forward.
As I said, modern husbandry practices place chronic stress on intensively farmed animals, and a number of scientists are also pointing to the way in which cattle have been inbred for many years as a significant contributor to why cattle do not have the resistance to cope with such a disease.
I want to say a few words about vaccinating badgers. I agree that vaccinating wildlife should be given proper consideration, alongside the vaccination of cattle, yet the coalition Government have slashed funding for the badger vaccine deployment project. Only one of the six original five-year trials to learn how best to address some of the practical difficulties of vaccination is still under way. If those projects had gone ahead as planned, we would have been much further along the road towards finding a solution by now. That is exactly why farmers are frustrated. Instead, two years on, nothing more has been done.
Caroline Lucas
I will not.
That inaccuracy makes it impossible to guarantee that local extinctions will not occur. I welcome the fact that the Government and the NFU have concluded that the pilot culls cannot take place this year. They must now look again at other problems that have been identified, and abandon their culling policy altogether.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. An eight-minute limit on speeches has been imposed, but we want to try and get everybody in. Fewer interventions will ensure that everybody will be able to speak.
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.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order, Sir James. I will make the decisions, although it is good of you to offer advice. I am sure that the hon. Lady recognises that she has had a good run already; we ought to make sure that everybody else has a chance to express their views.
Sir James Paice
In the limited amount of time that is now available, let me deal with the issue of science. Everyone, including the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion, recognises that Lord Krebs and countless others accept that the randomised badger culling trials showed a 16% reduction. There is a great deal of debate about whether that is sufficient justification, but let us start there.
As has already been said, the study group concluded that culling badgers could “play no meaningful part”, but we thought it necessary to delve deeper into the research and to establish what was behind its conclusions. First, that 16% is a net figure. In the culling zone the gain was more like 30%, but it was offset by the problem of an increase in incidence in the perturbation area outside the zone. Some effort was made to reduce perturbation in the original trials, but it was nothing like the effort that is being imposed on the groups as a condition of their licence applications. If perturbation can be minimised, the net effect will be radically increased, although we do not know by how much because that has not yet been done. Let me stress again, however, that the 16% is a net figure which includes a problem outside the zone, and that that problem can be addressed.
As for the “meaningfulness” conclusion, it relates to the costs incurred by the RBCT. We all know that the trials were hugely expensive, but those are the only figures that we have to work on. We wanted to find a way of carrying out a cull more cheaply. We opted for controlled shooting as the predominant method, although cages would have to be used as well. I remind the House that controlled shooting of foxes, rabbits and, more recently, some species of deer takes place almost daily—or nightly—out in the countryside. To suggest that it is brand new is nonsense.
We addressed those two conclusions, and tried to find ways of achieving the same result through slightly different methods. Let me finally remind the House that these are pilots—
Nick Herbert (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)
The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), who moved the motion, has just left her place, but—[Interruption.] I am very sorry; she is still present. In her speech, she barely referred to the current situation. Some 26,000 cattle had to be slaughtered last year. As my hon. Friend the Member for North Herefordshire (Bill Wiggin) suggests, if the status quo continues, cattle will continue to be slaughtered, and that—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. Mr Herbert, you should know better. A lot of Members wish to speak. We have asked for short interventions. Please do not make a speech. If you want to speak, you should put your name on the list.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. Unfortunately, I am going to have to introduce a five-minute limit to get everybody in. Everybody will get in if we can be disciplined and not take interventions. I call Glyn Davies.
National Policy Statement (Waste Water)
Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts(14 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
The Minister is being his usual modest self in saying that he was not au fait with the subject. He is now up to his knees, if not his waist, in the subject, having dealt with the Water Industry (Financial Assistance) Bill last week and in introducing this debate. I believe that the Select Committee had some doubt about major projects being included in the NPS. For the avoidance of doubt, are the Government unshaken in their view that projects such as the Thames tunnel and Deephams sewage works should be included in the NPS? Whatever the final decision on the route and the detail, it is important to be clear—[Interruption.]
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. I will make the judgments about the length of interventions, thank you. We want short interventions. I presume that the hon. Gentleman has got to the end of his.
Richard Benyon
I think I got the gist of it. I will come on to cover the key points that were made by the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee and to explain what the waste water national policy statement is. I think that I will address the hon. Gentleman’s points, but I am happy to let him intervene again.
In laying the waste water national policy statement before the House for approval and in having this debate, we are meeting a Government commitment to mirror the new requirements of the Planning Act 2008 that will be brought into effect next month under the Localism Act 2011. Those procedures are intended to make national policy statements more democratically accountable to Parliament.
The Government are committed to making the planning system more open, transparent and fast, and to ensuring that all those who want to get involved in the process can do so, whether it relates to an application to extend a property or to a project of national significance, such as the Thames tunnel. The abolition of the Infrastructure Planning Commission brings democratic accountability back into the determination of nationally significant infrastructure projects by giving decision-making powers back to Ministers, who are answerable to Parliament. Ministers will also have regard to recommendations made by the Planning Inspectorate.
National policy statements are a key component of a more open and accountable planning system. They will set out Government policy clearly on particular types of infrastructure of national significance, having been subject in draft form to both formal consultation and parliamentary scrutiny. National policy statements provide a framework for preparing, considering and deciding development consent applications. This national policy statement is therefore primarily for planning purposes and does not claim to be a complete statement of Government policy on waste water.
Effective waste water infrastructure is vital, because without suitable treatment, the waste water we produce every day would damage the water environment and create problems for public health, water resources and wildlife. The proper collection, treatment and discharge of waste water, and the correct disposal of the resulting sludge, helps to protect, maintain and improve water quality in the UK.
The criterion that we have used in the national policy statement for the demonstration of the need for nationally significant infrastructure projects is that the projects have been included in the Environment Agency’s national environment programme. The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee recommended that that issue needed to be clarified and I believe that our approach now addresses its concerns.
In addition to establishing the need for waste water infrastructure, our national policy statement sets out impacts that will be relevant for any waste water infrastructure, including details on mitigating adverse impacts. Those are issues that the Planning Inspectorate and Ministers will have to have regard to when examining and determining applications.
The national policy statement does not describe how any waste water projects of national significance should be developed. I think that this addresses in part the point made by the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter). How such projects are developed is up to the project promoter before they place an application for development consent, which from April this year will go to the Planning Inspectorate.
The waste water national policy statement details two proposed projects of national significance: the sewage treatment works scheme at Deephams in north-east London and the Thames tunnel. The justification for both developments and the consideration of alternatives to the Thames tunnel are fully explained in the document.
Currently, only the proposed upgrade of the Deephams sewage treatment works can be considered a potential nationally significant infrastructure project, as it meets the criteria in the Planning Act 2008 for waste water treatment facilities serving a population equivalent of 500,000 people. We will shortly lay a draft order before Parliament for its approval, to amend section 14 of that Act to enable a waste water transfer and storage project such as the Thames tunnel to be classed as a nationally significant infrastructure project.
London’s sewerage is under considerable pressure, due to a system that is close to capacity, changing land use in London and population expansion. That leads to frequent spills of untreated waste water containing sewage into the tidal reaches of the Thames, which has a negative impact on its water quality. Resolving that problem has been the subject of extensive and comprehensive studies, including the consideration of a wide range of alternative solutions, for more than a decade. As a result, the Government are satisfied that the development of the Thames tunnel, when compared with the alternatives, is the most cost-effective and timely solution to the problem of untreated sewage discharging into the River Thames. That is demonstrated in the waste water national policy statement.
Common Fisheries Policy
Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts(14 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. I am going to have to introduce a time limit of 11 minutes, due to the number of Members who wish to speak.
Andrew George
The hon. Lady says that there is no simple solution. As the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil) suggested, either the quota system, which is a blunt instrument, could carry on in its present form, or we could get rid of it and base fishing policy on effort control. The problem with getting rid of it is that quota is marketable and has great value, and I do not think that any Government would want to compensate all those people who have valuable fishing—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. Can we have shorter interventions? A lot of Members still want to speak, and I would say to anyone who tries to make a speech by means of an intervention that it is not going to happen.
Amber Rudd
The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting and quite radical suggestion, which brings me to my next point. Perhaps the Minister should consider an independent review of some sort. There are so many different interests involved, and so many ways of trying to move the goalposts and achieve one outcome or another, that I am not sure it is possible for one Minister to act as referee. Perhaps he should consider appointing an arbitrator to conduct an independent review, in order to achieve an outcome on which all the stakeholders could agree.
One proposal on common fisheries policy reform that our report has looked at involves transferrable fishing concessions. My concern, and that of other Members, is reflected in the report. It is that such concessions would not be good for the under-10 metre community. The evidence from other countries is that they have worked against smaller communities, and that the under-10s tend to suffer under them. Those communities tend to lose out in the initial allocation of quota, there is no route for new entrants, and the environmental and social performance is not taken into consideration. Under the present proposals, there is 5% of potential quota allocation for environmental and social performance. I would propose—this is not in the report—that, if we had such a system, there should be a far greater amount allocated to social and environmental performance, which is incredibly important. That would also help to stimulate the under-10 metre communities, which tend to do a lot of social and environmental work locally
The nub of the matter is the question why can we not have a fisheries policy that supports fishing communities? Our current policy has failed—the evidence of that is in our report. Communities find themselves diminished, and the discards continue. We need a new impetus, a new effort and new ideas. Under the new Government, we definitely got the new effort. We began well, by introducing a measure that the smaller, under-10-metre communities had been seeking for a while—namely, a one-off re-allocation of the quota. Obviously, as someone who comes from such a community, I would say that that was not enough, and that it was too conservative, but the Minister will have found, when he embarked on the re-allocation, that he had entered a swamp of divisiveness and infighting between the different interests. The previous Government tried to work with the under-10-metre communities, but they ended up suffering from fishing reform fatigue and gave up on their effort to help. Another great advantage of having a Conservative coalition Government is that we have a new impetus and a new effort. I say to the Minister: keep up the energy and the enthusiasm, so that we can get the reforms that this country so badly needs.
I want to reiterate my concerns about the transferrable fishing concessions. We must not allow them to cement what should be a public resource as a private commodity. When the Committee went down to Hastings and held discussions with both sectors, they acknowledged the need for decommissioning. As hon. Members have said, however, there have been problems with that in the past, even though it was supported by Government money. The hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Mr Doran) mentioned that the process had had limited success.
In Hastings, we also welcome the support for alternative initiatives. We have been lucky enough to receive £1 million of the £8.7 million put aside under a European initiative involving Fisheries Local Action Groups—FLAGs—to help to support fishermen into new initiatives. I urge fellow Members to come and look at the exciting, adventurous work being done on the Stade in Hastings, where our fishing fleet is, to find alternative methods of employing fishermen and to upgrade their kit and provide new tractors. That is a positive way of trying to help our fishermen into the future.
Above all, when we consider how we can help our fishermen, we need to try carefully to find the balance between satisfying the environmentalists, which we all are, the fishermen who need to continue their lives and the needs of the population who will not accept a system that has so many discards. I am fortunate to come from Hastings, where fishing is so important. It is crucial that my residents in Hastings and Rye know that this issue is taken very seriously. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s reply and the remaining comments from other Members.