European Pig Industry

Debate between Richard Bacon and James Paice

Wednesday 30th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Sir James Paice (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend on raising this hugely important issue for our pig industry. May I caution him about the use of the word “compliance”, however? We are talking here about compliance with the EU directive, but that directive does not meet the standards on our statute book in this country. The EU directive allows farmers in other member states to continue to keep sows in stalls for, I think, the first 21 days, while they are being served —or mated—for the future. Therefore, every other farm in Europe is entitled to have some sow stalls on their farm for that reason, but they are completely banned in our country, so even European farmers who are in compliance with the regulation are not necessarily keeping their pigs to the high standards we uphold in this country.

[Mr Bacon]

I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend, who has probably forgotten more about this subject than I will ever know, for pointing that out. In a way, that makes my point even more strongly: even though the word “compliance” must be treated with care, such farmers are not able to reach even that lower standard, which shows how much further there is to go.

Of course, in this country we do have farrowing crates for sows that are giving birth, which I support. That is the safest and best method. I have been in pig houses and watched the process, and it is the right thing to do. The British Pig Executive is sponsoring research into other methods, but at the moment that is the best technology we have, and I support it.

The problem, however, is that, of the top 10 pigmeat-producing nations in the EU in terms of production tonnage, only Romania and the UK are fully compliant, and they are ninth and tenth respectively. The top eight countries, by volume of meat produced, are non-compliant. They include Germany, with 6 million tonnes; Spain, with 3.5 million tonnes; France, with just under 2 million tonnes; and Poland, with 1.8 million tonnes. The vast majority of the big producers are not compliant. In other words, the biggest pork producers are those who have made the least effort to comply with the law and who have benefited accordingly from lower costs. This is more than a question of fairness or a matter of principle. Poor harvests last year have resulted in very high feed costs. That is fine for wheat farmers, but for pig farmers, who rely on buying feed, it is not fine at all, and means that many farmers are under great financial pressure.

If illegal farms either complied with the law, as they should, or stopped producing pork altogether, that would tighten the supply chain and lift pork prices, creating a much brighter future for those who have made substantial investments in making sure the pork they produce is legal. It now falls to the European Commission to work with member states to enforce the protection of pigs directive. However, the Commission’s attempts to enforce it are already going awry. An inadvertent and unofficial derogation has already been granted to Ireland and France, after the European Commission gave them an extension to the deadline for applying for funding for pig farmers who have yet to convert their pig houses. Ireland has until September 2013 to access the funds. In the case of France, a quarter of French pig farmers remain non-compliant.

Together, Ireland and France account for 2.25 million tonnes, or just over 10%, of EU pork production. Interestingly, that is more than the total combined production of the 10 member states that are fully compliant, which between them manage only 2.23 million tonnes, or 9.97%, of EU pork production. Ideally, the money should be withheld until the French and Irish farmers expecting these funds can prove that any illegal sow houses have been empty since new year’s eve, although I recognise that in practice that would be very difficult to achieve.

However, there are three things the Government can do now that would make a real difference to British pig farmers and help to stop illegal pigmeat entering the UK. First, effective enforcement of the directive must begin at home. The Government must ensure absolute clarity in their own buying standards for pork and other pigmeat products. This affects purchasing for schools, the NHS, the armed forces, local government canteens and every other public sector body. By now, every tier of government, from Whitehall to the town hall, should be making sure they are not buying meat that has been produced illegally, and that they know they are not. The Government need to make sure that people in the public sector are aware of this obligation.

However, it is not enough for Government buyers simply to rely on suppliers’ assurances of compliance. The Government must show leadership by making certain that all their suppliers operate a traceable supply chain that procures pork and pigmeat from legally compliant sources. The Minister will recall that at the pig industry summit which I hosted in November, he undertook to write to Government Departments reminding them of their obligations. I look forward to receiving an update from him on this matter and hearing more about what the Government are doing in this area.

Secondly, retailers and food service companies, having been shown leadership by the Government in the way I suggest, should be strongly encouraged to adopt full traceability, so that any pigmeat products they sell are guaranteed to come from legal sources. Such companies should then be expected to have fully transparent systems in place to guarantee that to their customers. The need for full and open traceability has been aptly demonstrated by the recent detection of horse DNA in beefburgers. That discovery not only inspired the largest accumulation of equine puns known to mankind, but illustrated the importance of a fully transparent supply chain.

Tesco chief executive, Philip Clarke, wrote the following in his “Talking Shop” blog:

“We expect our suppliers to deliver to a standard, and to meet basic food traceability rules. But our customers shop with Tesco, not our suppliers, so you won’t find us hiding behind suppliers. It’s our job to ensure they are meeting our high standards.”

I commend Tesco for its speed in reassuring customers and withdrawing suspect products from sale, but the key lesson to take from the scandal is that food traceability rules need to be strengthened significantly. Retailers, processors and food manufacturers know that improved traceability is difficult, but they also know that it is possible. They need to be pressed for commitments to guarantee traceability that extend to branded products such as Wall’s, as much as to supermarkets’ own brands. Claiming either to have assurances from a supplier or to have no control over branded products can no longer be regarded as sufficient.

I am indebted to the National Pig Association for sharing with me an encouraging letter from Mr Martyn Jones, corporate services director for the supermarket Morrisons, to NPA chairman Richard Longthorp. The letter stated that Morrisons’

“commitment to the integrity and transparency of our offer remains paramount. For the pork and pork products we are importing from the EU, we have been clear to suppliers of both branded and tertiary products that this must meet the requirements of the new pig welfare directive”.

I very much welcome Morrisons’ commitment to the transparency of the supply chain. Every company within a supply chain should have sourcing policies that can prove beyond doubt that the pork they are using or selling was legally produced. I am sure that the Minister will join me in encouraging other retailers to follow Morrisons’ example. I would welcome his comments on how that might be achieved.

Finally, what must be avoided at all costs is a further protracted period before 100% compliance across the EU is finally achieved. The European Commission has a responsibility in that regard; it can and should be demanding to see deliverable action plans from non-compliant countries. In the meantime, we should stop illegal pork and pork products from entering the country. Non-compliant nations must be pressed for specific guarantees on when they intend to reach full compliance, rather than some vague promise to be delivered by some indeterminate date. To encourage them, we should refuse to allow illegally produced meat to enter the United Kingdom.

Member states have had more than a decade to move towards full compliance with the directive, so there are no excuses. We used to have to say that British farmers faced unfair competition from imported meat that was produced overseas using methods that would be illegal in the UK. Now, British pig farmers face unfair competition from imported meat produced overseas using methods that are illegal overseas, too—we cannot accept that. We must bear in mind what happened in the poultry industry. It had a far greater number of regulations, agreements and testing regimes than the pig industry to help enforce the directive on the welfare of laying hens. Nevertheless, a year on from the original January 2012 deadline, an estimated 5% of Europe’s egg production still comes from chickens in conventional battery cages.

The British pig industry receives no subsidies—pig farmers live and die by the market—yet farmers across Europe who are in full compliance with their obligations are being undercut by illegally produced pork and pigmeat. Above all, what pig farmers across the UK want, and indeed what compliant pig farmers across the continent want, is a level playing field. Those nations edging towards full compliance have the largest number of pigs in the EU and they have also had more than a decade to get their house in order.

Of course, I would ideally wish to see British pork as the first and only choice for consumers, retailers, the Government and the whole public sector. But right now what matters most is preventing British pig farmers from being continually undercut by illegal pig products that should not be on the shelves at all and should not be in this country at all. The UK’s pig farmers have had to put up with an unfair market for 13 years, and that is far too long. The law is now finally on their side, and I expect the Government to ensure that the law is enforced.

Pig Farming

Debate between Richard Bacon and James Paice

Wednesday 23rd March 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mr Paice]

The answer to the first part of my hon. Friend’s question is that we constantly tell the Commission that when a rule is introduced, every country should comply with it, and that there should be no derogations. He is right in saying that we have not seen any proposals for enforcement, and I am not aware that we have seen any assessment of what stage other countries are at. There were efforts to do that with conventional battery cages, but there were difficulties. The matter is important, and I will chase it up to see whether there has been any assessment of what other countries have done. To be fair, we know that many countries with a significant number of pig farmers, such as Denmark, which is a major pig producing country, have converted, but I cannot tell my hon. Friend precisely what the proportions are and how many remain to convert.

The hon. Member for Glasgow North East challenged me on whether we would support an intra-EU ban on those countries that have not introduced the measure. I shall be completely honest, as I always try to be. We have not considered that yet, but he makes a valid point. I made the point about eggs, and there is no logical reason why we should not do the same for pigmeat. However, we want everyone to convert, and until we see some sort of assessment, we cannot speculate too much, but I entirely accept the hon. Gentleman’s point.

I have just been passed a note saying that no official information is available about how far EU countries have moved towards complying with the directive. Denmark and the Netherlands have said that they will comply, but the situation in some other countries is different and vaguer. There are different rules on castration and tail-docking in different countries, and there is a competitiveness issue. Some hon. Members referred to supermarket specifications and, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk said, claims by Tesco and others about their supply sources. It is reasonable and acceptable, of course, for retailers to ensure that their supply chains comply with British standards, and it is not in the Government’s gift to check whether they do. There is no doubt that tail-docking and castration rules are different in other countries, and it is only right and proper that they should insist on the same standards. I shall return to the supermarket issue.

That leads me to my last point on welfare. My hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) referred to pigs being kept outdoors. Anyone who drives through Suffolk and South Norfolk will see that tens of thousands of sows are kept outdoors, even through the recent winter and the snow before Christmas. There is no doubt that keeping pigs outdoors is more expensive in production costs. Productivity is lower, there are not so many pigs a year from the sows, and growth rates are slightly affected. Those systems are being adopted because the drive for better welfare from retailers has pushed them that way, but higher management standards are required and farmers do not receive the price for their pigs that that higher standard demands.

I was with a group of Agriculture Ministers in Belgium before Christmas, and we were taken to a modern, highly efficient Belgian pig farm operated in totally enclosed buildings, where the hygiene must have been incredible, as there was no disease. Nevertheless, there were just spartan, bare shelves with a few rubber balls hanging on chains for the pigs to play with. Those pigs compete with our pigs, which are reared outdoors. Apparently, British consumers prefer pigs that have been reared outdoors, but they are not always told about it.

My hon. Friends referred to the overall issue of supply, and to dioxins, which was a problem from Germany that we had in January. The Commission introduced a private purchase scheme for a short space of time, and some pigmeat was taken off the market, which helped for a while. What concerned me was the allegation—I say only that—that certain supermarkets were dropping their British suppliers because the European mainland market was awash with cheap pigmeat as a result of the dioxin scare. To me, that undermines the claims made by my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk about supermarkets looking after our sector.

[Mr Bacon]

As the Minister said, it is not in the Government’s gift to check whether claims made by supermarkets about animal welfare standards are adhered to by overseas producers whose products the supermarkets import. Even if the Government cannot do that, however, does the Minister agree that there is an interest on the part of consumers and of Government in knowing whether such claims are true?

[Mr Paice]

My hon. Friend is right and we stand four-square behind the assertion that it is important that the consumer be properly informed about what is available for sale. There should be an effective traceability chain that can verify the claims made on the label.

At this point, I should probably discuss the issue of labelling. I welcome my hon. Friend’s Bill, but he knows as well as I do that there are question marks—to say the least—about the legality of the UK legislating alone on food labelling. There is good news, however, and since we came to office, two things have happened. The hon. Member for Glasgow North East made a point about the pigmeat supply chain taskforce and the code agreed with the industry. That happened before we took office, and I am the first to recognise that. Since we took office, a bigger agreement on all meat has taken place between the supermarkets, the meat trade, the catering and hospitality trades and the producers, resulting in a much broader voluntary code of practice concerning country of origin labelling. That is the key issue. That code is now in place, and we are currently doing an evaluation exercise to baseline it so that we can measure progress in the future.

Alongside that, there are negotiations on the EU food information regulation. Since taking office, we have toughened up the UK’s approach to support the idea of mandatory labelling for meat and meat products, and that is what the regulation currently requires. As my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk says, there is a long way to go and I do not want to forecast the outcome. At the moment, however, the food information regulation would achieve what he seeks with his Bill, except that it would apply not only in the UK but across the EU. That is the best way forward, and potentially that is encouraging news.

My hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) asked about regional labels. There is nothing to stop anybody from marketing and using regional labels, and we strongly support protected name indicators—PNIs—in principle. The two examples I give will not make or break the pig industry, but Gloucester Old Spot pigmeat, and more recently Cumberland sausages, both in the pigmeat world, have been approved for that status. PNIs are a marketing tool, but like any other form of marketing they are effective only if the labelling is honest about the country of origin where the pig was born, reared and slaughtered. That is the point about labelling espoused by my hon. Friend.

[Mr Bacon]

Does the Minister agree that the most important thing about labelling, including mandatory labelling, is to stamp on the canard that giving full, accurate information to consumers somehow distorts the market, because consumers might act on that information? The only possible consequence of accurate food labelling is to assist the clear operation of market preferences.

[Mr Paice]

I entirely agree. We are constantly told by retailers, “We are doing what the consumer demands.” Well, let the consumer demand, but make sure that they are properly informed so that we know that the demand is genuine. There is no reason for anybody, whether producer or retailer, to be afraid of the consumer, and we should not be afraid of consumers being properly informed.

I will touch on the two final issues raised by hon. Members. First, the coalition Government are committed to introducing Government buying standards, and we are on schedule to do so. Some parts of that relate to food but concern health, rather than the DEFRA rules on food, so I will concentrate on pigmeat. Our clear objective is that we should spend taxpayers’ money only on food that has been produced to British standards, as long as it does not cost any more—there are plenty of examples and pieces of casework to demonstrate that it will not cost more. That is only right and fair, and it means using farm assurance schemes as benchmarks to ensure that it takes place. That objective is on schedule.

My final point, on which I have been challenged, concerns the adjudicator. That is the responsibility of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and it is clear that the Department is determined to go forward with it. I was asked about its role, and the adjudicator will investigate complaints from anyone in the supply chain who has been affected, either directly or indirectly, by what they believe to be a breach of the code. Furthermore, the issue can be dealt with anonymously. Those are the two big issues that we will see when the legislation is published.

Finally, let me turn to the wider issue of supermarkets. I must resist the temptation to identify individual supermarkets and say what each is doing, because I do not have full knowledge of that. Morrisons is distinct, because it has its own abattoirs, unlike any other supermarket. That is why it buys pigs from the farmer as opposed to from a processer, as other supermarkets do. Usually, however, supermarkets are closely involved in sourcing their meat.

I entirely share the general thrust of the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk, and those of everybody else who has spoken. If supermarkets and retailers believe that future consumers will want to buy British pigmeat, they have a responsibility to ensure the supply of British pigmeat for the future, and that lies behind the adjudicator and the code. The Competition Commission’s conclusions were not about farmers but about consumers. It was concerned that retailers were shifting too much risk on to the supply side, and that in future the consumer might lose because the supply side was constrained. Therefore, it is in the interests of the consumer to ensure a supply of British pigmeat for the future. I share the view held by my hon. Friends that although no one pretends that there is a single solution to the challenges we face, supermarkets have a big role to play. To be fair, it is not only Morrisons that takes the more responsible line to which my hon. Friend referred.

I am grateful for the compliments that I have received from hon. Friends about my feelings on this matter, but that is not really important. What matters is what the Government do, and we have made a pledge on the adjudicator and are making dramatic progress on the labelling front and on Government buying standards. We have dealt with the issue of potential GM contamination of imports, and we are determined to do everything we can in an industry that, as others have said, is unsubsidised and vitally important. I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Richard Bacon and James Paice

Thursday 17th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Richard Bacon (South Norfolk) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend think that customers of Tesco and other supermarkets would be surprised if they understood the disgusting animal welfare practices that those supermarkets support by importing meat produced under such poor animal welfare conditions? Is not the answer for British consumers to go to supermarkets such as Morrisons, which has a 100% British meat policy?

[Mr Paice]

I am sure that consumers have heard what my hon. Friend says without me getting into an internecine war between retailers. What really matters is that the consumer is properly informed of the benefits of buying British pigmeat. That is why the Government are keen, as he is, on country of origin labelling.