House of Commons
Thursday 25 May 2000
The House met at half-past Eleven o'clock
PRAYERS
[Madam Speaker in the Chair]
NEW WRIT
- That Madam Speaker do issue her Warrant for the Clerk of the Crown to make out a new writ for the electing of a Member to serve in this present Parliament for the Borough Constituency of Tottenham in the room of Bernard Alexander Montgomery Grant, Esquire, deceased.--[Mrs. Ann Taylor.]
PRIVATE BUSINESS
London Local Authorities Bill [LORDS] (BY ORDER)
To be considered on Thursday 8 June.
Mersey Tunnels Bill (BY ORDER)
Order for Second Reading read.
To be read a Second time on Thursday 8 June.
Oral Answers to Questions
AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD
The Minister was asked--
Abattoirs
1. Mrs. Ann Winterton (Congleton): If he will make a statement on the future role of small abattoirs in the rural economy. [122400]
The Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Ms Joyce Quin): The Government recognise the importance of small and specialist abattoirs to the rural economy. We have therefore put in place a number of measures to help small and medium-sized abattoirs, including the deferment of charges for specified risk material controls, the freezing of Meat Hygiene Service inspection charges for 1999-2000 and an increase confined to the rate of inflation for the current year, a review of the level of inspection in low throughput abattoirs, and setting up a taskforce to explore a capping approach to meat hygiene charges for small abattoirs.
Mrs. Winterton: Bearing in mind the fact that small abattoirs are going out of business right, left and centre and that many of them will not survive another year, will the Government use their considerable influence with the Meat Hygiene Service and others to ensure that cost
recovery for inspections in abattoirs is moved to a headage payment system, as happens elsewhere in Europe? That would guard against further disadvantaging small rural abattoirs, producers, animal welfare, consumer choice on organic and locally produced meat, and the preservation of rare breeds.
Ms Quin: I understand the hon. Lady's concerns and I know that there are several small abattoirs in her constituency or the surrounding area. I hope that she will welcome the reviews of meat hygiene prices and of the Meat Hygiene Service, both of which were important elements in the action plan for farming announced by the Prime Minister and my right hon. Friend the Minister at the end of March. She charges us with causing the closure of abattoirs right, left and centre, but the majority of abattoir closures took place under the Conservative Government. It would not be possible for us to close as many abattoirs as the Conservatives did even if we wanted to--which we do not--because there are not that many left.
Mr. David Drew (Stroud): May I concentrate on regulation? Anyone with connections with the trade knows that there is a problem. The tension can be seen by anyone who visits an abattoir. How will the Food Standards Agency impact on the operation of the Meat Hygiene Service, and how likely is a reduction in the level of regulation?
Ms Quin: The Food Standards Agency is taking the issue seriously. The reviews encourage a reduction in regulation. Ministers have a responsibility to negotiate with our European partners to reduce unnecessary regulation and ensure that the regulations that are necessary are as simple and straightforward as possible. As my hon. Friend knows, we are pursuing a number of initiatives on that.
Mr. Colin Breed (South-East Cornwall): I welcome the changes in the Meat Hygiene Service charges. Is it not time to quicken the pace in reacting to the reports of the red tape working parties? The Pooley report was published in December. In February, the Government announced that they accepted a large number of its recommendations. When will the pace of bringing in those recommendations be increased so that we see real action on the ground? Is there a firm timetable so that we can know when all the recommendations will be realised in farmers' daily lives?
Ms Quin: We are making a lot of progress on the measures that we announced and the timetable that we are working to. The independently chaired taskforce to look at meat inspection charges is to report by the end of this month. The red tape review, including the Pooley recommendations, was always designed to be taken forward quickly. The last thing that we wanted in setting up the red tape review was to start another long, bureaucratic procedure. The way in which the red tape review reported and the timetables that were subsequently proposed show that we are serious about addressing those issues.
Of course, some of the issues are not entirely within our control, because they involve European negotiations. On that front, too, we are vigorously pursuing the points that require further developments at European level.
Mr. Christopher Gill (Ludlow): Now that the responsibility for the Meat Hygiene Service has passed to Health Ministers, can the right hon. Lady give us an assurance that her Department will be much more robust and aggressive in defence of rural abattoirs, for all the reasons given by my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Mrs. Winterton)?
Ms Quin: Given the measures to which I referred in my original reply to the hon. Member for Congleton (Mrs. Winterton), the hon. Gentleman should recognise that we have already undertaken a considerable number of initiatives and important measures--for example, in terms of the deferment of charges for specified risk material controls. That is worth some £44 million--a considerable amount. However, the hon. Gentleman makes the good point that giving responsibility to Health Ministers allows us, as Agriculture Ministers, to look at the issues of how farmers and rural communities are affected, without any suggestion of a clash of interests, and therefore I welcome it.
Mr. Malcolm Moss (North-East Cambridgeshire): In order to help the hard-pressed abattoir sector, will the Minister tell the House what steps the Government are taking to relax the restrictions on the date-based export scheme? When did the Minister last raise with the French Government their illegal ban on British beef? Will she confirm that this matter will be discussed with the French Agricultural Minister in the meeting scheduled for tomorrow?
Ms Quin: As the hon. Gentleman knows, representations have been made on many occasions in private meetings at the margins of Agriculture Councils, in public and in the French media about the illegality of the action that the French have taken. However, that action is now before the courts. Commissioner Byrne has said that he wants the process to take place as quickly as possible. We believe that the French will lose the case, and those are the procedures that should be adopted.
The hon. Gentleman is wrong to accuse us of being dilatory in respect of the Meat Hygiene Service, or in our action with the French. This Government's record in promoting and getting accepted the date-based export scheme and in getting the ban on British beef lifted in a large number of countries--I recently produced figures on how many more countries have lifted the ban as a result of our efforts--bears favourable comparison with the pathetically slow progress made by the previous Government.
Pig Industry
2. Mr. Edward Leigh (Gainsborough): If he will make a statement on profitability in the pig sector. [122401]
The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Nick Brown): Market prices for pigs continue to recover, having risen by 25 per cent. since the end of January. With the market price at around 95p per
kilogram, most pig producers will be breaking even, at least. The measures that the Government have taken to help the sector have helped to bring about this outcome.
Mr. Leigh: Twenty-four thousand jobs have been lost in this sector. The problem with the pig industry has not been that it is inefficient--it is not--but is that it must abide by animal welfare standards that do not apply to its competitors. Does the Minister acknowledge that his restructuring grant may actually lead to more jobs being lost? How does he intend to use the grant, and to what purpose? Is not the real problem with the industry the fact that imports do not have to abide by these standards? What is he going to do about it? Will he be tougher? Can he imagine the French putting up with this sort of behaviour? We want a Minister who is less nice and acts more like a Frenchman.
Mr. Brown: Bonjour, Madam Speaker. I welcome the hon. Gentleman to these exchanges, to which you have been treated at just about every Agriculture questions for almost a year now. The answers to his questions are well known. The real problem in the sector is twofold--supply exceeds demand and the classic pig cycle has plummeted, and that recession has been prolonged. To help the industry through the recession, the Government have taken a range of actions with which most hon. Members will be familiar, because we have discussed them at great length.
The one measure that the hon. Gentleman urges on the Government--economic protectionism--would be illegal and would invite retaliation and a court case that would incur considerable costs for the British taxpayer. If the hon. Gentleman doubts that, I can tell him--as most hon. Members will have heard me say before--that the best advice available to the Government has been placed in the Library for all hon. Members to see. He advocates a measure that would not work and, worse than that, would do considerable harm to the industry. The constructive approach that the Government have taken, to work with the industry to devise measures to get it through the crisis, has been widely welcomed by the industry and, as the facts show, is having some success.
Mr. Paul Marsden (Shrewsbury and Atcham): Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is good news that the price has risen and that what we should do next is reduce costs in the supply chain, add value to the British market and develop marketing in Europe? Those are not my words, but those of Mr. Mick Sloan from the British Pig Executive, reported in the Farmers Guardian this week. Those are the steps that are necessary, not the illegal activities promised by the Tories, which would ruin the industry.
Mr. Brown: There is no protectionist solution to the problem. The answer for the industry is to get closer to the marketplace. We have worked closely with the industry to get it to work together, rather than just as individual businesses, and to bring it closer to its real customers. I also welcome the Meat and Livestock Commission campaign which has just been launched to bring home to British consumers the real difference between the strong
animal welfare measures that we have in place and competitors' products. The battle will be won in the supermarkets.
Mr. Michael Jack (Fylde): Sadly, Winnie the pig has left Parliament square and the fount of all our knowledge and wisdom on the subject has gone. Before the pig went, a question was raised with me about research and development in the industry, and the fact that the Minister's package of help measures does not appear to include anything to assist further improvements in the way in which the British industry operates. Has he any positive proposals to put to the House on that matter today?
Mr. Brown: The industry operates efficiently and it has a good story to tell on meat and bonemeal and on animal welfare. The right hon. Gentleman is making a bid for my research and development programme. If the industry submits projects, they will be considered as other bids are considered and will take their place in the priorities. When the industry applied for marketing support, it received the overwhelming bulk of the support that was available. We are willing to consider bids from the industry across the range of the different projects that the Department sponsors.
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