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4.42 pm
Mr. Douglas Hurd (Witney): It is reasonable that the House should debate BSE yet again, but it is wholly ludicrous that it should do so in the terms suggested by the Opposition and exemplified by the hon. Member for Warrington, North (Mr. Hoyle).
In the past few days, I have read many unrecognisable things about my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister. I have worked closely with him for a good many years, at the Home Office and the Foreign Office, and developed a very warm admiration for his frankness, courage and sense of service. If he has one political failing, it is a failing that would not have counted against him in former times. As we have seen again today, he believes in debate and robust argument rather than the smooth soundbites which are fashionable and which for a moment--but only a moment--turn away wrath.
The Opposition have tried to pin on my right hon. and learned Friend and on the Government the entire responsibility for the crisis and for the loss and anxiety that have come with it. If, however, we look for the truth behind the headlines, we find something entirely different. We find the latest example of what can happen in a modern democracy when it faces an onrush of consumer anxiety. It has happened before and it will happen again, in different countries and in different ways; and any Government, and the House, need to consider how to deal with it.
This consumer anxiety can be sparked off, as it was in this case, by a scientific report; but, whatever the spark, it is fanned by the media into a forest fire. Within days, perhaps even hours, the flames of that fire beat on the man in charge. That man may be the chairman of Shell, as in the case of Brent Spar, or it may be my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health, as in the BSE case. Within hours, they are pressed for absolute and specific answers to questions such as, "Is it safe?"
Mr. Hurd:
No, I had better make my speech.
Those Ministers are asked whether it is safe and are told that people do not want any of their glib, shilly-shallying, politicians' answers. People ask, "Can my children eat the stuff or not?"
The Minister turns to his scientists and is told:
Scientists today are less dogmatic than they used to be. We know a great deal more but, as we increase our knowledge, the complexities and uncertainties also increase. The chain of cause and effect in such a matter is more complex than we supposed. Such abstract reflections are not very much use to the man or the Government in charge in the moment of crisis.
Surely there can be only three guidelines for a Minister's reaction in such a situation. First, he must publish what is known. As my right hon. and learned Friend was absolutely right to say, concealment would be the most fatal error. He was also right to say that the body entitled to know the facts first is the House. Secondly, the Minister has to frame policy as best he can in the light of what is known. Thirdly, he has to educate and persuade. In that context, I welcome my right hon. and learned Friend's recent decision about the food safety adviser and the food council.
Consumer anxiety is probably greatest in the most prosperous societies. For example, the Americans were among the first--they were perhaps the first--to take measures against British beef, and the Germans would certainly have done so a good deal earlier had they not been constrained by European rules. Some consumers in very prosperous countries seem reluctant to accept that there is no such thing as a risk-free world. I should think that German children are more at risk being taken to school each morning along the autobahn than they could possibly be from eating British beef, but the autobahn risk--or the American motorway risk--is an old risk to which they are accustomed. In a sense, they have come to terms with it. The new risk, though it may be a lesser one, is strange to them and they clamour for it to be removed.
Another difficulty facing people in a position of authority in such cases is that the scientific knowledge shifts under their feet, which must be a very uncomfortable feeling. The Minister, or the chairman of the company, knows that what he is saying may not be the scientific best assessment in a year or two years' time. He may not be on firm ground, but he is still being asked for firm answers all the time. Unless the House and the media understand this dilemma, we shall face it over and over again and we shall get into difficulty over and over again.
There have been two new developments in this case.
Mr. Gordon Prentice
: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Hurd:
If I may, I will continue, as I know that many hon. Members wish to speak.
In the case of BSE, since last March, there have been at least two new developments in the scientific sphere, both of which have been mentioned in this debate. First, there was new thinking on the--perhaps 10 per cent.--possibility of maternal transmission. That development is important, but, as my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister said, it probably does not fundamentally affect the size of the problem. Secondly, last September, in Nature, Professor Anderson was more precise about an early end to BSE in the British herd. As my right hon. and learned Friend explained, that led the Government to delay conducting a selective cull--the accelerated slaughter programme which was part of the Florence agreement.
Throughout the difficulties, there have been those who exploit the anxieties and twist them to their own purposes. Although that may be inevitable, it is lamentable. Those people belong to various groups. On the continent, there are certainly those who believe that the situation is entirely the result of British perfidy in unloading on to their herds dirty feed that we banned here some time ago. In the United Kingdom, it is sometimes describe as a "continental plot" to destroy the British beef industry. The export ban, although clearly illogical and deserving opposition, is also quite clearly the result of intense consumer anxiety on the continent, as I have described. In those circumstances, Governments and consumers cannot be coerced; they must be persuaded. We must persuade them--whether they are German consumers, customers of McDonalds or, sadly, local education authorities in many authorities, including my own in Oxfordshire.
Time and again, however, the greatest exploiters of our anxieties have been the Labour party and the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East (Dr. Strang).
Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman (Lancaster):
And the hon. Member for Peckham (Ms Harman).
Mr. Hurd:
Yes; particularly the hon. Member for Peckham.
As Opposition Members often do, they had a choice between treating the situation as a national problem and crisis and joining in--as the Opposition sometimes do, particularly in international matters, as the Foreign
Secretary knows--a national task of informing, educating, assessing risk and persuading. They could have taken the latter choice--as the Opposition sometimes do on matters in which the prosperity and security of many of our citizens are at stake. Just as my right hon. and learned Friend the Agriculture Minister had to take his decision within hours and come to the House, so the Opposition had to take their decision within hours. They took it, and they have consistently stuck to it ever since. They chose consistently and narrowly to exploit those difficulties for party advantage.
Mr. Hurd:
If in the history of this Session of Parliament there has been a subject that is unsuited to constant party warfare, this is it.
Mr. Andrew Faulds (Warley, East):
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Hurd:
After talking to farmers in my constituency, I am quite clear on the fact that farmers do not see the matter as the Opposition do. Farmers of course become indignant with the Minister, and then, as he described, they--perfectly understandably--change their position. They pressed him to take action, and he has taken it. Farmers of course are in ferment and are anxious, but they, and British consumers, do not regard the matter as a party political one, to be used to gain votes for one party or another.
Mr. Sheerman:
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Privy Councillors in the House have a great privilege in being called early in the debate and before imposition of the 10-minutes rule. Does that privilege include taking absolutely no interventions in their speeches? Is it not surprising--
"We are not in a position to confirm whether a causal link between BSE and human disease exists."
I am quoting the report of the Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee from 25 March last year. The scientists say that the risk is "extremely small" and that the implementation of this recommendation
"should further reduce the risk to minimum levels".
That is what the scientists say. They plead for more research, but that is as far as they will go, and I do not blame them--who could reasonably do so?
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