Oral Answers to Questions

Neil Parish Excerpts

Thursday 4th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paice]

I can say to my hon. Friend quite clearly that the most important thing that anybody who wants to employ migrant labour—or, indeed, any non-local labour—should do is ensure that they are dealing with a licensed gangmaster. They should ask to see the certificate or licence of the gangmaster proposing to bring the labour on to the farm. That way they can all be reassured they are doing the right thing.

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

18. What steps her Department is taking to assist the farming industry to become more competitive.

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

I refer my hon. Friend to the answer I gave a few moments ago.

[Neil Parish]

This country has a highly competitive pig and poultry industry that is completely unsubsidised and relies heavily on imported feed. Will the Minister assure us that we can get a greater threshold when allowing imports of non-genetically modified feed into the country, otherwise we will export our industry abroad?

[Mr Paice]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. Discussions are taking place in Europe about the threshold for the import of GM soya, predominantly, which is what he is talking about, and I can assure him that we will be taking a constructive view to those negotiations. Quite clearly it would be pointless to deprive our livestock sector of something in a way that simply means we import more livestock products that have been fed on GM food.