Badger Cull

Russell Brown Excerpts

Thursday 13th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)]

I rise in support of the motion. I congratulate colleagues on both sides of the House who tabled the motion and I thank the Backbench Business Committee for enabling the debate to take place. It has become clear over recent weeks and months that some colleagues who initially supported a cull are now beginning seriously to question that position. I thank the hon. Member for St Albans (Mrs Main), who, I appreciate, has now left the Chamber, because she was one of the first people to draw to my attention some serious reservations about what the Government had done.

The starting point on this issue and the common ground we are probably all on is that we do have a serious problem in England with bovine TB. So how do we reach agreement on reducing the scale of the problem, leading hopefully to its eradication? Both sides need to be honest. Under the previous Government we spent 10 years and some £50 million on trialling culls, and the outcome was no real meaningful contribution to eradicating TB in cattle. With the recent pilot culls we have witnessed an abject failure for farmers, taxpayers and wildlife.

The two pilot culls failed to achieve their own success criterion of culling 70% of badgers in six weeks. Against sound science, they were extended and spectacularly failed again to cull target numbers. The leaked IEP report shows that DEFRA failed to meet its main test for humaneness, as we have already heard this afternoon and will no doubt hear again—

[Mr Harper]

I take a particular interest because one of the cull areas covered a significant part of my constituency, and I am interested in the humaneness of the tests. I think that today’s debate, in asking the House to take a view, is premature. I meant what I said. I was disappointed that my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) did not take my intervention, which was why I raised a point of order. I want to see that report in its entirety to be able to make a judgment about the cull as carried out and also, if the culls continue, whether there need to be any changes. Does the hon. Gentleman think that the House needs to see that report before it can reach a proper decision?

[Mr Brown]

I respect the hon. Gentleman, but his own Government, Ministers and the Secretary of State have done nothing to give anyone any confidence in what was going on. Perhaps we will hear from the Minister later, but the constant delay has done nothing more than make people extremely suspicious about what was going on. It was almost as if there was an attempt to find reasons why what was done was correct. So he and I will have to part company there because I am not convinced that what he is saying is correct.

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that that shows the danger of Governments trying to be seen to be doing something when they have no idea what to do? In this case, it has resulted in great cruelty and a failure.

[Mr Brown]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. Let us be honest: from time to time, we in this Chamber should realise that no one side has a monopoly on the answers to the problems, whether those problems are in our rural communities or our cities, although we must recognise that certain views sometimes need to be more respected on certain occasions.

I was referring to the leaked report and to the issue of humaneness. It has been suggested that no more than 5% of the badgers should take more than five minutes to die, but the IEP found that the actual figure was between 6.4% and 18%. Over time, the Opposition have made a series of reasonable, rational and, importantly, cross-party requests of the Government, none of which has been met to date.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend not agree that the Government entered into this with a preconceived idea about their approach and with a closed mind, particularly the Secretary of State? As anybody who has watched any of the television interviews knows, he would not consider anything else, but his methods have led to abject failure.

[Mr Brown]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, which takes me back to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry). It is about making it look as if something is being done, but, all too often, it results in even more damage.

[Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman that the badger cull was the wrong thing to do and that we should have followed Scotland’s example, as it achieved BTB-free status in 2009 without culling anything. However, he must acknowledge the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath), which he also announced when he was a Minister: the Government have also done the right thing by restricting cattle movement, which is probably a contributory factor in the fact that bovine TB incidence is now falling in England.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. Mr Brown, you are being very generous in giving way to other Members, but may I gently remind you that we have agreed to keep our remarks to eight or nine minutes, including interventions? I hope that will mean that those intervening will eventually be able to speak.

[Mr Brown]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I must say that I have been known to be generous to a fault on many an occasion.

All I can say to the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) is that I had not realised that my writing was that large, as he has obviously seen what I am about to say. The story is totally different in other parts of the UK. In Wales, there has been a significant and substantial reduction in the disease, with decline at twice the rate of that in England. That has been achieved without culling but with badger vaccination and stringent measures on cattle that have been handled properly. In Northern Ireland, bovine TB is declining at a faster rate than in the south, where culling is taking place. As the hon. Gentleman has said, in Scotland we are fortunate—I shall put it no more strongly than that—to be clear of bovine TB, but we are not complacent and tight biosecurity is in place.

My hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) is absolutely correct that this is about biosecurity and vaccination. Whether Members will accept it or not, there is a small army of volunteers who want to engage with farmers and others to try to eradicate the disease through a vaccination scheme.

Professor Rosie Woodroffe, a leading badger ecologist, questioned the licence extensions and their potential to increase the spread of TB through perturbation. She said that going from six to 14 weeks, as happened in the Gloucestershire cull area, was uncharted territory—so it is about things being seen to be done rather than about grappling with the issue. In November, she said:

“It is not unreasonable to expect that as you prolong the cull and you prolong increased badger movement, you increase the detrimental effects.”

In December, she said:

“It’s very likely that so far this cull will have increased the TB risk for cattle inside the Gloucestershire cull zone rather than reducing it…Culling low numbers of badgers, over a prolonged period, during these winter months, are all associated with increased TB.”

I hope that those who are now thinking seriously about what has happened will realise that it is an issue not of crying over spilt milk but of seeing that we have it wrong and asking about the scale on which we have it wrong. I hope that Members will support the consideration of vaccination and tight biosecurity so that we can make some moves towards eradicating this terrible disease from our countryside.

Agricultural Wages Board

Russell Brown Excerpts

Wednesday 24th April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mary Creagh]

Absolutely. The Secretary of State has not only 1,120 agricultural workers, but a food bank, in his constituency, so that is an excellent point very well made.

[Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)]

I apologise, Mr Deputy Speaker, for being late into the Chamber and further apologise if my point has already been mentioned. I want to highlight to my hon. Friend that not long after the previous Labour Government introduced the national minimum wage, the Conservative party called for the abolition of the AWB, saying that the national minimum wage would cover it, which clearly it would not.

[Mary Creagh]

Clearly, the national minimum wage does not cover it all, which is why it was not abolished under various previous Tory Governments. Various Conservative Prime Ministers understood that if someone’s house was provided by their employer, they were in a uniquely vulnerable position when it came to negotiating their wages.

Many small farmers want to keep the AWB so that they do not have to become employment specialists. They want to get on with running their business. Instead, this change will add to their regulatory burden. The Farmers’ Union of Wales, where 12,000 workers are covered by the AWB, opposes abolition. It has said:

“Many farms in Wales run with relatively few staff, or indeed with family labour. The Agricultural Wages Board is considered an important means of avoiding potential conflict and lengthy negotiations with individual members of staff.”

Without the AWB, each farm business owner will have to negotiate terms and conditions annually with its work force. They will make mistakes, as employers sometimes do, and might end up in employment tribunals as a result.

I want to quote again from one of the consultation responses. A farmer in Kings Lynn said:

“I disagree strongly with the abolition of the Agricultural Wages Board...the last thing I want to do with my limited management time is to negotiate wages with my 6 full-time and up to 30 part-time workers some of whom have worked for me for 30 to 40 years and have a strong personal relationship with me. I do not want to damage this by having to negotiate wages with them.”

The hon. Member for Sherwood (Mr Spencer) asked why farming was different. I think that that answers his question.

We have talked about gangmasters and licensing and, before I conclude, I want to touch briefly on the issue of workers’ accommodation. The Government’s impact assessment indicates that 25,500 farm workers have a house or cottage provided by their employer, and that another 4,700 live in other accommodation, such as caravans. The agricultural wages order defines “other” accommodation and guarantees all farm workers that it is fit for human habitation, safe and secure, and that every worker should have a bed for their sole use and be provided with suitable and sufficient free drinking water and sanitation.

Abolishing the AWB will remove those guarantees on housing for farm workers. The accommodation will no longer have to be fit for human habitation, safe or secure. Workers will not be guaranteed a bed for their sole use, and there will be no requirement to provide drinking water or sanitation. I should like to cite the case of one of the firms that wrote in support of the AWB’s abolition, Suffolk Mushrooms. Last year, the firm was fined £10,000 for failing to have a safety certificate for the boiler in the men’s accommodation, and for various hazardous working practices that put workers’ lives at risk, including leaving high-level safety gates open. After the case was won, the Health and Safety Executive inspector, John Claxton, said:

“Suffolk Mushrooms invested more than £1.5 million refurbishing its factory and mushroom growing equipment, yet failed to spend even a few hundred pounds to keep its employees safe”.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

I begin by telling the hon. Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart) that it is not just Conservative Members who represent rural areas; many of us on the Opposition Benches represent large rural communities, know them, understand them, live in them and want to represent them in the House today.

In this week of praise for great Prime Ministers of the 20th century, I would like to add my words of praise for Clement Attlee for introducing the original legislation in 1948. I do so not to look back more than 60 years to the conditions in 1948, but to put it on the record that these things matter today for my constituents and those of other Opposition Members.

[Mr Russell Brown]

I represent a constituency north of the border, where this discussion has no real relevance or impact, but farm worker constituents who have contacted me are in solidarity with their colleagues in England and Wales and say that what is going on is absolutely wrong. I appreciate that the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) says that he has not been contacted, but I have. Perhaps his constituents have not contacted him because they have no trust in what he is doing.

[Mr Hanson]

This issue certainly matters to people across the whole of the United Kingdom because, even though the AWB is for England and Wales, its abolition will have an impact throughout the UK.

In my constituency, 235 businesses are involved in agriculture and farming, and more than 11% of my constituents work in the agricultural sector. The market town of Mold in my constituency depends not only on the cattle and agriculture markets to bring people in, but on the wages of people who work in agriculture to maintain its shops, business and rural community.

Horsemeat

Russell Brown Excerpts

Tuesday 12th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paterson]

My hon. Friend raises an important question that came up yesterday. We have to take note of the clear advice given by the chief medical officer yesterday:

“It’s understandable that people will be concerned, but it is important to emphasise that even if bute is found to be present at low levels, there is a very low risk indeed that it would cause any harm to health”.

The meat content of the lasagne that was mentioned at the weekend, for example, was as low as 15%, so one would have to eat an extraordinarily large amount of this material to ingest a quantity of bute that would exceed the warning of the chief medical officer.

[Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mr Tom Harris (Glasgow South) (Lab)]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Gwynne]

rose—

[Mr Russell Brown]

rose—

[Mr Paterson]

I will give way to the hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Mr Brown), because he tried to intervene earlier.

[Mr Brown]

The Secretary of State has spoken of criminal and fraudulent activity, as he did yesterday. There are many cases of contamination. Is he indicating that we are witnessing organised criminal activity?

Horsemeat (Food Fraud)

Russell Brown Excerpts

Monday 11th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paterson]

I would not use the word “contaminated”; these products are “adulterated”. This is a case of fraud and mis-labelling; there is no evidence at all that these products are in any way a threat to human health. I have discussed this with Commissioner Borg today, and there is absolutely no reason under the current arrangements of European law to provide a basis for a ban. Should we find a product that is injurious to human health, we would obviously act very rapidly. The Commissioner agreed that in those circumstances we would put out a notice around Europe and all take unilateral action.

[Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)]

We would all dearly like to eat anything marked with a red tractor or a Scottish saltire, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah) said, what families eat depends on the household budget. The right hon. Gentleman is right to say that the retailers are responsible for what is sold, but he is responsible for the pace at which this moves forward. We are losing confidence in what people are buying, and if we do not move forward quickly, it will cause reputational damage to the agricultural industry. Will he move this on at a greater pace, and what has he done in respect of speaking to colleagues in Scotland?

Food Poverty

Russell Brown Excerpts

Wednesday 12th December 2012 Westminster Hall

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure, Sir Alan, to serve under your chairmanship for the second time. I thank the Speaker’s office for the opportunity to raise this serious issue. It is less than two weeks until Christmas, which should be a time for people and their families to celebrate and relax. I want to speak on behalf of the thousands of households throughout the United Kingdom that will be worrying about whether they can feed themselves and their children.

We have seen the longest double-dip recession since records began in 1955, and we are in the midst of a cost of living crisis. We have seen an explosion in food poverty as households struggle with higher living costs, frozen wages, reduced working hours, and changes in welfare. The rising food poverty scandal is a national disgrace. I shall refer to two headline figures that I will talk about in more detail in a moment. Last year, the food redistributed by FareShare contributed to more than 8.6 million meals, and fed 36,500 people every day. The Trussell Trust, which operates a network of food banks throughout the country—I will speak about it in more detail in a moment—estimates that it will have fed 230,000 people in 2012-13. That is nearly double the number of people it fed in 2011-12, and the trust warns that Christmas is looking even bleaker for families on the breadline.

I want to speak about the extent of the problem, having given two headline statistics. What is the problem? FareShare states:

“Food poverty is suffered by people with low or no income with poor access to affordable nutritious food and who lack the knowledge, skills or equipment to ensure food is safe and prepared properly.”

We know from the latest Joseph Rowntree Foundation figures that 13.2 million people in the country live in poverty. A recent shocking report by Save the Children, which was released in September, just a few months ago, found that well over half of parents in poverty—61%—say that they have cut back on food. More than a quarter—26%—say that they have skipped meals in the past year.

Another serious issue that I will come to in more detail is that four in five parents in poverty say that they had to borrow money to pay for essentials, including food and clothes, in the past year.

[Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. She referred to the Save the Children report, which states that one parent said:

“A year or so ago, we literally relied on any money we raised at car boot sales to pay for food for the week. Some weeks weren’t too bad, others were dire. The British weather decided how we lived that week (when it rained, the turnout at car boot sales fell).”

Is it not a tragedy in 21st century Britain that people must go to car boot sales to raise money for food to feed their family?

[Luciana Berger]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, which I am sure is the first of many that will share personal stories about people’s experiences. I called for the debate because it is a national scandal that in the 21st century, in one of the world’s most industrialised nations, there is an explosion in food poverty and the creation of food banks. That is why I and many other hon. Members have raised the matter in Parliament, and will continue to do so.

Fisheries

Russell Brown Excerpts

Thursday 6th December 2012 Westminster Hall

[Mr Doran]

The hon. Lady has direct experience of what I am discussing and is an expert in the field. I am happy to have been a member of the Committee that debated her Bill. She has made an extremely important point.

[Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. Like the hon. Member for Southend West (Mr Amess), I need to leave shortly; I need to be in the main Chamber shortly for the second debate. On health and safety, we all recognise how dangerous a job it is out there on the open seas, but exploitation is occurring as well. I draw to the attention of my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen North (Mr Doran) and other hon. Members the police operation in my area yesterday, which stretched into west Cumbria and up into the Aberdeen and Peterhead area. It looked like that was a result of illegal immigrants, and potentially even people trafficking. The police said yesterday in their second statement:

“Our primary objectives are to ensure the human rights of these workers are being respected and to gather evidence against those who may have been involved in their alleged exploitation.”

I am sure that my hon. Friend would agree that such activity does nothing for the good name of the fishing industry.

[Mr Doran]

I agree with my hon. Friend entirely. He was good enough to tell me about that issue yesterday and I will refer to it at length later in my speech, but I thank him for that contribution.

Returning to the problem of safety in the North sea and the UK fishing industry, I have the most recent stats from the marine accident investigation branch for 2011, which show that there were 58 major injuries or fatalities in the industry, and eight of those were fatalities, so the rate is 7.5 per 1,000 people employed. It is more than twice the number of the next most dangerous industry, water and waste management, which has an accident rate of 3.3 per 1,000, and it is three and half times as many as the construction industry, which is often quoted as the most dangerous industry, with an accident rate of 2.2 per 1,000 people employed. All those figures are based on the Office for National Statistics business register and employment survey. According to the MAIB, the number of marine vessels lost was 24, which was a significant increase on the previous two years—in 2009, 15 were lost, while 14 were lost in 2010. Those are shocking figures.

Oral Answers to Questions

Russell Brown Excerpts

Thursday 25th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Richard Benyon]

My hon. Friend might like to encourage those villages to apply for the third round of the rural community broadband fund. That will be running from January, so there is time for his communities to get their bids in. He makes a good point: instead of talking only about the most remote communities, we must remember that there are rural communities close to urban areas that have appalling broadband, too.

[Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)]

Towards the end of last week I met a constituent whose new insurance premium has gone up by some 8%. She lives in an area that has occasionally been flooded, and the massive increase plus the excessive excess means this lady will have to abandon her home. Does the Minister know how many businesses and residential properties are now being abandoned because people cannot afford flood insurance?

[Mr Paterson]

The hon. Gentleman makes a highly pertinent point. The statement of principles is not working at present, and affordability is a key part of that. I have meetings coming up shortly with the Association of British Insurers and I will establish its latest figures, but we want to resolve this: we are determined to get to the bottom of it, because I totally sympathise with people such as the hon. Gentleman’s constituent.

Wild Animals (Circuses)

Russell Brown Excerpts

Wednesday 8th June 2011 Westminster Hall

[Simon Hart]

I am sure that the Minister will come to that. There is always sensitivity when it comes to the publication of legal advice, particularly when cases are, or are possibly, in play. I do not think that there is necessarily anything to be suspicious about; I do not necessarily smell a conspiracy just because a Department fails to publish advice when we demand it. I am sure that the Minister will, as usual, give a compelling answer to the hon. Gentleman’s question.

The Department is absolutely right rigidly to stick to principle and evidence when it comes to decisions on legislating in favour of abolition or of regulation. In many debates on animal-related issues in this House over the years, Ministers have stood up and thumped the table, stressing their commitment to evidence and principle, and have then promptly gone and legislated in the absence of both. That has had long-term consequences for the animals concerned, which have failed to benefit from the legislation, and also for the taxpayer, who has been forced to pick up enormous legal bills—several of which I have been unashamedly responsible for—as the process is challenged in every court in the UK and further afield. It is absolutely proper that the Department should avoid getting itself into that particular pickle.

I can see us moving to a situation, over a period of time—a time scale with which I would be entirely comfortable—in which we no longer see wild animals used in circuses but neither do we subject the taxpayer to undue expense as a result of our over-enthusiasm to do something that is simply popular on the back of an electronic campaign that might catch the mood of the day.

[Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman has mentioned the taxpayer. The taxpayer comes in a variety of forms, one of which is the council tax payer. The scheme that DEFRA has proposed would place an additional burden on council tax payers, because it would fall to local authorities to license and to inspect but, ridiculously, they would not have the power to prosecute.

[Simon Hart]

I am grateful for that contribution, but I am not entirely sure that I sympathise with the hon. Gentleman’s position. The local authorities are in a more powerful position than he suggests in that they have the ability, presumably, not to regulate or not to license. Despite what the Government may say, that is, to some extent, a local authority decision. I do not want to steal the Minister’s ground on that issue as well, because he will almost certainly deal with it himself.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Paice]

I am happy to correct my statement if I am wrong. As I said, this is an England-only matter. [Interruption.] I have just been informed that, incorrectly, I said that there had been no contact. We have kept them informed of what we are doing, but in terms of discussions about structure and so on, the answer is no.

[Mr Russell Brown]

The Minister mentioned zoos earlier, and I seek a point of clarification. Do we keep solitary elephants, camels or big cats in small enclosures in zoos, or is that something that only happens in Scotland? Do we keep solitary animals in zoos?

[Mr Paice]

I have to confess that I cannot answer that question off the top of my head. The zoo licensing regime stands alone from the subject of circuses. As I think the hon. Gentleman appreciates, that is not my responsibility in the Department, so I am afraid that I am not familiar with the detail of the zoo licensing regime.

[Mr Brown]

I am pursuing this because, if it is not appropriate to keep solitary animals in small enclosures, surely that is the same with a circus.

[Mr Paice]

That is a perfectly reasonable presumption to make. I have to come back to the point about how animals are kept, which was raised by the hon. Member for Copeland, and the comments that he attributed to me from an urgent question. In the informal consultation that we are now embarking on, which will lead to draft regulations for formal consultation, we clearly need to take the advice of all interested parties—not just the circus community, but welfare bodies, a number of which have been mentioned today—on what would be appropriate arrangements to ensure the welfare of the animals in a circus, species by species. Obviously, that will vary. We will have to listen to that advice and, presumably, take it. Whatever that advice will lead to will go into the final regulations.

It is quite possible—I can say no more—that the proprietors of circuses, rather than facing the licensing regime, may say that they cannot provide those facilities and stop keeping the animals. I think that the hon. Member for Copeland was trying to ridicule that point, but it is perfectly valid. It could well be—we do not know, because we have not got to that stage in the consultation—that some, if not all, proprietors may say that the costs of licensing, facilities and the area of ground or size of the pen or enclosure are such that they cannot provide them at a reasonable cost and will stop doing so. I cannot pre-judge the outcome, but that is quite possible. What matters—we must not forget this—and what is right at the core of the debate is the welfare of the animal. It is about how we can move, as quickly as possible, to ensure the best welfare for those animals.

I return to my references to the Radford report. Following Radford, the then Government asked two zoo inspectors—I stand to be corrected, but certainly two experienced people—to visit I am not sure how many circuses but at least one to see whether a licensing system could deal with welfare in circuses. They reported that it might well be possible, which is why such a system was considered.

I have no more knowledge of what was in the Minister’s red box before the election than anyone else, but if the then Government were proposing a ban, it is for those Ministers to defend why they wished to override the Radford report and the two inspectors. All that I can say is that our advice is that a serious challenge under two pieces of legislation would be likely. I have tried to be open with the House today, and as helpful as I can be, given the constraints.

We can bring in a system of regulation and licensing that would not cost the taxpayer and would swiftly improve the welfare of wild animals in circuses, and that might well lead to a reduction in animal numbers. I find it difficult to believe the suggestion that such a system could lead to an increase in numbers, certainly of the types of animal that we are discussing—camels, zebras, big cats and so on. Someone used the phrase “no-brainer” earlier, and it is clearly a no-brainer that the conditions that we lay down will be pretty rigorous and robust, and therefore expensive to provide, so expecting them to lead to more animals in circuses I find very difficult to understand.

I have taken a little more time because, fortunately, it was available. I have tried to respond to the various points made by Members in all parts of the House. I fully understand that the subject is highly emotive and that the public are seriously concerned about the welfare of animals, as well as about the ethics and morals. As I have tried to explain, however, that alone cannot provide a basis for legislation because we and Governments of all persuasions must accept the legal conditions in which we operate, whether under legislation previously passed by the House or to which we have become signatories as part of international law. We therefore remain of the view that the quickest, best and most effective way of dramatically improving the welfare of animals in travelling circuses is by the system of regulation and licensing announced by the Secretary of State.