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9.47 pm
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mrs. Angela Browning): This subject concerns many hon. Members, especially those of us who represent farming communities because we are aware of the seriousness of the bovine spongiform encephalopathy/Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease crisis which has hit not only the farming industry but allied industries.
It is a matter of regret, however, that the subject should come again to the Floor of the House in the form of the Liberal Democrat motion. The hon. Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler) began his address by saying that the Liberal Democrats had refused to indulge in recriminations but went on to give a long list of recriminations. That is not uncharacteristic because it has been the tenor of his party's behaviour on this subject to speak in the Chamber in a statesmanlike way in a spirit of co-operation and to recognise the seriousness of the issue to the industry but, whenever its members had the opportunity to get in front of a microphone, to behave quite differently.
On the very day that the announcement was made,I took part in a BBC South-West television interview with the hon. Member for North Cornwall, who was down the line in the south-west. He questioned the very fact that the Government had made the announcement in the House. If we had hidden it from the House or the country, he would have been the first on his feet to complain about it.
Mr. Nick Harvey (North Devon):
That is not true.
Mrs. Browning:
I am just about to quote the hon. Member for North Cornwall, so the hon. Gentleman can decide whether it is true. In the Financial Times on25 March--the hon. Gentleman can check it--the hon. Member for North Cornwall said:
That is hardly the judgment of somebody who had accepted what SEAC had said. He was putting question marks over the safety of products. In the Western Morning News on 23 March, he said:
Bovine products and beef were not a risk. The SEAC recommendations were very clear. Quite what the hon. Gentleman thought that he was doing in stirring the pot in that way, I do not know. It is very strange.
Only recently, the hon. Member for North Cornwall said that the delay in the 30-month scheme was due to lack of staff in the Meat Hygiene Service, which is totally untrue. Even though my hon. Friend the Minister of State explained the matter very clearly, the hon. Gentleman said in the House today that the 30-month scheme was not wanted by the industry and that the Government had dreamed it up to present to the country.
In his speech, the hon. Gentleman even quoted the Booker column of Sunday 12 May, to which he added his support. It described the 30-month scheme as "illegal",a "crackpot scheme" and
Frankly, if that is the view of the hon. Gentleman and his party of the 30-month scheme, what they have said for the past three hours has hardly been worth listening to.
Mr. Tyler:
Obviously, I cannot answer all those stupid remarks in one quick intervention, but I can suggest how stupid they are by saying that the hon. Lady has not even cited the right article. I was referring to The Daily Telegraph, not The Sunday Telegraph. She has got the wrong quotation.
Mrs. Browning:
If they are stupid remarks, they are also the hon. Gentleman's words--QED.
There have been some more serious speeches in this debate, especially that of my hon. Friend the Member for St. Ives (Mr. Harris), who is well respected and, as a Cornish Member of Parliament, knows the farming community. He summed up the complexity of the scheme and endorsed the points that my hon. Friend the Minister made, when he outlined clearly the way in which the scheme has developed.
My hon. Friend the Member for St. Ives not only described the scheme'scomplexity but said that one of the reasons why there was some delay was that we listened to what the farming community wanted. We adjusted the scheme, added the extra money for the clean beef scheme and added the dead weight scheme at the specific request of the farming community. Obviously, such things could not be decided on the day that the proposal was announced. We had to go through the usual channels, talk to Brussels and get it agreed in such forums as the Beef Management Committee before we could assure the House that we would be able to run the scheme.
My hon. Friend the Member for St. Ives also talked about keeping farmers informed. We appreciate the need to keep individual farmers informed. My hon. Friend the Minister has already described the steps that we have taken to inform farmers--personally, by direct mailing--and slaughterhouses and livestock markets. I assure my hon. Friend the Member for St. Ives and other hon. Members who have raised this issue that the Government are conscious of the need for information as things have changed quite quickly. We shall continue to ensure that we inform people of any changes as quickly as possible.
My hon. Friend the Member for Hexham(Mr. Atkinson) raised the importance of the livestock markets and the role of the supermarkets in this matter. Very early in the crisis, the supermarkets said that they would continue to sell British beef. I pay tribute to them--unlike others who decided not to sell British beef--as they have been robust in promoting it. Supermarkets said that they would sell beef that was less than two and a half years old, which is why they have been supportive of the 30-month scheme.
My hon. Friend the Member for Newark(Mr. Alexander) referred to the difficulties that people in his constituency have experienced. I reiterate the point made by my hon. Friend the Minister of State: while we can share the frustration of, for example, the abattoirs that are listed but that are not yet fully operational, it is a matter of the rendering capacity being able to meet what the slaughterhouse industry can deliver and a matter of it being able to process it.
That is why my hon. Friend the Minister told hon. Members that we will progress, as quickly as possible, with a scheme for cold storage so that more animals can come through the abattoirs and be slaughtered and so that the farmers can receive their cheques as quickly as possible. We hope to put that into place soon. Many of the abattoirs that hon. Members have mentioned will be able to move the animals through and that will speed up the process.
Mr. Archy Kirkwood (Roxburgh and Berwickshire):
Will the Minister also look at the possibility of using the Government's influence with the intervention board? Some of the figures from the recent tranches of intervention have been quite disappointing in terms of the amount of beef that has been taken out of the United Kingdom market.
Mrs. Browning:
I agree with the hon. Gentleman. As hon. Members will know, we have negotiated opening more boxes with Europe--in fact, we are happy to look at that again. The hon. Gentleman will understand that this is a Europe-wide scheme and in the bids that go forward on a fortnightly basis the United Kingdom has not
My hon. Friend the Member for West Gloucestershire (Mr. Marland) outlined the positive side of what is being done. He gave a good summary of the weakness of the argument of the Liberal Democrats this evening. Many of the measures that have already been announced and those that are coming forward show that this issue will not be with us for a short period of time. As hon. Members know, we are looking at the long term. For example, we hope to introduce the mature beef scheme as quickly as possible.
We are currently consulting in this regard, and the consultation period is only two weeks. I had two meetings with industry representatives prior to the consultation document being issued. We hope that the mature beef scheme--which will affect animals that are more than two and a half years old--will be the forerunner for a wider scheme. It would be impossible to launch a scheme that is too wide to begin with; it will need to be narrow. I hope to get it up and running by June.
Mr. Malcolm Bruce
indicated dissent.
Mrs. Browning:
If we are to reassure the public and Europe--which the hon. Gentleman has mentioned several times this evening--it is important that we have in place a scheme where we can certify herds and put in place documentation tags and other systems that will ensure that no one can point the finger and say that there are weaknesses in it. If the hon. Gentleman wants us to take a scheme off the shelf and introduce it next week, we could do it, but it would not be in the interests of the industry.
Mr. Bruce:
The hon. Lady must acknowledge that the specialist herd is a small proportion. I refer to the selective slaughter agreement. We should get an agreement on it so that we can get the ban lifted from all beef.
"Ministers must now really state in unequivocal terms which beef products are entirely safe and which may carry some risk, however remote."
"Farmers are very very angry because Ministers have allowed confusion to reign by talking about the risk of beef instead of identifying that it was bovine products."
"a plan for which there is not the slightest rational justification".
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