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Mr. Burnett: Does my hon. Friend agree that the charges for offal removal and the costs to the pig industry are directly related to BSE, and therefore that some form of compensation should be available to the pig industry as a direct result of that?
Mr. Breed: I strongly agree. The point was made earlier, and I endorse it.
The egg sector faces a bill of £625 million to meet new UK standards, only to have its produce rejected in favour of cheaper, lower-grade produce. The beef industry is still facing an illegal French ban. Nevertheless I, and I hope other hon. Members, remain adamant that we are not prepared to see the industry wither away under unfair and illegal competition. Nor do we want to see it limp from one crisis to the next, for ever seeking special treatment or emergency aid.
The industry needs a clear strategy for each of its sectors, to provide short-term stability and long-term security. If we expect our farmers to stay in agriculture, we must offer them a future that will be worth fighting for and investing in. Without that, more and more farmers will simply leave the land voluntarily, and get out while they still have some capital left. That will further reduce our productive capacity and invite ever more imports. The decline will accelerate and the disastrous downward spiral will be difficult to halt.
With regard to short-term stability, we cannot continue to load on to farming costs--my hon. Friend the Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr. Burnett) provided an apposite example--that it cannot support, however well intentioned and whatever the merits.
Some of the quality assurance hurdles and inspection systems that we have imposed must be re-examined in the light of present trading conditions and the post-BSE era, to see whether they can be undertaken more economically or whether they are needed at all, always ensuring that compliance with requirements continues.
We need to review farm inspections. Why do several different inspectors call on our farmers almost every week for one inspection or another? Why cannot one inspector perform multiple inspections?
We need to re-examine the Meat Hygiene Service, to see whether the system can be made more efficient. I welcome the Government's action to secure relief for the low-throughput abattoirs from the need for veterinary
supervision at post mortem inspections, but we should consider whether more can be done, especially to save those low-throughput abattoirs. To force them to close would be no real economy. It would just mean greater transport costs for farmers. Furthermore, we would lose the facilities to produce specialist goods, which fetch a premium in the marketplace and should be encouraged.
I am pleased that there will be an investigation into the operation of the MHS. When it reports, we must ensure that costs are kept to a minimum. In the wake of the Pratt report, we must ask why our costs are at the top end of the scale.
We must remove the threat of the re-introduction of charges such as those for cattle passports. I welcome the fact that those will not be considered until at least 2003. I hope that that will instil confidence for the future. In the mean time, we should review the figure of £7 per passport. Should it cost that much?
We must address the over-capacity in some sectors. Price stability in the market must be restored. A calf disposal scheme or a properly funded scheme to produce home-grown veal, as proposed by the hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) last week, is needed to address the bull calf problem. We cannot continue to sit by and expect our farmers to shoot their calves.
The banks must play their part, but before they can do so they, too, need some confidence in the future. They need to believe that agriculture has a future and that the Government will support it now and in the long term. Many bank managers have provided sympathetic support, particularly as they still believe themselves to have some security but, the more the overdrafts rise, and the more land values fall as receivers move in and put farms on the market, the more there will be no alternative but to call in the loans.
I welcome the labelling regulations that are to be introduced. I do not want to go into that, only to say that the supermarkets have made a business of undermining brands. They have increased their own brands to about 40 per cent. of sales. Ask any manufacturer of branded goods what they think about supermarkets selling their brands. In the long term, I agree with the Government that the strategy must be based on demand. To continue to bolster up the supply side is not a long-term solution.
Sir Robert Smith (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine):
Will my hon. Friend give way?
Mr. Breed:
I would rather carry on so that other hon. Members have a chance to speak.
The long-term strategy must be, first, to reinforce success, and, secondly, to develop new initiatives to build upon existing markets and develop new ones.
Clearly, organic production has been a success. It is one area in which premiums are being paid and sales are increasing, but we still import more than we grow. This is a sector which demands much more support, investment and encouragement, and I am delighted that the Government are providing that. Such support is not a subsidy but a true investment, which will yield real dividends for agriculture, the environment and the country.
Many anxious farmers, such as Jim Candy in my constituency, are in the middle of their conversion, and more are just about to start. They need to know urgently whether they are eligible for the additional funding. I hope that the Minister will be able to provide detailed advice as a matter of urgency. The Government's announcement is a positive start, but it is unlikely to be enough. The present scheme is massively oversubscribed as, I suspect, will be the next tranche.
It would be unwise to increase production rapidly because of the possible effect on market prices, but I suspect that there is a long way to go yet before we reach that position. Where there is an obvious demand, we must ensure that there is a potential British supply.
Farmers markets, of which I was an early supporter, are another part of the way forward. I am delighted that they are growing in number and frequency, but they are still in a fledgling state and largely run on an ad hoc, semi-craft basis. That is not acceptable for the future. If they are to be part of the long-term strategy to improve the demand side, they must be much more robust. It is important that farmers markets become a real source of competition to the fresh meat and produce counters in the local supermarkets.
When I published my report on supermarkets last year, it was abundantly clear to me that it would be impossible to take on the might of the supermarket sector, but it would be possible to attack selected departments of those stores by appealing to the consumer in a sophisticated way and through direct marketing. Marketing is crucial. We welcome any money that the Government put into helping farmers to market their produce, in particular the significant increase to £5 million, but I hope that farmers will be able to get at it. One farmer told me that he found it difficult to obtain and complete the forms. Often, money is made available through schemes, but it is still difficult to get it to those who need it.
Farmers markets offer the opportunity to win back consumers to local quality produce, but that will not be achieved through selling on trestle tables in village halls every other Saturday morning. The aim must be to create a small parade of shops or a viable street market selling genuine local produce, properly presented, complying with all the necessary food standards and health and safety regulations. That would be a real challenge and an alternative to the local supermarket. Meat from locally reared cattle; organic vegetables with the soil still on them, picked that day instead of sterilised, shiny, vacuum-packed produce that looks good but tastes of nothing; British pork that we know is British, not just packed in styrofoam here; and fresh eggs from hens kept in conditions that we know are acceptable could all be sold.
I suspect that local authorities will have to set up and run such markets, but they will need legislative support and, undoubtedly, some assistance with the capital requirements, but if we are to offer a real future to our smaller family farms and local producers of fruit and vegetables, we must provide the means for that to happen. Markets are too fragile and rely too much on individuals' good will to survive in the long term. Supermarkets will never provide such a market. Their distribution network is alien to that.
As the Minister said, the catering industry is a significant purchaser of fresh and processed food, and we need to win it over to the benefits of quality,
British-produced food. The restaurant and pub food business is expanding rapidly and consumers should be able to know what food they are ordering. When ordering a steak, they should be able to ask its origin and demand information about where other food on the menu was grown or produced. Descriptions of food on menus must be accurate.
I have already called upon local authorities and Government Departments to insert clauses in their future contracts requiring them to source meat and meat products which meet the UK's standards for quality, hygiene and animal welfare. We cannot insist that they buy British because that would be anti-competitive in European terms, but we can demand that they source their products according to certain standards. That would boost domestic production and encourage European competitors to raise their standards if they wished to be considered for such contracts.
It is strange that, while there is a constant stream of cooking programmes on television and cookery books are always among the best sellers in the book lists, fewer and fewer people are cooking and eating at home. We need to look at what we are teaching in our schools. I hope that the Minister will have a word with the Secretary of State for Education and Employment. Food technology may sound far more important than cookery, but we need to remember what is important. Eating is supposed to be one of the pleasures of life, yet we confine food to a science subject, and seem to accept that stuffing a hamburger in one's mouth while walking down the road is all that we need to know about eating as an experience. It may be a matter for the long term, but we need to educate our children about food and how it is produced so that future scientific reports, from wherever they come, can inform the decisions of sensible people, not act as titbits to hungry tabloid scaremongers.
We must help farmers to develop additional forms of income, and tourism is an obvious one. Planning regulations are not helpful in developing farm tourism. We should be fighting for a fairer share of the rural development funding available under the common agricultural policy. At present, we receive 3 per cent. of the budget, the equivalent of Portugal, while France and Germany enjoy 16 per cent. each. We have fallen to 15th in terms of spending per hectare, so we receive £12 per hectare while countries such as Finland receive £175. That funding could support a number of new rural initiatives and bring real additional income to farmers, particularly those family farms under such enormous cash flow pressures. There are so many positive ways in which to look to the future of farming and change things so that crises, such as the one that we face, do not recur. We need long-term, positive solutions.
Before I finish, I must pause to reflect on the events of the past week. This week has been one of great negativity. The farming industry has faced more blows--things have only got worse, Minister. The news of sewage sludge in French feed seemed to add insult to injury to Britain's farmers. I make no bones about condemning those who have used this foodstuff, which is not only repugnant, but illegal. We need to be more honest about what is going on. It is not just France that is affected. Products from animals in contact with this feed are also being supplied by Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany.
The EU has been far too timid. Where it issued recommendations to France that such producers should be stopped, it should have issued directives. The 15-day period within which to remove such feed from the food chain should not have been recommended but insisted upon. We should have been informed that the EU veterinary committee had condemned France for its lack of risk assessment. If we are to restore consumer confidence, we need to be more open in sharing information between all European Union states. We also need more rational consideration of the facts.
The French beef ban continues despite the fact that our beef has been cleared. We have invested money and brought up our standards. Before the BSE incident, the majority of our exports to France were beef on the bone from cows over 30 months old. We are not asking the French consumer to buy such beef again--our date-based export scheme rules out that possibility. The scaremongering must stop. The panic should be over. Patriotism is about supporting British agriculture, not alienating its customers.
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