House of Commons Hansard Debates for 13 Nov 1996 (pt 33)

Mr. King: How is that comment to be reconciled with the letter from the NFU today which states that, despite the recent difficulties, the NFU is

"grateful for the sympathy, substantial practical assistance and extensive public expenditure"

devoted by the Government to tackling this unprecedented crisis in British agriculture?

Mr. Tyler: Nobody is saying that we are not grateful for anything we can get, but the right hon. Gentleman knows full well that--for the first time in living

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memory--the council of the NFU has passed a motion of no confidence in the Minister. I take that motion seriously, as I do other comments by the president of the NFU that have been quoted in the newspapers.

Miss Emma Nicholson (Torridge and West Devon): Will my hon. Friend invite Conservative Members to read the second page of the NFU letter, which states that the Government have done very little and that the NFU is unhappy? In other words, the first page of the letter shows the courtesy that we would expect from the NFU, but the second page gives us the reality.

Mr. Tyler: I am grateful to my hon. Friend, and the Country Landowners Association--a traditional ally of the Conservative party--has made equally trenchant criticisms. I find this attempt to blame farmers and put the obligation on them despicable. They have been powerless as the cull mismanagement has deepened. As victims of the catastrophe, they deserve better than the whingeing self-pity so evident in the letter from the Minister.

Mr. Tony Banks (Newham, North-West): I am listening carefully to the hon. Gentleman. Can he tell us who is responsible for BSE?

Mr. Tyler: It is certainly true that the conspiracy between certain big commercial organisations and those who approved their products caused farmers unwittingly to use dangerous products on their farms. The farmers cannot be held responsible for that, just as the hon. Gentleman cannot be wholly responsible for the pet food that he gives to his beloved pets, to which he refers occasionally in the House.

In the meantime, the Government must stop repackaging the compensation sums that they claim to be making available. For example, once we were able to analyse--and the farmers were able to identify--the precise nature of the supposed £40 million that was announced at the Conservative party conference, it turned out that less than £10 million in new money would reach the producers.

The forthcoming decision on hill livestock compensatory allowances will be crucial, because if there is not a substantial increase, especially in the ceilings that are put on the payments for cattle, there will be no adequate response to the deepening crisis in less-favoured areas. We need a substantial and sustained increase immediately--not next spring--for those in the disadvantaged and severely disadvantaged LFAs, especially to meet the crisis in the suckler herds.

Last week, the Midland bank report forecast a one eighth drop in the profitability of the agriculture industry as a whole--but that disguises a much deeper crisis in the livestock sector, as the industry is bolstered by a relatively happy situation in the cereal sector. There is worse to come. The lesson from the report must be that this is no time to put income tax cuts before the survival of a vital industry.

Much has been made in the debate this afternoon of the outcome of the Florence summit. I was surprised that the Minister made much play of the fact that we could not control the time scale, but did not refer to the Prime Minister's statement that

"It is now up to us to meet the conditions for lifting the ban".--[Official Report, 24 June 1996; Vol. 280, c. 21.]

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That is how he kept hon. Members of the Euro-sceptic tendency in their place. He said that the time scale from then on was in the hands of the British Government and that we were no longer the victims of the whims of the French and German conservative Governments. The Minister did not mention that this afternoon--and we heard nothing about it from the Opposition Front Bench.

The Prime Minister specifically promised that the over-30-month cull backlog would be cleared by the end of October. I know that Roman emperors used to change the calendar for their convenience, but so far that has not happened here. He further promised that that would enable the accelerated slaughter scheme for potentially risky cohorts of cattle to be set in motion from the end of October--but here we are, well into November--and that the timetable was in the Government's hands. He bought off his Euro-sceptic fanatics, who suspected that his belligerent tactics on the continent had been a total failure, and said that the Government would be able to make the running from then on.

We now know that all those promises were worthless. Specialist beef producers throughout the United Kingdom are furious at being misled. I spent two and a half weeks in Scotland in September, meeting hundreds of beef producers and their union representatives, and I was left in no doubt that they are anxious that progress be made on the selective cull as quickly as possible. Before the BSE bombshell in March, 20 per cent. of their output was exported. I know the case that has been made for Northern Ireland; indeed, I referred to it this morning in European Standing Committee A.

Instead of producing the comprehensive working document on how the cull could work which the Minister and the Prime Minister undertook to produce after Florence, the Minister went back to the Council of Agriculture Ministers with nothing. The Commission and other member states want a good wad of paper that they can deal with and discuss at a technical level to ensure that the veterinary and medical significance is fully understood, but the Minister put the matter straight back into the political arena and invited a complete rejection. Perhaps that is what he wanted, because the Government could then blame Europe for what went wrong.

The Minister was sent back from Florence to do his homework, but he reappeared with pathetic excuses for more dither and delay. He was sent away with a flea in his ear, and the following day Commissioner Brittan had to try to pick up the pieces.

I hope that the Minister will tell us that the working document promised at Florence is now in an advanced state. We need a clear strategy covering the whole United Kingdom, to re-establish the British beef herd as BSE clear. The Minister again admitted this evening that he has not as yet any firm proposals for certified herds; that must surely be an integral part of the working document.

We need a phased, step-by-step BSE eradication plan, region by region and/or herd by herd. That is essential to rebuild confidence at home and abroad.

The Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Tony Baldry): We heard the Labour party's current position this evening although, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater (Mr. King) said, it was not entirely clear on the

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accelerated or selective cull. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will make it clear exactly where the Liberal party now stands on that.

Mr. Tyler: I am delighted to give the assurance that if the Minister produces a working document that sets out in detail and in practical terms an accelerated cull that will do the job, we will support it. So far, he has failed to do so, and his Ministry and the Prime Minister have failed to deliver. It is no wonder that people at home and abroad are beginning to distrust their promises and forecasts.

Mr. Paul Marland (West Gloucestershire): Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Tyler: No. I have already taken longer than I intended.

In answer to our debate on 13 May, the Parliamentary Secretary promised that the mature beef assurance scheme would be

"up and running by June."--[Official Report, 13 May 1996; Vol. 277, c. 735.]

It is now nearly eight months since we first suggested that necessity, and still the Ministry has failed to produce a workable, reliable scheme. Its first attempt was patently inadequate--it failed to impress European Ministers or the Commission, or to meet the facts of agricultural life here. For example, any link with holdings rather than with herds is irrational, unless Ministry scientists are reversing their previous advice and saying that BSE can be transmitted through the soil.

Ministers have managed to sour relationships with all our European partners and with the farming unions, so progress is painfully slow.

The House should consider carefully the admission in October by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster that

"in an emergency--which this is--you have to think the impossible."

I invite the House to compare the Government's response to this crisis with that of the Thatcher Government to the Falklands invasion in 1982, when with all-party support and within seven days the task force was mobilised. The current Government have taken seven months to get to the starting block. Under this Administration, the task force would never have left port.

If this is an emergency, why not seek emergency powers? Why not requisition plant and take control back from the Federation of Fresh Meat Wholesalers and the United Kingdom Renderers Association, by which Ministers have admitted being held over a barrel? The federation's memorandum of 23 May warned its members that if the way in which the over-30-month scheme was being mishandled became public, the Government might decide to

"take control of the cull".

Liberal Democrat Members have been ready and willing from the outset to try to achieve a consensus on the priorities. On several occasions, representing as we do rural Britain at so many levels of government, we have offered to work with Ministers to seek solutions. They have insisted on blundering on alone.