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Mr. Rooker: I shall be more than happy to do that, but my recollection is that the information that the hon. Gentleman requests has already been given in answers to written parliamentary questions. I authorised one answer that provided information that had not previously been given on the expected savings from the changes that are envisaged.
Before I come to the subject of renderers, it is fair to say that the Intervention Board, which is an independent Government agency, carried out competitive tendering to get value for money in dealing with the over-30-months scheme. Although I understand why the hon. Member for Ludlow is aggrieved that there are no OTMS abattoirs left in Shropshire, there are a good number on the outskirts. I know that, because I listed them all in a parliamentary answer to the hon. Gentleman. The second large abattoir that I visited was in Shropshire, although it was not involved in the over-30-months scheme. I understand the hon. Gentleman's feelings, but the Intervention Board was duty bound to try to get value for money. Over the past three years, the sums paid out have declined considerably from the payments first made at the height of the BSE crisis.
The hon. Gentleman is quite right about the renderers subsidy, but I have to make it clear that we found that no money had been left behind to pay for it. The scheme was a one-off--£59 million for one year--and there is nothing in the kitty to pay for another year. If the scheme were to carry on, the money would have to come from some other element of the Ministry's support scheme for farmers. As my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food announced, we decided that, not having the money to extend the scheme past one year, we would withdraw the subsidy. All we are doing is coming to the end of the first year of a scheme for which money was provided for one year and not two, and that is that. I accept the consequences and realise that we cannot escape from the difficulties that the decision might cause.
The right hon. Member for Wealden (Sir G. Johnson Smith) asked about the date-based scheme. We are pressing that issue and we have put proposals for a date-based scheme to the European Commission. We are currently having informal discussions, and we shall report the results of those discussions to the House, or communicate them to hon. Members during the recess, as quickly as possible. The issue is not one which we can deploy in public, but we are pressing on every possible means of breaching the ban. The idea that we might end the ban all in one go is probably not realistic, so we are operating on several different fronts, and a date-based scheme is certainly one of those fronts.
Mr. Paice:
Will the Minister confirm what he has just said? He said that the Government have made proposals to the Commission. I am aware of informal discussions going on, but my understanding is that the Government have not yet made formal proposals for a date-based scheme.
Mr. Rooker:
I can confirm that, because I read it in my brief, but I shall put it on the record now. We are developing a new proposal for a date-based scheme and have put our ideas to the Commission. Details will be announced when the exploratory talks with the Commission have progressed and the Government are ready to put forward a formal proposal. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for the opportunity to clarify that important issue.
The hon. Member for Ludlow, thinking of the future, talked about traceability and the tagging of cattle. I have discussed that with farmers, seen the taggers and heard the arguments about plastic and metal tags. It would appear that we shall probably have one plastic tag and one metal tag. I shall check when I get back to the Ministry, but it may well be that the relevant legislation is to be laid before the House today. We are actively pursuing that matter. We have got agreement on what we wanted: we were asked for two plastic tags, but all the indications were that, in this country, plastic tags do not work, for the reasons given by the hon. Gentleman. An electronic scheme is certainly an option down the track and must be borne in mind, but we cannot go for a Rolls-Royce job to start with. If we do that, we shall be in real trouble from day one.
On a positive note, it is worth remembering that one of the five preconditions of the Florence framework for lifting the ban was a centralised animal identification and movement recording system with official registration--what I shall now call the British cattle movement service. I am pleased to announce to the House that, earlier today, I decided that we were in a position to announce where the headquarters of that operation would be, because we are moving fast to get it set up and running by the end of March next year. Some time ago, my right hon. Friend the Minister asked me to decide on the location, and the decision was urgent if we were to meet our deadline.
I am pleased to announce that the headquarters of the British cattle movement service, which will be paid for by the industry, will be located in Workington, west Cumbria. It is part of my ministerial duty to ensure that the project is successful and gives value for money to the industry. My right hon. Friend the Minister has played no part in the choice of location, which is in a constituency adjoining his own, although Workington was once represented by Fred Peart, a former Labour Minister of Agriculture. The decision will bring value for money, coupled with clear advantages in terms of our regional, social and employment policies. More than 100 new jobs will be created in the operation of the scheme.
Mr. Dale Campbell-Savours (Workington):
On behalf of my constituents in Workington, I thank my hon. Friend the Minister for this enlightened decision, for which many of us have pressed for several years. We will make the scheme work. I also express my gratitude to the West Cumberland development agency and especially to John Grainger and Barbara Stephens for the excellent way in which they conducted themselves in bringing forward the bid.
Mr. Rooker:
I thank my hon. Friend. As he knows, it was crucial that a decision was made on the location of the headquarters if we were to stand a chance of getting it up and running.
The hon. Member for Ludlow raised several other issues in respect of the price of beef. His remarks about the market were absolutely right--producing beef for intervention is not a runner for the future and a market-led arrangement will have to be arrived at. The sooner that fact dawns on everybody, the better. Although I do not say that in the past schemes have been fudged at the edge, there is no doubt that, as different schemes have been introduced, farmers have adjusted their production in order to obtain the benefits. When the schemes are changed because of a crisis or because the European Commission decides to change things, the farmers get their fingers burnt. That is most unfortunate and I regret it.
It is important to produce a quality product at a quality price, so that the corner butcher's shop--there should be more of those--and the supermarket can sell with confidence to their customers, because they know which farm the beef came from and what the animal was fed on. Moreover, if ever a problem arises in future, better traceability systems will enable us to nip it in the bud straight away. There will be no need to search for cattle that may or may not be a problem for the food chain in future.
I shall write to the hon. Member for Ludlow in the early part of the recess about any points that I have not covered.
Mr. Richard Livsey (Brecon and Radnorshire):
I am confronted with every middle-aged Member's nightmare: my reading glasses went missing in the past hour and I am unable to read my speech. However, the Library has come to my rescue, and South and East Wales ambulance NHS trust will be put under the magnifying glass. It is especially appropriate as we are talking about the national health service and one might mention eye tests in passing. My eyesight is quite good and only requires a magnification of 1 or 1½, so I shall have a go and see how I get on.
I want to talk about the performance of the South and East Wales ambulance NHS trust in relation to Powys. It is not a tale that it should be proud of.
Wales is often unfairly referred to when drawing parallels with the size of a problem--rather larger than this magnifying glass, of course. Many disasters on the map of the world are said to take place in an area the size of Wales. In fact, Wales is much larger than people who live outside it--or people who live in certain corners of it--may realise. I do not know whether the House realises it, but the county of Powys is about 135 miles long. If it were placed lengthwise on the south of England it would stretch from the Severn bridge to Chiswick flyover. Given the number of constituencies that it would encompass, it is a massive area of territory.
The story of Powys in the past five years--under a different Administration--has not been a happy one. We have lost control of several services. Our fire service, which we used to control from Powys, is now operational from Carmarthen, as is our health authority. Effectively, 42 employees used to run Powys health authority from Bronllys in my constituency; almost all of that operation has closed down and now operates from Carmarthen. We were told last week that the Development Board for Rural Wales may be subsumed into the Welsh Development Agency; that may be the result of decision making in Cardiff.
Perhaps the most bizarre union took place at the time when the Conservative Government were manufacturing trusts at the rate of almost one a minute. There were effectively competitions to produce trusts. Some of the managers in Powys got empire building and when they moved to Cardiff they set their sights retrospectively on Powys and decided that they would build the South and East Wales ambulance NHS trust, a jumbo-sized ambulance trust, covering the huge area from Penarth in the south to within 10 miles of Wrexham in the north.
That decision set in train many events. We are distressed about what has happened. I shall do my best to describe some of the problems that we have witnessed in the past three or four years.
The ambulance trust was as dire as we had expected. It started in headquarters in Cardiff and moved to brand new headquarters in Pontypool--a state-of-the-art complex of the type that empire builders are encouraged to indulge in.
Most country people in Powys are blessed with a great deal of common sense, and forecast more or less immediately what would happen as a result of the creation of that jumbo-sized trust. The inevitable has occurred--an overspend, estimated to be £1.5 million to £2 million, resulting from the amalgamations.
Savings were then needed, and the middle management operating in Powys were sacked to save money. The middle management who operated Powys ambulance services so successfully in the 1980s and early 1990s did not run at a loss in any financial year. They were competent managers and ran the service with probity.
The trust became short of facilities, especially ambulances. A commitment had been made by contract with Dyfed Powys health authority that a certain number of ambulances would work in Powys. However, it was not beyond the imagination of SEWAT to transfer ambulances from the Crickhowell ambulance station in Powys to Cardiff to ferry patients from Cardiff royal infirmary to the university hospital of Wales, because of a shortage of ambulances. That had a knock-on, kickback effect into Powys, where extra cover had to be provided from Llandrindod to Brecon and Bronllys, which were providing cover for Crickhowell. I am told by operatives in Crickhowell that they spent most of their time working in Gwent, but Dyfed Powys health authority appears to being paying for all that.
This resulted eventually in Dyfed Powys health authority threatening SEWAT that it would terminate its contract forthwith because it was not providing the necessary service. The lively and intelligent people of Powys realised what was going on all along; 15,000 of them signed a petition in February, saying that they wanted their ambulance service back. The petition was stretchered up the steps of the Welsh Office in Cardiff. All 15,000 signatories were residents of Powys, who demanded a repatriation of their ambulance service.
My hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire (Mr. Öpik) and I took a further 16,000-name petition in early June--collected in conjunction with the Shropshire Star--concerning the closure of a communications centre in Newtown, to the Secretary of State at Gwydyr house in Whitehall. Altogether, therefore, 31,000 people in Powys have expressed on petitions their dissatisfaction with the service.
In the meantime, there has been an horrendous litany of cases of poor communications between Pontypool, where the centre is, and Powys. Mistakes have been made; place names have been confused. Perhaps the worst example that I can give is that an ambulance that was supposed to arrive in Bala road in Llanfyllin arrived in Bala in Gwynedd instead. That type of thing appears to have been happening because the people in Pontypool do not know the geography of Powys. Eventually, they came to their senses and imported three residents of Powys to operate the communications centre in Pontypool.
Perhaps the worst feature, however, is that for some reason it was decided to close the communications centre of SEWAT in Newtown. I regard that as an act of vandalism, because the Newtown centre was working extremely well and knew all parts of Powys. There was no delay in getting ambulances to the right place within the specified 21-minute turnaround time. The problem is that it was decided to close it down. However, not only was it closed down but equipment worth some £80,000 was removed from the centre and it will take some doing to get the communications centre put back in Newtown. We find that extraordinary, and it culminated in a disjointed communications system.
In late February, I went to the hospital in Llandrindod and was confronted with a doctor, a nurse and an upset lady in a bed who had been waiting for two days to go to Hereford for an operation because no ambulance was available to take her from Llandrindod to Hereford. The bed had been booked in Hereford hospital and the surgeon was waiting to perform the operation, but there was no ambulance. After three hours on the third day, no ambulance had yet shown up. Understandably, she was in some pain and needed the operation urgently.
What does the Minister intend to do about the re-configuration of ambulance services in Wales? I have a dossier of comments from every GP practice in my constituency about the ambulance service in Powys. I shall give just one example of the sort of thing that has been happening. In a letter to the chief executive of SEWAT, Mr. Morris from Brecon in my constituency said:
1.29 pm
"Between midnight and 1 am on the morning of Saturday 14th June Doctor Diane Davies made a 999 call to summon an ambulance to 26, Pendre Close, Brecon, Powys. My mother, Helena Mary Morris was very ill and needed to be taken to hospital.
They were less than a mile away from the patient. The letter went on:
After some twenty minutes the ambulance had failed to arrive so Doctor Davies rang Brecon War Memorial Hospital where the ambulance is based. It emerged that the crew were completely unaware that they were needed."
"They then immediately came to the assistance of my mother.
An explanation has been given, but it certainly does not match my constituent's description of what happened.
Despite the efforts of Doctor Davies and the ambulance crew my mother passed away.
I am very angry at what is such conspicuous incompetence on your organisation's part and I require an immediate explanation from you."
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