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19 Dec 2002 : Column 1071—continued
4.47 pm
Mr. Alan Hurst (Braintree): I am particularly obliged to my hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mr. McWalter) for introducing philosophical notions into this debate, especially that of protracted time, of which I had not heard previously. His mention of that has caused me to make an addition to what I was going to say about a road scheme.
Those who follow these debates assiduously and study Hansard daily might be aware that on several occasions I have raised the Hatfield Peverel to Witham road. Several Essex Members are present who will be familiar with the A12 road, the number of vehicles on it, and the particular hazards if one travels out of Hatfield Peverel on that road on the way to Witham. As a novice Member, I was particularly pleased when, following an Adjournment debate, the Minister responsible announced that, for safety reasons, a link road would be built between the village of Hatfield Peverel and the town of Witham. I am about to congratulate the successor Minister on the fifth anniversary of that announcement in January—the road, however, has not yet been built. It has been approved, it has been in the hands of the Highways Agency, and it is about to be subject to a public inquiry, but not a single grain of sand has been put down.
Mr. McWalter: My hon. Friend is aware, of course, that, according to the law of protracted time, the bigger the idea, the more protracted the time to achieve it. As the idea to which he refers does not sound that big, what is the other reason for the extended period during which nothing has happened?
Mr. Hurst: It is a good job that those responsible were not planning to build the Great Wall of China, as the extended time would have been even greater. I might add that the road to which I refer is one mile in length from one end to the other. I pass it four or five times per week. If I had got out of my car, put down some sand each evening and eventually put down some concrete, I imagine that I could have built that road single-handedly in those five years. But the road has not been completed. Ministers have come and gone—some have come to and gone from the constituency, and a number have gone from office—but the road is still not there. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Minister will pass that information on to the current Minister responsible, who is welcome to come down and see the site any time.
I also want to make a few remarks about an aspect of agriculture—the present plight of pig farming. It is a particularly interesting sector in the sense that it is unsubsidised. The big debate in agriculture at present is about moving away from subsidy and into a free market, and perhaps we can see the future if we look at pig farming, which does not have the benefit of support payments.
All of us had a notion about what pig farming was like. Some of us would have conjured up in our mind a picture of Lord Emsworth and his particular devotion to the activity. However, that was a pastime breeding of pigs rather than a commercial operation. Traditionally, farms in England had a pig. In the main, farms were mixed and a pig would form part of that mixture. Further back is the idyllic view of pigs running loose in oak woods and eating acorns. That is a rustic and attractive vision, but those methods would not serve our present consumerist society. A few pigs running in the oak woods would not suffice to meet our needs. Over time, pig farming has obviously become more commercial.
Pig farming was always something a farmer could move into when times were good and move out of when times and prices were poor. It required less capital investment than other forms of farming. One did not need vast acres of land or expensive equipment and it did not take years to build up a good breeding herd. Like poultry farming, one could move in and out of the sector.
Circumstances have changed as time has gone by. Although pig farming was always cyclical—it was subject to ups and downs—we now appear to be in an extended downturn that concerns all those Members who have pig breeders and pig farmers in their constituencies. In the early 1990s, the price was high and I suspect that produced a degree of overproduction, with the natural consequences of the law of supply and demand. Other factors have now come into the system and they do not bode well for the future.
By 1997–98, the price of pigmeat was down to 70p per kilogram, and the break-even figure is thought to be 90p per kilogram. I visited farms at that time and they did not know how they would survive. The truth is that a number of them have not survived and the number of pig-breeding units is down. The national herd is down, as is the whole production of pigmeat.
One could argue that the cycle will turn, prices will pick up and all will be fine. Prices have risen to more than 90p, which is about the break-even point, but they seem to have stuck at that level. Other factors, once unknown, now exist firm and hard. The major one is the strength of our currency against the euro, and the obvious conclusion is that imports have become cheap and exports have become expensive. In some products, that would not matter too much, but just across the sea are traditional producers of pigmeat who benefit.
We all know that Danish bacon has been advertised in this country, certainly since I was a child. An advertising campaign has been run for the best part of 40 years almost always on the basis that bacon equals Danish. Our producers have never been able to match that type of advertising. When economic circumstances are favourable to foreign exporters, they come into their own. The figures clearly show that, in the past two years, the amount of Danish bacon sold in this country has gone up from about 20 per cent. to about 25 per cent. of the market whereas sales of our product have gone down from about 43 per cent. to 37 per cent. There has been quite an imbalance in the change of trading circumstances. At one time, we would have had an export market perhaps to Russia or eastern Europe,
but because of the difficulties in that region and the strength of the pound, that market has almost entirely disappeared.In addition—it is one problem on top of another—we have rightly attained the highest animal welfare standards in the world. At the same time, we have gone a long way down the route of pollution control and environmental protection. We support all those measures completely, but they come at a price. At one time, pig breeding was an economic matter. It could be done on spare land and the owner could go into something else. Now, the amount of plant and investment is greater and greater in a market in which the margin is narrower and narrower. We also have the scourge of disease. Classical swine fever is a problem, and pigs currently have a wasting disease. Although diseases come and go in any form of agricultural breeding, pig farmers want the Government to invest more in research into animal diseases, on a co-operative basis with our European neighbours, so that a pool of information can be applied to protect native herds.
Another issue grows apace, although it is difficult to put one's finger on it as it is like a will-o'-the-wisp—the power of the supermarkets. It is almost impossible to pin down where the profit disappears for the grower and the breeder, and where it comes into the hand of the retailer. A number of Select Committees have considered the issue and there have been other inquiries in the House, too, but we have never got to the bottom of the mystery.
There is no mystery in the figures, however. Supermarkets account for about three quarters of retail bacon sales in this country. So in the main, someone in the pigmeat business has to be in the supermarket business too. Supermarkets exert an enormous contractual power over those who sell to them. The margin between the price of pigmeat at farm gate and at retail is widening. In January 2000, the profit margin was 221p; it is now 248p. It is growing step by step during an agricultural depression. The Government should approach the way in which the supermarket monopolies control almost the whole market with greater vigour than has hitherto been the case. That practice must be detrimental, not only to the producer, but ultimately to the consumer as well.
The Government could do more about labelling. We know that steps have been taken on that and that the Government, rightly or wrongly—many of us agree with them—are keen on clear labelling. We especially need that on food products. We are about to have lurid announcements on tobacco products so that the possible consequences are abundantly clear to the purchaser, but we often need a magnifying glass in a supermarket or store to track down a product's country of origin. I am not talking about the country of processing or packaging, but where the product was bred or grown. That is what the consumer wants to know. We make much of freedom of choice, but choice has to be based on knowledge. If the knowledge is so elusive that one cannot put one's finger on it, that choice is denied.
If that problem is severe enough in a supermarket, how much greater is it in a restaurant? If one says to a waiter, XAre these English pork sausages for breakfast?", he will undoubtedly say, XCertainly, sir,"
but there is no way of knowing for sure. When one looks at a menu, there is no way of knowing where the product comes from unless the restaurant chooses to advertise it. If we are to give our own producers and growers a fair chance, we must go much further down the route of clear, unconfused, large-written labelling, so that there is freedom of choice.I shall say no more about the matter because I know that interest usually palls after the first few minutes of any speech, except that of certain hon. Members present today. I join others in offering you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and all other Members and staff the very best wishes for the Christmas season.
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