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Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon. Gentleman may think it is trivia, but so far the hon. Member for Basildon (Mr. Amess) has been in order.

Mr. Amess: None of these matters are trivial to my constituents.

On the subject of traffic movements on the Marine estate, the Liberal council first announced that they wanted to alter traffic movements. There was a huge protest, and now the Lib-Lab council have had to back-track on that.

The final fiasco has been over proposed changes to the local fire service. My hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point (Dr. Spink) attended what he thought was a public meeting last week at county hall, but he was not allowed to speak. Essex county council, which is controlled by the Liberals and the Labour party, has proposed many changes. After the local government settlement, we have

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a 4.6 per cent. increase in funding for the fire service, but the council wants to shift resources from the south of the county to the middle of the county. The council wishes to downgrade the fire station on Canvey island in my hon. Friend's constituency and it wants to close Leigh fire station for the first time in 100 years. I know that my right hon. Friend the Member for Southend, West (Mr. Channon) is concerned about that prospect.

I will visit Basildon fire station later this week and I am concerned about the fact that the foam tender from Basildon will be relocated to Corringham. It is bit of a cheek for local Liberal activists to say that Essex county council's proposals are terrible and that it is all the fault of the Government because of underfunding. That is not the case. The council has been given more money than it has ever been given before and the fire brigade committee is headed by a Liberal county councillor.

Dr. Spink: I wish to clarify one point. The Liberal group on Essex county council accept that the purpose of the proposals is not to save money or make cuts, but to redistribute existing resources. The move is not Government-driven and all the political parties accept that point.

Mr. Amess: I thank my hon. Friend for that clarification. If my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House does not have time to answer all my points this morning, perhaps he could get the various Departments to write to me.

Several hon. Members rose--

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Hon. Members will recall that, a few moments ago, I drew the attention of the House to the fact that many hon. Members wished to take part in the debate, and I asked them to consider that. So far, in some cases, my request has been ignored. I hope for some co-operation from now on.

10.42 am

Mr. Paul Tyler (North Cornwall): I shall be as brief as I can, but in contrast to some of the other contributions, I wish to refer to a matter of great national concern--indeed, a multi-million pound scandal, which I hope the Government will address urgently during the recess. I refer to the over-30-months cattle cull and the lessons that I hope Ministers are now learning for the new accelerated slaughter scheme that the Minister announced on Monday.

In a question to the Minister on Monday, I put this point:


The Minister replied to an earlier part of my question, but made no response whatever to that latter point. For that reason, I seek the support of hon. Members on both sides of the House in pressing Ministers to take a new look at the lessons of the over-30-months scheme.

Hon. Members will recall that the Minister announced the over-30-months scheme on 28 March. He took an arbitrary age with innumerable practical difficulties. The

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Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee had recommended that the 30-months age limit should be used for the removal of specified bovine offals. The use of the limit for the whole carcase to be removed from the human food chain was a political decision and had no scientific basis.

An important article, entitled "How the Government turned the beef crisis into a £2.4bn gravy train", was published in the Daily Mail on December 5. It was written by Dr. Richard North who, as hon, Members will know, is an internationally recognised food safety analyst, to whom we are all grateful on this and many other issues. He wrote:


It is clear that that was to be a temporary scheme. However, just as Ministry officials were about to send out instructions to specifically licensed abattoirs, cutters and butchers, there was a change of heart.

Under pressure from the National Farmers Union, itself blackmailed by the burger giants and the supermarkets, the Minister buckled and the over-30-months scheme for the whole carcase became permanent, not temporary. Richard North's article continues:


That was but the start of the scandal. Almost immediately, despite pressure from hon. Members on both sides of the House, instead of allocating the competitive tendering bids to those who had submitted them, the Government gave the cull contracts to only 21 plants, although 72 had been approved and some 200 were eligible.

In the debate that I led on 13 May on the continuing delay and confusion that arose from the cattle cull scheme, the Minister mentioned, in answer to questions,


In other words, other abattoirs might become involved, but no others were added for many weeks.

On 21 May, as we all know, the Prime Minister declared the infamous and totally counter-productive beef war, but surreptitiously the same afternoon he issued a

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press statement removing the over-30-months scheme from the control of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and giving it to the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.

At the same time, the Federation of Fresh Meat Wholesalers issued a memorandum to its members that stated:


In other words, Ministers were not in control.

During that period, both the big abattoirs and the Ministers were blaming the renderers for what had gone wrong. However, it seems that the renderers were asking only for through-put seven days a week for which they could cater. The smaller abattoirs were never told about that--in fact, they were bidding blind. Many of them would have been eager to participate and could have filled the Monday, Friday and weekend gaps.

There appears to be a hidden agenda. During that time, the industry was being restructured by default: bigger units were given greater responsibilities and bigger and bigger profits. We should remember that earlier this year, before the BSE bombshell, the Meat and Livestock Commission--which was being pressurised by larger abattoirs--was aiming for the "broilerisation of beef", as it is called in the United States.

At the end of the beef war, on 24 June, the Prime Minister said:


The Prime Minister and the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food subsequently back-tracked on that unequivocal statement in the House, and have done so again this week.

The Prime Minister was confident because he said that the OTM cull would be completed by October, but that did not happen. The main reason for the failure to proceed with the so-called accelerated slaughter scheme was that the abattoirs could not cope with any more animals. An insufficient number of abattoirs were forced to try to conduct the cull. The idea was that the Minister would draw up a formal working document after Florence. However, we still have not seen it.

On 17 July, I took a small deputation comprising abattoir and incineration managers from the south-west to see the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. He assured us that the OTM cull delays and the backlog would be swiftly removed. Despite his explicit promise, that did not occur.

In August, the Government's auditor, Coopers and Lybrand, produced its second report--which remains unpublished. It said that the economic cost was £21 per beast and not the £87-plus being paid to abattoirs. It also pointed out that abattoirs could make a further £20 to £25 from the hides. Following a threatened strike by Northern Ireland abattoirs, Ministers caved in again and agreed to a £41 minimum payment and no backdating. It

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is outrageous that the Coopers and Lybrand report has not been published. At the very least, the Public Accounts Committee must see it urgently.

From 23 October, farmers faced a 10 per cent. cut in the amounts that they received. The reduction was initiated by United Kingdom Ministers in Brussels and was aggravated by a revaluation of the green pound thereafter.

On 21 November, there was the curious case of the missing corpses. I pointed out to the Minister that, although the cull was progressing, nobody could put a figure on the number of carcases that were being refrigerated. Despite more questions on Monday, we still do not know how many carcases are in refrigerated storage. The Minister has not dealt with that huge problem, which also has lessons for the accelerated slaughter scheme.

While the farmers were forced to take a cut, not so the big abattoirs. There was a renegotiation in November which, again, was not published. Richard North's article--which succinctly reports what happened--states:


that is, November--


    "they renegotiated their fee structure, bringing them up to £131 for some animals--backdated to August 26.


    Thus, as the animals pour through the slaughterhouses of the favoured few, millions more are pouring into the owners' bank accounts.


    The strangest thing about this whole episode, the most bizarre in the history of farming, is that it is continuing at all. Already it has cost the equivalent of a penny in the pound on income tax."

The cull could have been completed and the registration process introduced months ago. Why was it not done in July, August or September? Ministers now tell us that, from 1 April 1997, abattoirs will have to submit competitive tender bids, but only for the programme after that date. We hope that the new programme will be well under way by then.

The Channel 4 "Dispatches" programme entitled "Making a Killing", which was screened on 5 December, lifted the lid on the cull shambles and the scandal. Many hon. Members and I have tabled a motion demanding that the Public Accounts Committee urgently investigates what has occurred. If we do not know what is happening to taxpayers' money, there is a real danger that the European Union Court of Auditors will want to examine the finances. It could remove all the funding from Brussels that supports the programme.

For example, if the 15 per cent. from Brussels--which has not been paid yet--is removed, British taxpayers will have to pay about £300 million extra. Ministers provided no substantial answers on the Channel 4 programme. However, the Intervention Board said that it was confident that there was "no significant overpayment". What is "significant"?

There is a footnote to this sorry saga. Since he was charged with conducting the programme, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster has not spoken in a debate on the subject in the House. He has not answered questions or made a statement about the matter in the House. Is he to mastermind the accelerated scheme that the Minister of

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Agriculture announced on Monday and is he answerable to the House for the huge sums of taxpayers' money that he is spending?


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