Badger Cull

Mark Tami Excerpts

Thursday 13th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Andrew George]

Absolutely. This is, of course, about the impact the disease has on a whole range of wildlife, including badgers, but the primary focus, and the reason this is being driven, is the economic, emotional and social impact it has on the farming community and the viability of many marginal livestock farmers, particularly in my part of the world.

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman talks about evidence, and I think that we all agree totally that that is the right way forward. Does he not accept that the Government ignored the evidence and just went ahead with the culls? Everything that they were warned would happen has indeed come to pass.

[Andrew George]

I am on the record as having cautioned the Government about the roll-out of the two pilot cull projects.

I want to ground my comments on the evidence from the randomised badger culling trial. Some 15 years ago my constituency was selected as one of the triplets, so we had a proactive cull in part of the Penwith moors. I backed the cull because it was on the basis of evidence-based policy making. I followed with great interest the outcome of that research and its conclusions, which found that reactive culling had no part to play in the management of bovine TB in the livestock industry, and that proactive culling could have a meaningful impact only if carried out in a thorough manner that achieved a high level of cull consistently over a long period, which meant that it had to achieve a 70% cull rate within the hot spot areas and across a wide enough area. If the Government chose to adopt this policy, it was important that they did so in such a robust manner that it would have a real and demonstrable impact. My concern about their approach is that they wanted to do it in a manner that would not be at great expense to the public purse and therefore at the cost of the farmer, although of course the state had to step in to provide the support with policing costs, at great expense in the case of both the pilot culls. The outcome of this work ran the high risk of making the situation significantly worse.

That is why, as a result of looking at the Government’s proposal, I proposed in my constituency the introduction of a community-led badger vaccination programme across a wide area—200 sq km. We are going to roll this out significantly later this year on the Penwith peninsula, working closely with the Zoological Society of London, which has now decided to take on a management role in it. Professor Rosie Woodroffe, who has been mentioned several times already, will be taking the lead on the project having originally been involved in the independent scientific group overseeing the randomised badger culling trials.

Flooding

Mark Tami Excerpts

Wednesday 26th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Chris Ruane]

I will come on to that in a moment when I describe the visits that I have made to my constituents in the Vale of Clwyd, in St Asaph, Rhyl and Prestatyn.

Progress has been made on flood defences in my constituency. Some £7 million has been spent on a harbour wall in Rhyl, £3 million on raising the banks of the River Clwyd and £4 million will be spent on extending the harbour wall. Having reviewed the two floods, my local authority has a list three pages long of the work that needs to be done in the Vale of Clwyd, and it can only be done if we get help from central Government. I spoke first hand to residents in St Asaph and in Rhyl when I visited them in December 2013.

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend will have heard the Prime Minister say that money was no object, but when it came to Wales, he was not quite so sure, nor so sure about where the money would come from.

[Chris Ruane]

I agree. The Prime Minister came to a constituency in west Wales to announce the UK––or rather English-only––increase in funding. Again, it was an insult to the people of Wales to treat them in such cavalier fashion.

I have visited the people of St Asaph and Rhyl whose homes were flooded, and I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Hugh Bayley) that flooding has a massive impact on individuals. It is not just the flooding, or the six months after when their houses are drying out and being rebuilt, but the fact that it leads to stresses and strains. There was one direct death in St Asaph in the floods of 2012, but I believe that many more indirect deaths resulted from the stress caused to elderly people. I visited the people of the Rhyl East ward whose homes were up to 3 feet deep in murky brown water. They have been through hell and high water.

I congratulate the volunteers and residents of those towns and of Prestatyn, which was nearly flooded. I congratulate the charities that raised funds, materials and gifts in kind for the victims. I congratulate the statutory authorities on their response, and I congratulate the voluntary organisations. The floods have left a legacy in my constituency. Some of the homes in St Asaph are now uninsurable and valueless. A £340,000 home, representing a lifetime’s commitment, is now valueless because it is uninsurable and the work that needs to be done to prevent future flooding cannot be undertaken given the lack of funding. People are living in fear. They watch the news every night to see the latest weather forecast and they do not sleep easy if it is going to be a bad night.

The big issue is funding. I mentioned it in a question the other week to the Secretary of State, when he called me a lady. According to the Environment Agency, for every pound invested in flood defence, there is an £8 return. Which of us would not bet on a horse if we were getting £8 back for a pound down? The Government are not doing that. They are not putting the investment in place. I have tabled questions on this. The answer to parliamentary question 132249 revealed that in Labour’s last budget, the amount spent on flood defences overall was £664 million. The following year, it was cut to £573 million, then £560 million, then £574 million and then £612 million by 2015. Whichever way we look at it, those are cuts compared with the Labour years.

I believe that those figures have been manipulated. They do not include inflation, but they do include not just central Government funding, which was what was in place in 2010-11, but private funding and funding from other agencies. We are not comparing apples with apples. In the Vale of Clwyd, we are pleased with the flood defence work, but it is does not matter if we build £7 million of defences here, £4 million there and £3 million over there, it only takes a gap as tiny as a little boy’s finger in the dyke to spoil the whole investment and environment and to wreck thousands of homes. If the proper flood defences are not put in place, these are wasted investments.

The Pitt report made 94 recommendations, but many of them have not been taken up. I shall give examples. I have tabled 12 parliamentary questions on this. I tabled another 30 today, and there will be another 50 tomorrow, covering each of the recommendations. The answer to question 186940 stated:

“I have made no assessment of local authority leaders’ or chief executives’ effectiveness”.—[Official Report, 13 February 2014; Vol. 575, c. 800W.]

Why not? The answer to question 186945 stated:

“There have been no discussions with the Association of British Insurers or other relevant organisations on this matter.” —[Official Report, 12 February 2014; Vol. 575, c. 661W.]

Why not?

Rural Communities

Mark Tami Excerpts

Thursday 9th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Miss McIntosh]

Indeed, and I, as an individual, am part of the rural fair share campaign. The reason for calling this debate is to lend support to that campaign, which goes to the heart of delivering public services in rural areas. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for allowing me to make that point.

Let me turn now to housing, another key part of the report. Parts of rural England are among the most unaffordable places to live in the country. Ryedale, in my area, stands out as the people working there earn less on average than those working in urban areas or in other parts of Thirsk, Malton and Filey. Rural homes are more expensive than urban ones. The average house price in the countryside is equivalent to 6.3 times gross annual average earnings, compared with 4.9 in urban areas. Potential first-time buyers are particularly hard hit by high property prices and are increasingly frozen out of rural areas. If we do not address those problems, the consequences for rural communities will be grave. If young people are priced out of rural areas, we lose the pool of labour for the local economy and the service sector, and demand for services, schools, shops and pubs will also decrease, making their existence less viable. Rather than addressing the problems on the demand side, we urge the Government to do much more to increase the supply of housing in rural areas.

We recommended that small rural communities should be exempt from the bedroom tax. In my area, there is a chronic shortage of one and two-bedroom homes. Until such time as we can rehouse those who wish to downsize, allowing larger families to move into larger properties, housing will remain a problem. Sadly, the Government rejected that recommendation. In their response, they suggested that those affected by the bedroom tax should simply work more hours to make up the shortfall or should move into the private sector. When I visited the food bank in my area, run by the local church, volunteers and the Trussell Trust, I found the story of one lady who volunteers there very affecting: she wants to work more hours for her employer, but the work is simply not there.

Regrettably, there are also planning issues—the elephant in the room that no one wants to mention. Whenever a planning authority in a nice area makes a proposal for social housing or smaller units, people always write to their MP—I do not think I am an exception in this regard—to say, “I know just the place for that development: at the other end of the village from where I live.” Until we can get over that barrier, we will have a smaller stock of social homes. The bedroom tax means that tenants are expected to move greater distances, away from friends, family and schools. We must have a policy that allows key workers to live in the areas where they perform a vital role. When the Minister sums up, will he explain what input his Department had into that policy from a different Department, and why he believes that it is suitable for rural communities that lack the variety and volume of social housing stock on which the policy depends?

Let me turn in more detail to rural broadband. It is crucial to rural businesses, allowing economic growth in rural areas and allowing rural businesses to compete with their urban counterparts. I have mentioned digital by default, and we must ensure that any new computer system the Government bring into effect is fit for purpose before it is introduced and that it reaches every farm on which the Department is relying to fill in a digital form. Rural communities and their businesses, schools and households have fallen behind their urban counterparts on broadband access. The roll-out of superfast broadband to 90% of rural areas will, I am sorry to say, be delivered late and it is unclear when the target to which we all aspire of universal access to basic broadband will be achieved.

It seems that some communities, including some in Thirsk, Malton and Filey—the Minister is living very dangerously there—might have to wait up to three years before they see any benefit. That is unacceptable, particularly as the Government are making ever more services digital by default, as I have mentioned. A recent and notable example is the new CAP deal, which will come into force in January 2015.

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Lady agree that even in areas where it is claimed that there is decent broadband coverage, the reality on the ground is that there are so many not spots that many individual houses and farms still cannot get access?

[Miss McIntosh]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, whose experience reinforces the point I am trying to make. We must ensure that universal access is prioritised over increasing speeds for those who already have an adequate service. Will the Minister therefore tell us the date by which all rural homes will have access to 2 megabit basic broadband?

The roll-out of broadband is being funded largely from the public purse, yet many constituents cannot find out whether they will benefit from improved broadband. The Committee insists that communities are told whether they will be covered by rural broadband so that they can seek alternative means if they are not. Some local authorities are now publishing projected coverage maps, but many are not.

The Government have committed to spending £300 million that they are receiving from the BBC on rural broadband. Some rural communities might be hoping that even if they are not included in the initial roll-out, they might benefit from additional funding. We need clarity, which is sadly lacking. Will the Minister therefore tell us how rural communities can find out whether they will benefit from extra funding?

With regard to rural communities going it alone, one source of funding might have been the rural community broadband fund, but last week disturbing reports suggested that it will be wound down in March and that much of the available funding will be returned to Brussels. It aimed to deliver £20 million in funding and to connect 70,000 homes, but so far—I hope that the Minister can correct me—only three projects have been approved, claiming less than £1 million in total, and they will connect just 2,500 homes. A member of the public behind a proposed broadband scheme in Dorset said last week that although funding existed, officials had made it impossible to spend and that therefore the rural community broadband fund was dead. Another member of the public said:

“The officials running it got so tied up in their own process it was impossible to deliver. This has happened because of the incompetence and ineptitude in central government.”

The need exists and the funding exists, so how has DEFRA managed to make such a mess of administering the rural community broadband fund that much-needed financial support might be returned to the European Union unspent? I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will tell me that that is not the case, because that would be serious and regrettable.

I will briefly mention schools. There are concerns about school transport, the extent to which the pupil premium reaches rural areas and falling school rolls, which is partly the result of the lack of affordable housing, which I mentioned earlier. The problem with rural funding is not limited to the finance settlement. The Government are reducing local authorities’ flexibility to allocate extra funding to schools with higher running costs, a move that will affect smaller rural schools in particular. The Government are demanding that all primary schools receive the same level of lump sum funding, regardless of size, location or other circumstances. That also applies to middle and secondary schools. The recent Ofsted report on the achievement of the poorest children in education states:

“The areas where the most disadvantaged children are being let down by the education system in 2013 are no longer deprived inner city areas, instead the focus has shifted to deprived coastal towns and rural, less populous regions of the country”.

I hope that the Minister will use his good offices to liaise with his opposite number in the Department for Education to correct that situation. Will he today explain the benefits that will be gained by removing local authorities’ ability to target funding where it is most needed, and whether his Department was consulted on that?

I commend all the conclusions that I have not been able to cover, particularly those that look more closely at housing, the rural economy, community rights and transport; I briefly mentioned the bus subsidy. I commend the entire report and our recommendations to the House and to the Minister. Again, I thank the Backbench Business Committee for the opportunity for this debate.

I look forward to my hon. Friend the Minister summing up what steps his Department is taking to ensure that pockets of rural deprivation that might otherwise be overlooked in the official statistics are recognised across Government. I urge him to state what is being done to redress the balance between rural and urban spending and to ensure that we eliminate these pockets of rural deprivation. We look forward to receiving the review that the Government have ordered to be conducted by the noble Lord Cameron of Dillington. We are told in the Government’s response that the findings will be included in DEFRA’s annual report and accounts.

I leave the Minister with this question: is not the whole subject of rural communities worthy of an annual statement or update in its own right, giving the Department the opportunity to report to this place on exactly how rural policy is being co-ordinated through the rural communities policy unit?

Badger Cull

Mark Tami Excerpts

Wednesday 5th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mary Creagh]

We now have the DIVA test, which enables us to differentiate vaccinated and infected cattle, and we know from the Select Committee’s report that its efficacy rate is 65%. Our priority must be to stop the spread of infected cattle into low-risk areas, and the spreading of the disease. The Government are about to embark on a risky and untested cull which, as I have said, will be bad for farmers, bad for taxpayers and bad for wildlife.

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend has made the important point that even in infected areas there are farms that manage to remain disease-free. We need to learn lessons from that, but some Government Members have clearly made up their minds already. They are not interested in the facts; they just want a cull.

[Mary Creagh]

I agree with my hon. Friend. There is nothing more dangerous than an idea if it is the only idea you have.

This so-called science-led cull has been disowned by the scientists who faced down animal rights protesters to bring us the randomised badger culling trial and a world-class scientific result. The cull will cost more than doing nothing. If it works at all, its effect will be marginal. It carries a real risk of making TB worse in both cattle and badgers. The original Independent Scientific Group said:

“Concentrating solely on the badger dimension in what is clearly a multidimensional and dynamic system of disease spread would be to fail to learn the lessons of previous experience .”

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Paterson]

The hon. Gentleman raises an important point, but I ask him to wait a few minutes because I am coming on to deal with it. Let me first finish off the international comparisons.

[Mark Tami]

The Secretary of State has talked about how he has been around the world to look at all these approaches, but the science we are looking at is the science in the UK. Clearly, as even those in favour of a cull would agree, the actual progress it will make is very small, even if progress is taken as a fact. We need a combination of measures. As some Government Members have said, culling will make only a small difference and it will not eradicate the disease.

[Mr Paterson]

I do not think that the hon. Gentleman quite listened to what I said. If he makes comparisons with the countries I have mentioned, he will see that where there are strict cattle controls, movement controls and biosecurity, and countries bear down on the disease, the disease is reduced. The experience of the Republic of Ireland is spectacular and we should be humble enough to learn from it.

Let us consider other European countries. Badger culling is undertaken in France; there have been reports in just the past week or so of problems in the Ardennes, with infected badgers being culled. Deer and wild boar are culled in the Baltic countries, Germany, Poland and Spain. So we cannot ignore the lessons from such countries, which are so clearly presented to us.

Groceries Code Adjudicator Bill [Lords]

Mark Tami Excerpts

Tuesday 26th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Philip Davies]

New clause 1 stands in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall).

I do not want you to think, Mr Speaker, that my speech would be better suited to a debate on Second or Third Reading, but it is important that I give some context as to why new clauses 1, 2 and 3—which all stand in my name—are important.

I do not have any interest to declare, but I do have considerable experience that is relevant to the Bill. Before entering Parliament in 2005 I spent the previous 12 years working for Asda. I spent four years working in-store and eight years working at the head office in Leeds, so I have first-hand knowledge of how the supermarket industry works. To be perfectly honest, it works in a completely different way from the way in which people might be forgiven for thinking it works if they listened to previous debates on the matter. We have been given to believe that terrible, shocking, awful, nasty supermarkets care nothing about their suppliers, that their only role in life is to screw their suppliers into the ground and leave them destitute—bankrupt, if we are to believe previous debates—and that the only way to prevent that from happening is to have this ridiculous adjudicator, which is the Bill’s premise. That argument is complete and utter nonsense—that is not how it works at all.

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

I think that I have raised this point with the hon. Gentleman in the past, but the supermarkets’ power means that they are able to tell suppliers, “Provide this product at this price or do two-for-one offers at your cost, or we will go somewhere else.” Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that that is an unacceptable power in some cases?

[Philip Davies]

I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman is highlighting the misconceptions. The Office of Fair Trading is already able to enforce a grocery code of practice. It is already in place. It is not being introduced by this Bill. The code of practice already exists under the auspices of the OFT. If the hon. Gentleman has any concerns about how supermarkets are operating with regard to their suppliers, he can take his complaint to the OFT and ask it to investigate it. The adjudicator is not supposed to introduce a new code of practice, although we fear that they might. The code of practice already exists. If the hon. Gentleman has evidence of supermarkets breaking the code of practice, I would be happy for him to come forward and tell me about it. If anybody has evidence of supermarkets breaking the code of practice, let us hear about it today and we can all decide what the best course of action is. However, there is no evidence that the code of practice is being breached.

--- Later in debate ---

[Philip Davies]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. If he has a big problem with the middleman, so to speak, for example in the dairy industry, he should pursue his complaint with the middleman, rather than having a go at the supermarket.

The hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami) made a point about special offers. There is a view that supermarkets have been forcing suppliers against their will to do special offers, such as buy one, get one free or buy three for two. Let me tell the House, as somebody who has worked in this environment, what happens in the real world, rather than in the invented world that people want to talk about.

My hon. Friend the Member for Fylde (Mark Menzies) is here and he will know what happens as well as I do because he worked for Asda at the same time as I did. He will recall that, before I left, Asda decided that it did not want to do special offers any more and that it would have no special offers in its stores. It did not want any buy one, get one frees or three for twos. It asked its suppliers instead to just sell it the product at an everyday low price and to put what they would have invested in a promotion into providing that price. It was not companies such as Asda that were forcing suppliers to do buy one, get one frees; suppliers were falling over themselves to do special offers in the supermarkets and to get their products in the promotional areas.

Some of those firms have massive marketing budgets. They have marketing budgets that supermarkets would love to have. They use that budget to do offers such as buy one get one free or three for the price of two. They are trying to persuade people who buy Daz for their washing, for example, to move to Persil. To persuade people to do so, they give them a buy-one-get-one-free offer.

[Mark Tami]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Philip Davies]

I will in a second, because it was the hon. Gentleman who started me off discussing this misconception in the first place, so I will happily let him come back in.

A special offer such as “Buy one, get one free” on Persil is intended to encourage people to buy Persil in the hope that by the time the special offer ends, they will stick to that brand. It is a way of promoting a brand, and it has absolutely nothing to do with the supermarket.

[Mark Tami]

The hon. Gentleman is talking about very large companies, but does he accept that some smaller companies are almost totally reliant on the supermarkets for their business, and whatever the supermarket says goes? Does he also accept that one thing that we have to recognise from the horsemeat scandal is that if we keep driving prices down, some suppliers will look to cut costs by whatever means they can in order to survive?

[Philip Davies]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, because he seems to have indicated—I will take it as such—that he will support my new clause 1 or new clause 2. He gets to the nub of the point, although I suspect he has not even bothered to read the new clauses, because if he had he would not have led with his chin in the way that he just has.

I wish to make it clear at this point that, with your permission, Mr Speaker, I would prefer to press new clause 2 to a Division than new clause 1, but I will be guided by you later on that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Philip Davies]

I have no doubt that the hon. Gentleman does not believe in the free market—that is why he sits on the Labour side of the House. I have no quibble with Opposition Members agreeing with this nonsensical Bill. He was elected to try and introduce this kind of interventionist nonsense. What I object to is Government Members believing in this kind of stuff. I have no quibble with him believing it.

[Mark Tami]

The hon. Gentleman has painted a picture, which no doubt he actually believes in, where the supermarkets are fair and always have everyone’s best interests at heart. What would they have to fear, regardless of the size of the companies that could take them through this process? According to him, they have never done, and will never do anything wrong.

[Philip Davies]

In a Westminster Hall debate I heard one of my hon. Friends, who is in favour of the Bill, make it abundantly clear that he thought the adjudicator would have nothing to do, and that it would, in effect, be a sinecure post. The adjudicator would just be there in case he was needed at some point. It is unnecessary, and I do not believe in creating unnecessary bureaucracies. They end up empire building. They start off small and targeted, but of course once they find out that they have nothing to do they find something to do, even when it is not necessary.

Groceries Code Adjudicator Bill [Lords]

Mark Tami Excerpts

Monday 19th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice]

I absolutely agree. One of the big improvements made to the Bill in the Lords was the extension of its scope so that that could happen—so that anonymous complaints could be made and so that whistleblowers and third party trade organisations could be involved in the process. The evidence we heard in the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee made it very clear that many suppliers are incredibly fearful of the supermarkets they supply. They are conscious that it is easy for suppliers to be identified as there will sometimes be only a handful of them for a particular product line to a given supermarket. It is therefore very important that the Bill has that extra scope.

I also recently spoke to another supplier who told me about a problem that he had encountered with supermarkets putting him under huge pressure to fulfil the terms written into a contract and supply the volumes that he was no longer able to source due to bad weather or a crop failure. In negotiations, he was put under huge pressure by a supermarket to buy the product from abroad and sell it at a massive loss so that he could fulfil his contract. That is unacceptable behaviour. When prices change, supermarkets should also change their prices.

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that it also happens the other way? I have come across cases in which supermarkets have turned around and said that they do not want an order any more at very short notice. The supermarkets have the power to say to smaller suppliers, “Take it or leave it, because we can go elsewhere and you cannot.”

[George Eustice]

I absolutely agree, and that is why the Bill is so important. Over the past 20 years, there has been huge growth in the power of a handful of very powerful retailers who have huge market clout and have, frankly, abused their power. If we want proper market conditions back, in which people are paid a fair market price for their goods, the Bill and the groceries code adjudicator will be vital.

Let me move on to the issue of the financial penalties, which have featured heavily in the debate so far. As my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh), the Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, has said, our Committee concluded that there was a case for making those fines available to the groceries code adjudicator from the start rather than waiting for it to become necessary for another order to be introduced by the Secretary of State.

The question of fines is important and I agree with the Minister that naming and shaming might be adequate for some minor breaches, but I take issue with the claim that naming and shaming might be a more powerful deterrent than a fine. The British Retail Consortium might say that we should name and shame, because that is more powerful than a fine, but that is a bit of a clue. When the retailers say that what really scares them is naming and shaming, even though they do not want fines, the Minister ought to be a little more suspicious than she has been.

It is important to have an escalating scale of penalties. Why remove an important tool from the box? It would be possible for the Government to craft guidance on when a fine would be appropriate and what size that fine should be. It could stress that fines should be used sparingly and that other sanctions, such as naming and shaming, should be the preferred route. I think it is wrong, however, to rule fines out at this stage because of the question of what should happen if there is one persistent offender out of the 10 supermarkets caught by the groceries code adjudicator. What if that one offender, however many times they are named and shamed, sticks up two fingers to the adjudicator and says, “We really don’t care.”? That is unfair on the remaining nine, who might be abiding by the code, and it risks making the whole initiative unstable.

The groceries code adjudicator is more likely to succeed if the power to fine is there from the beginning and more likely to fail if it is not. For the adjudicator to work, we need to ensure that its introduction will change the behaviour of the supermarkets. It is not just about having investigations all over the place—we need people to be fearful of a fine, so that they moderate their behaviour.

There is a real problem in the serious mismatch between what a Minister might be told by the public affairs officers who work for the supermarkets and what she would experience if she was a carrot grower supplying supermarkets and dealing with buyers daily. The truth is that public affairs officers for the supermarkets will often strike a paternalistic pose and say, “It is not in our interest to upset our suppliers. We want happy suppliers,” and they will have pictures in their supermarkets of happy farmers’ children working out in the fields. It all sounds great, but the buyers have very different incentives that focus on margins, profit and exercising control over their suppliers. The Minister said that the market for supermarkets was fiercely competitive, and she is right. That is why my fear is that when Parliament’s back is turned, the incentives that motivate the buyers will prevail because it is ultimately their profit margins that they will seek to protect.

The possibility of third party complaints has been raised and is an important power. The industry has a part to play in this. Although it says that we need anonymity and that it is important for complaints to be made without the complainant being identified, the industry has to play its part in helping the supermarket adjudicator identify bad practices. One of the proposals that I have made to the NFU, which keeps telling me that it is under consideration, though I have not heard that it has been taken up fully yet, is the idea of what I have termed a farm-fair index. That would be based on a panel of 500 farmers and suppliers across a range of sectors. Each quarter they would be given a questionnaire asking a series of questions that measured the adherence of each of the 10 supermarkets to the groceries code. There would be a league table of the 10 supermarkets and they would be scored according to which of them abided by the code the most and which departed from it the most. If a particular supermarket was at the bottom of that league table for two consecutive quarters, an automatic investigation by the groceries code adjudicator would be triggered. That would be a good way of ensuring that vexatious complaints were filtered out. A broad panel—the same 500 farmers and suppliers each quarter—who could score the adherence of the supermarkets to their own code would provide an important tool to help the adjudicator identify bad practice.

In conclusion, I welcome the Bill. It is a positive step forward and will improve relations between farmers and their supermarket customers, but I wish the Government would take another look at the issue of financial penalties.

Badger Cull

Mark Tami Excerpts

Thursday 25th October 2012 Commons Chamber

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

I congratulate the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) on initiating this debate so eloquently, and it is an honour to follow her. Although I note that the petition has 150,000 signatures, I firmly and passionately believe that a silent majority in the countryside care strongly about controlling bovine TB and believe in the need for an eventual cull, as well as in other measures such as those called for by the hon. Lady. I am not convinced of the need for Team Badger or a team cattle; I believe there should be one team, one nation and one countryside. I hope that the House will send a message this afternoon that we are convinced there can be both a healthy badger population and healthy livestock.

I will restrict my remarks to the positive role that I believe the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee can play. Only two hon. Members who served on that Committee during the previous Parliament remain—my hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson) and myself—[Interruption.] And, indeed, another survivor, my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray). The Committee stated:

“We also recognised that under certain well-defined circumstances it was possible that badger culling could make a contribution towards the reduction in incidence of the disease in hot spot areas. However, we acknowledged that badger culling alone would never provide a universal solution to the problem of cattle TB.”

The point is this: we will never eradicate or control the spread of TB by vaccination alone; we need a controlled cull.

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Lady accept that if the vaccine were available, there would be no need for a cull? I think some Government Members want the cull regardless.

[Miss McIntosh]

The hon. Gentleman will hear what my right hon. and hon. Friends say when they speak on this issue with some passion.

May I commend the work of the Food and Environment Research Agency, based in Ryedale in my constituency of Thirsk and Malton and, in particular, its work on progressing vaccinations for badgers? I note that it is already undertaking badger vaccines. My hon. Friend the Member for Central Devon (Mel Stride) asked about the cost of those individual vaccines, and it would be helpful if the Minister would confirm that.

In the pause before an eventual cull, I believe that the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee can make a major contribution precisely on the vexed issue of vaccination, which was raised by the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion. Not only do we have the cost and difficulty of vaccinating badgers, but there is currently no effective test to tell the difference between vaccinated and infected cattle—the wider issue raised by the hon. Lady. It is, therefore, impossible to identify clean animals from infected animals for the purpose of export.

Food Prices and Food Poverty

Mark Tami Excerpts

Monday 23rd January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mary Creagh]

That is true, and I am glad that there are so many passionate teachers—and passionate friends and neighbours, who may suspect that all is not well. I remember people telling me, when I brought forward my Children’s Food Bill, that they would invite their neighbours and friends in for tea on a Saturday and make sure that the children had as much meat and fruit juice as they could get into them, because it became apparent from the way that they were eating that they had not been fed since Friday lunchtime. That point, from my constituency of Wakefield, has certainly stayed with me.

In addition, the Agricultural Wages Board is to be abolished. That is a particularly nasty Government decision that has nothing to do with the deficit, but will take £93 million from the sick pay and holiday pay of low-paid agricultural, horticultural and food processing workers over the next 10 years. That money will leach out of the rural economy, where those workers live—out of local pubs, post offices and shops—depressing the rural economy when spending is already squeezed. It costs more to live in the countryside, and the abolition of the AWB could mean that we have in this country food workers who are unable to buy the food that they produce. We know that those agricultural workers are the most socially excluded people in our country. They are often migrants who speak limited English. Their work is seasonal, short-term and low-skilled. They are not in a trade union, and they move from county to county, picking daffodils in Cornwall in February, and following the crop and fruit cycle across the country.

After the Morecambe bay tragedy in 2004, Labour created the Gangmasters Licensing Authority to regulate labour providers in the food processing and packing, and agricultural, horticultural, forestry and shellfish-gathering sectors. Our aim was to ensure that workers received a minimum wage, decent accommodation, safe transport, contracts and decent working conditions, yet the GLA’s latest annual report reveals that, in the year to March 2011, it uncovered more than 800 workers being exploited in the UK. It prosecuted 12 companies and revoked the licences of 33 gangmasters. In 2010, there were horrific reports of children as young as nine picking onions in a field near Worcester. While the Government, continuing with their red tape challenge, are deciding on the future powers of the GLA, we say: “We will work with you to stamp out modern-day slavery, people trafficking, and serious organised crime, wherever they occur in these sectors.”

In government, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) brought stakeholders together to look at the risks to our food security, and the challenges of feeding a growing global population sustainably. The result was Food 2030, the first Government food strategy since world war two. Peter Kendall, president of the National Farmers Union, has described how that strategy has been left on the shelf, and has been relegated to

“a one-line objective in the business plan”

by the current Government. Labour gathered stakeholders together in September last year to look at that food strategy. We believe that we must not lose sight of the direction that it sets out, and we are pleased that the Government have set up their green food project, imitation being the sincerest form of flattery. We look forward to it reporting this summer.

In government, along with many hon. Friends who are seated behind me today, I campaigned for improvements to children’s diets through the Children’s Food Bill. That led to nutritionally balanced school dinners, an end to junk-food vending machines in schools, and lessons on cooking and growing food as part of key stage 3.

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend accept that the Government’s cuts to Sure Start have made that problem worse, because much of that educational knowledge about what is good food to give to children has been lost?

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mary Creagh]

I quote back to the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George):

“Every week the government fails to act, farmers are finding themselves in more difficulty.”

That is what he said. The supermarkets were insistent. We wanted an ombudsman. The supermarkets asked for a voluntary approach. It is right to try a voluntary approach first, which we did, but it did not work. This is the anti-regulation Government, but that approach failed. What we need now is action from his Government.

The commission recommended the powers to levy significant financial penalties, but the Government are recommending that only in reserve powers in the Bill, not on the face of the Bill, meaning that fines for anti-competitive practices are even further away than 2015. The Financial Times quoted an executive of a large supermarket chain saying that

“it is an adjudicator rather than an ombudsman, which suggests that it is a watered-down role.”

Suppliers can complain anonymously, but they are liable for full cost recovery if the adjudicator finds that the complaint was vexatious or wholly without merit. The Business, Innovation and Skills Committee recommended that whistleblowing from within retailers should also be grounds for launching an investigation, which BIS Ministers are currently considering.

Consider this anonymous salad grower who works with the Food and Drink Federation:

“X”—

the name of a supermarket—

“have expected us to support their current pricing campaign in store by contributing with reduced price returns, to maintain their margin demands. It has been made very clear that lack of support could be seen as showing no commitment to”—

the supermarket—

“and the potential loss of business, forcing us to drop our prices and support the activity. Interestingly none of this has been put in writing.”

This suggests anti-competitive practices across the sector. If there is bad treatment at the top of the pyramid, that sets the tone for treatment all the way down the food chain, right down to the workers in the field. What we want is culture change across the food industry.

[Mark Tami]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. In the case of many buy one, get one free offers, the cost is not borne by the supermarket. It puts pressure on the supplier, because the supermarket is saying, in effect, “Unless you fund this, we will move the contract somewhere else.” In the end, it is often the workers in that company who suffer.

[Mary Creagh]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. Such offers increase the volume of sales, but often reduce the margin. That places enormous capital and liquidity costs on small companies in order to fund that as they wait for the money to come in from the supermarket.

Energy and Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

Mark Tami Excerpts

Thursday 27th May 2010 Commons Chamber

[Edward Miliband (Doncaster North) (Lab)]

I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on taking up his post as Secretary of State. He has had a distinguished career as an economist, as a Member of the European Parliament and as an eloquent Member of this House since his election in 2005. He was also one of the architects of the coalition agreement and he deserves his place in the Cabinet. We will be a constructive Opposition and I welcome him to his post.

As the right hon. Gentleman is a Liberal Democrat, I know that he practises what he preaches. I am told by friends that he is going to follow his new leader, the Prime Minister, in putting a wind turbine on his house, but that he is going to go even further and put a wind turbine on all seven of his houses. We look forward to the regeneration of the wind turbine industry that that will produce.

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend mentioned that the Secretary of State would be putting wind turbines on his house. I wonder whether local Lib Dems will campaign against that, as they always seem to campaign against wind farms, whether onshore or offshore, whereas at a national level they say that they support them.

[Edward Miliband]

No doubt that will be the case.

Let me say right at the outset that now we are in opposition, I intend for us both to hold the Secretary of State to account and to be constructive. In that spirit, there are some measures that we welcome, which would have been in a Labour Gracious Speech. The help for the home energy efficiency pay-as-you-save proposal is very important and we look forward to scrutinising the measures that come forward on that. The measures on the smart grid are also important, as is reform of the energy market—the work that we started in government. Internationally, we will fully support his efforts to try to get the binding treaty either at Cancun or in Cape Town that we failed to get at Copenhagen, and I will happily share with him some of the scars of Copenhagen if I can be of any help in advance of the Cancun summit.

The issue at the heart of this Gracious Speech, in this area and in many others, is whether the Government can provide the long-term direction that the country needs. In the area of climate change and energy, above all others, the country needs a clear sense of direction. The Liberal Democrats and Conservatives had different positions on some key issues at the election. I suppose we cannot blame them for that, as they did not know they would end up in bed together, but the test will be whether they produce a coherent long-term plan on those areas of disagreement or simply try to paper over the cracks, and thus fail to provide the long-term direction the country needs. We should set three tests: whether the new Government have a coherent strategy to deliver on the transition to low-carbon energy, whether they have a plan to secure a green industrial future for Britain and whether they have a commitment to make the transition fair.

Let me address the biggest challenge of all, which is the pre-condition of all other challenges on climate change that we face—the need to take carbon out of our electricity supplies. Our answer, in the low carbon transition plan we published last summer, which I hope was a plan for a decade, was the trinity of low-carbon fuels—clean coal, renewables and nuclear. On clean coal, I am pleased that the coalition agreement supports our investment and the levy that went through the House, as well as the tough coal conditions that we introduced, which are the toughest in the world.