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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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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.
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.
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:
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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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:
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:
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,
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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At the same time, the Federation of Fresh Meat Wholesalers issued a memorandum to its members that stated:
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 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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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:
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.
10.42 am
"paragraph 24 of the consultation paper suggests that the way in which the slaughter will be allocated to abattoirs will be similar to that under the 30-months scheme. Is he aware of the real concerns about the way in which a small number of abattoirs have profiteered and made a killing from the scheme? The new scheme must be put out to competitive tender."--[Official Report, 16 December 1996; Vol. 287, c. 636.]
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.
"The scheme has devastated farmers, and taxpayers have been major losers but, as will be revealed on a Channel 4 programme tonight, a new scandal has emerged.
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.
A small group of businessmen who own some of Britain's largest slaughterhouses have literally been making a killing out of the scheme, amassing windfall profits estimated at more than £200 million.
To understand how such a situation came about, we must recall the events immediately after Health Secretary Stephen Dorrell announced to the House of Commons on March 20 the link between Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD) and BSE. He cited a recommendation from . . . SEAC that--since some cattle over 30 months old might possibly be harbouring BSE infectivity, although not in the meat--all such cattle should be boned out after killing, before their meat could be sold. This process would allow the removal of potentially infected parts.
Immediately Douglas Hogg banned the sale of meat from all cattle over 30 months old, until a deboning scheme could be arranged."
"The overpayment scandal began when, faced with the massive problem of slaughtering millions of cattle, the Government bypassed the established practice of awarding contracts by tender. It gave 20 slaughterhouses--out of 470 in the UK--the rights to do most of the killing.
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.
Although some independent slaughterhouses bid £20 per head, MAFF ignored them and awarded the favoured few a lucrative 'provisional' fee of £87 per head, plus the value of the hide, bringing the effective price to more than £100--a £100 million cash bonanza."
"the 21 that are in it at the moment, but the larger number which I hope will come into it".--[Official Report, 13 May 1996; Vol. 277, c. 703.]
In other words, other abattoirs might become involved, but no others were added for many weeks.
"Rumours and gossip verging on the scurrilous are widespread. If for short term reasons these are wound up to produce political pressure on Ministers, we are concerned that the option remains for them to take emergency powers, requisition a small number of plants and take total control of the cull themselves".
In other words, Ministers were not in control.
"The targets that we have set are ambitious. It is now up to us in this country--the farming and ancillary industries and the Government--to ensure that we meet them. The point is that this timetable is essentially in our hands."--[Official Report, 24 June 1996; Vol. 280, c. 22.]
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 only legal buyers, the slaughterhouses carrying out the disposals, were offering at times prices of £200 less than the official compensation rate. Millions flowed into their coffers by this route.
that is, November--
This exercise has evaporated now that the backlog has all but been cleared. But the slaughterhouses have not had to fall back on the profits of a mere £41 killing fee. Last month"--
"they renegotiated their fee structure, bringing them up to £131 for some animals--backdated to August 26.
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.
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."
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