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5.18 pm
Mr. James Cran (Beverley and Holderness): I am grateful to be called to speak in the debate, in view of the crisis in farming, especially in the pig sector. That crisis is acute in my constituency--particularly in Holderness. The Minister knows that area well; he knows what I shall be talking about. I am deeply disappointed by this afternoon's announcement on the pig sector. I know perfectly well that pig farmers in my constituency will echo my disappointment when I meet them tomorrow.
The Minister told us that he was aware of the problems of agriculture. He is an honourable man and I believe that he is aware of them--of that there is no question. However, this afternoon, he tried to anaesthetise the House; that was the aim of the exercise. As far as I could tell, he agreed with everyone. In effect, he said, "More needs to be done; I am looking at everything; there will be less bureaucracy; I have teams looking into this,
that and the next thing; and arching over all that is Agenda 2000, which, tomorrow--somewhere down the line--will solve all the problems of British agriculture."
The problem is that the situation is getting worse. A pig farmer in my constituency, Mrs. Dianne Brockhurst of Burstwick, anticipated the Minister's speech today when she wrote in a letter to me:
I welcome the Minister's comments about labelling, but we had better look at the small print because the devil is in the detail. Apart from labelling, I fear that the package will be virtually worthless to my constituents. If I have got it wrong, I look forward to an explanation, in the winding-up speeches, of why I am wrong. Although £5 million is welcome--I do not deny that--it will not help any of my constituents now.
The Minister may recognise the depth of the agricultural recession, but I fear that he is doing absolutely nothing to solve it--at least, not in my neck of the woods. I keep in close touch with the NFU in east Yorkshire and I asked it to report on the current situation. I will not quote from its response extensively, but I must put some of it on the record because I suspect that non-farmers do not understand what is happening in the British countryside--especially in east Yorkshire. Farmers in east Yorkshire are suffering the
The price of milk has dropped from 24p or 25p a litre to 17p or 18p a litre. How can people make money under those circumstances? They cannot. It is no use the Minister of Agriculture and his team saying, "We understand it, but we are prisoners." Farmers will not put up with it for long. The NFU and farmers in Yorkshire and Holderness are not making political points: they are telling it like it is. It is a tragedy for the people whom I represent. They are not militants; they do not march through the streets--at least, not until recently. They are
just hard-working, honest people, who ask for little and get nothing. The Minister knows that the pig sector gets nothing, and, in the circumstances, that is simply appalling.
All those farmers ask is that they can make a little profit, but they are not making anything. There is not a lot of profit in the land. I can see the Minister nodding his acceptance of that. I fear that the Government are transforming those ordinary, decent people into a pack of militants, and that is tragic. They are beginning to say to themselves that they must follow the French example of direct action. Whether or not I agree with such action is neither here nor there.
So desperate are some of those farmers that, yesterday, outside the House, I saw the truly pathetic sight of pig farmers hauling two sows up the middle of the road in an effort to get publicity for their parlous situation. They have found it exceedingly difficult to get publicity, or be listened to, and that makes it all the worse that the Government have failed to recognise their dire straits.
My problem is how I can convince the Minister of their case. I have concluded that he will not listen to me. He would say that I am an Opposition Member and obviously I have a political axe to grind. I shall not do that, but, even at this late stage, I shall try to convince the Minister that what he has done today is totally inadequate, by quoting from a letter that I have received. I could have brought with me 200 or 300 such letters, but I have brought just a few.
A letter from Mr. Mewburn, the managing director of Dacre Pigs Ltd. in Brandesburton in my constituency, states:
Mr. Mewburn says that happily,
Mr. Mewburn ends by saying:
Mr. Alan Hurst (Braintree):
It is a pleasure to follow the eloquent speech of the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr. Cran), whose remarks have done a good service to his constituents.
I do not intend--apparently it is against the rules of the House not to do so--to refer to France. Others have done so, and the matter has been well and truly covered. I shall stick to my plan, notwithstanding the words of wisdom uttered by the hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Luff), who, in a speech that covered every subject in the "Encyclopaedia Britannica", managed to finish on the subject of fox hunting, which I shall also avoid.
I want to say a few words about milk, which has already been referred to in other speeches. My hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Mr. Browne), in particular, addressed his remarks to that area of farming. I have always been at a loss to understand the illogical motives behind the breaking-up of the Milk Marketing Board in 1994. I know that it might be argued that we jumped before we were pushed, but I suspect that the push was quite a way off when we decided to jump. I can trace--at least in my own mind--many of the origins of the plight of dairy farmers to that decision in 1994.
From the very beginning, Milk Marque was hobbled. In what is supposedly a competitive world, it was running with both legs tied together. The restrictions and obligations placed on it in effect made it uncompetitive in the world that it faced. The first such restriction, which is beyond my ken, is that milk farmers were not allowed to process the product. As several hon. Members have said, the secret to successful marketing and business is to add value to the product; to be able to take the product through the chain so that maximum profit can be gained from it. All that milk farmers can do is sell the raw product, leaving others to take the added value and profit.
Then, there is a restriction that could be from a satire: milk farmers were not allowed collectively to advertise the product. That was almost creating the free-market economy of the Soviet Union. Milk farmers could not say, "Drink a pint of milk a day", or "What a lot of bottle", or even present dancing milk bottles to the public to illustrate their sound product.
The annual advertising budget for milk of £30 million a year in today's terms came to an end--when consumption was falling and dairy companies were amalgamating, gaining larger and larger shares of the market. Farmers were cherry-picked as the dairy companies sold them initial premiums in order to push Milk Marque into a weaker and weaker Celtic twilight--if I dare say that in the presence of Celtic Members. Milk Marque was pushed into the remoter parts of the country, where, naturally, transportation charges were greater and economies of running operations were smaller. As a result, dairy operators have gained the best markets and Milk Marque has increasingly been pushed into areas where it is difficult to compete.
Amazingly, at the same time, a Monopolies and Mergers Commission report stated that Milk Marque was undertaking uncompetitive practices. It would be reasonable to conclude that, since the inception of Milk Marque, dairy companies have been gunning for it and looking for an opportunity to hobble it even further. If we end up with weakened co-operatives competing against one another, and if for some amazing reason they do not have the opportunity to establish a processing wing, the dairy companies will corner the whole market.
My hon. Friend the Member for South Derbyshire (Mr. Todd) takes new Labour policy a little too far for my taste in the abolition of a conflict theory of economics. We do not want to go too far into such a theory, although we readily understand that diary companies, supermarkets and producers do not necessarily have the same interest when it comes to who makes the profit in a declining market.
"Nick Brown is certainly full of 'tea and sympathy' type platitudes but no solid action has been forthcoming. I now wonder if this Government is quite happy to see us 'go to the wall' rather than 'ruffle any feathers' abroad."
Whatever one thinks about the latter remark--I may agree or disagree--my constituent is undoubtedly correct: the Minister has given the impression to farmers in my constituency and throughout the United Kingdom that his approach is all "tea and sympathy". If I have one message, it is that that simply will not do. Solutions must be actioned today--that is how serious my pig farmers' problems are. Even as I speak, farmers are going out of business. The Minister's words this afternoon rang hollow and I am disappointed. It makes one almost cry to hear the sort of complacency to which we have been forced to listen this afternoon. It is simply shocking.
"Worst Agricultural Depression for decades."
They are not my words but those of the NFU, which clearly I must heed. I read that, on Wednesday last week at the Beverley market, calves were sold for £1 a piece--to be fair, two were sold for £2 and another was sold for £3. [Interruption.] I do not know about you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but I do not find that amusing--I do not think that any hon. Member should--particularly when I recall that calves were sold for £100 each a couple of years ago. Is it understood in this country--especially by the Minister--that the tags on calves are worth more than the calves? The Minister must know that. We must also take account of rearing costs, auctioneers' costs and other associated costs.
"Two years ago my son and I undertook a redevelopment programme to enable us to comply with the stalls and tether ban and to produce efficiently without the use of in-feed antibiotic medication."
That cost a cool £480,000. A swift intake of break is needed. As far as I can tell from what he has told me and from what we have heard this afternoon, that is money down the Swannee.
"we are not dependent on our pig business for our livelihood, for had we been so, we would now be on the verge of bankruptcy."
As it is, they are now faced with deciding whether they should continue and sustain losses. Why should they continue? As it is, Mr. Mewburn will probably decide to get out of the pig industry, and the business will effectively be exported to another country. Where, in heaven's name, is the sense in that?
"The only financial assistance I would request would be the removal of the so called 'BSE' cost imposed on pig producers."
How small a request to make in such dire circumstances. As I said, I have many more letters from which I could have quoted.
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