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Mr. Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) rose--
Mr. Baldry: I shall give way in a moment. The Liberal Democrats dished out a lot of dirt for a long time and I must put some facts on the record.
The hon. Member for North Cornwall knows that our policy of non-co-operation has delivered the goods. We now have a clear framework for the lifting of the European ban. Unfortunately, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown), has spent the past month telling anyone who would listen that non-co-operation would achieve nothing. How wrong he was. The Liberals are the craven servants of European federalism: they refuse to stand up and fight for Britain's national interests.
The behaviour of the Labour party--whose Members are conspicuous by their absence--over the past three months has shown that it is not fit for government.
Mr. Leigh:
What is the Liberal Democrats' problem with my right hon. and learned Friend? Is it the fact that he is a man of outstanding intellect and honesty--we know that he is both of those things--or the fact that he does not suffer fools gladly?
Mr. Baldry:
My hon. Friend sums up the issue. The Liberal Democrats' problem is with themselves and how they treat politics in this country. We have seen how they behave. The hon. Member for North Cornwall suggested that there was over-capacity in the over 30-month scheme in some parts of the country. However, he did not specify which parts of the country are over quota. I suspect that the Liberal Democrats will travel around the country suggesting that there is excess capacity elsewhere--it will mysteriously move around to suit them. I suspect that they will make that point in every part of the country.
Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours (Workington)
rose--
Mr. Baldry:
I must say something about the Labour party and then I shall gladly give way to the hon. Gentleman.
We all remember the hysterical outburst of the hon. Member for Peckham (Ms Harman) at the beginning of the beef crisis which did so much to undermine consumer confidence. We do not see her around so often these days--perhaps the men in grey suits from the Leader of the Opposition's office have carted her off to some sanatorium. The shadow agriculture Minister, the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East (Dr. Strang), said--I shall quote from his press release--that
Mr. Campbell-Savours:
The Minister would do well to recall that there is a Public Gallery and that people are watching the debate.
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Order. The hon. Gentleman would do well to remember that there is no such thing as a Public Gallery as far hon. Members are concerned.
Mr. Campbell-Savours:
The matter is on the record. The debate is about BSE and not about knocking the Liberal Democrats--and I say that as a Labour Member of Parliament.
I refer the Minister to a letter that I received on 23 September 1994. It is signed by Earl Howe and it states:
Mr. Baldry:
Anyone watching the debate will see that only five Labour Back Benchers are present. The absence of a Labour amendment shows that the Labour parliamentary party has little interest in the debate or in the country's agricultural and farming interests. If the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) took the time and trouble to read the Order Paper, he would see that the motion is about my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister of Agriculture. The way in which the Liberal Democrats have chosen to phrase the motion is a proper cause for debate.
I am not sure whether the hon. Member for Workington remembers the last Labour Government, but whenever he speaks he seems to suggest that Ministers deliberately concealed information. That is untrue. Throughout, Ministers have been open, frank and honest with the
House. I rebut any scintilla of a suggestion that Ministers have withheld information from the House or from the country. It is despicable that the hon. Member should make such suggestions.
Dr. Gavin Strang (Edinburgh, East):
The Minister knows that my statement--and I stand by it--was made immediately after the announcement on 20 March. Let us remember the scale of the hysteria: Ministers were going to report after the weekend on whether the risk to children was greater. Given the collapse in demand for cattle and beef in this country, it was inevitable that there would be a massive movement across the channel. If the situation had been the other way around, I like to think that the British Government would have taken action. What happened? The Minister said that a ban was illegal, but it was not illegal. A "temporary cessation" is different from the overall ban imposed by the European Union on our exports, including third-country exports, which I have called unjustified in press release after press release and in the House. I hope that the Minister will accept that.
Mr. Baldry:
Methinks the hon. Gentleman doth protest too much.
Mr. Budgen:
The hon. Member for Workington mentioned the correct way to deal with specified bovine offal. Will my hon. Friend confirm that there was no suspicion in 1994 that transmission might occur between cows and humans? If all the small abattoir owners had been chased ruthlessly and dictatorially by the Government, there would have been an enormous public outcry against the heavy hand of the Government. It is only now, with the benefit of hindsight, that we can see that some improvements can be made in the way in which abattoirs operate.
Mr. Baldry:
My hon. Friend will know that both Opposition parties believe that they are gifted with the benefit of hindsight. They consider it to be one of their major attributes.
Mr. Baldry:
I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman because he was very kind when I visited my aunt recently.
Mr. Bruce:
She lives in a fine constituency. Does not the Minister acknowledge that farmers and their representatives have demanded for several years that the Government set up a selective cull scheme to eliminate BSE from the system but that the Government refused to do so? As many as four, six and eight weeks after the ban was imposed, the Government made no detailed proposals for a selective slaughter policy that the Commission could evaluate, in spite of consistent pleas from Commission officials that they do so. That is why we lack confidence in the Minister's boss.
Mr. Baldry:
The hon. Gentleman knows that the incidence of BSE peaked in animals born in 1988-89 before the introduction of the ban on mammalian foodstuffs. Since then, as the charts in the blue book show, it has dropped remarkably. What does the hon. Member think has been happening to BSE-infected cattle? Of course they have been culled and slaughtered.
The Labour party has behaved like startled rabbits. It does not know which way to run. First, the shadow Foreign Secretary attacked the Government for overreacting to the beef ban, and called on us to abandon non-co-operation. Two weeks later, he was back on our television screens attacking the Government for not going far enough. In the meantime, the Labour leader was in Germany reassuring Chancellor Kohl that, under a Labour Government, Britain would be a pushover. I am glad that the right hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) manages the Labour party and not the England football team. In the House, he claimed to support our policy of non-co-operation because he did not have the guts to criticise it. In Germany, he criticised British foreign policy because he did not have the guts to defend it. He has spent half his time claiming that we have been too hard in our relations with Europe and the other half claiming that we have been too soft. No wonder a senior spokesman for the German Chancellor stated that he would prefer to deal with the Leader of the Opposition, because he would have been more accommodating to German interests. Throughout recent weeks, the Liberal and Labour parties have failed to say what they would have done in the circumstances. The hon. Member for North Cornwall was provided with several opportunities to do so this afternoon, but failed.
The fact is--and the Labour and Liberal parties cannot bring themselves to admit it--that non-co-operation has worked. When my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made his announcement to the House on 21 May, he said that two specific goals had to be achieved before we would suspend our policy of non-co-operation: first, that the ban on beef derivatives had to be lifted and, secondly, that a clear framework leading to the lifting of the wider ban had to be agreed.
The first objective was achieved on 10 June when the ban on beef derivatives was lifted. The second--a clear framework--was achieved at the European Council in Florence last week. Both objectives were achieved in precisely one month. I have no doubt that, without our policy of non-co-operation, we would not be where we are today.
We now have a framework that sets out clear steps for lifting the ban in stages. The Florence conclusions make it clear that decisions on each stage will be taken
"a temporary cessation in the movement of British cattle, beef and beef products may be wise at this time".
That is an export ban by another name. It is hardly surprising that our European partners have proved so difficult to budge over the ban when the official Opposition support it.
"The State Veterinary Service also monitors compliance with the statutory controls inter alia by visiting rendering company plants to check both the separation of SBO from other material and the adherence of renderers to the code of practice for the disposal of SBO. We"--
the Government--
"are generally satisfied with the effectiveness of these provisions and are unaware of any evidence to suggest that potentially contaminated SBO material is illegally entering the human or animal food chain".
Will the Minister confirm that when the letter was written Agriculture Ministers knew what was going on but hid the truth about contamination from the Select Committee in documents submitted to it and from Parliament? They refused to answer parliamentary questions clearly and we were denied the truth. If we had known the truth then, we would not be in this mess today.
"only and exclusively on the basis of public health and objective scientific criteria and of the judgment of the Commission".
That is what we have been asking for all along.
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