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8.48 pm
Mr. Tony Banks (Newham, North-West): First, I must tell the right hon. Member for Bridgwater (Mr. King) that I hope that we keep the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries
and Food, but I do not want that Ministry also to be responsible for food protection. That is one of the problems that we have encountered recently. We need a Ministry to look after the interests of consumers in the food industry, not merely those of producers. We need to remove the Ministry's marked slant towards producers, not consumers. I hope that Labour Front Benchers will make such an announcement before the next general election.
Like others, I have an interest to declare. I speak on behalf of the lowland farmers of Newham. [Laughter.] I know that people think that that is a silly comment, but those who know my constituency know that large numbers of cattle wander on Wanstead flats. What will happen to those cattle? Will they be dragged into the scheme and slaughtered? It is a type of rural idiocy that we have in my part of east London that we very much value, and I am very worried about the welfare of those cattle.
There is something unreal about the debate, not only because of the paucity of hon. Members present and the fact that there may not be a Division at the end after two days.
Mr. Peter Hain (Neath)
indicated dissent.
Mr. Banks:
My hon. Friend the Member for Neath (Mr. Hain) says that there will be. We might have to put tellers in. The Government may have decided that they cannot win this one and do not want to expose splits on their own side so, if they cannot win the war--and we will not accept a truce--they will withdraw from the field and allow the vote to go through. As they see it, it will look ludicrous if we win by an enormous margin. That is not the way to address something like the problems of the CAP.
The CAP sits at the heart of the European Union. We should be debating the CAP very seriously, but the debate has been sidetracked into the subject of BSE, so we are missing out a real discussion about the CAP. What I find unreal about the debate is that Britain's future role in the European Union has come down to a matter of meat--of beef. That is what we are talking about. It is the CAP or BSE equals the EU. It is nonsense. The future of this country in the European Union is the most important issue that faces us, but all we do is squabble about BSE and the CAP. It is nonsense.
Some of us are looking at the wider horizons, looking at things in the round, looking at the great potential that exists in the European Union and our potential for playing our full part in it, moving towards what I want, which is a united states of Europe. I want to see a European Government. All those things--
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Order. The subject for the debate is the CAP. If the hon. Gentleman does not wish to speak on that matter, he should choose a different evening.
Mr. Banks:
I accept that. I am not trying to speak on this matter. All that I am saying is that the whole matter of the European Union in this country seems to come down to the common agricultural policy. That is the point. It is absurd, and it means that we are missing the real issues.
We end up discussing something like the CAP, which is nonsense. It is discrediting the whole principle of the European Union. It is unacceptable how farmers dominate proceedings in the House regarding so much affecting the European Union.
I am not against farmers--my hon. Friend the Member for East Lothian (Mr. Home Robertson) is a farmer, and I am sure that he is a very good one--but I am fed up with the fact that Agriculture Question Time is like farmers' question time. Members of Parliament--mostly Conservative Members--jump up and defend, not consumers, but themselves, because they are farmers. They do not declare their interest.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) will say a few words shortly. I did not notice many Conservative Members defending miners--presumably because there are no miners on the Conservative Benches and it was left to us to defend them--but farmers always seem to attract concern. We always have to worry about farmers. I know we need food, but why should farmers be treated differently from any other group of workers?
Mr. Mark Robinson:
On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I spoke about the CAP; why cannot the hon. Gentleman? I do not really think he is talking on the subject.
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Order. When the hon. Gentleman talked about the cattle on the lowland flats of Wanstead, he was entirely in order. That seemed to me central to his speech, and if he would embellish that further it would be to the benefit of the House.
Mr. Banks:
Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for that defence of my position on behalf of the farmers of Newham.
The CAP is indeed about farmers. Set-aside is about the CAP. That is about farmers. We did not say to the miners, "Okay, you can keep your jobs. You do not have to mine any coal, but here are your wages." We say to farmers, "You can have set-aside not to grow anything." That is nonsense and makes the CAP an even more ridiculous institution than it already is.
Fifty per cent. of the European Union budget goes to farmers, whether in Spain, Italy or France. Why do we have to be so concerned about them? No doubt their political vote concerns the politicians. That is what it comes down to. The Conservative party is the party of farmers--not farm workers, but farmers--and I find that unacceptable.
Many hon. Members have spoken tonight about BSE. Years ago, people like me were jumping up in the House and saying, "There is something wrong here. We should not be feeding ruminants animal protein." We do not need scientists to tell us that there is something wrong there. Nature did not devise, structure and evolve those creatures to eat animal protein; something was bound to happen.
I believe that there is enough circumstantial evidence to say that there is a link between BSE and CJD, and it is no good all these Ministers saying that there is nothing to worry about. There was bound to be a panic when two Secretaries of State made statements on the same subject on one day. No one was reassured. No one believes a word these Ministers say these days. They cannot possibly
restore confidence because they are not the sort of people that we can have any confidence in, and consumers in this country clearly do not.
How come that taxpayers are now expected to bail out the farmers and the slaughterhouse people and, it seems to me, the cattle cake manufacturers? Why cannot we sue someone for this? We have been poisoned by people who have interfered with nature. They fed animals animal protein, and should not have done so. If this had been a pharmaceutical company instead of a cattle cake company or set of companies, we would have been able to go to court and get substantial compensation. Sue, Grabbit and Run would be out there, ensuring that we got money back for the injuries that we have had to suffer. I find it absurd that all we talk about is how the taxpayer can bail out all these people who made loads of money and took decisions that were an affront against nature and have brought the problems that confront us today.
What about the cattle? I seem to be the only person in the House who asks that. Everyone is saying that we cannot get the cattle to the slaughterhouses and to the renderers fast enough. What about the cattle? The poor devils have given of their best, especially those cows that gave us milk and cheese, and what happens to them now? Off they go to the slaughterhouse, and there they go down to the incinerator. What a terrible thing to happen.
I wish they could cull some Conservative Members. I would like to see some of them go down to the abattoirs and the renderers, although I do not know what good will come of them even if we put them through the renderers, because nothing in their composition is useful to any human being. That is how I see it.
Mrs. Jacqui Lait (Hastings and Rye):
We are nearing the end of our two-day debate on the common agricultural policy. We have squabbled about beef, but we have not squabbled about the common agricultural policy--we all agree that it needs to be reformed, and some good ideas on how it should be reformed have been put forward. I shall raise some issues that affect farmers and people who buy meat in my constituency.
I thank my hon. Friends the Ministers for their hard work in relation to the beef crisis--I know that it has been time consuming and exhausting. In a previous occupation, I negotiated with the European Community and I know that nothing happens quickly or simply. There has been a move towards lifting the ban on gelatine, tallow and semen, which is significant. I wish my hon. Friends further success and I hope that next week we see further movement towards lifting the beef ban.
I thank my hon. Friends the Ministers for the help that they are giving to the farmers, who have been faced with real pressures and problems. They will welcome the
top-up payment. Yesterday, the farmers who came to lobby me said that they felt that there was significant pressure on them, and I know that they will be grateful that the Government have announced this payment.
I urge the Minister to negotiate hard in relation to being allowed to feed the 30-month cattle on set-aside. That seems to be a sensible solution to this problem at a time when we are desperately short of feed. Over the summer, we will have tremendous problems feeding our cattle and sheep.
We should not continue to feed cattle bone meal--however, the effect of taking it out of their feed will be an increase in the price of feed and, therefore, an increase in the price of beef. That is a long-term problem that the farming industry will have to address.
As a result of this crisis, we have all learned considerably more about the meat industry than we wished to know. We have learned that the rendering industry is a monopoly. It may be that the Office of Fair Trading and the Monopolies and Mergers Commission have not taken an interest in the rendering industry because it is worth only £100 million to £150 million and they look at larger industries.
It seems to me that the rendering industry is behaving in a monopolistic way, which has not helped us to bring in quickly the systems that are needed to deal with the cull policy. Perhaps we should refer the industry to the MMC because whenever a monopoly exists, it is a good capitalist belief that it should not be allowed to continue to exist.
I refer to the effect of the BSE crisis on the consumer. I have a significant number of small, high-quality butchers in my constituency. I got a terrible shock the other day when I bought a leg of lamb and it cost me £22. I learned that the cost of lamb has doubled--it has increased from between £2.20 to £2.40 a pound to between £4.50 to£4.80 a pound. Pork--a cyclical meat, which we would expect to be coming down in price--is maintaining its price. The price of beef is increasing and only the expensive cuts are being sold: fillets, steak and sirloin. The cheaper cuts of beef are not being sold: mince and stewing steak. They are the cuts that will produce a good and cheap meal. The price of chicken has increased also. Therefore, the cost of living has increased for families on a tight budget.
Many people will have to be re-educated when the crisis is over. I was interested to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Mr. Gill) refer favourably to the Meat and Livestock Commission, as farmers in my constituency are usually critical of that organisation. However, I believe that it will have a role to play in due course in re-educating people about using economical cuts of meat.
I turn briefly to the question of common agricultural policy reform. The farming in my area is mixed: we have a lot of fruit, sheep and beef farming and a little dairy farming. Animal feed is grown upon some arable land and there is a little potato farming. We must consider how an area such as that will be affected by the accession of the central European countries to the European Union.
Historically, Poland was known as the breadbasket of Europe. If it reverts to its historic role--there is no reason why it should not--it will have a tremendous effect on
temperate production in northern Europe. Poland and the other countries also grow fruit, which will directly affect producers in my constituency. For example, the blackcurrant growers have been affected already. Although it is a tiny industry, those producers derive vital income from it.
Before we admit the central European countries to the European Union, we must put in place some form of agricultural policy--we cannot do without any--that addresses those issues. We cannot negotiate the terms after the countries are admitted: we must settle them now. We must take account of issues such as the fruit and vegetable regime. At present, fruit farmers in my constituency are competing against farmers on the continent who grow for intervention because their co-operative system is different from ours. Therefore, we have a false market in fruit which adversely affects our brilliant fruit farmers.
We must also decide whether set-aside should be regarded as a social payment. The common agricultural policy was introduced in order to keep people on the land--there is general agreement about that. If we wish to continue that policy--set-aside is a way of keeping people on the land--we must decide whether it should be regarded as a social rather than an agricultural payment.
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