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8.25 pm
Mr. Mark Robinson (Somerton and Frome): The timing of this debate is wrong. The BSE crisis has been the most serious for the British farming industry that working farmers can remember. To trivialise it in this way and at this time will achieve no purpose--except perhaps to show that although the Liberal Democrats disagree with the official Opposition on the timing of this debate, they will go where their leader tells them to go. Their leader, it appears, is the Leader of the Opposition.
Labour has promised spending constraints, but what would its attitude be if it was in government and was asked to spend £3.3 billion to deal with this crisis? Would Labour stump up the money? I do not believe so, and nor do British farmers. Would Labour listen to hon. Members from agricultural constituencies--as my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister has done--asking for help for farmers in their constituencies? Labour would not listen to those voices because I do not believe that, at heart, it represents countryside and agricultural interests.
Would Labour work every hour--as my right hon. and learned Friend, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and other MAFF colleagues have done--to resolve this crisis? Would Labour Members trail the length and breadth of this land--often at the request of individual Members--to see for themselves the problems and difficulties faced by farmers, often in the most confrontational circumstances? I do not believe so. When we come down to it, the Labour party is not the party of the countryside. When farmers start to think about the general election, they will realise that that is the case.
It is interesting that this is the first BSE debate that we have had since the crisis began for which a delegation of farmers has not come from Somerset to get their points across to Members of Parliament. I expect the same is true of farmers from across the country. The debate is ill-judged, ill-timed and not about BSE. It is about raw politics, and is an attempt to embarrass the Government. The farmers of this country will see through that stunt.
Relationships between farmers and rural Members of Parliament are extremely strong. My right hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Mr. Jopling)
said that he had not been besieged by a great mailbag during the crisis; it was not necessary to have a great mailbag, because our farmers were in touch with us--we have regular liaison--the moment that the crisis broke. Despite many angry words, that relationship has strengthened.
That is not only my view: when Somerset had its annual National Farmers Union dinner at the time of the NFU conference, I was struck by what representatives said about the way in which we had been able to work together in a difficult and confrontational crisis. We will continue to work together.
An attack was launched against the Government today for not getting the accelerated scheme going earlier. When we had the great backlog in the lead-up to Christmas, farmers did not want the accelerated scheme; they wanted the backlog dealt with by Christmas. In their hearts they did not believe that we would deliver; but we did, and that was extremely important to them. That is recognised as the dialogue continues about the way forward.
The way forward is the priority of getting the British beef ban lifted. That is why, often against their better judgment, members of the NFU have come round to the need to go ahead with the accelerated cull. Certainly, my constituent who is the NFU chairman in Somerset was until recently totally opposed to the accelerated cull, but he recognises the need for it, because he knows that above all else we need to get Europe to lift the ban.
I listened with great sympathy to what Ulster Members said on the subject. We should try to find the key--if there is one--to unlock the ban. I hope that the Minister will listen to what Ulster Members have said. We all have common cause on the issue. Farmers in my constituency--a beef-producing constituency--want to get their export markets back, and if it means somebody else getting theirs back first, they do not care, provided that it sets a path that they will be able to follow. I would say the same about Scotland. If the key to unlocking the ban is to move selectively, we must consider that option.
I want to say a word about the resilience of the British consumer. I have been struck by the way in which the beef market has collapsed in countries such as France and Germany and by the way in which it has held up here, despite all the tabloid stories and scares. As I go around my constituency, I see signs saying, "Eat British Beef", in fields and in cars; and when I talk to butchers, they say, "Yes, I've even had people coming into my shop and saying, 'We might not have bought beef this week, but we're going to now.'"
I echo what my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir J. Spicer) said: schools operating a ban on beef through their county councils should bring it to an end at once. British beef is the safest in the world. There is no doubt about that. It is perfectly safe, and let us make sure that it is eaten at every opportunity.
I want to say a word about the Minister who is the subject of the motion. We may have had our arguments and difficulties, but nobody can doubt his dedication to trying to get the crisis resolved. I also pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, for the way in which he visited Somerset and Devon at the height of the crisis and listened to what our farmers had to say.
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton (Mrs. Browning), has been praised in many farming quarters in the south-west and has developed a reputation throughout the crisis as the listening Minister. Farmers have wanted reassurance throughout; they have wanted to be heard, and to know that the Government were getting on and trying to resolve the crisis.
Mr. Ieuan Wyn Jones (Ynys Mon):
Not unnaturally, this has been a highly charged and highly partisan debate. The hon. Member for West Dorset (Sir J. Spicer) acknowledged that there had been some disagreements about BSE on the Government side, although he did not go into great detail, but the vast majority of the debate has been not about the BSE crisis but about the way in which the Government have handled it.
It is quite right for us to hold the Government to account, although I share some other Opposition Members' concerns about the way in which the Labour party tabled the motion without consulting us. Had we been able to offer some advice to Labour on the matter, the result of the vote tonight might have been different.
It is important to place it on record that Conservative Members have, by and large, failed to recognise the fiasco that took place in many parts of rural Wales during the operation of the over-30-months scheme. I remember the time, although the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Robinson) clearly does not, when thousands of farmers descended on Westminster because the Government had failed to get the scheme properly organised. Farmers asked them week after week to prepare a scheme to enable animals to be dealt with in an orderly fashion.
The problem was that dealers were going around the country offering deals to farmers to get their animals in through the back door, and for months the Government did nothing to stop it. The problem was compounded because at the time when Welsh beef was hitting the markets in great quantities, the Government cut the compensation price. The farmers most affected were not those who had got their animals in through the back door, but the honest farmers, who had waited in the queue, seen the market price fall and had the compensation cut imposed on them by the Government with no consultation whatever.
Those facts needed to be placed on the record tonight, because Welsh farmers were decidedly unhappy with the way in which both the Welsh Office and the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food handled the whole affair.
There has been general support for the idea that we should move towards an accelerated cull, but several questions remain about the way in which the Government should handle the compensation. We know that this is a contrived debate; it is about BSE, but it must go wider
than that, because the Government stand charged with failing to deliver on the issue. That is why we will be in the Lobby with the Labour party tonight. It is not because we do not have concerns about the way in which the debate has been handled or because we agree with everything that has been said by Opposition Members but because we believe that there should be a general election. This is a tired Government who have run out of ideas on BSE as on so many other issues.
On one of his rare visits to Wales last week, the Prime Minister told us that we were not entitled to look after our own affairs in any shape or form and that the Conservatives had looked after us in Wales. I know that my farmers will not buy that at the ballot box on 1 May or on any other date.
I want to challenge the Government on several issues relevant to the debate. First, there must be movement towards lifting the export ban. We know that the Government have moved towards the accelerated cull scheme; we must ensure that there is a firm timetable for lifting the ban.
I shall cut across some of the consensus that has built up in the House on the certified herd scheme. There is some unease--I put it no higher than that--in Wales about its operation. My farmers fear that it might lead to a two-tier industry. I have heard some powerful arguments about the situation in Northern Ireland and I hope that they are correct. If that is the way forward, the Government will have to consider it carefully. However, I must express the reservations felt by many beef farmers in Wales about whether the scheme would of itself lead to the lifting of the ban for all parts of the United Kingdom. I am sure that the Welsh Office Minister, the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnor (Mr. Evans), who is present, knows the reservations of both farming unions in Wales on the matter.
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