Examination of witness (Questions 840
- 859)
TUESDAY 23 NOVEMBER 1999
THE RT
HON NICHOLAS
BROWN
Mrs Organ
840. Can we move to small processors rather
than large ones. I think we would recognise, would we not Minister,
that diversity and product innovation has been very successful
in other parts of Europe. Our European partners have been successful
in their dairy industry and small family farms have become specialist
cheesemakers and other value-added products. Could you give us
some thoughts about your policy on encouraging the growth of such
specialists in the dairy industry in the United Kingdom?
(Mr Brown) I am an enthusiast for this. We have lent
an official from the Department to the specialist cheese sector
to work with them. We have encouraged joined-up arrangements between
the local supermarkets and providers of relatively small quantities
of local dairy products particularly speciality cheeses. The Parliamentary
Secretary in the House of Lords last year, Bernard Donoughue,
did an enormous amount of work on the promotion of British speciality
cheeses. I am also very keen on marketing schemes that link up
small and medium-sized farm produce with regional tourism so that
the regional identity of the food product can be linked to the
tourist industry and gain sales that way. I think there is quite
a good future in that. In the West Country they have been particularly
imaginative.
841. We make fine cheeses in the Forest of Dean
and we have had some on the plates of the House of Commons here—the
"Stinking Bishop"!
(Mr Brown) I do not want to give offence to other
members of the Committee!
842. I am glad for your enthusiasm and I can
see that work has been done on promotion and linking in with tourism
and regional diversity with food and all that but small processors
need a bit more than enthusiasm and when I have asked what you
can do as a government one of the reasons small processors say
their development does not go forward is because of the attitude
of Government because they have got such regulation on them as
cheesemakers and they do not have financial assistance. Are you
prepared to review their burden of regulation?
(Mr Brown) We are looking at the regulatory burdens
on the whole of the industry. I have set up these three groups
which are just the start to look at the areas that were identified
by the National Farmers' Union as priorities, but we are willing
to look at every topic that has been reasonably raised by the
NFU although of course it is going to take time. There are two
sides to this. Of course this issue is not a new one. Yes, we
want to make sure that the regulatory burden is reasonable and
proportionate and not unduly so but at the same time, particularly
when dealing with a product like raw milk, there are some very
important public protection considerations as well.
843. I think they also might agree with that.
We all want good quality food that is safe but they feel they
are burdened in other areas of regulation and that Government
is intervening and it seems that inordinate hoops have to be jumped
through before you can produce.
(Mr Brown) Where the regulatory burden is directly
within my control I am willing to look at and to reassess any
of whatever we currently have in place but there are important
public protection functions in all of this. So it is not as if
it is a one-way argument.
844. Okay. What about other sorts of support
as well as your enthusiasm and promotion? There may be opportunities
through the Rural Development Fund but imagine you are a dairy
farmer and you are not in an area that has been given Objective
2 or 5(b) status. What support can you give to help those small
family farmers to diversify and innovate and become yoghurt makers,
ice cream makers and cheesemakers?
(Mr Brown) There are schemes for marketing assistance
that are outwith the designated special areas. I hope there will
be a successor scheme under the rural development measure. I am
not in a position to report progress to the Committee now although
I hope we will have an opportunity to discuss the measure when
these plans come to fruition. I am very keen on making certain
that what support the Ministry can give to the industry is demand-side
targeted rather than an attempt to supplement the supply-side
of the Common Agricultural Policy so I do think that market-orientated
projects and marketing schemes themselves are the right sort of
thing for the Department to support.
845. How much pressure do you think your Department
should put on to, say, supermarkets to encourage them to take
local cheesemakers' products and put them on their shelves rather
than mass-produced cheese from big dairies?
(Mr Brown) When I meet the chief executives of the
big retailing organisations and some of the smaller regional ones
as well I do make the point that having an outlet for local produce
is something that the Ministry regard as important and the retailers
have responded to that. The point they make is that they need
security of supply, certainty of supply. They cannot put a product
on sale for one week and then not have it the following week.
But I actually think that Government support for better marketing
arrangements might be able to help here.
846. I understand that MAFF has agreed to second
a scientist to the SCA for 12 months.
(Mr Brown) That is right.
847. How much are we looking at what he will
be able to do? We have got one man seconded for 12 months. It
is not a huge commitment, is it?
(Mr Brown) I think this will turn out to be quite
important because it means that a Department official can be immersed
in the problems of what is in commercial terms a relatively small
but important speciality sector and may be able to help them with
advice and professional support but also will be able to feed
back into the Department. The issues that are most often raised
are the ones that you refer to—the regulatory burden and
the difficulty in finding retail outlets or consistent retail
outlets.
Mrs Organ: Thank you.
Chairman
848. Before I hand over to Mr Jack can I pursue
a bit more this balance of risk issue in cheese making. I think
it is very important we remind you that the Specialist Cheesemakers
Association tell us that the EU Scientific Committee has concluded
that: "current microbiological criteria were not established
on the basis of a formal risk assessment" and also that "many
of the criteria do not appear to be meaningful in terms of consumer
health protection." Yet the Government seem to be pushing
ahead with the Dairy Products Hygiene Regulation 1995 and it is
tremendously important that the EU Scientific Committee's views
are take taken proper account of. It looks as though the balance
has been shifted too far in one direction.
(Mr Brown) They will be. This is a consolidation and
an updating of the existing regulations largely to comply with
new thinking from the European Union.
849. So those issues will be taken fully into
account?
(Mr Brown) Most certainly as will the actual Directives
from the European Union which are being consolidated into domestic
law.
850. Did you hear the excellent BBC Radio 4
Food Programme on the 24th and 31st October where the problems
of specialist cheese makers were examined in some detail? I think
there is only one conclusion you can reach from those programmes.
(Mr Brown) I am a great fan of the Food Programme
but I missed that one.
851. I commend it to you. Get a tape of the
24th and 31st October and listen to them in the car on the way
back to your constituency. You will find them very persuasive.
What they say to us is looking at the famous James Aldridge case
it hangs "like a sword of Damocles over all cheesemakers
and deters investment as well as being a personal tragedy for
Mr Aldridge." It may be a small sector but it has the potential
to grow.
(Mr Brown) In response to that can I say I have made
my representations within Government but it is primarily a matter
for the Department of Health. That is just about as far as I can
go.
852. I am not going to push you. I am not after
pesticide tax but there is an anecdote which goes round the industry
which I have not been able to authenticate but it has a ring of
truth where an environmental officer visited one particular small
cheesemaker and on the way out the individual is reported as saying,
"We will not be safe until we have closed down all these
small cheesemakers". That attitude is out there at a local
level and I think it is very damaging and I do hope you will be
able to send signals by your own actions and those of your colleagues
that that kind of attitude is simply unacceptable.
(Mr Brown) May I make it clear to this Committee that
that is not my approach. I think it is a good industry and should
be supported and encouraged.
Mr Jack
853. I would like to pick up on some of the
comments that Diana Organ was talking about and, Minister, you
alluded to in terms of the schemes for help. Your Ministry very
kindly provided us with a note entitled "Government Assistance
to the Dairy Industry". I do not want to have a forensic
examination paragraph by paragraph but I for one would find it
very helpful if you could expand a little bit more on each one
of the numbered paragraphs under the heading "Marketing Grants"
as to what these budgets are under these heads, whether there
are existing budgets and how much individual projects could apply
for and the size of grants that are available. I note that under
5) the rural development plan which, Minister, you mentioned before
you were giving consideration to in the sentence that starts "Possibilities"—this
is I presume possibilities for money to be provided—"include
capital processing". I presume that means " capital,
processing". Obviously this is an interesting area because
it is the first time that there appears to be public funds for
capital projects for food processing. Clearly that is something
which if you were able to expand a bit more on I would find very
useful. Equally, in the area under 6) that deals with things that
are not available it would be helpful to get some idea of the
totality of what is currently being utilised by the dairy sector
as I have a former personal interest in all of these areas having
pushed a lot of these marketing development schemes myself and
I would like to have a bit more of a picture as to what has been
taken up particularly by milk producers or the dairy processing
sector. I think there is an area there for further information.
(Mr Brown) Do you want me to talk you through? It
is quite a long answer to your first question.
854. I would personally be very happy if we
could have a little more explanation on paper of that because
I do not want to detain you unnecessarily.
(Mr Brown) Quite a lot of the answers are contained
in the text. The answer to the Agricultural Development Scheme
is £1 million and there is a further £5 million for
marketing arrangements but this is for the United Kingdom. I want
to target the lightly-aided sectors. Although of course all sectors
can apply I am very focused in my own thinking on the pig sector
which I think everyone accepts is going through difficult times
at the minute. We have been consulting on the Rural Development
Plan since the start of this year. The threads of this will be
drawn to a conclusion soon because we will want to submit it to
the European Union at the end of this year. There are no established
expenditure heads yet but clearly it will be possible under the
regulation to take up some of these schemes although the take-up
might be different in Wales and Scotland and Northern Ireland
to what it is in England. There is devolved discretion on that.
Under Section 6 where it sets out the different schemes some of
them are historic schemes and are now closed but the sums of money
are set out in the text.
855. I was interested to know a little bit more
how much had been levered in by virtue of these activities. Going
back to the Agriculture Development Scheme 1999 for example, what
is not in the text is any indication of how the grant structure
operates and what is the maximum size of the project that can
be assisted.
(Mr Brown) We have not set parameters like that. We
are awaiting bids but, as I said, there is a predisposition for
support for lightly-aided sectors.
856. So somebody could put in a bid for the
lot?
(Mr Brown) That is theoretically possible.
857. There is no restriction in terms of the
size of bid?
(Mr Brown) It is not set out as a formal grant scheme
in that way. What I am looking to is to get the maximum benefit
from what is a limited sum of money.
858. I wanted to ask you one specific question
first of all about marketing matters connected to milk put to
me by a group of local farmers in my own constituency. They would
like to know what prevents them developing a fresh raw milk product
which will be labelled one per cent, two per cent or three per
cent fat depending obviously on what was in the carton or bottle
or container. They believe they cannot do that.
(Mr Brown) I cannot think what the obstacle is as
long as the description is truthful. That is a technical question
and let me let you have a written answer to it.
859. The reason why I raised that—
(Mr Brown) At first sight I cannot see what it would
be.
Mr Jack: The reason I raised that—
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