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Sir Colin Shepherd (Hereford): Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Sheerman: No, I will not. I have only 10 minutes in which to speak.
Let us look at the way in which the crisis unfolded. As we all know, we have an agreement behind the scenes--behind the Speaker's Chair. We all know when it is going to be a quiet week, and the week of this crisis was scheduled to be a quiet week. The Prime Minister was going to make a major speech before a by-election that was crucial for his party. I was with the leader of our party when he launched our small firms policy in the City of London; it had been agreed that there would be nothing much on in the House on that day, and, indeed, during that part of the week.
The next thing we knew was that messages had come through about a statement not just from one Minister, but from two Secretaries of State. That is almost unheard of.
Everyone, not only in the House but outside, knows that it means something if two Secretaries of State, including a senior Cabinet Minister--the Secretary of State for Health--run into the Chamber and say that there is a crisis. Two Secretaries of State came in and said that there was a crisis.
In the approach to a general election, we must all be partisan; but any fair-minded person reading the Hansard report of the Minister's statement and the Opposition response will realise that no other response could have been made by anyone. In fact, the Opposition's response was very muted. I thought that the most outrageous response came from a Conservative Member--the hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East (Sir T. Taylor), who is not present now but who asked the Minister an interesting and rather inflammatory question.
We are now in a global economy. Most people who run banks or other big financial institutions know that something careless that they say at a dinner party or over the weekend can change the whole structure of a financial market. That can be gathered from any of the leading American industrialists who saw the value of their shares drop by 5 per cent. overnight following a careless remark made only a few weeks before. I spoke to someone--this is a comment on that global economy--who was in CNN's headquarters in Atlanta, and saw those two Secretaries of State come in. He commented: "We knew immediately"--in Atlanta!--"that something serious was up, because we saw the shaking hands of the Secretary of State for Health. He did not even have to say anything; we saw the picture, transmitted all those thousands of miles, instantly."
In crisis management, people are told, "You have 10 minutes or 10 hours, but if you do not manage a crisis in that time you can forget it." That is acknowledged by Shell, and by all the big energy companies. British Gas knows it only too well. In this instance, we had a crisis that was spiralling out of control; then, making matters even worse, the Government said, "There is a crisis--there is a problem--but we are not going to do all that much about it. Indeed, we will tell you about the most sensitive issue, our children's health, next Monday." No sensible person involved in crisis management would allow a weekend to pass, featuring comment from the Sunday press. The Sunday press is the worst in terms of speculation, tabloid circulation and the building up of stories--and we all knew that that story would go through the roof. Then it was out of control.
That is where we are now. I lack confidence not only in the Minister of Agriculture, who has hardly been present throughout the evening, but in the Secretary of State for Health, because of his complicity in what has been a disaster for agriculture and for farming.
Mr. Michael Fabricant (Mid-Staffordshire):
The hon. Member for Taunton said rightly--it is the only thing he said that was quite right--that the BSE crisis should have
My hon. Friend the Member for Taunton (Mr. Nicholson), however, made a valid point when he said that the timing and choice of the debate have been inept. Why? My right hon. and learned Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food should have been in Brussels today because today is the day that the Council of Ministers debates this very issue, and what is on the agenda but the British beef crisis? Instead we have a debate today that was chosen to fit in--so it was thought--with the forthcoming general election.
The hon. Member for Huddersfield spoke about crisis management, but how well have the Labour team organised the crisis that they have engineered today? All last week, we heard the Opposition Chief Whip, the right hon. Member for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar), telling everyone that the debate would lead to a vote of no confidence. We were told that there would be a general election in three or four weeks and that we would have to gird our loins. He was not mealy-mouthed about it; he openly admitted on "Newsnight" and other programmes that this was an opportunistic moment because it would be the time to get rid of the present Government.
Labour could not even manage that properly, could it? It has bungled that. It could not even liaise with the minority parties, so the matter will die like a damp squib in about 54 minutes from now, when the Opposition lose the vote.
To put matters into perspective, excluding the beef sector, agriculture has been enjoying a period of unprecedented prosperity, despite the Labour party, whose members have never been known as friends of agriculturists. Since when have farmers ever said, "We welcome the idea of the Labour party getting into office because the Labour party cares"?
Mr. Home Robertson:
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Fabricant:
No, I will not give way to the hon. Gentleman because time is limited.
We should remember that since 1992--five years ago--total income from farming has increased by 85 per cent. in real terms. The industry's assets are eight times greater than its liabilities. The 1996 harvest was the second largest in Britain's history. The beef assurance scheme has been introduced by the Government to register beef herds that have never been exposed to BSE. We must all welcome that.
I have considerable sympathy, however, with those Members representing Northern Ireland who have spoken in the debate. I worked in Northern Ireland for a short time and I am very conscious of the fact that the management of herds in Northern Ireland differs markedly from that in the rest of the United Kingdom. Not only are
most beef herds fed on natural grass but, as has been said, there is a system of tagging or passporting, which I believe that the rest of the country would do well to emulate. I understand that we are starting to do just that.
Opposition Members have spoken about the fact that BSE has cost us £3.5 billion so far. I am pleased that the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East (Dr. Strang), the agriculture spokesman of the Labour party, which is so caring of our farmers, is sitting on the Opposition Front Bench. He criticised the fact that we have spent £3.5 billion on the crisis. Is he saying that we should be spending less? Although I did not give way earlier to the hon. Member for East Lothian (Mr. Home Robertson), I should be happy to give way now to the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East if he will tell us whether the Labour party would not be spending £3.5 billion on the beef crisis. All he does is sit there, shrug his shoulders, close his eyes and smile to himself. He has no answer. When he attacked the Government for spending £3.5 billion, it was no more than empty rhetoric. It is always empty rhetoric from the Opposition.
What does the Labour party, which claims to care so much about the beef crisis, do? The shadow Health Secretary, the hon. Member for Peckham (Ms Harman), sounded such a trivial note at this time of crisis, as the hon. Member for Huddersfield called it. What question did she ask the Secretary of State for Health? Was is a question that could help the farmers, as Labour cares so much for them? She asked:
"Will the Secretary of State confirm that SEAC members who are parents or grandparents are not giving beef to their children or grandchildren?"--[Official Report, 20 March 1996; Vol. 274, c. 377.]
That was the intellectual question that she asked the Secretary of State.
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