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Mr. Malcolm Bruce (Gordon): Will the Minister consider a problem that was raised with me today? He keeps talking about the rendering problem and the need to deal with 21,000 animals but, as so many animals will be kept longer on the farm, they will be of above average weight. The Minister should therefore be thinking in terms of tonnes for processing rather than the number of beasts. He is likely to find that the situation is worse than he is describing.
Mr. Baldry: There is no doubt that, in the first few weeks of the scheme, we shall be taking a large number of heifers and steers, or clean beef. There is no mystery, and I do not think that anyone involved in the scheme failed to recognise that fact. It is for that reason that the NFU, the CLA and everyone else involved indicated that they hoped that collection centres and livestock marts, and abattoirs in their slaughter programmes, would give priority in the early stages to clean beef.
I was asked what was being done about animals in need of special emergency slaughter. I take very seriously the need to maintain animal welfare and consumer confidence. Animal welfare is very important. As I said, I have made it clear to all abattoirs in the scheme that they must take a commonsense approach to dealing with animals in need of special emergency slaughter, or slaughter that would take place on the farm. If I find that any abattoir is not participating in the scheme on that basis, it will be suspended from the scheme.
In addition, it also seems sensible to commission a network of incinerators across the country to deal with casualty animals, those which need special emergency
slaughter and those which have been killed on the farm.I shall ensure that, tomorrow, all the regional veterinary officers have a list of 10 incinerators which we estimate are capable of taking casualty fallen animals in that way.
Some people may ask why we are not using the incinerators to deal with more of the cull at the outset. The answer is simply that the incineration capacity is finite, but it will help to deal with casualty animals. Another question, which I have considered with the NFU, the CLA and other interested bodies, is why we do not use small specialist abattoirs to deal just with casualty stock. The answer is that it is important to have efficient and effective controls under the scheme. None of us wants there to be any suggestion that the wrong meat is going back into the food chain. The scheme has to be policed rigorously.
Everyone I met agreed that the best way forward was to ensure that the abattoirs, of which an increasing number will be involved in the scheme, are prepared to take casualty stock and that, in addition, the animals that cannot be taken to abattoirs, but which have to be killed on the farm, can be taken to an incinerator which is designated as a collection point and able to pay the farmers involved. This scheme is regarded by all those involved as the best that could be devised in the circumstances.
Mr. Elliot Morley (Glanford and Scunthorpe):
Will the Minister clarify the compensation arrangements for animals that die or are killed on the farm? Will the compensation arrangements be the same? We would not want injured animals being dragged alive to collection centres in order to meet the compensation criteria.
Mr. Baldry:
I had hoped that I had made that clear. The compensation arrangements will be exactly the same, which is why I shall be designating incinerators as collection centres. Incinerators will be paid, and we estimate that it is perfectly possible, to within exactly the same tolerances as might be found at livestock marts, to weigh the lorries. I am sure that the scheme will have the full co-operation of the veterinary profession which, like my hon. Friend the Member for Teignbridge(Mr. Nicholls) and others, expressed understandable concern. I met representatives of the profession today and they believe that the scheme can work.
Mr. Roger Gale (North Thanet):
My hon. Friend has concentrated mainly on the needs of the farming community, which I quite understand, but he and I know that we are dealing with tens of thousands of live animals. As a result of the illegal actions of the European Union and the hysterical response of some major traders such as McDonald's, we are facing what my hon. Friend has described as the largest slaughter programme this country has ever known. What specific measures will be implemented throughout this enormous but wholly unnecessary slaughter to ensure that the welfare of the animals is not disregarded?
Mr. Baldry:
As I said, the welfare of the animals is paramount. The same very strict safeguards apply in this process as elsewhere. The slaughter of every animal will take place in licensed, designated abattoirs in the presence of the state veterinary service, which has the highest professional standards. The service is committed to maintaining the highest standards of animal welfare in the country, and--
Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman:
The world.
Mr. Baldry:
Indeed, in the world. If I find a scintilla of a suggestion that any abattoir is failing to meet animal welfare standards, or any other standards, it will be suspended from the scheme.
I shall conclude by making two detailed points so that I am confident that I have replied to every criticism that has been made. The first relates to exemption for specialist herds. We are working on that. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton (Mrs. Browning), issued a consultation paper on specialist herds on 3 May. It was issued after she had had extensive meetings with farmers and others involved in the industry to ensure that it commanded their support. After the consultation period, we shall negotiate with Community colleagues to ensure that there are exemptions for that beef of more than 30 months.
We must not forget, however, that the genesis of the scheme rests not with us or with Brussels, but with market forces, retailers and others saying that, in the light of the Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee's recommendations, they no longer felt confident about taking meat from animals of more than 30 months. However, we hope that the exemption scheme will succeed in protecting Dexter cattle and others.
Secondly, the calf processing aid scheme is a Community scheme which has never been used before. It is being taken off the shelf, never having been practised before. It is important that we have got it up and running, but changes need to be made to it. We shall have to negotiate those changes with Community colleagues. For example, it seems sensible to try to increase the 10-day limit to a 21-day limit.
Mr. David Harris (St. Ives):
I am genuinely grateful to the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler) for introducing the debate. Undoubtedly, as he said, and as I am sure all my hon. Friends who speak in the debate will agree, very real hardship is being inflicted on the farming community. Like every other hon. Member who has the privilege to represent a farming community constituency, I have received many representations and letters from desperately worried farmers.
I am also genuinely grateful to my hon. Friend the Minister for dealing fully and at great length with the points of criticism. If I have a criticism of my hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall--I should like to call him that--in this debate, it is that he gave the impression, or was in danger of doing so, that, somehow, matters could be dealt with swiftly, easily and without difficulty. Indeed, the impression was that all the means of solving the problem were in the hands of my hon. Friend the Minister. Oh, that that were the case. It was not.
The hon. Member for North Cornwall was so right to stress that the scheme was at the behest particularly of the National Farmers Union, as my hon. Friend the Minister
stated very clearly in his letter. We all knew at the outset of the operation that there would be horrendous complications. Wherever one looked, one could see yet more ramifications of and difficulties arising from the process. Of course, not all the problems could have been foreseen. Some of them were foreseen--we knew at the outset that there would be problems with disposal.
I suppose that most hon. Members--I certainly speak for myself--had no idea of the state of the rendering industry. Frankly, one has always taken it for granted. It just happened that not many of us in the House were experts on the rendering industry. Clearly, as my hon. Friend the Minister rightly stressed, the difficulty and cause of frustration in the past few weeks has been the limitations on the rendering industry and the way in which it has chosen to go about handling the situation.
I pay tribute to the NFU, which has been in the front line of the crisis in handling all the calls from individual farmers. Like other hon. Members who represent constituencies in the south-west, I have received a briefing paper from the NFU in the south-west. It says unfairly that the Government
as if my hon. Friend the Minister had absolute powers.It calls on my hon. Friend to
"must take charge of the situation",
"Ensure that every farmer has an equal opportunity of submitting animals to the scheme; and
Ensure that priority is given to clean beef and infirm cows."
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