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Mr. Douglas Hogg: That is not correct. If the hon. Gentleman looks at the response by the Ministry of Agriculture to the Agriculture Select Committee report of February 1990, he will see that that point is addressed expressly. The fact that compensation was limited at that time did not, in the judgment of either the Select Committee or the Ministry, lead to any significant under-reporting--and probably none at all.
Dr. Strang: I do not accept that, and nor do the majority of those in the industry. If the right hon. and learned Gentleman reads and re-reads the comments by his hon. Friend the Minister with responsibility for agriculture in the Scottish Office, the Earl of Lindsay,in the other place, he will see that he acknowledged that more cattle with BSE went to the slaughterhouses as a result of under-compensation.
We are not saying that the farmers were particularly devious--although there are good and bad farmers. Looking at it from the farmers' point of view, if they had a borderline case of BSE and they knew that it would cost money--perhaps 50 per cent. of the beast's value--to keep it back from market and turn it over to the authorities, it is human nature to say that it would be okay. We must remember that most farmers at that time did not believe that there was a link between BSE and CJD.
Once regulations are in place, enforcement is crucial. In September 1995, the Meat Hygiene Service made unannounced visits to 193 slaughterhouses and found failings in the handling of specified bovine offals in 92 of them. Nearly half the abattoirs visited were flouting the rules to protect us from the BSE agent. Those abattoirs have tarnished the reputation of our many excellent abattoirs.
The Government's explanation for the fact that more than half the new cases of BSE are in animals born after the animal feed ban was imposed is that that ban was not properly adhered to. So the Government's record is not good.
As soon as BSE was identified, it had to be recognised that a link might appear between BSE and CJD.In February 1989, the Southwood committee advised the Government that the risk of transmission of BSE to humans appeared remote but could not be ruled out.
The job now is to look ahead; to turn round the current position. The Government's task is to restore confidence in British beef and beef products.
Mr. Ian Bruce:
Great heat has been generated about remarks made by the hon. Member for Peckham(Ms Harman). Will the hon. Gentleman now say, because he was one of the authors of the paper in 1978, that that paper did not deal with the processing of feedstuffs, only their testing, and that testing was not instituted by the Labour Government even though it had been on the stocks for six years, and it took a Conservative Government to introduce any regulations to test the output of feedstuff manufacturers?
Dr. Strang:
I shall be honest with the hon. Gentleman. I shall not go back over the history of what happened in
Sir Colin Shepherd (Hereford)
rose--
Dr. Strang:
I have given way pretty religiously. I want to get on. Many hon. Members want to speak.
British consumers and producers have a common interest here. Hundreds of thousands of jobs are at stake. As I am sure the House is aware, the Opposition proposed to the Government a series of measures. I wrote to the Minister and laid them before him yesterday. The Minister acknowledged that he had read the letter earlier this afternoon.
I deeply sorry that the Prime Minister was so dismissive of those proposed measures this afternoon. I intend to take a little time describing those measures and answering the points that the Prime Minister made, because, although I have had the privilege of being a Member of this House for more than 25 years, I have never been so depressed and disappointed by a Prime Minister as I was this afternoon.
First, we proposed the speedy implementation and enforcement of all the measures, including the new measures that the Minister has announced, to keep the BSE agent out of our food. We referred to the State Veterinary Service and the Meat Hygiene Service. The Prime Minister said that we voted against the setting up of the Meat Hygiene Service. Anyone who understands the history of the Meat Hygiene Service knows that it was created as part of the Government's Deregulation and Contracting Out Bill, and they know that there was a genuine argument.
I do not impugn the Government's motives, but there was a genuine argument about whether it was better for the meat regulations to be enforced by local authorities or by a new national quango, the Meat Hygiene Service, and the Prime Minister should not have implied, as he did this afternoon, that the fact that we had voted against the Deregulation and Contracting Out Bill meant that we were not concerned about enforcement. On balance, we believed at that time that it would be better to leave the responsibilities with the local authorities. That does not devalue the case we were making for effective enforcement.
Secondly, we said that we believed that the introduction of a random testing programme for BSE in the brains of cattle going through slaughterhouses, as recommended in 1989 by the scientific committee set up by the Government, the Tyrrell committee, would be of great epidemiological value. What did the Prime Minister say to that? He said that it was irrelevant because
If he is so confident that he has stopped it, is it really so unreasonable to ask for the implementation of a scientific recommendation made in 1989 that there should be random testing of the brains of cattle in the slaughterhouse, just to be sure?
The third proposal that the Opposition made to the Government was the publication of a full list of all products that contain bovine material. The Prime Minister's response was that this was "already happening". In fact, the Government have not published such a list. All we are saying is that we do not believe that the British people should have to rely on newspapers, helpful as they may sometimes be, for the publication of such a list.
The fourth proposal that the Opposition made to the Government was that there be a reassessment of the safety of mechanically recovered meat. The Minister assured the House on Monday that such meat had been banned in December. I knew, as I think did other hon. Members who followed these matters, that the ban that the Government had implemented related to meat that was recovered mechanically from the spinal cord. There is other mechanical recovery of beef. All we asked for was a reassessment--a reassessment dismissed by the Prime Minister.
The fifth proposal that the Opposition made to the Government was encouragement of quality assurance schemes, so that consumers know where their beef comes from, possibly with labelling of products in shops.Hon. Members who follow these matters are aware of voluntary schemes that exist throughout the United Kingdom. The Secretary of State for Scotland will be well aware of the Scottish Quality Beef and Lamb Association and similar schemes; they are purely voluntary.
The Prime Minister said that that would mean
He appeared to believe that we were suggesting that some meat would be labelled safe or BSE-free and other meat would be labelled otherwise or unlabelled. Did the Prime Minister really think that? Was it ignorance?
I am making the point that the advantage of the voluntary scheme is traceability--and any responsible Government would see the relevance and the importance of that against the background of the crisis that we face in relation to BSE in cattle throughout the United Kingdom. That is all that we were proposing--it was a long-term measure; it was not going to alter things overnight--yet it was dismissed by the Prime Minister.
Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody (Crewe and Nantwich):
One of the things that depresses and frightens me about the debate is that many consumers, particularly mums, will be totally bewildered about the priorities of the Government and the priorities of the House of Commons. We are in danger of wiping out our entire beef industry without in any way compensating for the safety and the good health of the majority of our consumers. If we cannot urgently put something in place that is acceptable to the average customer, then, frankly, the amount of money that the Minister of Agriculture has announced for the farming community and for the butchers will be absolutely no use whatsoever.
Dr. Strang:
I welcome the measures announced by the Minister of Agriculture but my hon. Friend is absolutely
My sixth point was the banning from human and animal food of all specified bovine offal--and, of course,I referred to cattle under six months old. The Government subsequently banned some specified offal--they banned the thymus and the intestine. However, they have not banned the brain and the spinal cord in cattle under six months old. I know that the Government's response to that is that there is no scientific recommendation asking them to so do, but I put it to them that--this was one of the Opposition's points--it was a House of Commons Select Committee that recommended that in 1990. Finally, we also made reference to our policy for an independent food standards agency--I shall not go into the detail of the point.
When the Labour party worked on these measures--I thank the agricultural organisations and the large companies that welcomed them--we did not expect the Minister to stand up and say that the Government would accept all our proposals, but we expected a dialogue, we expected a constructive response and we expected an opportunity to move forward. That is why I was deeply depressed by the Prime Minister's response to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition this afternoon.
"we have stopped all brain products that could possibly be infected from entering the food chain."
28 Mar 1996 : Column 1242
"allowing the sale of unsafe beef".
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