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Mr. John Greenway (Ryedale): The hon. Gentleman knows from previous debates on this issue that I have taken an independent line on this matter. Will he tell farmers in my constituency which part of the £3.3 billion support for the beef industry the Labour party would not have paid?
Dr. Strang: Indeed, I shall come to that point--[Interruption.] In a word, it is the hugely excessive fees paid to the slaughterhouses for slaughtering animals--two or three times what the slaughterhouses should have received. I shall come to that point later.
For the beef industry, the crisis began on 20 March. On that day, which is riveted in the minds of everyone in the beef industry, the Secretary of State for Health and the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food came to the House of Commons and advised us that the Government's committee, the Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee, had advised the Government that the most likely explanation of the new variant of CJD was BSE.
Mr. Rod Richards (Clwyd, North-West):
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Hon. Members on both sides of the House fully appreciated the gravity of that statement. Yet on that day the Minister said:
The announcement was bungled. Hon. Members will understand that since 1986, when BSE was identified, there has always been a possibility of a link between BSE in cattle and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans. The Government's Southwood report made that clear in 1989. The Tyrrell committee--another committee set up by the Government--advised random testing of the brains of cattle going through our slaughterhouses. The House will know that that recommendation was never implemented.
There was always a possibility that such information could come to the Government, but the statement was bungled. On Wednesday 20 March, we were told about the possibility of the link, but we were also told that we would have to wait over the weekend and that it would be Monday at the earliest before the Secretary of State for Health would come back and tell us whether children or other special groups were particularly at risk. What an impact that had on consumer confidence! What an impact that had on our industry! What an impact that had on markets in Europe! No wonder some countries took unilateral action to halt the movement of our beef and beef supplies--there had been such a collapse in confidence in this country during those few days.
There was no contingency plan and clearly no strategy. Consider, for example, the position of cattle aged over 30 months. Those cattle are important because they are more likely to carry the BSE agent. On 20 March, the Minister told us that all cattle over 30 months would be deboned and that special slaughterhouses would be designated and licensed for that purpose. Eight days later, on 28 March, he told the House of Commons that all beef from cattle over 30 months would be banned. They had not been able to organise the licensing of the slaughterhouses to carry out the deboning. On 3 April he told the House of Commons that the Government had decided that all cattle over 30 months should be slaughtered, destroyed and incinerated. That is a measure of how unprepared the Government were. They had no strategy or contingency plan, but BSE had been in our cattle since 1986 and they knew full well that there was always the possibility of a link between BSE in cattle and CJD in humans.
Mr. Richards:
The hon. Gentleman has given an account of events around 20 March last year. Does he still agree with the point that he made on 22 March last year that European Governments were acting prudently in banning British beef?
Dr. Strang:
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for coming up with that, because if ever a position was deliberately misrepresented repeatedly, that is it.
Mr. David Shaw (Dover):
"It says here".
Dr. Strang:
Yes, it does. [Laughter.] Conservative Members can laugh as much as they like. On 20 March,
After that date--this is a different development--the European Union imposed its collective ban on the export of British beef and beef products. That was a worldwide ban. I have made it clear and have always done so--indeed, the whole Opposition have agreed with the Government--that that ban is not justified. The reason why it is not justified is that--
Mr. Jacques Arnold (Gravesham):
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Dr. Strang:
No, I am going to explain this point.
Dr. Strang:
The hon. Gentleman has in his hand a press release that I put out on the Friday after the Wednesday. I am talking about the overall European Union ban which was imposed on 27 March. That is the ban that matters. The important point is that, when that ban was imposed, the Opposition took the view that provided that all the controls were in place--
Madam Speaker:
Order. Hon. Gentlemen should not persist when it is obvious that the Opposition spokesman at the Dispatch Box is not giving way. They should resume their seats.
Madam Speaker:
Order. That means all of you.
Dr. Strang:
The important point is that, provided that all the controls are in place, the cattle over 30 months old have been slaughtered, and in particular, that the controls in the slaughterhouses have been implemented fully, and not in the way they were in 1995 and years before, we take the view that the ban is not justified, never has been justified and should be lifted.
Madam Speaker:
Order. Is the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East (Dr. Strang) giving way? [Interruption.] I need no instructions from the Opposition Front Bench. I am waiting for Mr. Strang to indicate to me whether he will give way.
Dr. Strang:
I am not giving way.
Madam Speaker:
That being so, hon. Members will resume their seats.
Dr. Strang:
I am taking a bit of time to nail a particular misrepresentation. Most hon. Members who follow the
I turn from the origin of the over-30-months scheme. The House should remember that, on 29 April--
Madam Speaker:
Order. Mr. Arnold, it has been indicated to you by the hon. Gentleman at the Dispatch Box and by me as Speaker that he does not wish to give way. I should be glad if, for the time being, you would resume your seat. The hon. Gentleman may give way later, but obviously not quite at this time.
Dr. Strang:
I am grateful to you, Madam Speaker. If the Government Members will make a responsible attempt to listen to the debate, I shall certainly give way later.
I have described the origin of the over-30-months slaughter scheme. The scheme was supposed to start on 29 April. In fact, by the end of May, hardly any cattle had been slaughtered. There was so much chaos and confusion and anger on the part of farmers that there was wide speculation that the Minister of Agriculture would be sacked. Was he sacked? No, the Prime Minister chose not to sack the Minister but humiliate him instead. The Prime Minister appointed the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, the right hon. Member for Kettering(Mr. Freeman), as the man in charge of BSE and the over-30-months slaughter scheme. He was to be the new beef supremo to take over from the Minister--or to work with him. We did not know because there was total confusion. The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster was meeting farmers; the Minister was meeting farmers.
The Minister told us on 24 July that the backlog of cattle to be slaughtered under the over-30-months scheme would be cleared by October. What did the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster bring to the situation? On12 September, the Chancellor coolly announced that the Government had no idea how many cattle were in the backlog. There we were, into a huge slaughter scheme--more than 1 million cattle have been slaughtered under it--yet in September, months after the scheme had begun operating, the Chancellor of the Duchy announced that the Government had no idea in the first place how many cattle they would slaughter under the over-30-months scheme. No wonder there was such confusion and anger. In October, 400,000 cattle were in the backlog waiting to be slaughtered. No wonder farmers were angry.
Some farmers were lucky and had their cattle slaughtered early, but others did not manage to get the slaughterhouse to take their cattle. They had held the cattle all those months--it was autumn and winter was approaching--and they did not want to spend more money on winter feed. What did the Minister do? He cut the compensation payable for each animal to the farmer. Those farmers who had held their animals longest had their compensation reduced below what was paid to the lucky few who got their cattle slaughtered early.
At that time, the National Farmers Union passed a motion of no confidence in the Minister. That was an historic occasion--the National Farmers Union passing a
vote of no confidence in a Conservative Minister of Agriculture. Surely that was an indication that something was going wrong in the farming community.
The Government were also massively overpaying the slaughterhouses, which were getting £87.50 plus the value of a hide per animal slaughtered. That is a scandal, because it is two or three times what they should have been paid. The Minister has subsequently cut that figure, but it was a disgrace--given all the groups that suffered, including the transport workers, the head deboners and the people working in the packaging plants, who did not get a penny--that such excessive sums should have been given to the huge abattoirs.
While we had that catalogue of chaos in the over-30-months scheme at home, Ministers were totally failing to put over Britain's case in Europe. The House will recall the slaughter auction that took place. The Minister came back from Brussels to tell the House that he had agreed a second slaughter programme; in addition to the OTMS, there would be a selective slaughter of milking cows--those deemed most likely to come down with BSE in the future. In April, the Minister said that we would slaughter 42,000 cattle. By May, 80,000 cattle were to be slaughtered, but by the end of that month the figure was back down to 42,000. In June, the figure finally agreed by the Prime Minister at the Florence summit was around 128,000 cattle.
The Florence summit was important. The Prime Minister came back and informed the House that he had reached an agreement for a certified herd scheme. In October, he said, we could start exporting beef from the certified herds and, in November, all the beef that could be sold in this country--from cattle under 30 months--would be available for export to Europe and beyond. In effect, he said, the beef ban would be lifted in its entirety by November.
What happened? It became clear in July that the Government would not meet their undertaking to put the arrangements in place by 1 August. We had a debate just before the House rose in July, and the Minister said:
"I do not believe that this information should damage consumer confidence and thus the beef market."--[Official Report, 20 March 1996; Vol. 274, c. 387.]
The beef industry, the farming industry and our rural communities are still paying a heavy price for that misjudgment.
"the agreement that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister secured at the Florence Council provides the framework for the step-by-step lifting of the European Union ban on exports of United Kingdom beef and beef products. Decisions on each step will be taken on the basis of scientific and objective criteria. The agreement was a great success, and provides a solid way forward."--[Official Report, 24 July 1996; Vol. 282, c. 369.]
Those were the Minister's words in July.
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