Examination of Witnesses (Questions 300-319)
LORD WHITTY
AND MR
ANDREW SLADE
19 JUNE 2003
Q300 Mr Mitchell: But the industry
needs certainty. You seem to be saying you are waiting for the
"Ides of Brussels" and that is no certainty for the
industry for the investment that has got to carry on and is occurring
now.
Lord Whitty: Well, it is true
that the EU have set the pattern for the 2005 review and the 2012
timetable. If that applies on a whole range of regulations, both
national and European, and no industry can be absolutely certain
that further evidence will not be presented to a government which
makes them change their minds, so I do not think the poultry industry
is particularly unique in that respect.
Q301 Mr Mitchell: They are in a very
difficult situation, they are being asked to invest in enriched
cases, which is a big investment for most of them, and yet you
cannot give them any certainty that that position will be maintained.
Lord Whitty: The motor car industry
is asked to invest in better emission standards, and a few years
down the line no doubt we will make them tighter but quite when
and in what form, we do not know. All industries face a degree
of uncertainty about future government action. What they do know
of course is that whatever standards come through those standards
will almost certainly be EU standards and will be operated across
the EU.
Q302 Mr Mitchell: It sounds to me
disastrous that here that you are asked by the industry what it
is to invest in and the answer is a shrug.
Lord Whitty: It is not the government's
job to tell them what to invest in precisely.
Q303 Mr Mitchell: You can give them
some on certainty.
Lord Whitty: We lay down the regulations
as of now based on the European standards and we give them a pretty
long timetable for implementation. A lot of industries are faced
with changing their procedures overnight compared to this. We
build in a review process which might throw further light on what
we need to do in the long term. That seems to me to be sensible
regulation, not precipitate imposition on the industry.
Q304 Chairman: A short time ago we
were advised of the existence of enlarged, enriched cages. It
would be possible for Defra to allow, encourage or require the
use of those at the appropriate time, or would you view that as
gold-plating?
Lord Whitty: At this point I would
regard requirement as gold-plating but there is a possibility
that those enlarged, enriched cages prove better in terms of welfare,
and in which case then I think we might have to consider the situation,
but if you asking as of today, then there is no reason for going
further than we have.
Chairman: Let's move from eggs to meat.
It is the case, is it not, that the chicken meat sector is unique
in livestock areas in having no present EU farm animal welfare
standards, and I would like Bill Wiggin to come in on that point.
Q305 Mr Wiggin: I understand that
Defra is actually looking at putting a Directive together on the
meat sector. Is that true?
Lord Whitty: There are proposals
that we should do so. We are at a relatively early stage.
Mr Slade: There was a Welfare
Code put out last July in terms of the standards at a national
level and codes can be called on in cases of prosecutions as evidence
of standards met or not met. An early draft of a Directive—an
EU-wide approach on meat chickens—is doing the rounds and
we have tried to ensure that we have got maximum coverage with
our stakeholders and an opportunity to comment. You get into quite
a lot of interesting issues about ventilation and stocking density
because a lot of the early standards were built around buildings
that did not have modern ventilation systems and so on.
Q306 Mr Wiggin: To what extent would
you like to see higher standards than those that re already operated
in the United Kingdom?
Lord Whitty: Again research is
part of the issue behind that, and representations from the industry
as a result, but an EU-wide standard is something we would be
looking for.
Q307 Mr Wiggin: Okay. One of the
fears we have got is that this will simply lead to more red tape,
less jobs, less of a UK high welfare industry, particularly when
it runs into WTO. Can you give us any sort of assurance that that
is not going to be the case?
Lord Whitty: I think the two are
not really connected. We may have EU welfare standards for meat
fowl but we do not have at the moment but the competitive situation
applies whether or not we move to those standards because I think
I am right in saying that if we had an EU agreement tomorrow they
would be, roughly speaking, the same as we have got in the United
Kingdom.
Q308 Mr Wiggin: That is helpful.
Lord Whitty: And if they were
ratcheted up they would be ratcheted up on a pan-European basis.
There is a competitive issued involved anyway as far as poultry
meat is concerned and one where the industry is going to have
to upgrade its performance in terms of what parts of the market
it remains competitive in.
Q309 Mr Wiggin: We have got one little
welfare question that CIWF have brought up which is that they
believe that broilers are being bred to reach slaughter weight
at 41 days and this leads to leg and lung problems. To what extent
has the development of rapidly growing broilers contributed to
animal welfare problems, in your opinion?
Lord Whitty: Let me separate two
things. There is a case on which I am strongly advised not to
comment which CIWF have bought on this basis and therefore I will
not comment on precisely what the CIWF are saying. Clearly there
have been some breeding effects and some growth effects which
we would not consider very beneficial, but the standards which
we are operating at now seem to us defensible.
Mr Wiggin: Good, I am glad to hear that
because from what you were saying in the earlier part of my questioning
one of the things we are very worried about is that it is not
European-wide competition that will deliver the problems for British
meat production, it will be the Brazilian, Thai and the international
competitors that will do the damage and are already doing tremendous
damage to our domestic production.
Chairman: Only three people in this place
fully understand CAP reform and here is one of them, Austin?
Q310 Mr Mitchell: I understand that
it is not likely to take place. Prospects are held out for this
usual pot of gold at the end of the rainbow from Europe—money
for subsidisation, participation in assurance schemes, for meeting
standards, investment aid to help farmers achieve new standards
and then there is a pot of gold if we achieve CAP reform. Defra
however points out that that is fairly unlikely in the immediate
future. Is there any support the Government can provide if we
get a CAP agreement which promises those benefits at some stage
in the future to help the industry through the transition period?
Lord Whitty: As of today this
is an extremely difficult question to answer. As of last night
the proposals which were being discussed did envisage a significant
shift into Pillar 2, more significant than the February proposals.
Whether that is agreed or not is not yet clear. If it were agreed
then there would be some scope from European funds which would
almost certainly have to be matched if not 100 per cent at least
to some degree with UK funds for meeting those objectives. I think
we have pretty well convinced Commissioner Fischler a) that he
needs to increase the size of Pillar 2 and b) he needs to make
it more flexible and quality directed in terms of helping farmers
and the trade to meet standards. I expect some of that to be reflected
in the final outcome of the CAP. What the quantum will be and
therefore how much real scope we have got for using EU funds remains
to be seen. As you know, we start from a position of very substantial
disadvantage in Pillar 2 in that we have far less than we should
have in the current expenditure.
Q311 Mr Mitchell: The interim period?
Lord Whitty: The Commission have
said to us that because of various commitments we have, not least
from the Curry Report and the agri-environment side and so on,
that whatever situation applies in terms of the mandatory modulation
in Pillar 2 that we will have to discuss some transitional arrangements
in terms of the UK government's current commitments and that they
are happy to do a bilateral arrangement with us for that transitional
period. Quite how long that transitional period is will depend
on where the cross-over between where we are going and the final
mandatory modulation comes in.
Q312 Mr Mitchell: You will have to
get money from Treasury for that?
Lord Whitty: At least on the agri-environment
side we have got the money from the Treasury, subject to the pilot
schemes coming good, and we would anticipate that we would have
sufficient money in order to meet what is our current expected
expenditure under the voluntary modulation. Clearly, as with everything
else, if we are talking about additional money in this spending
round over and above what is already there, that is more difficult,
but we would have to talk priorities with the Treasury for a period
beyond that.
Q313 Mr Mitchell: My guess would
be there will be the usual Franco-German jack-up and it will end
up with no substantial reform of the CAP. However, that is just
an aside.
Lord Whitty: That may take hours.
Q314 Mr Mitchell: They will tell
us we should have joined the euro and then we will have more influence
on that kind of decision. That is the likely outcome. As you say,
it could take hours. The Department point out in the evidence
that payments under new optional measures would be competing with
other rural development money—and you have just said that
yourself—and other development options could provide more
easily identifiable public benefits. If poultry welfare is not
an "easily identifiable public benefit" why is the Government
imposing higher welfare standards?
Lord Whitty: There is a public
benefit in the sense that there is public concern about welfare
of farmed animals and therefore something which enables the industry
to meet those standards, either in terms of the initial upgrading
or the longer term, would be desirable. On the other hand, it
is slightly difficult to have a continuous basis of effectively
using the taxpayers' money to subsidise producers for obeying
the law. It is not something we normally do.
Q315 Mr Mitchell: It is something
you have imposed.
Lord Whitty: Government imposes
all law.
Q316 Mr Mitchell: Rightly in my view,
you and the EU want to raise standards, but neither of you is
prepared to help the industry to raise standards financially.
Lord Whitty: Well, there may be
the possibility of some help. If you are saying should that be
a permanent feature of long-term Pillar 2 expenditure then I think
there is some difficulty, which is why we have to make choices
here of defending the money to the poultry industry for meeting
what are the legal standards at that point as against, say, paying
money to farmers, landowners and rural enterprise of all sorts
in terms of keeping up the quality of the landscape, creating
new businesses, raising the standard of training and qualifications
in rural areas and so forth, all of which are visible ways of
keeping the rural economy going.
Q317 Mr Mitchell: Agreed that, but
look at it the other way now, does the government have a responsibility
for encouraging consumers to fulfil their responsibilities by
paying more for food, in this case poultry and eggs, that achieve
animal welfare improvements?
Lord Whitty: I think the government
in terms of education probably does have some responsibility but
the prime responsibility is bound to be borne by the trade itself
in achieving high and recognisable assurance standards which,
by and large, the egg sector and poultry industry have achieved,
and by convincing consumers through the retail end that is what
they want and they are prepared if necessary to pay a premium
for it. There is a government role in that but it is not a government
role that either subsidises the consumers or subsidises the industry
for achieving it. It is more of an educational role.
Q318 Mr Mitchell: It gives us advice.
Lord Whitty: Gives advice, yes,
and it is regrettably true that the general public probably believe
advice from non-government agencies more than they believe it
from government agencies.
Q319 Mr Mitchell: Does government
believe its own advice? What part do minimum standards of animal
welfare play in government procurement policies, in school meals
purchase, and all the other government purchases? When you are
asking people to look for best value, does best value include
some recognition of the higher costs produced by higher animal
welfare standards?
Lord Whitty: That is part of a
clutch of issues that relate to sustainability of supply. We are
currently engaged in trying to inculcate a recognition of that
in public procurement of food. There are of course some constraints
on that, both in terms of discrimination against other competitors
and in terms of the cost restraints which the budgets impose on
various public sector purchases but we are engaged, led by Defra,
in a major effort with other government procurement agencies to
look for sustainable solutions which at the very least do not
of themselves create barriers to them being supplied locally by
British food. We are engaged with the Prison Service, the MoD,
schools and local authorities and the NHS in looking at ways in
which we can better do that. It is an area that the government
does have some responsibility for.
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