Oral Answers to Questions

Susan Elan Jones Excerpts

Thursday 10th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Sir Tony Baldry]

Absolutely; the research will seek to understand the detail of attendance trends at cathedrals and I hope that the results of the study will be published early next year.

[Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)]

I am sure that many of us will be of the view that the increased attendance in cathedrals must be down not only to the high standards of liturgy but to the fact that they have a diverse range of clergy. On the subject of churches and diversity, would the hon. Gentleman like to congratulate the Church in Wales on the decision to elect women as bishops? Would he say that there are great lessons to be learned for the Church of England, which is increasingly becoming a minority within the Anglican communion on that issue?

Groceries Code Adjudicator Bill [Lords]

Susan Elan Jones Excerpts

Monday 19th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)]

I am delighted to follow the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh), who, as ever, speaks with great authority and expertise in this area.

I welcome the Bill. The creation of the groceries code adjudicator is an important step, and it is vital that we get the best adjudicator possible. This issue is not about urban and rural communities; it is fundamentally about supporting producers who produce food in our rural areas. If we do not have that, there will be no locally grown food for markets in our country.

This Bill is about the creation of a level playing field for farmers, small retailers, supermarkets, and the hard-pressed consumer. I heard what the Minister—in consultation with the dog on her shelf—had to say about naming and shaming, and I understand some of the points she makes. However, she also suggested that under the groceries code adjudicator major retailers will probably end up paying different amounts of money proportionately and that she does not think that could incur the threat of legal action, so I find it difficult to understand why she has not considered the importance of fining. Let us have that power to fine now—not through order of the Secretary of State and following publication of guidance. We should listen to the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee, which recommends that the power to fine should be stated in the Bill and the adjudicator should be given the power to escalate penalties if code breaches continue. Surely that is sensible. It is not saying that every breach will result in a fine, but that the adjudicator should be able to use that power if he or she considers it necessary.

A lady from Llangollen in my constituency made the point very well. She said that she shopped at supermarkets but also bought fresh produce and meat locally at shops and markets, and that she was increasingly concerned about issues relating to the developing world. This is not about purism or being against supermarkets and the like; it is about being aware that if we do not support food production in this country, more and more food producers will go out of business, which will ultimately lead to a rise in the cost of food for the consumer. That will mean the end of much of our home-grown food industry, which is why the strongest possible action is essential.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen), a pioneer who has championed this issue, because he knows how much it matters to the rural community in areas such as north Wales. Without family farms in north Wales we will see the end of rural communities. There would be a massive impact, too, on Welsh language and culture, which my hon. Friends the Members for Ynys Môn and for Llanelli (Nia Griffith), many other Members and I care about, and which are vital in this debate.

We have to think about the needs of our producers and consumers and, more widely, of local economies. I urge the Government to reconsider the issue of fining. It does not mean that if we have the carrot we cannot have the stick, or the other way round. We urge the Government to consider what groups such as farming unions, the Labour party, Select Committees and many others have said. The role of the adjudicator matters far beyond one type of constituency, one party and one part of the country. If we are to have serious, long-term, sustainable food production, we have to get this matter right. I urge the Government to listen to those diverse processes and include the right to fine in the Bill.

Dairy Industry

Susan Elan Jones Excerpts

Thursday 13th September 2012 Westminster Hall

[Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend has spoken a great deal about fairness and equity in this industry. Although I think that we would all welcome the voluntary code, I am reliably informed by certain farmers in the Ceiriog valley that there is a chance that it might not work and that if it does not work Her Majesty’s Government here in Westminster should carefully bear in mind the words of the relevant Minister in the Welsh Government, who said that we might have to take statutory action.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

Indeed. I will return to that important point shortly; the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards) raised it earlier, too. It is absolutely right that the Welsh Government are already considering what will happen if the code does not work. I will raise the point with the Minister, too, because we need to ensure that a discussion takes place across the UK about having an approach that, if it is not universal, respects both devolution and the fact that we need to work on behalf of all our farmers—not only farmers in the Principality, but right across the nation.

I say to farmers who may be tempted to pause for breath because they think that the summer storm is now passing that they should not do so. I say to them, “Organise yourselves; invest in producer organisations and in the value of the raw product, and do it now. And keep the pressure on us as parliamentarians and on the Government to deliver, as the groceries code adjudicator comes to the House.”

One of the last acts of the former Minister was to sign off on a voluntary code for best practice between milk processors and suppliers. That was good, and the code has been broadly welcomed. However, as night follows day, or in this case—please excuse my pun—as knighthood followed that day, the announcement was welcomed but with some caution. The chairman of the National Farmers Union, Peter Kendall, said that although the announcement

“gave some hope for the long term, it did not solve the dairy farming issues of today”.

So we must keep up the pressure to ensure that those processors that are not paying a fair price announce—as we have heard today—that they are rescinding their former announcements. Peter Kendall went on to say:

“This agreement will give us the architecture we need to make sure that we don’t end up with the same dysfunctional markets that are responsible for the dairy crisis we have today”.

We now have the architecture there in front of us, as long as we can make it work.

Let me make it absolutely clear that Labour supports the voluntary agreement if it can be made to work and once the legal niceties have been ironed out, but we also seek assurances from the Minister that the Government do not rule out additional measures, including legislation, should they prove necessary.

We are not alone in seeking that assurance, as the Minister has already heard today. Conservative parliamentarians—including the hon. Members for Bridgwater and West Somerset (Mr Liddell-Grainger), for Burton (Andrew Griffiths) and for Tiverton and Honiton, who have spoken in this debate, and many others who have spoken elsewhere—have queued up to express caution. As I was saying to my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline and West Fife a moment ago, that does not sound like the party of regulatory bonfires. This must be one of those good bits of regulation that some people talk about, while others jeer at the very idea.

I will express one word of caution to the Minister, to urge him not to rush headlong down the Stalinist end of the spectrum of views on this issue. Such views have been expressed by the hon. Member for Bridgwater and West Somerset, who has stated:

“There is no way it”—

the voluntary code—

“is going to work—it is just another rather sad red herring—it has been tried I don’t know how many times and it is always a disaster”.

He says that the code, which the Government support, is “nowhere near sufficient” and that Parliament needs to set a minimum price for

“a strategic resource like milk.”

I urge the new Minister to avoid capitulating to the old, central, statist control-and-command tendency in the Conservative party—next thing he will be arguing for a price set at a European level. Give the voluntary agreement some time to work, but as those in the less red-in-tooth-and-claw tendency of the rural Conservative party argue, keep the legislation ready to hand in case it is needed. Alternatively, as the Minister’s own Liberal Democrat party president, the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron), has said, although the voluntary code is fine for now, the Government must

“commit to back that up with legislation if needed.”

That point has been made consistently today by many MPs from all parties.

Oral Answers to Questions

Susan Elan Jones Excerpts

Thursday 3rd February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paice]

I have huge admiration for the work of the Farm Crisis Network, which I have visited and met on a number of occasions. The hon. Lady is right to say that it supports some very hard-pressed farmers, particularly small farmers, for whom the single farm payment is a major part of their income and without which they would be in desperate straits. I am determined that the RPA should find a way forward to get some cash into the hands of those people as soon as possible. If she would like to write to me about particular cases, I would be happy to pursue them.

[Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)]

Will the Minister tell us how many staff will be cut from the RPA as a result of the 30% departmental spending cuts? Will he also explain how that will speed up payments to farmers?

[Mr Paice]

The hon. Lady assumes that the RPA was working efficiently, but it certainly was not, as the previous question demonstrates. Yes, the reduction in overall public expenditure means that the RPA is having to take a reduction in staff alongside all other arm’s length bodies, but at the same time it is becoming far more efficient, with better work practices and a new chief executive who started a fortnight ago. I am convinced we can do better with less.

Oral Answers to Questions

Susan Elan Jones Excerpts

Thursday 9th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Spelman]

I refer the hon. Lady to my earlier answer about the warm welcome that the Association of British Insurers has given to the payment for outcomes approach, which, as the ABI chairman made clear, is what Pitt called for, what the ABI has been calling for and what the communities that would like to build greater resilience have also been calling for. I am sure that it will assist those at risk of flooding.

[Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)]

8. When she plans to publish a rural impact assessment in respect of the comprehensive spending review.

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mrs Caroline Spelman)]

My Department is the rural champion in government, and we are working with other Departments as they develop their policies following the spending review. Those policies are the responsibility of individual Departments, but DEFRA will work with them to inform a policy statement in the new year, setting out this Government’s commitment to rural people, and our approach to promoting and supporting their needs.

[Susan Elan Jones]

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for her answer, but will she home in a little and give me one concrete example of something that DEFRA has done in this area?

[Mrs Spelman]

DEFRA is continually active in rural-proofing all policy that comes through, and hon. Members who have served in government will know that any Cabinet Minister has that function within their Department through DEFRA. The allocations have not yet been made, so the individual working out of the spending allocations has not been achieved. Let us consider, for example, the impact that DEFRA has had, working with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, in achieving a roll-of out superfast broadband in four rural pilot areas.

Oral Answers to Questions

Susan Elan Jones Excerpts

Thursday 4th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paice]

I can tell the hon. Lady that I am certainly looking forward to next week’s debate on her private Member’s Bill and I congratulate her on introducing it to enable us to have that debate. We will consult on the Government’s buying standards in the next few weeks and we will be launching them early next year. They will apply compulsorily to central Government—we have determined that we should drive these standards forward—and they will include the need to ensure that food procured by the Government is produced to the standards that we expect of our own farmers. That is the best way to ensure fair competition in public procurement.

[Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)]

Does the Minister accept, in the interests of what he has said about competitiveness, that the decision to abolish the national Agricultural Wages Board will not contribute to competitiveness but will simply reduce the living standards and wages of our agricultural workers?

[Mr Paice]

I am afraid that I do not agree with the hon. Lady. That legislation has been in place for 60 years and industrial relations and wages negotiations have changed dramatically over those years. It is worth pointing out that the previous Government, in office for 13 years, did not bring back any of the other wages boards that we had abolished. The present wages board does not allow salaries, it does not allow proper piecework rates and it does not allow annualised rates. Those are all measures that modern labour relations require. That is why it needs to go and all workers will be protected by the national minimum wage regulations, which apply to every other worker in this country.