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Dr. Gavin Strang (Edinburgh, East): These are serious matters. The House and the country are well aware of the importance of ensuring that health and hygiene controls in our slaughterhouses are maintained. We know that BSE is the most likely cause of new variant CJD, which is why it is so important to keep all the offal out of our food--the offal which can contain the BSE agent. We know that faecal contamination is a source of E. coli, which tragically resulted in more than 20 deaths in this country.
I advise the Minister that the House wants to know today what he knew about bad practices in our abattoirs, when he knew about them and what he did about them. [Hon. Members: "Hear, hear."] The Minister referred in his statement to the Meat Hygiene Service review. As the Minister said, that was the report which the House addressed last week, but he seems to have forgotten the appalling breaches of hygiene highlighted in that report. Spinal cords were not removed, bovine specified material bins were unmarked and there was a major problem with faecal contamination.
Does the Minister remember that that report was not publicised? Indeed, it was not passed to Professor Pennington's inquiry on E. coli. The Minister seemed to say today on the radio that it was Professor Pennington's fault. Indeed, the Minister, who we assumed had left no stone unturned to drive up standards in our slaughterhouses, said that he himself had not seen the report. It was a comprehensive and devastating report, but it was summarised, it was sanitised and it was made available to only a few people in the industry.
Last Thursday, however, the Minister said, not to worry: he had made sure that everything was all right in our abattoirs and, although he had not seen the recommendations of the hygiene advisory team, he was confident that standards--I use his words--were "constantly improving".
But this week we find that, for the past nine months, the Association of Meat Inspectors has been warning Ministers and others that there are serious problems in our abattoirs and that in some respects in some places they have even been getting worse. Is the Minister aware that, on 11 February 1997, in a letter to the Parliamentary Secretary, the general secretary of the Association of Meat Inspectors warned that
The Minister referred in his statement to the State Veterinary Service; rightly so. The State Veterinary Service has a crucial role in all these matters, especially in ensuring that we have the highest standards in our slaughterhouses. I hope that hon. Members know that we had just under 600 state vets when the Conservatives came to power. Now we have fewer than 300. In a written answer to me last week, the Minister confirmed that we have 289 state vets in 1997. Last year, we had 301, and there were 394 in 1995. Against a background of apparent concern about tackling the issue, we see the number of state vets continuing to plummet.
For the Minister, BSE means "blame someone else". He blamed the Opposition, he blamed Europe and he blamed the public for BSE. He blamed Mr. Swann, the editor of the hygiene advice team report, and today he and his colleagues have tried to blame the general secretary of the Association of Meat Inspectors. Does the Minister recognise that his "blame someone else" approach will not work? Every time Ministers come to the House and tell us that they have a grip on food safety, it quickly becomes clear that they do not.
Surely the Minister understands that food safety standards and hygiene in our slaughterhouses have been matters of concern not for months, but for years. It is almost a year since the Minister came to the House of Commons and made the statement that triggered the beef crisis. Yet there is a widespread public belief that those issues are still not being addressed. Is it not clear that we must establish an open and independent food standards agency? There is no place for secrecy in food safety.
Is the Minister aware that his statement this afternoon utterly fails to address adequately the issues raised by the Opposition? He is not tackling those problems effectively. There is no confidence in him or in his Government as far as food safety issues are concerned. We need a general election, and a fresh start with a new Government.
Mr. Hogg:
The hon. Member for Edinburgh, East (Dr. Strang) used an awful lot of words to say remarkably little. In so far as he said anything of substance, let me deal with it.
First, of course this is a matter of very great importance: food safety is our paramount consideration. That is why we set up the Meat Hygiene Service. It is extraordinary that the hon. Gentleman should make the comments he did, when his party and the Liberal Democrats voted against the establishment of the Meat Hygiene Service. That was not a very responsible course of action.
Secondly, the hon. Gentleman went on at great length about standards not being improved in the past two years. That is simply untrue. One way--and it is only one--of measuring standards is by examining the hygiene assessment system scoring. In 1995, 111 abattoirs scored less than 50, and 374 scored less than 65. By 1997,
16 scored less than 50, and 116 scored less than 65. In other words, there has been a huge improvement. It is true that the number of abattoirs has fallen during that period. Nonetheless, the crude figures show a very substantial increase in standards.
The hon. Gentleman referred to Mr. Comrie. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman read the comments of the vice-president of the AMI that were reported in today's edition of The Times. Mr. Johnston said a number of things. Of Mr. Comrie's allegations, he said:
Mr. Paul Marland (West Gloucestershire):
Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that it is outrageous for members of the Opposition to prey on people's fears over the matter, pretending that they have a monopoly of concern for public health? It is blatant political opportunism. No one has an interest in trying to cover up the truth.
Will my right hon. and learned Friend confirm again that there have been substantial improvements in the slaughterhouses in this country since the Meat Hygiene Service was set up, and will he remind the general public that Labour and the Liberal Democrats voted against the introduction of that service? If they had had a shred of care about the matter, they would have supported in the House the setting up of that agency.
Mr. Hogg:
My hon. Friend is wholly right. The plain truth is that we are approaching a general election, and the Opposition parties are less scrupulous than they ought to be in the way in which they are currently conducting themselves with regard to food safety. The farming
"there has been no improvement in standards of hygiene, and sadly faecal contamination appears to"
be
"becoming an acceptable infringement of the regulations"?
12 Mar 1997 : Column 375
Does that point, and the other points in the letter, not worry the Minister? Surely he takes those criticisms seriously. It is no use his seeking to dismiss the general secretary's letters; if he does, I suggest that he has a look at the "Frontline Scotland" programme that was shown in Scotland last night, which again focused attention on some of these major and appalling breaches.
"His letters are written on AMI headed notepaper, but as far as I know, they are his views, not those of the committee."
We have other anecdotal evidence of the rejection of Mr. Comrie's views. For example, I have a fax that was sent by Mr. Dennis Eyre to Johnston McNeill, chief executive of the Meat Hygiene Service. It states:
"Dear Mr. McNeill,
It just happens that two days ago across my desk came another letter from a senior member of the Farmers Union of Wales addressed to Mr. Johnston McNeill. The letter, from Mr. Dolan, states:
I wish to notify you that, as a member of the Association of Meat Inspectors, I totally disagree with the content of the letter sent by the general secretary to yourself and Angela Browning. I can also refer to many plants where standards have improved vastly since the MHS took over. I cannot, though, name one plant that standards have dropped. I have consulted with the meat inspectors that work with me to enforce standards in meat plants for the Meat Hygiene Service and, so far, none can name a plant that is worse than under local authority control. We fully support you and the Meat Hygiene Service, and acknowledge the success with enforcing SBM control and hygiene."
"Based on a number of visits to meat premises at irregular intervals, there is self-evident and continuing improvement in hygiene practice, quality of product, organisation of staff to the benefit of producers, consumers and operators."
The plain truth is that we knew that there were problems in the abattoirs. That is why we set up the Meat Hygiene Service. Since that time, we have pursued a consistent and continuing policy based on targets, which are being enforced, and on extensive discussions with the industry, conducted principally by my hon. Friend, which are designed to drive up standards, and which are having that clear effect.
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