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Angela Smith (Basildon): Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Pickles: I shall give way gladly because the hon. Lady has been most helpful in the campaign, and shares many of my worries.
Angela Smith: The hon. Gentleman and I have spoken to farmers meetings in our adjoining constituencies.
It may not be apparent why a representative of Basildon is interested in farming. However, several farms in my constituency are affected, and 30 per cent. of the work force of Cheale's, which may soon lay off staff, are from my constituency.
I am interested in the hon. Gentleman's point about animal welfare. When the Minister responds, will she deal with the fact that journey times for animals going to slaughter will increase? Surely, we should slaughter animals as near to the point of production as possible, rather than extend the journey time.
Mr. Pickles:
The hon. Lady is right. I recognise that her constituency interest--the work force at Cheale Meat--is important. Initially, like me, she became interested in the matter because of the company and its work force, but it has rapidly become clear that the issue is really animal welfare.
The Prime Minister said yesterday:
We do not blame the Minister--we do not believe that she has been a party to these bad decisions--but there comes a time when we must join the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which has said that we must reconsider and reopen the tenders because to stick with the existing situation is to condemn cattle.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Ms Joyce Quin):
I congratulate the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr. Pickles) on securing this debate. I know that he has been active on the issue. Indeed, as he said, he has tabled a number of written questions on the subject. He intervened briefly in the previous debate on the subject before Christmas and he has also presented a petition on it. Other hon. Members and hon. Friends have also expressed concern about the situation in their areas. Indeed, I have had a number of meetings with Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Mr. Blizzard), to discuss the situation.
The debate is entitled, "Cattle Welfare (East Anglia)", although it could just as easily have been entitled, "Changes to the over-30-month scheme and the loss of contracts in abattoirs"--in this case, the Cheale Meat abattoir in the constituency of the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar.
A number of animal welfare concerns have been raised, as have other concerns associated with employment, geographical distribution and so forth. Many of those matters were mentioned in the earlier debate.
The hon. Gentleman was right to point out that the changes in the number and location of over-30- month-scheme abattoirs stem from a competitive tender
held by the Intervention Board at the end of last year. The new arrangements were introduced on 4 January and I am pleased to have this further opportunity to discuss their operation in the light of practical experience of the new contracts so far.
Obviously, I recognise--I have never tried to disguise it--that the reduction in the number of contracted abattoirs is an important and sensitive issue for farmers and for animal welfare. I assure hon. Members on both sides of the House that I have watched closely the operation of the new arrangements so far, have asked for regular reports from the Intervention Board and have had a number of meetings.
Many of the concerns that were predicted by hon. Members, such as long waiting lists and inadequate access, have not materialised, and, in many respects, the new arrangements are settling in well. However, I assure hon. Members, and the hon. Gentleman in particular, that, as I have said in the past, I am committed to monitoring the situation, and, if it appears not to be working, I shall reconsider it. It will be kept under close review.
Mr. Pickles:
I, the hon. Member for Basildon (Angela Smith) and other hon. Members are keen to meet the Minister with a group of farmers to discuss the problem. Is she minded to meet us in the reasonably near future?
Ms Quin:
In principle, I am certainly sympathetic to the hon. Gentleman's request. I have met farmers around the country, including in my own area. I should point out that one of the abattoirs that lost a contract was in my constituency, which rather gives the lie to some of the criticisms in the south-west press which suggested that somehow or other I was personally completely immune to the process. That is not so. For such reasons, I have considered closely what the Intervention Board has done, but I believe that it has acted properly in the negotiation of the tendering process.
Arrangements before this tender round dated back to 1997. As is common practice, they were reviewed to ensure that they represented good value and continued to meet the need. As I said in the earlier debate, as a Minister I have to respond to the Public Accounts Committee, which, as the hon. Gentleman may know, has in the past been critical of the high rates paid to OTMS abattoirs. The Public Accounts Committee's report previously marked the service out as one which required close attention by officials, and I need to respond to such concerns. Following the expression of those concerns, the Intervention Board rightly recommended to UK Agriculture Ministers that the slaughtering contract should be re-tendered.
My right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, with colleagues in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, carefully considered the board's advice and accepted its recommendation. The tender process was started last August and concluded with the announcement of the award of contracts at the end of last year.
I stress that tenders were evaluated against published objective criteria and final decisions were taken by a project board, comprising representatives of the Intervention Board, the four Agriculture Departments and
expert bodies such as the Meat and Livestock Commission and the Meat Hygiene Service. It is important to stress that, because so often, in the earlier debate and this debate, statements have been made as if the Intervention Board is somehow acting in a vacuum and is not involved with other interested bodies with a real interest in seeing that the service works well.
I have examined in detail the way in which the tender process has been handled, and, the evidence that I have--I am always willing to look at evidence--shows that it has been conducted professionally and impartially, in a way which will stand up to scrutiny, which may well come about through bodies such as the Audit Commission and the PAC, which have already scrutinised the processes in the past. It is true that the tender has resulted in further efficiencies, but that has not been at the expense of animal welfare considerations or quality of service.
The hon. Gentleman understandably spoke a great deal about the welfare of animals going for slaughter. I accept that fewer abattoirs have been contracted, but capacity is broadly the same. Furthermore, tenders were considered geographically to provide sufficient capacity to ensure that animal welfare is not compromised. Clearly there is a balance to strike between the number of contracted abattoirs and the efficiency of the operation. The hon. Gentleman referred to my written answer. Numbers are lower in East Anglia compared with the south-west, the midlands and parts of the north of England. Although some animals face a longer journey time to the point of slaughter, many face a shorter journey.
Mr. Pickles:
The right hon. Lady must recognise that 84 per cent. of farmers taking animals to slaughter face longer journey times. Surely she cannot be saying that journeys of 160, 180 or 200 miles are acceptable?
Ms Quin:
The hon. Gentleman refers to journeys of 200 miles, but I do not know where that figure comes from. The abattoir in his constituency regularly took cattle not only from Sussex and Kent, but the Thames valley and even Wiltshire. Animals will now travel shorter distances to slaughter and there is sufficient capacity in each area of the United Kingdom to deal with animals that come forward. Obliging animals to undertake lengthy journeys is the last thing I would want and in theory we look for a limit of eight hours. In practice, very few journeys get remotely near that.
"We need a new direction for farming to meet the present day challenge."
The most pressing present day challenge for farmers in East Anglia is longer journey times and the extra suffering caused to their cattle. The dilatory and incompetent Intervention Board is causing those farmers great grief.
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