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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Jonathan Evans): In case my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster cannot
deal with that point in his reply, I am sure that the hon. Gentleman knows of my announcement at the National Farmers Union annual general meeting about additional support for Welsh food promotion and specifically for a Welsh beef marketing campaign. The matter is at the forefront of the mind of the Welsh Office.
Mr. Jones: I am grateful for that intervention, but we want a much expanded and more comprehensive scheme similar to that which was so successful for Welsh lamb. However, I still indict the Government for their failure throughout the crisis fully to appreciate the context in which the dangers that face our farmers occurred. That is why we will vote with Labour tonight.
8.44 pm
Mr. David Nicholson (Taunton): On personal grounds, it is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Ynys Mon (Mr. Jones). As he is aware, I know his constituency well. I do not agree with many of his points but I welcome his recognition that it is a contrived debate.
That point was also made by the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond) and other non-Labour Opposition Members. They disagree strongly with how the Labour party has approached this contrived debate. My right hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater (Mr. King), and my hon. Friends the Members for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Robinson), for West Dorset (Sir J. Spicer) and for West Gloucestershire (Mr. Marland), all noted that no gain can result from the hype about this debate but that there may well be damage to the beef industry. It may affect McDonalds' decision about whether to return to British beef and other matters.
I am surprised that the Opposition did not table a motion of censure last October when the farming community was much aggravated about what were, perhaps, episodes of maladministration in the handling of the over-30-months cull. As several Conservative Members have said, why move this artificial censure motion now? The matter has progressed satisfactorily over the past few months.
I am glad that the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler) is in his place because I tried to intervene on him. I shall read his speech carefully. I caution him--and he knows my concern on this--that whereas we have both worked with other hon. Members on the damage to human health caused by the use of organophosphate sheep dips, we must be careful about giving credence to the views of Mark Purdey about a possible link between OP dips and BSE because of the damage that could be done to the sheep industry, on which my constituency greatly depends.
Conservative Members are not complacent--I certainly am not--about the past handling of the matter or present prospects. I have known my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister of Agriculture for more than 30 years. Let us admit that he has not always behaved in accordance with the Mandelson school of public relations in being able to depict black as white and white as black. His Department has not always operated as effectively as we might have wished, in policy making, administration or in passing information or advice to farmers. My right hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater, who has direct experience of large Departments such as Defence, the Environment and Employment, noted that contrast. Those who are concerned with the machinery of Government need to take that on board because MAFF has had problems.
I welcome what has been said by Opposition Members, especially Northern Ireland Members, and by several Conservative Members about it being desirable for the Government to be more positive in getting accredited herd status and so lifting the ban in Northern Ireland. I will listen to what farmers in my Somerset constituency say about that, but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome said, they are likely to welcome it as light at the end of the tunnel. At the moment there is complete darkness. If we can start the process in Northern Ireland, where the case is good, and move it on elsewhere, it will bring hope to farmers throughout the country.
The BSE crisis has been a great tragedy that has cost an enormous amount of money. Other hon. Members have talked about being in the business of accusing. I accuse those responsible for the original leak. I cannot think of a leak--even the work of a spy--that has done more damage in terms of cost to taxpayers, industry and businesses of all sorts than the leak to the Daily Mirror that prompted the crisis. I hope that every farm in the country has the front page from the Daily Mirror pinned up somewhere as a reminder of the way in which that newspaper exploited the evidence and printed the photograph of a dying patient on the front page. That was horrific.
Mention has also been made of the way in which, in those early days before more sober counsels took over in the Labour party, the hon. Member for Peckham (Ms Harman) fanned the flames, which played into the hands of those in Europe who, for a variety of reasons, wanted to ban our exports.
To those criticisms and to the list of those whom I accuse I would add the health mafia. We shall not know for 30 years what discussions took place within the Department of Health before the announcement of 20 March, but only a few days ago we saw evidence of the overreaction of the health mafia, when Professor Lacey criticised the promotion of eggs. Apparently some eggs were shown as being runny and he has warned us that that can have terrible effects. A little silence from Professor Lacey might be welcome.
Using written answers, I have done some research into the number of deaths from one or two fairly horrific diseases and the amount of money that has been spent on research and prevention. I give these figures for the purpose of comparison; I am not ramming home any stark conclusion. In recent years, we have come to fear meningitis considerably. In 1995, 196 people died from it and the provisional total for 1996 is 230 deaths. In 1995, 1,259 people died from AIDS in the United Kingdom; in 1996, the number was, mercifully, lower, with 802 deaths from the disease. Large sums are spent on dealing with those two diseases, but they are small compared with the sums mentioned in this debate. The Medical Research Council spends £1.5 million a year on meningitis research. Health authorities spent £186 million on treatment for AIDS in 1996-97 and £51 million on prevention.
Although I appreciate that we are dealing with wider industrial compensation, over the two or three years affected by this great BSE crisis, we will have spent £3.5 billion because of a possible link with certain types of CJD. Yet, according to the figures given to me, the
total number of deaths attributed to definite or probable cases of CJD in the United Kingdom was 46 in 1995 and 39 in 1996, of which three deaths in 1995 and nine in 1996 were possibly from the new version. Those figures should be contrasted with the deaths from and research into other terrible diseases.
I join other hon. Members in complimenting the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton (Mrs. Browning), on her achievements during this dreadful crisis. I am glad to see my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster sitting next to her on the Treasury Bench. He came to Taunton last November and spoke to market people, auctioneers, farmer representatives and others about prospects for the cull and I compliment him on what he achieved in that respect.
Several hon. Members have mentioned the selective cull and some have suggested that MAFF should speed it up. A few weeks ago, before the House was being asked to approve the order for the selective cull, I received a letter from the chairman of the Taunton Vale NFU. He took a slightly different line, saying:
Mr. Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield):
I speak with some trepidation, because several hon. Members have been told that special qualifications are required to participate in this debate. If one represents a reasonably urban constituency as I do--although I represent half a dozen farms in Huddersfield--those qualifications are in doubt. My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, East (Dr. Strang), the shadow spokesman on agriculture, despite being highly qualified as a scientist--he has a first degree from Edinburgh university and a masters specialist degree in agricultural science from Cambridge university--and being the son of a farmer, was told by a barrister that he is not competent to lead in the debate. That was astonishing.
We in this House have a long tradition--certainly under the Conservative Government--which we have witnessed tonight. When a Minister is under fire and he happens to be an old Etonian, there is only one qualification for speaking from the Conservative Benches and that is having been to Eton as well. It is a sign of the Minister's failure that only four ex-Etonians have rallied to the cause tonight, whereas there were seven or eight when the right hon. Member for Bristol, West (Mr. Waldegrave) was in trouble. There is obviously some lack of confidence in the Minister, even among the old school.
I want to speak seriously about this tragedy. One does not have to be a farmer or represent a farming constituency to realise its enormity. BSE has been a
tragedy for farmers, for consumers and for the animals that are being put down and burnt rather than living until the time when they would normally go to the market. We in this country have traditionally had a wonderful farming industry and it has come under tremendous pressure because of the inattentions of the Government.
We have always needed a well-regulated farming industry, especially when there are pressures arising from the chemical and pharmaceutical industries pushing different sorts of nitrate fertilisers or modern insecticides and weedkillers in the name of plant protection. We know that there are great pressures on the farming community and none is as great as that of the demand for cheap food, which Opposition Members believe often comes from rather dubious sources. We all share responsibility for that pressure, which arises from our desire to have cheap food. The pressure to do things on the cheap--to use anything that increases productivity and to go for quantity rather than quality--lies at the heart of the problems affecting the British farming industry. When that pressure continues over a period of years, it only needs certain elements to start going wrong before we have a crisis such as the current BSE crisis.
Although I have no great knowledge of farming, I have some knowledge of something called crisis management. I participate in seminars for industrialists who have to learn about it. That is a compulsory part of the training that must be undertaken by those who reach a certain rung of the career ladder in the large chemical and energy companies: they must learn how to handle a crisis. Such people will tell hon. Members what I have been told by many leading industrialists who have viewed the unfolding of this tragedy with dismay.
"I hope that MAFF will proceed in such a manner that will disrupt farmers as little as it is possible and not use it"--
the selective cull--
"as an exercise to show how quickly and efficiently it is able to carry out such an exercise regardless of the consequences to the farmer."
He went on to say that there should be
"maximum flexibility on the timing of slaughter."
He added:
"To take quickly will disrupt the farmers business greatly"--
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Janet Fookes):
Order. I am afraid that time is up.
8.54 pm
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