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Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst): Order. The right hon. Gentleman must resume his seat.
3.42 pm
Mr. Alan Simpson (Nottingham, South): I confess that I have been boycotting French beef for about 20 years--but as I have been boycotting everyone else's beef for about the same period, I am sure that the French will not take it personally. In so far as the Minister may be moving in the same direction--towards non-meat consumption--I would welcome that, but it does not bother me if he is not.
The important aspect of all this is that, really without our permission, the United Kingdom is now well and truly involved in a long-overdue debate about safe food. In only the most perverse sense is it to the credit of the Tory party that we are holding this debate. We need to remind ourselves that, for all the attacks that are made on the Minister, he was not in office at the start of the BSE crisis. Labour was not in office at the start of that crisis. The only credit that the Tories can claim is that they were, and that they got us into the mess. For all the mock anger and furore that they throw at the Labour Government, we would not be in this mess had it not been for the catastrophe of the Conservative party's approach to agriculture.
Those who proclaim a new-found interest in the precautionary principle could not be seen for dust when that principle should have been applied to the process of questioning what we were feeding livestock in the UK. At that time, the Tories were involved in little more than a dash for crap that they could feed to cattle as long as there was a cash return at the end of it. That is why we are now paying such a huge cost.
As a consequence of that period, we must now completely reassess our agricultural and safe food agenda. The British public have a right to demand that of us. It is important to set down the benchmarks--not the costs of moving from where we are, but the costs of getting out of the mess that we have got ourselves into. Already, the crisis in relation to BSE has cost us about £4.6 billion and about 40,000 jobs, and has had an unquantifiable cost in the loss of more than 40 lives. No one is prepared to put a ceiling on how many lives that disaster will take, but everyone knows that there will be significantly more.
Mr. Paterson:
May we get it on to the record that there is no proven scientific link between BSE in cattle and new version CJD in human beings?
Mr. Simpson:
I remind the hon. Gentleman that it was a Conservative Minister who admitted in the House that that was the most likely cause of the BSE crisis. The House would do well--
Mr. Paterson:
It was not proven.
Mr. Simpson:
It is all very well for Members to shout from a sedentary position that it was not proven. They are
I hope that there will be a willingness to apply the precautionary principle in relation to another aspect of the debate--the desire of the food biotechnology industry to transform the agricultural system, not necessarily to feed the world but to take ownership of the food chain. I remind the House that, of those who would seek to regulate the development of GM crops, the Labour Government and Labour Ministers have been the most committed to introduce a regulatory framework where none previously existed.
Mr. Hayes:
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Simpson:
No. I do not think that I can give way in a 10-minute time space.
I want to give positive support to two aspects of the Minister's speech. I welcome the support for organic farming but, if we are to refocus the food debate to catch up with the public, who are leading it, we must set ourselves more ambitious targets and more generous budgets for that transformation. The sums allocated have already been taken up. That problem is a measure of the popularity of the Minister's intervention, and that problem is in fact a success story.
As I understand it, about 100 farmers a month are offering to convert to organic farming, at about the rate of 10,000 hectares a month. They are dead keen to produce foods that the public are dead keen to buy. When we are on such a winner, we would be well advised to go with it. Doing so would require additional funding from the Treasury or, at least, a relocation of the current subsidy system, which would allow us to take some of the £3 billion a year that we put into agricultural subsidies--especially those parts that we pay for a pause in an unsustainable agricultural system--and redirect it into the creation of a sustainable agricultural system.
If the Government are serious about that, I urge the Minister to read the Organic Food and Farming Targets Bill, presented to the House on 26 October. It suggests that it is quite feasible for the UK to set targets for 30 per cent. of farmland and 20 per cent. of food consumption to be taken up by organic farming processes by the year 2010. That would cost about £150 million a year--about 5 per cent. of the current subsidies to agriculture through the common agricultural policy system. That shift would be welcome in general policy terms and overwhelmingly welcomed by the public.
I congratulate the Minister on his part in supporting the Prime Minister in discussions about a moratorium on commercial approvals for GM seeds and GM crop production. That is extraordinarily important, but it is equally important to ask the Minister to consider the framework within which the moratorium will apply. I know that he is still keen for field and farm trials to take place, but I ask him to examine carefully the research published first by "Newsnight" at the end of September, then by Friends of the Earth, which showed that the current buffer zones of 50 m are simply nonsensical. It was shown that airborne GM pollen from oilseed rape had migrated 495 m, and that it had been carried 4.5 km by bees.
The prospects of genetic pollution must be taken seriously and must be reflected in the buffer zones set for the trials that continue. It is extremely important that the Minister adds Government support for the public action that is leading the refocusing of the safe food debate. The issue affects not only existing organic farmers, but all the farmers who seek to convert to organic farming, as they are asking how they will be able to assert that the crops that they produce are GM-free, when neighbouring fields and farms are involved in GM trials.
If the Minister would re-examine my Bill from the standpoint of GM foods and producer liabilities, he might pre-empt the discussions that some of us are already holding with civil liability lawyers, and tell us that it is not necessary for us to go down the path of class actions for damages, driven by the public and the private sector. Safe food policy should be driven by Government lead, rather than by public lead.
Mr. Colin Breed (South-East Cornwall):
It is said that a week is a long time in politics, although I have not found that to be true. A week ago, hon. Members in all parts of the House expressed their deep concern about the escalating crisis in all sectors of the farming industry, yet matters have only got worse since then.
Prices have fallen further, and more farmers have gone out of business or are considering doing so. France is engaged in deeply damaging illegal action, which not only has the potential to escalate into a full-blown trade war, but is undermining the confidence of consumers in countries that have lifted the ban in accordance with European Union scientific advice.
Politically, it would be attractive to catalogue events over the past 10 years, to remind ourselves of the context of the present position, to indulge in the exact science of hindsight, and to rehearse once again the breathtaking inadequacy, complacency and sheer incompetence of some Ministers and officials during those years of the Tory Government.
However, third and fourth-generation farmers in my constituency are going bankrupt, losing their business, their livelihood and their homes, and not only making themselves redundant, but putting their family members out of work. I, for one, am not prepared to stand in the Chamber and score petty party political points, or to jump on the nearest Euro-sceptic bandwagon in an effort to use this tragedy to fuel your own prejudices--[Interruption.] I deplore those who try to do so, and I hope that the constituents who are listening to you--[Interruption.] will recognise--
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Order. I cannot let the hon. Gentleman go on making accusations about what my policies might be.
Mr. Breed:
I hope that the constituents of hon. Members will listen to all that they say. It is a pity that
Despite the great scope for pessimism and the disastrous lack of confidence that abounds, we in the House should be giving hope to our farmers and taking the lead to generate the conditions that will enable the industry to trade its way out of the present crisis.
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