Horsemeat

Mary Creagh Excerpts

Tuesday 12th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)]

I shall try to bear your comments in mind, Mr Speaker.

I beg to move,

That this House notes that up to 100 per cent horsemeat has been found in supermarket and branded processed meat products and that horsemeat has been found at the premises of a UK meat processing plant; notes with concern that seven horses which tested positive for phenylbutazone (bute) contamination have entered the human food chain, including one in England; further notes that meat supplied to UK prisons, labelled Halal, has tested positive for pork DNA; recognises that the Irish government and Northern Irish Executive have called in the police and specialist fraud units to tackle the problem of horsemeat adulteration; further recognises that thousands of jobs depend on consumer confidence in the UK and Irish meat industries; and calls on the Government to ensure that police and fraud specialists investigate the criminal networks involved in horsemeat adulteration, to speed up the Food Standards Agency official tests so that results are back in 14 days and restore consumer confidence in the meat industry by working with the food industry and other EU member states and EU institutions to define new testing, labelling and traceability standards for the meat industry to protect consumers from fraud.

It is four weeks to the day since the Irish authorities told the UK Government that they had discovered horsemeat in burgers, and 10 million suspect burgers were withdrawn. Products from Tesco, Iceland, Co-op, Lidl and Aldi have all tested positive for horsemeat. The burgers came from Silvercrest Foods in Ireland and Dalepak Hambleton in Yorkshire, subsidiaries of the ABP Food Group. A third company—Liffey Meats in County Cavan in Ireland—was also found to be supplying products with horse DNA.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

Will the hon. Lady take this opportunity to correct comments that she made in column 612 of yesterday’s Hansard? She said that 70,000 horses are unaccounted for in Northern Ireland and being sold in the lucrative horsemeat trade. That is not the case; the evidence relates to the Republic of Ireland, not Northern Ireland. The Ulster Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is a responsible organisation and made the claims not about Northern Ireland but about the Republic. Will she join me in a cross-party promotion of Northern Ireland’s red meat sector, which produces among the best, most traced and tastiest food in this country? I would be delighted if she agreed that our border is more secure than a slip of the tongue on the Front Bench.

[Mr Speaker]

We are deeply obliged to the hon. Gentleman, who has now made his speech.

[Mary Creagh]

I am happy for the record to be put straight on that; in the heat of the debate, I made a slip of the tongue. I am the granddaughter of a cattle farmer in Northern Ireland, so it is incumbent on me to recommend the meat of the good cows of Northern Ireland.

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

I am most grateful to my fellow Yorkshire MP for giving way. May I ask her to correct another part of the record? I think she will find that no contamination was found at Dalepak in north Yorkshire.

I congratulate the hon. Lady on the motion, but it lacks one thing—whether on purpose or by accident, I do not know. There is absolutely no reference to the British meat trade; its fresh, processed or frozen parts have not been implicated. We do not want any collateral damage to our excellent trade, which meets the highest standards of traceability, welfare and good food.

[Mary Creagh]

I believe that traces of horse DNA were found in products that emanated from the Dalepak plant in Hambleton; if the hon. Lady has information to the contrary, I am sure that she will take the opportunity to put the record straight. The British meat industry is not mentioned in the motion because now is not the time to be talking down the British meat industry, as she says.

Burger King, which sells a million burgers a week, gave “absolute assurances” that its burgers were fine; two weeks later they tested positive. Representatives of TRG, or the Restaurant Group, which runs Frankie and Benny’s, revealed last Monday that they had discovered a batch of meat at Rangeland Foods that tested positive for horse.

Furthermore, last Monday, the Irish authorities discovered a 900 kg block of mostly horsemeat sitting in the cold store of a Northern Ireland burger producer, Freeza Meats. The meat had been impounded during a routine inspection five months ago. I congratulate the inspectors from Newry and Mourne council, who on a routine inspection had concerns about that meat’s packaging and quality and about the absence of labelling on some products. If meat does not have a label, we have absolutely no idea where it has come from.

[Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on her leadership on this issue. She and the highly respected Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee have said that they would not currently eat processed beef products. Does she share my amazement that Ministers are still encouraging people to do so?

[Mary Creagh]

A range of mixed messages has been coming out of the Government. The Secretary of State said on Friday that he would be happy to eat processed beef products, but said on Sunday that doing so could be injurious to human health—[Interruption.] Well, he said that substances could be found that could be injurious to human health; I remember him saying it on the Iain Dale radio show.

The issue is difficult because yesterday the chief medical officer said that testing had never been done, because nobody wants to test humans to find out who is susceptible to the serious blood disorder aplastic anaemia—of course, it would be completely unethical and impossible to conduct such a test. The Government are in a difficult position. They may be trying to minimise public concern, but there is no safe dose of bute in humans.

[Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady agree that as the responsibility now lies with the retailers to help restore confidence, there should be an aggressive campaign by all of them to assure their customers that all the beef that they buy from now on will be British? What more can be done so that customers have confidence that they really are eating British beef?

[Mary Creagh]

The beef on sale right now in UK supermarkets is probably of a higher quality than ever. Lots of local and independent butchers have seen a spike in trade lately as a result of what has happened.

I said that there was no safe dose of bute for humans. I am not a medical expert, but bute can cause serious adverse side effects so should be consumed only under medical supervision—[Interruption.] Government Front Benchers are chuntering already, Mr Speaker; that is not a good sign.

The positive test on Freeza Meats led the inspectors to the meat trader, Martin McAdam, who admitted to buying the meat from a UK company, Flexi Foods, in Hull last July. A spokesman for Mr McAdam said:

“That shipment was the first one that came to light. Subsequently other tests identified other shipments of meat.”

He has identified the names of other companies involved, and on Friday I received that information. These UK food companies may or may not have supplied suspect meat products to Mr McAdam, but while there is a question mark over them, the food industry has a right to have that information.

On Friday I wrote to the Secretary of State offering to share that information with him. When he replied to me yesterday, he urged me to hand it over to the police and to the Food Standards Agency, as I already had done, and I assume that he now has it. On Saturday, however, 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. Yesterday, when I asked him why not, he failed to answer. Why did he not tell the food industry where to look? Why has he not released those names to the public so that we can have full transparency on this problem? If the Government want the industry to test on the basis of risk, why did he not share the names of the companies at Saturday’s meeting?

In the FSA advice to the public sector issued at 10 o’clock on Sunday night, the Secretary of State laid the responsibility for food safety squarely on other people’s shoulders. He said:

“We are reminding public bodies (schools, prisons, hospitals, armed forces) of their responsibility for their own food contracts. We expect them to have rigorous procurement procedures in place with reputable suppliers.”

If he knows that there are problems with some UK-based companies, why has he not told head teachers, local authorities and hospital bosses about the companies that are being investigated? I am happy to give way now if he would like to intervene.

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr Owen Paterson)]

I am very happy to do so. I have been restraining myself, Mr Speaker, because of your injunction to be as brief as possible. The Food Standards Agency, set up by the hon. Lady’s party when in government, has been quite clear in giving advice to all those who supply to public institutions such as prisons, schools and hospitals. As I said yesterday in my statement and will say again in a few minutes, food suppliers have the ultimate responsibility for the quality of what they sell.

[Mary Creagh]

We are none the wiser about whether the Secretary of State knows the names of these companies, which prompts the question of whether the FSA has told him or whether he has asked it. Perhaps he will clarify that.

On Friday the FSA said that the police were involved, and I thought that things were under control. However, on Friday night the Met police said that they had had talks with the FSA but there was no live criminal investigation. Will the Secretary of State tell us what action the FSA has taken against these companies? Has it been into their premises and seized evidence, and why have the police not been called in? If there are no problems with these companies, will he say so clearly now, on the record?

Last Thursday, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs announced its statutory testing regime, with 28 local councils purchasing and testing eight samples each. However, the Secretary of State cannot seriously expect people to wait 10 weeks for the results. Does he think that surveying just 224 products across the country rises to the challenge of this scandal when he has asked the supermarkets to test thousands of their products by Friday? How many of the 10 million withdrawn burgers have been tested? Are there any plans to test them now? If they had been tested when they were withdrawn, Ministers would able to reassure us or tell us the extent of this scandal, but because they were paralysed by fear or incompetence, or both, we are still in the dark. Will the Secretary of State confirm that only a fraction of the supermarket tests will be completed and reported by this Friday?

Will the Secretary of State tell the House how many products the large public sector catering suppliers will test and how many product lines members of the British Meat Processors Association will test? Yesterday I asked him which members of the British Hospitality Association and the British Retail Consortium have withdrawn their products as a precaution and whether any of them have withdrawn products that may have gone to schools and hospitals. Is he prepared to answer those questions today?

[Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

As a crofter and a producer, I should refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I am pleased to say that the butchers in Stornoway have seen an upturn in trade as a result of this problem. It surely beggars belief that it has happened given all the tagging that has been going on in the industry. When I send a couple of beasts—lambs—to my cousin to be slaughtered, the vet has to see them. Surely we should now be pressurising the supermarkets and major retailers to stock from as close to source locally as possible—the best of Scottish lamb, beef, or whatever—to make sure that we do not have a repetition of this situation.

[Mary Creagh]

I share the hon. Gentleman’s concerns for the British meat industry. As he says, we have one of the strongest food traceability systems in the world. The British Retail Consortium’s food traceability system and authorisation of processing plant is recognised to global standards. What I worry about is the very large worldwide web that has led to some Findus products coming in from Romania via Cyprus, the Netherlands and a company in south-west France. It is inexplicable to me why that meat is being transported to all those different areas and what is happening there. Every time it is transported, there are moments of risk when it can be interfered with. That is where the problems arise in the meat trade rather than at the stage that the hon. Gentleman mentioned.

[Mr Brian H. Donohoe (Central Ayrshire) (Lab)]

For many years, we have been campaigning in Ayrshire to export many of these products to places such as China, because manufacturing in this sector in China is always a bit suspect and people there will not accept these types of manufactured goods. I believe that the situation we now face will affect that trade. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is an important element in resolving this situation?

[Mary Creagh]

I do agree. The British food industry is a £12 billion industry, and hundreds of thousands of UK jobs depend on it. I know from talking to farmers across the country that they are trying to export their animals, including pigs to China, and various products all over the place, and that people are coming here to look at some of our excellent rare breeds of beef that work particularly well in particular types of climate. This is obviously a very worrying time for the UK food industry.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

The hon. Lady mentioned the upsurge in trade in local butchers over the past week. Some 30% of butchers across the whole United Kingdom had an increase in usage over the past weekend. Does she think that the traceability that is currently present within the whole United Kingdom—England, Wales, Scotland and, in particular, Northern Ireland—should be the key factor in our being able to have good products on the butchers’ shelves and in the supermarkets every week?

[Mary Creagh]

I agree that good traceability will be key to solving this crisis. I look forward to the Secretary of State putting in place robust measures with the entire food supply chain to make sure that this type of scandal cannot hit our industry again.

Yesterday the Secretary of State talked about inheriting the Food Standards Agency and our food regulatory system. He is right—he did—but unfortunately his Government broke it up in 2010.

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

No, we did not.

[Mary Creagh]

The hon. Gentleman was not in the Department at that time.

The FSA website has chapter and verse on what happened. It says that in July 2010

“the food authenticity programme was transferred from the…(FSA) to Defra along with food labelling and composition policy not related to food safety or nutrition. The food authenticity programme supports the enforcement of food labelling and standards legislation through the development of methods that can determine whether foods are correctly labelled. Food authenticity…simply refers to whether the food purchased by the consumer matches its description.”

I would say that consumers who are purchasing beef burgers that later turn out to be horse would fall within that remit. The Government removed the budget and brought the 25 officials responsible for labelling the content of food back into DEFRA. In response to my parliamentary questions, we find that there are now just 12 officials working on food authenticity in DEFRA. The Secretary of State is responsible for the labelling that tells us what is in our food, the Department of Health is responsible for nutritional labelling, and the FSA for allergen labelling. That is why the official food sampling survey is a joint DEFRA-FSA survey, is it not? Will the Secretary of State confirm that this will be the very first survey of product content that his Department has carried out since his Government removed compositional labelling responsibilities from the Food Standards Agency in June 2010?

This ideological Government, who want to deregulate everything, actually created a bureaucratic nightmare for the food industry when they fragmented the FSA’s responsibility for labelling, because now manufacturers have to go to the Department of Health to look at calories, fat, salt and sugar, to the FSA to look at allergens, and to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs for what it should say on the tin.

Has the loss of more than 700 trading standards officers in three years made this type of consumer fraud more widespread and less likely to be detected? Is the Secretary of State confident that the FSA’s Meat Hygiene Service, which has just been merged into the FSA, can be cut by £12 million over the four years from 2010 to 2014 without affecting its ability to detect breaches of the law or to tackle a disease outbreak?

On abattoirs, at DEFRA questions nearly three weeks ago, I asked the Minister with responsibility for food, the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath), whom I am glad to see in his place, about problems with the horse passport system. I was concerned that horses contaminated with bute were being slaughtered in UK abattoirs and entering the human food chain. Of the nine UK horses that tested positive for bute in 2012, one was stopped, five went to France, two to the Netherlands and one to the UK. Has the Minister considered the possibility that horses are going from UK abattoirs into the food chain?

The FSA sampled 156 horses for bute out of the 9,405 horses that were slaughtered in UK abattoirs in 2012. Nine of those horses tested positive, which is a 6% positive rate. If we scale that up to the 9,000 figure, we will see that it suggests that more than 500 horses contaminated with bute may have entered the UK human food chain last year. I raised that point two and a half weeks ago, but received a garbled response from the Minister. I am glad to see that he has stopped burbling now.

[Mr MacNeil]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way again; she is being very kind. What is her view on placing dye on meats that are not meant to go into the human food chain? That would give a clear visual signal and would probably prevent an awful lot of meats from finding their way into the human food chain, whether they come from the knacker’s yard or any other source.

[Mary Creagh]

I do not know how condemned meat is currently dealt with, but I have heard tales of people bleaching meat. Whatever happens to this meat, when it is condemned it needs to be permanently removed from the food chain. Clearly, something much more significant needs to happen to it, but the treatment of condemned meat is something that I am not fully aware of at the moment. I am sure I will learn a lot more about it in the next 24 hours.

As the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) said, there is evidence of an illegal trade in horses from Ireland to the UK and a programme on the subject will be aired tonight. The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has also contacted me to say that it has seen horses that have been double microchipped and double passported in order to “clean” the horse. It has also given me examples of horses being microchipped at auction—many horses do not contain a microchip—and given a clean passport. Microchips can be bought for as little as 12p on the internet and it is clearly not an offence to buy one. If a microchip is put into a horse and a passport obtained from one of the 75 societies that can issue horse passports in the UK, the new passport can be linked to the microchip so that the horse looks like it has a clean history.

The increase in the number of horses and the decrease in horse prices mean that putting horses into the food chain is attractive. At the abattoir, Government inspectors check only the microchip with the passport, and if they correspond, the horse is slaughtered and allowed into the food chain. I am glad that, as of yesterday, all horses being slaughtered in UK abattoirs are now being tested for bute, but the Minister should have acted on that two weeks ago, when I first raised the issue in the House. The passport system is clearly not working as it should. The lack of a central database and DEFRA’s decision to stop funding it in 2012 only adds to the lack of visibility of where the horses are and their bute status. Does the Secretary of State regret scrapping the national equine database to save £200,000? [Interruption.] The Minister says no—I think he might regret that. [Interruption.] I look forward to hearing what the Government’s traceability system actually is.

[Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)]

On working with horse passport agencies and the national equine database, does the hon. Lady agree that NED was actually far more of a competition, progeny and pedigree record, and that it would not have been possible to find out whether a horse on it had bute?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mary Creagh]

The national equine database was as the hon. Lady describes it, but the fact that it no longer exists does not help with tracking and tracing where horses have gone. There were, I think, more than 1.2 million horses on it. I will need to check the numbers, because that figure is from memory—[Interruption]—and with noises off. Michael Frayn could not have written this farce any better. My point is that without the national database, which would have eventually had a link to the microchips, the opportunities for fraud are much easier. Another issue is that of bute not being written into animal records. That needs to be looked at again.

Government Members have talked about a ban on EU imports. It has been very convenient to blame the Poles and the Romanians, but so far neither country has found anything. The risk of a Romanian horse being given expensive veterinary medicine such as bute is smaller than it is in countries such as the UK and Ireland.

[Dr William McCrea (South Antrim) (DUP)]

The question of whether the animal has been injected with something might be a point for discussion. However, whenever people go into a shop for a beefburger, they are not looking for a horse burger, so it has to be what it says on the packet. In my opinion—I trust that this is also the hon. Lady’s opinion—it is not meat produced in the UK, but meat from outside that causes concern for many consumers. Should not all meat coming into the United Kingdom be quarantined and tested before being released into the food chain?

[Mary Creagh]

We need a proportionate response. The problem with the meat found in the Northern Ireland freezer is that there was no label on it at all. In such cases, how can we say where the meat has come from? That is the problem with that approach. On quarantining and testing meat, we need to make sure that what is coming in is exactly what it says on the label.

During yesterday’s statement, I thought I was going to see unicorns dancing over a blue moon as the hon. Members for Stone (Mr Cash) and for Christchurch (Mr Chope), who are noted, famous Eurosceptics, called for more EU regulation and asked what the European Commission was doing and whether the Health Commissioner was in control of the situation. It has been an interesting revelation for Members of all parties to see the important role that European Union regulations play.

There is an issue with large quantities of horsemeat coming in from countries such as Canada and Mexico. Kilos and tonnes of the meat come in without any traceability or any guarantee about what the horses have had injected into them.

[Dr McCrea]

One thing we can be sure of is that the meat did not come from Northern Ireland. Our traceability is second to none. It was the alertness of Newry and Mourne council that got it stopped in Newry. The meat was not from Northern Ireland, so it had to come from outside. We need to find out exactly where it came from, who was responsible and who acted in a criminal way, and then bring them to book.

[Mary Creagh]

I could not agree more, which is why I have questioned the Secretary of State so closely on the matter of the UK meat trading companies that have been named. The Secretary of State waited three and a half weeks to meet representatives of the food industry and then brought them in on a Saturday. They have now had two meetings in just four days.

Our regulatory services protect consumers and our food industry. They allow it to export all over the world. Their job has been made much more difficult by the Government’s decision to fragment the responsibilities of the Food Standards Agency. Members on both sides of the House want the British public to have confidence that the food that they buy in the shops and that comes from our producers is correctly labelled, legal and safe. The Secretary of State is responsible for ensuring that it is. It just is not good enough to say, “We don’t know what’s in your food, but whatever it is, we guarantee that it’s safe to eat.” The British people deserve so much better than that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Paterson]

The hon. Gentleman is right that we must make absolutely sure that we do not create further regulatory burdens. What we need to do is to make the checks more relevant to the products. I will come to that point in a moment.

[Mary Creagh]

It is great to hear this most Eurosceptic of Secretaries of State doing his bit for European co-operation in this area. Will he press his European colleagues to carry out random testing in their countries like that being carried out by UK supermarkets?

[Mr Paterson]

The shadow Secretary of State is again ahead of the game with respect to what I will say in my speech. I said yesterday in my statement that I have a gut feeling—actually, it is a clear belief—that too much is taken on trust in the current system. Too often, it is taken on trust that when a truck is loaded, the contents of the pallets are marked on the manifest and the certificate. From that point on, nothing is looked at. I agree entirely with the hon. Lady and the hon. Member for South Antrim (Dr McCrea) that we need to do more testing. I discussed that yesterday and again this morning with Lord Rooker. When this is all over, there will be a process of learning the lessons. I will be keen to establish more systematic testing of products so that we actually look at the material. That answers some of the hon. Lady’s questions about the Freeza plant in Northern Ireland. At the moment, the system is very much paper-based and too much is taken on trust.

--- Later in debate ---

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

I congratulate the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh) and the Opposition on securing such a timely debate on the eve of the discussions that the Secretary of State will have in Europe with his counterparts, and on the back of two meetings with industry. Today, we should be celebrating the food industry for the reasons that the hon. Lady set out and the people it employs. I represent one of the largest meat-producing constituencies. We celebrate Thirsk having the largest fatstock mart in the country, and Malton having a smaller mart. Farm-gate prices are falling and there is currently a crisis in the sheep industry. It is widely recognised that we are worried about the state of the lamb industry in the north of England; we fear that many sheep producers may go out of business.

We perhaps ought to take a lesson from this issue and revise our eating habits as consumers. When I was brought up I remember having a small roast with the family on a Sunday and using leftovers to go into other dishes during the week. Were we to do that and encourage manufacturers from now on to take British-sourced beef into processed and frozen foods, that would be the speediest way to restore confidence in the food industry. Retailers accept their responsibility and have risen to the challenge set by the Secretary of State. My concern is this. I am proud to have the Food and Environment Research Agency headquarters in my constituency at Sand Hutton near York, but it seems perverse that we continue to accept contaminated and suspect meat consignments, testing within a week and with the results by Friday, yet we now may have to re-export some of the suspect meats to Germany and elsewhere for testing. That is a little bit gross and I hope that that will not be the case.

I will dwell for a moment on what I believe the Secretary of State and the Government can do. Before I do so, I assure the hon. Member for Wakefield that insofar as Dalepak is concerned—it will issue a statement to this effect—the trace in its consignment was found to be less than 1%. Under present rules, that is not deemed to be contaminated meat. It would help everybody if we stopped talking about contamination when there is a trace. We need to move the debate on to what is a trace, and at some stage the FSA or the Department will have to say what trace is acceptable. We are never going to get an entire sample free of any trace, for perfectly understandable reasons.

[Mary Creagh]

I take on board what the hon. Lady says. I believe that the tests that are being conducted will look for equine presence up to 1%, not to 0.1%. That relates to the pork found last week in halal products that were supplied to a prison. Is she saying that it is not possible to guarantee to consumers from certain faith groups that we can never get rid of traces of other animals? What does that mean for factories branding themselves as halal? Does that mean that they can no longer deal with pork products?

[Miss McIntosh]

That is a separate debate. We would need to look at the costs of two separate lines, one for beef and one for pork. We need to reconsider what is acceptable as a trace and differentiate that from contamination. This debate is about gross contamination of 60% to 100%, and that is what is so offensive to consumers.

We need an assurance—whether from Romania, France, Poland, Ireland, Sweden or wherever—that exporting countries in the EU are conducting both physical and product labelling checks at the point of export. Until we have that assurance from the Commission, consumers will not have much confidence in the process. It is my firm, personal belief that if product checks had taken place, food contaminated with horsemeat would never have entered the food chain. However, the fact is that it is in the food chain; as far as we know, it is continuing to enter the food chain; and we are continuing to find more contamination in frozen foods.

I practised in the EU many years ago, so my knowledge of EU law is extremely rusty, but the Cassis de Dijon case involved the passing off of an inferior alcoholic product as Cassis to go into such drinks as kir royale and other luxury products. The inferior product clearly did not fit the bill. I understand that the member state concerned was allowed, for a temporary period, to suspend imports of products being passed off as something else until such time as a ruling could be given.

All I am asking is for the Government to stop this chain of events. There are 27 member states, or however many there are now, relying on the Food Safety Act 1990, which is entirely compatible with European food labelling regulations. I would imagine that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will have huge support from all other member states in the European Union, but until we can again inspire confidence in the food industry and allow the retailers to get on with what they are good at—delivering safe, healthy food to our supermarkets—then we ought to recognise what other hon. Members have said today. This is an opportunity to recognise the excellence of British-produced beef, and to try to see to what extent that can be used.

I accept the Secretary of State’s point about a premium product now going for premium prices, but he must accept that the labelling provisions, the traceability and the additional animal welfare conditions that we in this country uniquely impose on our producers have increased costs. Farm-gate prices are going down. Feed costs have gone up. The cost of transporting animals to slaughter has gone up. Slaughterhouses are fewer and further apart. We ought to use this as an opportunity to encourage retailers to look to sourcing locally produced beef for their processed and frozen products. I celebrate the contribution of the beef industry and other meat industries to the UK, not just to locally sourced food. Much that is produced in Thirsk, Malton and Filey will go abroad for breeding purposes, because of the uniqueness and life history of each particular herd.

This debate is timely. Perhaps the FSA has been caught on the back foot. When in November the FSA was told by the Food Safety Authority of Ireland that DNA tests were to be conducted on particular products entering the food chain through our supermarkets, it was a wake-up call to the FSA here to do similar tests. It was of concern to the Select Committee to hear that the original contamination could have been in the food chain for up to one year—who knows, it might have been longer. We need to get to the bottom of this. I accept the assurance that criminal proceedings will follow, but we all know that the wheels of the law move extremely slowly. The Secretary of State has the opportunity tomorrow to take this argument to Europe. It is a Europe-wide problem so we must have a Europe-wide solution. I believe that the answer lies in our food-labelling provisions and European law. I hope that this debate will give him all power to his elbow in tomorrow’s negotiations.

Horsemeat (Food Fraud)

Mary Creagh Excerpts

Monday 11th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[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 Paterson]

You would not think that we had inherited Labour’s system would you, Mr Deputy Speaker? You really wouldn’t. I always admire the hon. Lady—she really has a nerve.

This issue is a European competence. As agreed by her Government, the independent Food Standards Agency was set up and we have followed their policy of respecting that independence. Today, I talked to its chairman, Lord Rooker, whom she knows well, and he agreed that we had respected its independence. In the early stages of this history, this was an issue of trace DNA in an Irish abattoir. Once it came to the Findus case, where there was a significant volume of horse material, it took on a whole new dimension. He agreed that it was then appropriate that the Secretary of State should become publicly involved, as I have been in recent days. The hon. Lady is critical of the FSA’s survey—on which I wish it well. I raised it with the noble Lord this afternoon, and he agreed that April was the intended end date for these results, but that he could possibly publish some of them as he works through.

The hon. Lady completely misses the point that the retailers are responsible for the quality and content of their food. That is laid down in European law. Her Government passed a statutory instrument in 2002. [Interruption.] There is no point in the hon. Lady shouting. She must understand that under the current arrangements it is for retailers to decide. She has completely missed the point that they are responsible for testing, they are responsible for the integrity of their food and they are responsible to their customers. They have a massive self-interest in this, because obviously they want their customers to come back. She will be pleased to hear that we had a most satisfactory meeting on Saturday, and they will be bringing forward meaningful results by the end of this week.

The hon. Lady went on a bit about the police. [Interruption.] I agree with my hon. Friends that she went on and on about the police. This is a serious issue, and the FSA has raised it with the Metropolitan police, but the hon. Lady must understand that until there is a criminal action in this country, they cannot take action. However, the FSA has been in touch with Europol, because it does look as though there have been criminal cases on the continent.

The hon. Lady mentioned the Irish test. I have had a conversation this afternoon with Minister Coveney. We have agreed that there will be protocol between our two independent agencies to agree testing equivalents and to work extremely closely together, because our two food industries so often work in co-operation on either side of the Irish sea.

The hon. Lady mentioned horses. Today, Lord Rooker will announce that further to our recent announcement that all horses slaughtered in this country will be tested for bute, no carcase will be released until it has been proven positive.

Finally, the advice on food is very simple. I have been completely consistent. It must have been in an interview and I think she mis-heard the second part of a sentence when I was speaking. I have been absolutely clear. The independent agency that gives professional advice is the Food Standards Agency. I, the hon. Lady, hon. Members and the public should follow its advice. As long as products are free for sale and have not been recommended for withdrawal by the FSA, they are safe for human consumption. I recommend that she follows the advice of the independent agency that her Government set up.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mary Creagh Excerpts

Thursday 24th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paterson]

Last week I met Commissioner Borg, the EU Health Commissioner, to agree a way forward for developing a workable cattle vaccine. A provisional timetable has now been agreed, and a copy of the letter outlining this to me has been placed in the Library this morning. It acknowledges the UK’s leading role in pressing forward on a cattle vaccine. and for the first time recognises that we are on course to deploy a vaccine. The legal and scientific process could take up to 10 years. In the meantime, we will continue to use all the tools at our disposal to check the progress of this terrible disease.

[Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)]

I am in receipt of evidence showing that several horses slaughtered by UK abattoirs last year tested positive for phenylbutazone —or bute—a drug that causes cancer in humans and that is banned from the human food chain. It is possible that those animals entered the human food chain. Is the Minister aware of this?

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

I understand that the Food Standards Agency carries out checks in slaughterhouses to ensure that equine animals presented for slaughter are fit for human consumption, in the same way as it does for cattle, sheep and other animals. In addition, the FSA carries out sampling and testing for phenylbutazone and other veterinary medicines in meat from horses slaughtered in this country. Where positive results for phenylbutazone are found, the FSA investigates and takes follow-up action to trace the meat.

[Mary Creagh]

I am not clear whether that was yes, the Minister knew, or no, he did not. Either way, I am astonished that he has not raised the issue. The public have a right to know. It is a very serious development. What steps will he now take to ensure that illegal and carcinogenic horsemeat stops entering the human food chain? Last week, when I asked about difficulties with horse passports, he dismissed my concerns. Will he now review his short-sighted and reckless decision to scrap the national equine database?

[Mr Heath]

I think that the hon. Lady misunderstands what the national equine database did. The records of horse passports continue to be retained by the passport issuing agencies. There is no difficulty in tracing the use of a horse passport, so to suggest that the national equine database was required to do that is simply erroneous.

Wild Animals in Circuses Bill

Mary Creagh Excerpts

Friday 18th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)]

I rise to support the Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty) and to congratulate him on introducing it. He deserves our thanks for securing the debate. I would also like to thank the hon. Member for Colchester (Sir Bob Russell), my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) and the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) for playing such a pivotal part in the parliamentary journey of the Bill.

There is a kind of “groundhog day” feeling to these proceedings. Stop me if you’ve heard it all before! We kind of have. There is a weary familiarity to the proceedings, except that we are looking forward to a jack-in-a-box presentation from the Minister providing a different ending, perhaps, to this debate.

After two years’ delay, we still do not have a ban on wild animals in circuses. It has been a long and tortuous journey. In April 2011, DEFRA Ministers seemed finally to have caught the public mood. They, or their officials, briefed the Sunday Express that a ban was imminent—joy all round, flags and bunting. Then, however, came the DEFRA treatment—or was it the No. 10 treatment?—and a lot of political backtracking. It was a classic case study—I am sure people are writing it up as we speak and will be teaching it across schools of government across the world—on one of the many examples in DEFRA of a lack of political leadership and incompetent decision making. I must congratulate the Minister, however, on being the sole DEFRA survivor of the first two years, which might say something about his ministerial competence and decision making being different from that of his former colleagues.

It is worth remembering what happened. We consulted on a ban on the use of wild animals in circuses in 2009. More than 10,000 people responded and 94.5% of them backed a ban, and in early 2010 we gave a commitment to introduce one. This ban was strongly supported by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the British Veterinary Association, the Born Free Foundation and Animal Defenders International, all of which agreed that a licensing regime would be unworkable.

Despite saying they were minded to ban wild animals in circuses, however, Ministers delayed taking any action to end this cruel practice of wild animals performing for so-called entertainment in circuses. First, they claimed that a ban might be illegal under the EU services directive, despite there being no evidence for it, as EU Environment Commissioner, Janez Potocnik, made clear in 2011:

“Circuses are specifically excluded from the scope of the Zoos Directive, and are not covered by any other EU legislation. Therefore, the welfare of circus animals remains the responsibility of the Member States.”

EU Commission 1, UK Government nil! Then DEFRA Ministers said that a ban was not possible owing to an ongoing court legal challenge to a ban in the Austrian courts. That created a lot of mystery and disruption, because the then Secretary of State repeated this allegation in her written ministerial statement on 13 May 2011. Sadly, her officials placed a little too much trust in Google. I see that the Minister is unsupported by his officials today, which is probably a wise decision—he is on his own at last, freed from the shackles of the ministerial Box.

The following Tuesday, the then Secretary of State was forced to issue another written ministerial statement to clarify that no such legal challenge existed. The European Court of Justice confirmed that no cases relating to circus animals were being considered at a European level. I quote Christopher Fretwell, from the Court of Justice information service, who e-mailed me on 17 May 2011:

“I have searched our internal databases and, like my colleagues in the Registry, have found no reference to such a case. It is perfectly possible that a case has just arrived at the Court within the last couple of days and is yet to be entered into our databases, but this is always a possibility. Searching the internet I have found a number of references to infringement proceedings initially started by the Commission around 2004-2005, but these never seem to have led to any case being brought before the Court.”

European Court of Justice 1, DEFRA Ministers nil!

Why, however, should that affect UK policy, and how does a ban on wild animals performing in circuses affect our obligations under EU treaties? Finally, DEFRA Ministers said that a ban on wild animals was not possible because—this really was a moment of high comedy—it could infringe the human rights of circus owners. On 19 May 2011, the then Minister, the right hon. Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Sir James Paice), told the House that

“bits of the Human Rights Act could be infringed by a ban on wild animals in circuses.”—[Official Report, 19 May 2011; Vol. 528, c. 502.]

Yet his Department’s own impact assessment read:

“There are no human rights issues raised by these proposals.”

Left hand, right hand—strangers to each other! Had he not read his Department’s own documents? I am sure today’s Minister has.

There was no reason for Ministers not to ban wild animals from British circuses. All these arguments were exposed and kicked around the metaphorical parliamentary football pitch in that extraordinary Back-Bench business debate on 23 June 2011—long may it live in parliamentary memory—when an extraordinary coalition of cross-party support for a ban defeated the Government Whips’ attempts to force the vote in the direction that they wanted it to go in. We all remember the speech that the hon. Member for The Wrekin made about his phone conversations and the inducements that No. 10 offered him not to press his debate to a vote.

At the heart of this debate is a conflict at the heart of Government between DEFRA Ministers, who supported a ban, and the Prime Minister and No. 10’s ideological opposition to regulation and a pathological aversion to anything that protects animal welfare. DEFRA Ministers’ inability to make a decision and stick to it or, crucially, to get their civil servants to act on their decisions has long been a potent source of comedy for this House. The Government have spent 18 months and £261,000, as well as thousands of staff hours and hours in meetings with charities, preparing for a licensing regime that will not work. With the Minister’s announcement, we will see what a monumental waste of effort that was. Harvey Locke, the president of the British Veterinary Association, has said:

“The welfare needs of non-domesticated, wild animals cannot be met within the environment of a travelling circus; especially in terms of accommodation and the ability to express normal behaviour. A licensing scheme will not address these issues.”

The reasons propagated by the Government for not introducing an outright ban—a lack of parliamentary time, legal difficulties, the European Union, a lack of resources or a desire to avoid red tape—have been found, one after the other, to be utterly without substance. The Government were simply covering themselves for a simple lack of political will. It is time for another DEFRA U-turn. Let us have the ban on wild animals in British circuses. Too much time, too many resources and too much money have been wasted already. The Government need to get on with legislating for a ban to end this era of cruelty. They owe it to Parliament, to the public and to the animals. The Minister said on that day that the Government wanted a ban. The whole House wants a ban. Let us get on with it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Benyon]

I will repeat what I said: I am happy to assure the hon. Gentleman that we firmly intend to publish the draft Bill for parliamentary scrutiny in the current Session. The final timetable for legislation will be for Parliament to decide. It inevitably takes some time to reach a position where we can present a draft Bill that does the intended job and is robust against potential legal challenge.

[Mary Creagh]

Will the Minister provide us with some sort of timetable or calendar? When does he think this will happen—February or March? The Session ends in April. Secondly, will he explain why we need pre-legislative scrutiny, given that there are only three dozen animals in this position left in the country, and that this issue has been debated over and over again ad nauseam by Parliament for the last two years?

[Richard Benyon]

We want to make sure that the legislation is robust, so it survives any challenge from any source. This Bill’s promoter, the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife, sits on the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, which has a good record of pre-legislative scrutiny. I think that a cursory look at what we are proposing will allow the Bill speedy passage and ensure that it then survives and is effective at achieving what we want it to achieve.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Benyon]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I think there is a coalition of the whole House on this legislation, and that the Government and all of us will be able to be proud of it.

There is some justification for saying that there have been plenty of opportunities to introduce this legislation over previous decades and before, so let us look at what we are proposing. All Members will appreciate what it involves when they realise that the legislation will not only be robust, but will be something of which we can all be proud.

[Mary Creagh]

I congratulate the Minister on weaving a silk purse out of a proverbial sow’s ear. Will he confirm that if he introduces a Bill for pre-legislative scrutiny in this Session, it will not actually be scrutinised until the parliamentary Session of 2014 and could then run out of time in the final year of this Parliament?

[Richard Benyon]

No, I think this will become law in the next Session, subject to the vagaries of the House’s opinions on the wording of the Bill—another reason why we want pre-legislative scrutiny. The hon. Lady can be absolutely assured that we want to get this measure on the statute book as early as possible; we do not want the issue continuing into future Parliaments. We want to make sure that it gets Royal Assent as soon as possible.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Benyon]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, and I will pass his assurance on to officials and ministerial colleagues who have oversight of this issue.

The Government have already introduced new licensing regulations, as was promised in July, and these will come into force on 20 January—this Sunday. From Sunday, it will be an offence to operate a travelling circus with wild animals in England without a valid licence. The regulations will ensure that if a travelling circus continues to use wild animals, it will be subject to regular inspections to check that it is complying with strict welfare standards. The licensing regime is tough, and inspection will be rigorous. It goes without saying that the safeguards of the Animal Welfare Act 2006 against cruelty continue unabated.

I thank the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife for his efforts, but let me repeat that DEFRA is working on a draft Bill to be published and presented for parliamentary scrutiny in the current Session. Let me also repeat that we want to ensure that the Bill is robust, will do what it sets out to do, and will not be vulnerable to successful legal challenge.

The Government fully recognise that—as has been mentioned today—the use of wild animals in travelling circuses generates significant public and parliamentary interest. In 2009, when DEFRA consulted on the question of a ban, 94.5% of the 10,000 respondents supported it. Since the start of the current Parliament, DEFRA has handled more than 120 parliamentary questions and 16,500 items of correspondence on the subject of wild animals in travelling circuses. There have been five debates in Parliament—including two on the licensing regulations in October 2012—supplemented by five early-day motions with a total of 223 signatures. Many Members have called for a ban, and during the Backbench Business Committee debate on 23 June 2011, which was mentioned earlier, the House agreed on a motion directing the Government to introduce a ban on the use of wild animals in travelling circuses.

It should be borne in mind, however, that a ban introduced solely on welfare grounds might be vulnerable to successful legal challenge. The Radford report on the welfare of wild animals in travelling circuses, which was commissioned, accepted and published by the last Government in 2007, concluded that there was insufficient evidence to ban the use of wild animals in travelling circuses on welfare grounds. In particular, Radford concluded that there was little evidence to demonstrate that the welfare of animals in circuses was any better or worse than in any other captive environment. We respect that piece of research and the people who carried it out, but I think that Parliament has expressed a clear opinion that reflects opinions in the country at large, and that is what is guiding our actions now.

I hate to use cheap clichés such as the one about the elephant in the room, but it must be said that the recent high-profile court case focusing on allegations of cruelty to Anne, a circus elephant, has rekindled legitimate public interest and concern about the treatment of wild animals in travelling circuses. However, the outcome of that case is not in itself an indicator of endemic or systematic failure to promote welfare in travelling circuses. It would simply not be responsible to proceed with a ban without being confident that we would be safe from legal challenge. I think we are now approaching a point at which we know how to deal with the issue. In any case, the new licensing regulations will ensure that good welfare standards are in place for any circus that wants to use wild animals in the short term before the ban comes into force.

The publicly available Radford report summarised the position by pointing out that the scientific evidence that welfare is being compromised is not compelling; that section 12 of the Animal Welfare Act permits only legislation to “promote animal welfare”; that banning on welfare grounds would be disproportionate in the absence of evidence that welfare was compromised; and that an outright ban might be beyond the powers in section 12 anyway, even if the welfare case were made out. Radford wrote that

“it is submitted that to introduce a ban on the use of any type of non-domesticated animal presently in use by circuses in the United Kingdom…by way of a Regulation made under the authority of section 12 of the Animal Welfare Act would be vulnerable to legal challenge.”

[Mary Creagh]

When he was agriculture Minister, the right hon. Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Sir James Paice) said that he would introduce a ban on moral grounds. Will the Minister enlighten us on how far that has got?

[Richard Benyon]

I hope I am giving the clear message that this Government are determined to ban the use of animals in circuses, and I do not want to dance on the head of a pin in trying to tease out the different strands of opinion in the House on how to achieve that end. Societies’ attitudes change over time, not least on animal welfare issues, and this is one such issue.

I take my family to see Giffords circus, which travels around my part of the country. It does not have wild animals, but it does have horses and dogs, and—

Horsemeat (Supermarket Products)

Mary Creagh Excerpts

Thursday 17th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Minister if he will give a response to the finding of horsemeat in supermarket meat products.

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

This is a very important and extremely serious issue. Consumers should have full confidence that food is exactly what it says on the label. There are strict rules requiring products to be labelled accurately.

The Food Standards Agency is urgently investigating how a number of beef products on sale in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland were found to contain horse and pig meat. Twenty-seven beefburger products were analysed, with 10 of the 27 products, or 37%, testing positive for horse DNA and 23, or 85%, testing positive for pig DNA. In nine of the 10 beefburger samples, horse DNA was found at very low levels. In one sample from Tesco, the level of horse DNA indicated that horsemeat was present and accounted for approximately 29% of the total meat content of the burger.

Yesterday the agency met representatives from the food industry from all parts of the UK. Industry representatives confirmed the existing processes that they follow to ensure that the products that reach consumers are of the highest standard. These include quality controls in place at all stages of the food chain. They also set out the actions that they have already taken in response to this incident.

The FSA has now set out a four-point plan for its investigation, which it will implement in conjunction with Government Departments, local authorities and the food industry. The first point is to continue the urgent review of the traceability of the food products identified in the Food Safety Authority of Ireland survey. The retailers and the UK processor named in the survey have been asked to provide comprehensive information on the findings by the end of Friday 18 January.

The second point is to explore further, in conjunction with the FSAI, the methodology used for the survey, to understand more clearly the factors that may have led to the low-level cases of cross-contamination. The third is to consider, with relevant local authorities and the FSAI, whether any legal action will be appropriate following the investigation. The fourth is to work with my Department, the devolved rural affairs Departments and local authorities on a UK-wide study of food authenticity in processed meat products.

[Mary Creagh]

I thank the Minister for that reply, but perhaps he could have made a statement to the House yesterday, rather than have to respond to an urgent question today.

There is understandable public anger that supermarkets have been selling beefburgers and other products containing horsemeat and pig DNA. Consumers who avoid pork for religious reasons will be upset that they may have unwittingly eaten it, and eating horse is a strong cultural taboo in the United Kingdom. It is not illegal to sell horsemeat, but it is illegal not to label it correctly. Customers must have the confidence that the food they buy is correctly labelled, legal and safe.

The UK is part of a global food supply chain. The food industry lobbies vigorously for a light-touch regulatory system from Government. Testing, tracking and tracing ingredients is expensive, but not testing them will cost retailers, processors, British farmers and consumers much more.

This is not just about the supermarkets. The adulteration scandal raises serious questions for the Government to answer about how we as a nation regulate our food. First, the adulteration was detected in Ireland, not the United Kingdom. Why was it not picked up here? Will the Minister consider introducing DNA testing of meat, as happens in Ireland, to reassure consumers that they are actually getting what they pay for?

In 2010, the Minister’s Government split the responsibility for food labelling between three Government Departments: the Department of Health is responsible for dietary and nutritional labelling, and the Food Standards Agency is responsible for allergen labelling, but the 25 staff and the budget responsible for the compositional labelling has been transferred to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Is that not an absurd situation, and will the Minister now review the system that he has created for food labelling in this country? How many of those 25 staff are still employed by DEFRA on those issues, and why was no national system put in place at that time to audit labelling and composition to protect consumers from this type of fraud?

The FSA inquiry will test the robustness of supermarket audit chains. How confident is the Minister that they will meet Government standards? Has the loss of 700 trading standards officers in three years made this type of consumer fraud more widespread and less likely to be detected? Is the Minister confident that the FSA’s Meat Hygiene Service can be cut by £12 million over the comprehensive spending review period without its ability to detect breaches of the law or tackle a disease outbreak being affected? These invisible regulatory services protect our consumers and our food industry and allow the industry to export all over the world.

Horses are killed for meat in this country, but there are dozens of different types of horse passport and the system is a mess. Will the Minister look at the system for horse passports?

The coalition agreement stated:

“We will introduce honesty in food labelling so that consumers can be confident about where their food comes from and its environmental impact.”

On the evidence of the past few days, the Minister still has quite a way to go.

[Mr Heath]

Let us be clear: the hon. Lady is right to say that consumers have a right to expect that the food they eat is what it says on the label. The cases that were picked up in Ireland are a serious breach of that principle. That is why we are taking the measures that we are taking.

The hon. Lady was completely wrong, however, in what she said about responsibility for labelling. Let us be absolutely clear: the responsibility for policy on labelling lies with the most appropriate Department, but the responsibility for checking the content of food lies with the Food Standards Agency—which, of course, is the responsibility of the Department of Health—and only the Food Standards Agency. It is the body charged with that responsibility.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mary Creagh Excerpts

Thursday 6th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paterson]

I enjoyed my visit to Exeter and I pay tribute to everyone who pulled together—councils, public services, the Environment Agency and all those who managed to repair the railway line. I saw where it had been breached and they got the line working the day after I was there. I hope it reassures my hon. Friend to hear that the first phone call I made on leaving Exeter was to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport who had already been on the case to ensure that the vital rail link was restored. I totally endorse my hon. Friend’s point about transport links and flooding.

[Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)]

I echo the condolences of the Secretary of State to the families and friends of those who lost their lives in the floods.

Last week, there was an announcement of a new £120 million U-turn on flood defence spending. However, even after that announcement, the Government will still spend less on flood defences in 2013 than Labour spent in 2008. Just 30% of that money will be spent next year because the Environment Agency no longer has the staff capacity to get the money out of the door. It is difficult to decide which is more incompetent: cutting the budget too far in the first place or, when they change their mind, not having the capacity to get the money out of the door and to the communities that need it.

[Mr Paterson]

I love the way the hon. Lady always looks for the downside in a story—her ingenuity is tremendous. The fact is that on 11 September, within a week of coming in, I met the chairman of the Environment Agency, Lord Smith. We saw a great scheme, which, in fairness, her Government launched in Nottingham. I asked him to come forward with proposals for future flood schemes, as the benefits in Nottingham were clear—not just 16,000 houses protected by the £45 million scheme, but the 500 acres freed up for development, which had previously been blighted. He wrote to me, quickly, on 26 September, and I am happy to give the hon. Lady the letter. We have put what he asked for into practice, to the letter: another £120 million, which will be of great benefit and save a further 60,000 houses from flooding.

[Mr Speaker]

I appeal to colleagues to speed up the exchanges. We have a lot to get through, and questions and answers are too long.

[Mary Creagh]

Of course, it is great to build flood defences, but it is just as important to maintain the ones we already have and to keep our rivers clear. Yesterday, however, the Chancellor announced that a further £60 million would be cut from DEFRA’s budget, so can the Secretary of State guarantee that no further cuts will fall on the Environment Agency’s river-dredging and maintenance budget, which is already set to fall from £108 million in 2010 to just £60 million in 2015?

[Mr Paterson]

As the hon. Lady knows, we inherited a hideous mess from her Government and are taking time to put it right in a very difficult world environment. I have to go back to my early reading, when I came into the House, of “Erskine May”, but she must stick to the truth on these issues. In total, with all the agencies involved, the Government will spend more over the four-year term than the Labour Government spent over their last four-year spending round.

Flooding

Mary Creagh Excerpts

Monday 26th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State for his update.

I begin by paying tribute to the emergency services that worked to evacuate homes, rescue those who were stranded and keep people safe this weekend. I echo the Secretary of State’s thanks to staff of the Environment Agency and local councils who worked all weekend—and throughout the night on Saturday—clearing rivers and ensuring that flood defences were activated.

Hon. Members from across the House will wish to send their condolences to the family and friends of the three people who tragically lost their lives. With two months’ worth of rain set to fall in the north of the country today, we are not yet in the clear. The communities affected face months of disruption and upheaval. People who were cleaning up after the July floods have been flooded again, and some have been flooded more than once this week. Pubs that were looking forward to their busiest period are throwing out carpets and cancelling bookings.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs classes areas as being at low, medium or high risk of flooding. Have this week’s floods triggered the medium-risk threshold that activates the Cabinet Office civil contingencies secretariat? Will the Secretary of State tell the House how many schools, roads, railways and businesses have been affected across the country so far, and how many people have been evacuated? How many acres of productive farmland are under water, and what estimate has he made of crop losses to farmers?

The Secretary of State mentioned the Somerset levels, which rely on drainage boards. The Environment Agency, however, is already consulting on changes to flood management, pump houses and maintaining river courses. Will he guarantee that those operations will be protected in future? What contact has he had with the Department for Education to ensure that children whose schools have been flooded continue to be educated? What contact has he had with the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government on the recovery effort? Is he aware that there is no statutory obligation on fire services to respond to flood events, and does he share my concern that the current round of cuts to fire and rescue authorities, particularly in metropolitan areas, is reducing our resilience to flood events in future years?

The Secretary of State’s predecessor, the right hon. Member for Meriden (Mrs Spelman), told the House in a written statement in June that central Government would cover 100% of local authority costs under the Bellwin scheme, yet today the Secretary of State has announced that just 85% of their costs will be met in the case of the latest floods. Why is that?

Councils have just one month after a flood incident to lodge with the DCLG a claim for reimbursement under Bellwin. However, Bellwin covers only the costs of immediate action to safeguard life and property, such as evacuation and rehousing, not the capital costs of road repairs. Just three of the 20 areas flooded last summer have reached the Bellwin threshold to receive any money at all from the Government. Have the Government made any payments to those three councils for the costs of the June and July floods? If, as I suspect, they have not, when can councils expect that money?

What measures has the Secretary of State put in place to help the other 17 councils whose claims did not meet the Bellwin threshold? Whether the Government cover 85% or 100% of the costs, their failure to help 17 of the 20 councils affected in the summer is no help at all. What funding will he put in place for major capital expenditure on damaged roads?

After the 2007 and 2009 floods, the Government set up the flood recovery grant as a one-off payment to councils to help households seriously affected by the floods. This Government have chosen not to help communities in that way. Why is that?

What support will the Government give to those who are under-insured or uninsured? The answer has to be more than warm tweets from the Prime Minister. As we move from response to recovery, flood-hit communities are growing more and more anxious about the availability and affordability of flood insurance. The Secretary of State’s predecessor told the House in June that

“we are at an advanced stage in intensive and constructive negotiations with the insurance industry”.—[Official Report, 25 June 2012; Vol. 547, c. 26.]

Yet the Association of British Insurers has stated today that a deal on the future of flood insurance has “stalled”. We were promised a deal in the spring, and then by July. It is now November. What has happened? If the deal is not done by the time of the autumn statement in just nine days, the risk of people being unable to insure, mortgage and eventually sell their home will rise exponentially. We must not have whole communities blighted because the Chancellor refuses to negotiate in good faith. When will he get a grip on the issue?

We know that every pound invested in flood defences saves £8 in costs further down the line, yet this Government have cut capital spending on flood defences by 30% from the 2010 baseline. They are spending less on flood defences now than we were five years ago in 2007. As a result, 294 flood defence schemes have been deferred or cancelled. Will the Secretary of State resist any pressure from the Treasury to cut flood defence spending in the next comprehensive spending review?

Last Monday in Westminster Hall, the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis), told Members that

“while the flooding incidents of this summer were locally significant, we did not witness the devastating effects of previous years.”—[Official Report, 20 November 2012; Vol. 553, c. 93WH.]

Communities that have been devastated by flooding should not have to listen to Ministers telling them that their experience is not nationally significant. Today and this weekend, we have once again had a reminder that floods are the greatest threat that climate change poses to our country, and flood-hit communities deserve not to have to go through that terrible experience again.

[Mr Paterson]

I thank the hon. Lady for echoing my tributes to the Environment Agency, councils and all those who have worked so extraordinarily hard in recent days. I thank her also for expressing her sympathies to those who have lost relations and friends.

The hon. Lady asked detailed questions about the picture on schools, roads and crops. It is too early to tell, because the current weather is carrying on, and I think we had better review those questions when it settles down.

The hon. Lady mentioned local councils. We are co-ordinating the matter carefully and meeting DCLG on a regular basis, including on the subject of fire services. She mentioned the Bellwin scheme, which we have continued in exactly the same vein as the previous Government. There is a 0.2% threshold, and we have said that we will pay up to 85% of costs. We will keep that under review and keep assessing the situation as it develops.

The hon. Lady mentioned flood insurance. Today’s story is complete nonsense. The first meeting I had on taking office was with the ABI. We have had constructive and detailed discussions with it since, and there was a senior level meeting as recently as the end of last week. I am looking forward to receiving the ABI’s latest suggestions. We are determined to arrive at a replacement for the statement of principles that provides universality, is affordable and does not put a major burden on the taxpayer. I would like to remind the hon. Lady that the statement of principles covers 2003 to 2013, and we inherited absolutely nothing from the previous Government on this issue.

The hon. Lady mentioned spending on flood defences, and there is a complete canard about this reduction; our reduction is 6% over the whole spending round compared with what Labour spent over its spending round. I would have thought that she would have been pleased that our partnership scheme is really working, and a range of schemes that were just on the threshold and did not make the cut will now go ahead. In the last major incident, in 2007, 55,000 homes were flooded but this time the figure is 5,000 to 6,000. That is still traumatic for those households, and I repeat that my real sympathies are with those affected. I stress that we are continuing with a major programme of flood defence schemes to reduce the number further.

Ash Dieback Disease

Mary Creagh Excerpts

Monday 12th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House notes that ash dieback, which could affect 80 million native ash trees, has been identified in 115 sites; further notes that Government ministers were informed of the disease on 3 April 2012; regrets that the public were not informed about the disease this spring and that a thorough survey of woodland was not carried out this summer; further regrets that the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has circulated a briefing to hon. Members from the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties, but not the Opposition; recognises that 530 staff posts have already been cut from the Forestry Commission, including 38 posts in Forest Research which investigates tree diseases, and that the Forestry Commission budget will be cut from £47.5 million in 2010-11 to £36.2 million in 2014-15; calls on the Government to issue clear advice to tree growers and the public as to the best way to prevent disease spread and to work with all hon. Members, including the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee, as well as councils and other affected stakeholders to fight this disease and ensure that lessons are learned; and further calls on the Government urgently to assess whether the Forestry Commission has adequate resources to guarantee that there are enough Forestry Commission staff and scientists to carry out further tree health surveys and to commit to work with all stakeholders to overcome the environmental, economic and ecological impact of this terrible disease.

May I begin by saying what a disappointment it is to see that, once again, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has delegated the challenge of explaining ministerial inaction on this disease to his colleague the Minister of State? I heard on this morning’s “Farming Today” that the Secretary of State was on a plane to China, yet Ministers were aware last Thursday that this debate was taking place. I believe it is a matter of courtesy to the House that Government business of this nature comes first. We wish him well on his trip to China, but we hope that he will, eventually, turn up in the House to tell us what he is doing.

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

I honestly think that if the hon. Lady believes that the Secretary of State should have cancelled a mission to the largest market in the world, where he is trying to promote British produce, in order to come to argue with her on her rather ridiculous motion today, her sense of priorities is very distorted indeed.

[Mary Creagh]

I will leave the public to decide whether flogging fromage to the Chinese is more important than explaining to the British people what action the Secretary of State is taking on a major environmental and ecological disaster that is unfolding on his watch. [Interruption.] I believe that “flogging fromage and fizz” are the words he used the last time he went off to France, so I am using his own words back at him. Clearly, it would be much more comfortable to be going off to China than to be in the hot seat, where the Minister of State finds himself.

The scale of the ash dieback emergency is now clear. It has been found in 129 sites in England and Scotland, including 15 nurseries and 50 recently planted sites. The most worrying discovery is that the disease is present in 64 woodland sites. That number will rise sharply as more trees are surveyed. Professor Michael Shaw from Reading university has described it as “catastrophic”.

Scientists believe that most of our 80 million ash trees will face a long, slow decline over the next 10 years. The tree that accounts for one third of our native broad-leaved woodland will all but disappear. A few resistant trees will survive and their seeds will be carefully stored to restock the forests when our children are already grown. Lichens, moths, beetles and bugs that rely on the ash’s alkaline bark will suffer. The 27 species of insects that depend on the ash as their sole food plant might become extinct. Plant nurseries and woodland owners will lose thousands of pounds as they destroy ash saplings, and the wood industry will suffer as wood prices rise. Timber that was planned for will not reach maturity. Chalara fraxinea, or ash dieback, will change our landscape for ever. It is an environmental, ecological and economic disaster.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

Does the hon. Lady agree that this Government’s preference for arguing that the primary reason for the spread of the disease is the wind rather than imports is politically convenient but not very accurate?

[Mary Creagh]

I do, and I shall expand a lot more on that later in my speech.

[Mr David Ruffley (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)]

On that point, the hon. Lady will be aware that in my part of the country, in East Anglia, the disease has been found in mature trees that we know have had no contact with nurseries that have imported ash plants. Wind-borne fungus is therefore certainly a possibility. In the interests of clarity and empirical evidence, will she acknowledge that that might be the case?

[Mary Creagh]

I am going on the empirical evidence, and I shall spend an extensive part of my speech reviewing the scientific facts, seeing how they have changed since they were first published last Wednesday—because they have—and going into great detail on that point.

[George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)]

Before the hon. Lady develops her theme of the Government’s having been caught short and not reacting properly, does she agree that the Department was alerted to the problem as far back as 2007, two years earlier than has been reported, and that the budget for studying tree disease was cut by more than half in real terms in the years leading up to 2010?

[Mary Creagh]

There has been confusion on both sides of the House about what the former Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), who is in his place, did or did not do. He asked the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to do a thorough search of all the ministerial papers he saw on ash dieback, which has shown that he did not see the correspondence between the Horticultural Trades Association and the Forestry Commission about a possible import ban. The only mention of ash dieback was in a briefing note in February 2010, in which the disease was listed as absent from the country. The hon. Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman) chairs the all-party group on life sciences, so he should know that the way the disease has been discovered is still evolving.

In 2009, it was thought that the fungus that caused ash dieback was already present in the UK. It was only subsequently that a new virulent species causing ash dieback was discovered. The science changed in 2010, when a new pathogen, Hymenoscyphus pseudoalbidus, was identified as the fungus causing the disease. I advise all hon. Members to read an article by Andy Coghlan in the New Scientist of 31 October that gives the scientific chronology of the disease. I also have a copy of the scientific paper in Forest Pathology in which the change was first discovered, which was printed in 2011.

What did my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central do? He published the “Forestry Commission: Science and innovation strategy for British forestry 2010-2013” on 1 April 2010. It stated:

“Over the next five years we will increase our budget for monitoring and biosecurity research particularly with regard to tree health to 15% of our research spend.”

Even as late as autumn 2011, the Forestry Commission pathology bulletin confirmed that Britain was clear of the pathogen.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

The hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds (Mr Ruffley) made a fair point about the possibility of airborne transmission. Does my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh) agree that there may be connectivity with nurseries to which seedlings were imported? It is quite possible that, over a year, there was airborne transmission to trees, as the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds suggests, from those imported seedlings. That is not incompatible with his point.

[Mary Creagh]

It is much more likely that the disease spread from imported seedlings transplanted from nursery stock than that it blew in, on great gusts, over the North sea. We will examine that in more detail later. [Interruption.] Ministers can chunter; the science is not politically convenient for them, but we will stick to what continental scientists have discovered until those facts are disproved.

The disease was discovered in imported saplings in February this year. When did the public first hear that the infection was on UK soil? Was it in April, when Ministers were told that it had been discovered in a nursery? No. Was it in June, when it was discovered in newly planted sites, and there was increased risk to mature woodland, as the disease could blow in from those sites? No, it was not. We finally heard on 25 October, when the Secretary of State announced that he would ban ash imports during Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs questions in the House—a full eight months after the disease first appeared.

Ministers could have started the consultation on a ban back in April, instead of leaving it until the end of August. The question on everyone’s lips is: “Why didn’t they?” The Secretary of State told the House on 25 October:

“The minute we heard about this, we launched a consultation.”—[Official Report, 25 October 2012; Vol. 551, c. 1066.]

Does he understand that a consultation is not a ban? Why did Ministers keep the public in the dark? This really matters, because scientists have lost eight months in our fight against ash dieback, as the diseased leaves have already fallen. I congratulate the university of East Anglia on its ashtag.org app and website, but what a shame it did not know that there was a problem in April, when Ministers did. Ministers’ incompetence has meant that we are behind the curve of the disease’s spread. This matters because we, the public, who love our forests, may have unwittingly spread the disease from June to October, the main fruiting season for the fungus. Had we known in spring, we could have completed a comprehensive survey this summer, using public good will. Ministers’ incompetence has helped the disease spread and will cost the taxpayer money.

[Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right about the need for public awareness. The nursery men—the people working closest to the new saplings coming in, and planting them out—say exactly the same: they were unaware. This is a very complex issue. Some 7,000 young saplings have been burned near Honiton, and the disease has turned up south-west of Exeter; we are really worried in the south-west. Should the Government not have given more information earlier?

[Mary Creagh]

If the Government had blown the whistle when Ministers first found out in April, the saplings would probably have been destroyed earlier, but nursery owners would not have lost the income that they spent over the summer tending and caring for those saplings, and they certainly would not have entered into any more contracts. The problem is that they have entered into contracts to buy from overseas, and that will be hugely problematic. Nursery owners have planted the tree seed and spent the money, and all those saplings will now be burned. Also, there has been unprecedented tree planting this year to mark the Queen’s diamond jubilee. That tree-planting effort by the nation to mark a very special event in the nation’s life could unwittingly have spread the disease, so Ministers’ incompetence has cost money.

I want to finish with a chronology of what happened. Even when the ban was announced, it was done quietly. The Minister of State, who is pretty heroic in these sorts of things—he gets all these battlefield commissions—was forced to come to the House to answer my urgent question. There had been no written statement from the Secretary of State and no oral statement. Why are the Government so keen not to talk about ash dieback?

On Friday 2 November, the Secretary of State convened Cobra to discuss the emergency response to ash dieback. That same day, a briefing letter went out—but only to Government MPs. My hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies) raised a point of order with the Speaker about this extraordinary behaviour. Does the Minister not think that, with a national emergency of this size and scale, her Majesty’s Opposition should be kept informed? Why was only one part of the House informed? Do our constituents not deserve to know what is happening to their trees? [Interruption.] I just want to finish this point about biosecurity. May I warn the Minister about the dangers of contradictory advice? The Secretary of State has advised people to wash their children and their dogs when they go to a wood to make sure that they do not transfer the disease to the next wood. On Monday 5 November, however, Martin Ward, chief plant health officer at DEFRA, contradicted him on the “Today” programme:

“It’s not a matter of scrubbing off all of the soil from boots. It’s just a matter of cleaning off the dead leaves…to stop the disease moving…from one site to another.”

[Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)]

Has the hon. Lady looked at the map showing the distribution of Chalara? Is she suggesting that there are no imports in the south-west or anywhere in the west of the country? How else can she explain the distribution map and the epidemiology of the spread of Chalara? It is quite clear that she is just trying to make cheap political points. She needs to look at the map.

[Mary Creagh]

As a scientist, does the hon. Lady understand epidemiology? The dots are all different colours: the red ones represent mature woodlands, and there are others for trees planted out in newly planted sites and nursery sites. The ones in the south-west are in nursery sites: there are no red dots in the south-west, ergo the disease seems to have spread from—[Interruption.] My theory, and it has yet to be disproved—[Interruption.] No, I shall come on to that, but I wish to make progress. I shall explain it to the hon. Lady.

[Barry Gardiner]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mary Creagh]

No, I shall make progress.

We had a 15-minute briefing from the Secretary of State last Wednesday, for which I am grateful, and we discussed the spread of the disease with Ian Boyd, DEFRA’s chief scientist. A document containing 10 key scientific facts was produced last Wednesday. Bullet point 10 said:

“Wind-blown spores may be dispersed up to 20-30 kilometres, (high confidence)”.

I was therefore surprised at the briefing to hear that the infection had blown in on the wind across the channel and the North sea, even though the channel is 30 km wide at its narrowest point. I was even more surprised, as the week went on, to learn that it had blown hundreds of miles across the North sea to infect mature trees in Northumberland and Scotland.

The key scientific facts document is quite clear:

“Longer distance spread occurs via infected plants or potentially via wood products”.

That would explain the infection in the south-west that the hon. Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston) is worried about. However, it is politically inconvenient to have a disease which Ministers knew was in the country, with saplings left to infect their wild and mature cousins. I grew suspicious when I realised that the Forestry Commission's key scientific facts, published on Wednesday, changed over the weekend. Bullet point 10 now says:

“Wind-blown spores cause the disease to spread up to 20-30 km per year”.

The inconvenient fact that the wind blows the spores just 20 to 30 km has completely disappeared. A whole new fact, however, has emerged:

“On occasions, spores may disperse much further on the wind.”

However, unlike every other key scientific fact that is categorised as low, medium or high confidence, there is no scientific reference to back up this new scientific fact, because there is none. As yet, I have not seen any evidence to back up Ministers’ claims about the wind. The disease has moved slowly and predictably across Europe, yet now it has developed new powers to cross great seas on the wind.

Is an alternative scientific theory possible? Is it not possible that ash dieback has spread to mature trees in Northumberland and Scotland from the infected saplings that were planted out last winter and on which the fungus fruited this summer? It is certainly possible, and I would argue more probable than those gusts of wind.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Nurseries have indicated that hundreds of thousands of saplings that they imported from Europe came in because of the “chaotic and unpredictable” system of grants for tree planting on the UK mainland. Is the hon. Lady aware of that? If so, does she think that the disease and the reasons for its spread go much deeper than they appear to do?

[Mary Creagh]

One can argue about the system for woodland grants, but we would argue that it may be much cheaper to grow the ash saplings abroad, which is perhaps one of the reasons landowners choose to buy them from abroad. It is also perhaps why the Horticultural Trades Association wanted the Government to regulate back in 2009, so that there was a level playing field in the industry and so that it did not impose its own voluntary moratorium, allowing others to import cheaper saplings and undercut the market.

What happens next? The Forestry Commission has conducted a tree survey over 29,000 hectares, an area the size of Wales. It has sampled four woodland sites in each 100 square kilometres, giving us a rough idea of where to look next for the disease. As the surveys continue this winter, more disease sites will be found. I have a number of questions for the Minister. First, will he now review the scientific advice he has been given on other tree diseases? Does he have any plans to restrict trade in other species of trees on a precautionary basis? Does his import ban apply to resistant strains of ash species, which are now present in Denmark and, I believe, Lithuania?

Secondly, have the detection and management of the disease been hampered by the cuts to the Forestry Commission? Its budget is being cut from £47.5 million in 2010-11 to £36.2 million in 2014-15. Some 530 staff posts have already been cut and seven regional offices closed. Thirty-eight posts have been cut in Forest Research, with another 22 earmarked to go. These are the scientists and experts who lead the fieldwork on tree health, and they are in the front line in our fight against this disease. Will the Minister review their posts? What assessment has he made of the impact of his Government’s cuts to the Forestry Commission on tackling tree disease?

Thirdly, in 2009, at the request of my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central, the former Secretary of State, the Forestry Commission established a biosecurity programme board, bringing together the industry, NGOs, Forest Research, the Scottish Government, and the Food and Environment Research Agency. What has happened to that board? It appears to have met just twice—in November 2009 and July 2010. The minutes of the final meeting on the Forestry Commission website show that forestry staff had concerns about the Government’s publicity freeze and cancellation of much of the publication budget, yet I know from my discussions over the weekend that the board appears to have continued meeting informally. Was it affected by the re-organisation and cuts at the Forestry Commission?

The Secretary of State told the BBC last Friday that he is re-ordering his Department’s priorities and said:

“There will be some things we do in DEFRA now that we are going to have to stop doing.”

What are those things? And how does he know that not doing them is not storing up a fresh disease problem in the future in another area? Other areas of DEFRA will be quaking as they anticipate fresh cuts on top of the worst settlement of any Government Department.

What contact has the Minister had with councils that are in the front line of dealing with this disease? What advice has he provided to them about council parks? Should they be undertaking surveys of their own trees? The Local Government Association has informed lead officers, but nothing seems to be coming out of the Department for Communities and Local Government.

[Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)]

On that matter, I wrote to my local authority, Rossendale borough council, to which I had this reply:

“The council have not received any prior notification”—

this was last week—

“regarding the disease and only became aware of the issue when it was announced in the media last week.”

Is that not a shambles? Does my hon. Friend not find that staggering?

[Mary Creagh]

I find it amazing that a Department that is presumably present at a Cobra meeting to co-ordinate a national emergency response to a disease is not putting out any formal guidance to councils. Perhaps the Minister can explain that gross dereliction of duty.

Were Transport Ministers present at Cobra meetings? The Highways Agency is constantly planting new trees along its motorway network. What about Network Rail, which has been undertaking a tree-felling programme this summer along the east coast main line, perhaps unwittingly spreading the disease up the east coast? We need answers to these questions.

In conclusion, the British public care deeply about their forests. We saw that in the overwhelming opposition to the Government’s plans to privatise them last year. I am glad to see the right hon. Member for Meriden (Mrs Spelman) in her place; perhaps she can shed some light on some of the history of the disease. The forests now face a new and devastating threat from ash dieback disease. There is a bitter irony here: the Government who wanted to privatise the forests have now been forced to make further drastic cuts in order to fight tree disease. As the triennial review of Natural England and the Forestry Commission approaches, we will watch carefully to ensure that the Secretary of State does not embark on a further round of destabilising upheavals.

We await the scientists’ first report, which will be available by the end of November. We will support the Secretary of State when he does the right thing, but we will challenge him when we feel that he is taking a wrong turn. We will not be excluded from his decision making. This is a vital issue for the British countryside and for our natural environment. All parties must learn the lessons of this disease, slow its spread and safeguard our forests for the next generation to enjoy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Heath]

Clearly we need to educate the hon. Gentleman’s borough council a little more on the signs and symptoms to look for with regard to Chalara fraxinea. It is possible to see retained leaves that are diseased and lesions on the bark, as I saw this morning. Summer is not the only time of year when it is possible to see dieback. I understand that the borough council officials have been unable to see signs of Chalara in his area, but that is because we have found no signs of Chalara in the area either. It is a long way from the English channel.

[Mary Creagh]

So is Edinburgh.

[Mr Heath]

Thank you.

Ash dieback is caused by a fungal pathogen that has been present in Europe since 1992, when the disease was first discovered in Poland. Since then, it has spread to much of central and northern Europe. However, before 2010 the European scientific evidence indicated that the organism responsible for ash dieback was native in Great Britain. It was Hymenoscyphus albidus, which was drawn to the attention of the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) at the time. I understand perfectly his position at the time, because the advice was that it was unlikely to cause significant harm. That belief meant that it would not have been appropriate to use import restrictions to control the disease.

In 2010, new scientific evidence identified the pathogen that caused the disease, which was not known to be present in the UK. That meant that it was identified as a potential threat alongside many other potentially harmful organisms. In the light of that evidence, between 2010 and 2012 the Forestry Commission inspected ash trees across Great Britain—15,000 individual trees located in 8,310 groups. Only 103 trees were found to be suffering from disease, and in none of these was the cause identified as Chalara.

That position changed in February this year, when a routine check by Government plant health inspectors discovered Chalara in a nursery in Buckinghamshire. This finding was confirmed on 7 March, and the UK plant health authorities acted immediately.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mary Creagh]

I find it extraordinary that the original version of the “Key scientific facts” document from Wednesday said:

“Longer-distance spread occurs via infected plants,”

whereas version 2—or version B, or whatever it is—from over the weekend contains this miraculous new scientific fact:

“On occasions, spores may disperse much further on the wind,”

albeit without any scientific reference at all. It seems as though the scientists are desperately trying to cover Ministers’ backs.

[Mr Heath]

Yes, I am sure the hon. Lady is right: we have an international conspiracy of all the leading forestry scientists in the world, who have decided they want to manufacture evidence to fit some theory concocted in the bowels of my Department. I mean, really, grow up! Look at the map, look at the facts, look at the evidence.

Ash Dieback Disease

Mary Creagh Excerpts

Monday 29th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if he will make a statement on the Government’s policy on tackling ash dieback disease.

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

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is today in Cannock Chase visiting woodland, so I will reply in his stead. We are taking the threat posed by Chalara fraxinea—ash dieback disease—extremely seriously. We have today imposed a temporary ban on imports of ash and restrictions on its movement, supported by the results of a shortened consultation with industry on our pests risk assessment. The ban will therefore be effective well before the start of the main UK planting season. Before the ban, the Horticultural Trades Association urged its members to follow a voluntary moratorium on imports throughout the period, which is being well observed.

On discovering Chalara in the UK, plant health authorities took immediate action rapidly to assess ash trees for signs of infection at more than 1,000 sites where ash plants from Europe had been grown or planted in the past five years, and this has resulted in the destruction of 100,000 trees.

[Mary Creagh]

I thank the Minister for his reply.

Over the weekend, the risk facing the UK from ash dieback disease has become apparent. Experts fear that it is the biggest threat to British trees since 25 million trees were killed by Dutch elm disease 30 years ago. It is disappointing that the Secretary of State chose to announce the ban in Staffordshire instead of in person to this House.

We welcome the ban, but the question on everyone’s lips is, “Why did it take so long?” Ash dieback was found last February in a Buckinghamshire nursery. Why did Ministers sit back, cross their fingers and wait until the disease was found in the wild in June? Why did the Horticultural Trades Association act before the Government? Why did the Government’s consultation on an import ban on ash start only on 31 August? Can the Minister give a cast-iron guarantee that no infected trees were planted in the spring, especially after the severe winter? Can he guarantee that no infected trees were imported into the UK over the summer while Ministers dithered? How does he know that people did not import saplings into the country in the boot of their car? Why were landowners and local authorities told of the disease just three weeks ago?

How will the ban be implemented and policed, and how much will it cost? On Saturday, the Secretary of State told the “Today” programme that 58,000 trees had been burned since the disease was identified. The Minister said that within that short 48-hour period the number had been revised up to 100,000. Can he tell us what the number will be by the end of the week? Is it possible to treat and store felled wood so that it can be used productively in future? What assessment has he received of the impact of the disease on jobs in the wood services industry?

In autumn 2011, the Forestry Commission’s pathology bulletin carried the headline “One to watch for—Chalara fraxinea”, and stated that it was

“not yet present in Britain”.

On what date was Chalara fraxinea identified as the pathogen that causes ash dieback and when were Ministers informed? They cannot say that they were not warned as an internal Forestry Commission document warned that cuts meant that there would be

“no capacity to deal with the costs of disease or other calamity.”

The Forestry Commission trade unions’ evidence to the Science and Technology Committee stated:

“Forest research in Great Britain is already funded at a minimal level, and will be drastically under-funded as the cuts proceed.”

This Government cut the Forestry Commission’s cash by 25%, closed seven regional offices, and cut 250 staff. They have cut funding for forest research from £12 million a year to £7 million a year. The Forestry Commission’s website details the difficulty that scientists had in identifying the deadly form of the fungal infection, and those cuts reduced the commission’s ability to identify and tackle tree disease.

We welcome the creation of a tree disease taskforce under Professor Ian Boyd to deal with this crisis. We also welcome the app that is being launched to crowd-source the disease—I am surprised that the Minister did not mention it—although with leaf fall already under way this is, again, too little too late. After the forest sell-off fiasco, this incompetent Government have been asleep on the job with ash dieback. Like Nero, Ministers fiddled, and now it is our forests that will burn.

[Mr Heath]

It is sadly predictable that when we have a serious condition that could have enormous consequences with which we are trying to deal as a country, the first thing the hon. Lady thinks is, “How can we blame the Government rather than deal with the disease?” She asked why the Secretary of State was not here today. It is because he is talking to people who are dealing with the disease; he is talking to foresters and making sure that we are taking all necessary precautions.

The hon. Lady asked why nothing was done in February. Of course something was done in February—we acted straight away under the previous Secretary of State. Once the first United Kingdom finding of Chalara was confirmed in March, plant health authorities prepared a pest risk analysis. No previous national or international pest risk analysis existed, partly because until 2010—[Interruption.] The hon. Lady would do well to listen to the background to this. Until 2010, there was widespread scientific uncertainty over the identity of the causal organism. That is actually an international issue, rather than an issue in this country.

Since the disease was intercepted, plant health authorities have been carrying out intensive surveillance and monitoring, chasing forward movements of ash plants from infected nurseries and inspecting trees in the vicinities of infected sites to ascertain where the disease may be present in the wider environment. That enormous ongoing task involves well over 1,000 sites, and it is as a consequence of that that the 100,000 trees have been destroyed.

The hon. Lady asked for a guarantee that no infected material came in during the voluntary moratorium, but of course I cannot guarantee that. I can say that no commercial imports took place, because of the action that we took, but I cannot guarantee that no one brought back a little ash sapling in the boot of their car. I hope that they did not, but I cannot guarantee it.

The hon. Lady may not understand that this is an airborne disease and that the incidence of the disease in mature trees in East Anglia had not previously been suspected—it is likely to have been carried on the wind over the channel. Now that we have discovered it, we have immediately taken the action required.

Finally, the hon. Lady was quite wrong about resources, because there has been no reduction in those for plant health and tree health in this country, as she would ascertain were she to speak to the Forestry Commission.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mary Creagh Excerpts

Thursday 25th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)]

We know that the spending power of hard-working families is being hit by the Government’s flatlining economy and wage stagnation. Shoppers are using self-imposed rationing, putting products back at the checkout and skipping meals to feed their children, yet the Secretary of State has urged shoppers to tackle his so-called “dessert deficit” by eating more UK-produced ice cream. Does he ever feel that he is living in a parallel universe?

[Mr Heath]

This may come as news to the hon. Lady, but there are people in this country who still eat ice cream, and on the whole it is better if they eat British products rather than those imported from overseas. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is absolutely right.

[Mary Creagh]

The Minister’s right hon. Friend is in danger of becoming the Marie Antoinette of the Cabinet, but perhaps I should move on.

Last week, the Secretary of State announced the abolition of the Agricultural Wages Board, and the Minister has spoken about the existence of poverty, in particular rural poverty. More than 1,000 workers in the Secretary of State’s constituency will be worse off as a result of his decision, and his own impact assessment states that abolishing the board will take £238 million of pay over 10 years from rural workers and the rural economy—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I must ask the shadow Secretary of State to relate her question to food prices, not wages, and in a short sentence.

[Mary Creagh]

The abolition of the Agricultural Wages Board will take money out of the pockets of workers and put it in those of their employers. On the Opposition Benches we believe that the person who picks the apple should be able to buy the fruit. Why does the Minister not agree?

[Mr Heath]

The national minimum wage is doing a good job of putting a floor under wages in this country, and I see no reason to have extra bureaucracy on top of that.