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Mr. Hogg: The House will have heard the hon. Gentleman's observation with some distaste.
Mr. Tony Marlow (Northampton, North): My right hon. and learned Friend has set out a catalogue of great achievement in the past two years. Does he agree that standards of meat hygiene in United Kingdom abattoirs are higher now than they have ever been? Will he reinforce the point he made earlier, that meat hygiene standards in the United Kingdom are the highest in the whole of the European Union? Is it possible that those who have been busy leaking misinformation to the Labour party have an agenda wholly removed from that of public health and hygiene?
Mr. Hogg: As my hon. Friend knows, I do not always agree with him, so it is nice to be able to do so now. He is certainly right on the three points he made. First, standards in the United Kingdom are much higher than they were two years ago. Secondly, I venture to say that no country in the European Union has higher standards or enforces them more effectively. Lastly, we are approaching the general election, and many people, most notably Opposition Members, are behaving disreputably on this issue. This is a serious matter, but Opposition Members are not treating it as such.
Mr. George Foulkes (Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley): Is the Minister aware that the number of notified cases of food poisoning in Scotland rose from fewer than 1,000 in the late 1970s to more than 10,000 last year, with a similar increase in England? Did that not give him a hint that he should do something, such as abandon his dangerous dogma of deregulation?
Mr. Hogg: The hon. Gentleman has clearly--I rather like him, as a matter of fact--[Hon. Members: "Withdraw."] That will damn his chances, but no matter. He and I will live with that: he will, most certainly.
The hon Gentleman has clearly not paid the slightest attention to what I have been saying in the past 20 minutes. Standards are improving owing to the policy initiatives taken by the Government and consistently opposed by the Labour party and the Liberal Democrats. It was because my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland was so concerned about E. coli and related matters that he set up the inquiry under Professor Pennington to address the general issues that are the subject, at least in part, of this discussion.
Mr. William Cash (Stafford):
Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that our first consideration should be the British consumer, the British meat producer and the British farmer? Does he accept that imports of foreign beef are coming into this country from places that have no proper inspection system? Their inspections are nothing like as good as those provided by the Meat Hygiene Service, even if it has had some teething
Mr. Hogg:
It is a great pleasure to be able to associate myself with much of what my hon. Friend has said. He is entirely right about where our paramount duty lies. Our paramount duty is to the consumer--the consumer in the United Kingdom, obviously, but to the consumer.
My hon. Friend implicitly drew attention to the fact that there is almost certainly a higher rate of BSE in Europe than has yet been declared, and that controls such as we have in the United Kingdom are not in place in those countries. It is a serious problem, and it is being addressed by the European Commission. For example, it proposed an offal regime at the December Council, which we supported. That did not go through, but we will support the Commission when it again brings its proposal forward, because it is an important safeguard that is not yet in place.
Mr. Alex Salmond (Banff and Buchan):
Did the Minister say that he was asking the chief executive of the Meat Hygiene Service to prepare a written statement that the Scottish Office would pass on to Professor Pennington? The Minister said that the knowledge of the Meat Hygiene Service was clearly relevant to Professor Pennington's inquiry. If that is so, why were not the Swann report and the final report into slaughterhouse hygiene clearly relevant to Professor Pennington's inquiry, and passed on to Hugh Pennington?
On Thursday, the Minister implied that the matter was a Scottish Office responsibility. There was an immediate counter-briefing by the Secretary of State to say that it was the Minister's fault. Does not the Minister think that, against the background of 21 fatalities from E. coli in Scotland, people in Scotland will conclude that it was both Departments' and both Ministers' responsibility, and that the climate of secrecy that they have encouraged is responsible for some of the things that have been debated today?
Before he goes down the road of his junior Minister, the hon. Member for Tiverton (Mrs. Browning), and blames Hugh Pennington for not requesting the report, will the Minister reflect on the fact that there is much more confidence in Hugh Pennington than in any Minister on the Treasury Bench?
Mr. Hogg:
It is for Professor Pennington, as the person presiding over the inquiry, to determine his lines of inquiry and the kind of information that he judges necessary. It has always been made plain to him that, if he needed specialist advice on meat hygiene, it was available to him. It is for him to ask for it. [Interruption.] No, no: it is for him to ask for it. It has always been made plain that Departments stand ready to assist him.
Mr. Peter Viggers (Gosport):
Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that, if there were to be a public inquiry, it would inevitably delay decisions on this important subject? Is he aware that I am certain that my constituents would wish to see the Government getting on
Mr. Hogg:
My hon. Friend is quite right. If there were a public inquiry, what would be decided is something like this--[Hon. Members: "Oh."] I have the advantage of knowing facts. I am therefore able to say what the outcome is going to be, and it would be something like this: the decision to set up the Meat Hygiene Service was a very sound one; the decision by the Labour party and the Liberal Democrat party to oppose it was a very foolish one; during the past two years, there has been a substantial improvement in standards; there is more to be done, and the Government are gripping it. That is, broadly speaking, what an inquiry would say.
Mr. Tam Dalyell (Linlithgow):
Does the Minister or the Secretary of State for Scotland blame Mr. Ian Anderson, whose name has figured prominently in the press, for not having acted properly as a civil servant?
Mr. Hogg:
I do not think that I have blamed anybody for anything in this connection.
Mr. Tom King (Bridgwater):
Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that anybody who visited any slaughterhouse when environmental health officers had a responsibility in that area will be aware of the very serious variations in performance and standards? It is almost incredible that anybody who has any knowledge of slaughterhouses could have opposed the setting up of the Meat Hygiene Service, and the need for an urgent improvement.
Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that the reality is that, given the threat and dangers we face--possibly from new strains of bacteria as well--and the natural problems of slaughtering cattle to which the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) referred, the matter will continue to be a serious challenge for the Government, whoever they are?
It does no service whatever to approach the matter on the basis of a letter from one individual in Somerset who was an environmental health officer and subsequently became involved privately with the meat inspection service. Although he may be the general secretary of the AMI, the letter appears to have been written in an individual capacity. That is not the right way in which to approach such a serious issue, which is slowly being turned into a political stunt. The matter is very serious, and will need continuing attention.
Mr. Hogg:
My right hon. Friend has made a number of important points, of which I shall highlight two. My right hon. Friend, whose experience goes back very many years, is wholly right when drawing on his personal knowledge of abattoirs and practices before the setting up of the Meat Hygiene Service to say that nobody in 1995 who understood abattoirs and slaughterhouses would for one moment have opposed the creation of the Meat Hygiene Service. It follows that the Labour party did not have a clue then and does not have a clue now--which takes me to the second point.
The Labour party is mounting a serious campaign against the interests of food safety, confidence in British food and the British farmer on the say-so of Mr. Comrie,
who has the background that my right hon. Friend has indicated and whose letters--I repeat what his vice-president said--
"are written on AMI headed notepaper, but as far as I know, they are his views, not those of the committee."
It is a slender basis for the hysteria that right hon. and hon. Members have sought to generate for political reasons.
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