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Ms Jackson: My hon. Friend makes a valid point and it is one which I have had occasion to raise with car manufacturers in the past. Their consideration of the points that I was making was quite marked. I can make no promises, but the manufacturers are listening.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stafford mentioned the effectiveness of speed enforcement cameras. Experience shows that they are most effective at sites with a history
of speed-related accidents. Drivers tend to slow down for the cameras and speed up again once past them. Where it is necessary to reduce traffic speeds along a series of roads, cameras are less likely to succeed than, for example, traffic-calming measures.
My hon. Friend also raised the issue of the ability of highway authorities and enforcement agencies to place more cameras. There is a long-standing principle that money from court fines goes to the Consolidated Fund, from which it is not generally possible to divert money to fund enforcement costs.
A simple solution that is often suggested is to decriminalise speeding. My hon. Friend the Member for Stafford presented other ideas for raising additional funds. At a time when we are highlighting the dangers and terrible consequences of speed, we believe that decriminalisation would send out the wrong message. I can assure my hon. Friend that, with Home Office colleagues, we are examining the funding arrangements for cameras to ascertain whether there is a way to make better use of existing cameras and increase their use where needed.
My hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Mr. Dawson) expressed concern about the speeds at which vehicles are driven near schools, a concern which the Government and, I am sure, all hon. Members share. Finding ways to reduce speeds and accidents around our schools is vital in taking forward the Labour party's manifesto commitment to improve road safety for school children. It is an increasingly common view that roads adjacent to schools should have 20 mph speed limits. The view is promoted for the best of all possible reasons, but drivers, as I have had occasion to observe, do not always respect speed limits. To be successful, therefore, 20 mph limits should be supported by traffic calming, as the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington said.
It makes sense to adopt a local zoning approach. A proper 20 mph zone with supporting traffic-calming features is much more likely to be effective in reducing speeds and, therefore, accidents.
One of our concerns is that an increasing number of parents are driving their children to and from school. The results of surveys tell us that the number of children being driven to school has doubled in the past 20 years and that journeys to school now account for one in six cars. We understand why parents want to drive their children to school. They think that children will be safer in the car than on the pavement, and our record on child pedestrian casualties adds weight to that argument. It is, however, a vicious circle; the more children are driven to school, the more traffic there is on the roads and the higher is the risk to child pedestrians. We must find a way to make routes to school safe for children so that they can walk and cycle and to encourage parents to allow them to do so.
Many schools and local authorities throughout the country already have school travel plans in place. Many more are working with parents, governors and children to find a solution that is safe and works for the school. The charity SUSTRANS designs and builds routes for cyclists, walkers and people with disabilities. It has set up a safe routes to school demonstration project with 10 schools in various parts of the country. It is essential that child safety is always a priority. It is not only walking and cycling which we wish to encourage. When children live too far away from school to walk, there may be suitable bus services that will avoid the need to drive.
My Department has provided research funds for two projects that involve examining how to reduce the number of children being driven to school. We shall embark on further research in this area. We shall also examine journey types as part of the fundamental review of transport to consider how we can make walking and cycling to school realistic and safe options for our children. These are serious and complex, but vital, issues.
I assure the right hon. Member for South-West Surrey (Mrs. Bottomley) that road safety is central to our White Paper on integrated transport. The concerns of her constituents are replicated throughout the country. That is why the Government are determined to put in place measures that will continue to decrease the number of people who suffer death or injury on our roads.
Mr. Cynog Dafis (Ceredigion):
In seeking the debate, my colleagues and I were fulfilling an undertaking that we made during the summer recess when, of course, we were all on holiday, as the Minister knows. At meetings with farmers, we promised them that we would raise in Parliament, as soon as it reconvened, the grievous crisis that is besetting the farming community in Wales and, by extension, the grievous crisis that is affecting the entire rural community. That was our undertaking and I am glad to be able to fulfil it.
Farming in general is under pressure these days, but it is generally accepted and well understood that the crisis is worst of all in the hills, and 80 per cent. of Welsh farm land is in the hills and so officially categorised as being among the less-favoured areas.
It is legendary that farmers always complain, and there is something in that. It is fair to say, however, that they are not unique in that. It is important to understand that the situation now is different. I cannot remember a time when there was such profound gloom, such pessimism and so little laughter among farmers. Their complaints these days are not shot through with satire and teasing as they have been in the past. They are genuinely pessimistic and gloomy.
Farmers fear for their livelihoods and for their very survival. More radically, they foresee the loss of a way of life. They ask specifically whether the new Labour Government care about farming and about the countryside, by which I do not mean just the landscape, which is terribly important, or wildlife and biodiversity, which is even more important, but the countryside, its people and its communities. Do the new Government care? That is the issue.
Farmers' minds remain open, especially in Wales, where many of them are part of the non-Tory majority. It is important for the Government to understand that political point. In Ceredigion, by far the majority of farmers are among the non-Tory majority. The Labour party should bear that in mind, because at some time it may need their practical support, albeit indirectly through other parties. Farmers are rapidly coming to the conclusion that the Government do not care: that is what they believe, and will say so.
The Government are on trial, and their credibility is at stake. If they care, they must show that they care. For a range of reasons, Plaid Cymru hopes that they will show by their actions that they care.
Let us make no mistake about it: there is a real crisis. Not since the war have so many things gone so badly wrong at the same time. A combination of problems is pressing down on farmers. Beef prices are worse than they were last year due to the continuing effect of the BSE crisis and the export ban, and the effect of a strong pound.
The strong pound has depressed prices across all sectors of Welsh agriculture. The high prices of lamb last year partly compensated for the low beef prices, although not all farmers keep both sheep and beef cattle. The strong pound does not affect prices only by disadvantaging exports and facilitating imports; it also significantly reduces the value of European support payments, so it has a double effect.
Farmers feel that whatever they do, they cannot win. Higher lamb prices in early 1996 led last year to a reduced sheep annual premium, but lower lamb prices this year will not lead to an increase in that premium, because it is calculated on the European Union average price for the whole year, which this year is high. Welsh hill farmers receive a double whammy: United Kingdom prices are lower because of the strong pound, and Welsh hill prices are lower still, even though the product that farmers bring to market is first rate, because lambs do not come to market until later in the year when prices are lower. By all accounts, SAP payments will be down and not up next year.
Mr. Dafydd Wigley (Caernarfon):
Does my hon. Friend accept that in 1995-96, as many as 40 per cent. of Welsh cattle and sheep farmers in less-favoured areas--where 80 per cent. of Welsh farmland is located--had incomes of less than £10,000? That was with the higher prices to which he referred, so the prospects for this year are devastating.
Mr. Dafis:
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley) for making that point. Income levels this year are certainly significantly lower than £10,000. On top of the problems that I have already described, there has been a sharp reduction--about 20 per cent.--in the price of milk, partly due to the strong pound. Worst of all, that reduction has coincided with Milk Marque's new collection charge system. We understand why Milk Marque introduced it, although its detail is questionable.
The combination of the reduction in price and the new collection charge system is driving farmers with up to 40 or more milking cows out of milk production while they can cut their losses. They have been driven out peremptorily, because they are losing money in production. The holdings that cease milk production will remain for a while producing beef and sheepmeat, thus exacerbating the problems in those sectors, until they are absorbed into ever-larger holdings, adding a further twist to the spiral of decline in our rural communities.
There is also the possibility of quota moving out of parts of Wales. The Welsh Office should keep a careful eye on that.
Farming unions reckon that 69 per cent. of farms in less-favoured areas in Wales have a net farm income of less than £10,000 a year: 80 per cent. of agricultural land in Wales is in less-favoured areas. Interest payments and reinvestment must be funded from net farm income, which leaves precious little on which to live.
It is small wonder that the results of a recent National Farmers Union survey were depressing for the prospects of hill farmers. It found that 64 per cent. of hill farmers are over 50, and of them, 18 per cent. are over 60: so it is an aging population. Of those who responded to the survey, 82 per cent. had children, and 43 per cent. of them stated that their children would not take over the running of the farm after them. There is a strong prospect of a mass exodus.
The reasons given by young people for not taking up farming were income levels, 74 per cent.; lack of long-term stability, 48 per cent.; and long working hours, 50 per cent. It is difficult to do anything about the last factor, because farmers have always lived with long
working hours. However, it would make a big difference if the first two factors were tackled. It is the combination of factors which young people find so depressing.
The evidence shows that there is a real danger that farming in the less-favoured areas could go into steep decline. The problem is as serious as that. No wonder farmers are depressed. Unlike us, they see at first hand this decline taking place each and every day.
The effects of such a decline on social and cultural life, including the Welsh language, which we must bear in mind all the time, on the natural environment in rural Wales, which requires people to maintain it--we should make no mistake about that--and on the economic vitality of rural areas, would be far reaching and deeply harmful. Farmers and their children contribute enormously to the economic vitality of rural areas. We cannot afford to lose the tradition of entrepreneurialism not just in farming, but in other sectors of the economy.
We should also consider the loss of the complex and invaluable inherited skills of farming communities that cannot easily be recreated. A series of national vocational qualifications or even a degree in agriculture does not make a farmer. That skill is inherited: it is intricate, complex and rich. In 15 or 20 years, if not sooner, we may rue the loss of those skills. I am sure that in 15 years' time we will need people in agriculture more than we do now.
In that context, farmers see a Government who are not even seeking to stabilise the situation, let alone launch a rescue operation. They see a Government who want to grind them down even further. Cuts in over-30-months scheme compensation have led to a reduction in receipts from barren cows--an important part of milk farmers' income--of 60 per cent., with average prices down from £760 last year to £311 this year.
The Government are refusing to take advantage of European Union compensation for sterling revaluation, although all other eligible EU countries have done so. Ireland has just delivered top-up support for BSE-affected farmers to the tune of £17 million--£50 per beef animal. Farmers are asking whether that is fair competition in a free and open market, and, clearly, the answer is no.
Of immediate relevance is the Ministry of Agriculture's pre-empting of the outcome of this year's review of hill livestock compensatory allowances by freezing payments at 1996 levels, and its cancellation of the supplement paid last year in recognition of the BSE crisis, which amounted to some £9.6 million for Wales and £60 million for the United Kingdom as a whole.
There have been successive cuts in HLCAs since 1992. Ministers did not mention that last night. Those cuts reflect doubts in Government about the validity of HLCAs as support mechanisms. Along with others who understand the position far better than I do, I disagree strongly with that perception: if we consider the other options, we conclude that HLCAs are the best.
10.57 am
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