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Mrs. May: Will the Minister give way?
Mr. Bradshaw: I am sorry, but I am about to finish my speech. The hon. Lady had an opportunity to intervene earlier.
The strategy will help producers to improve and protect their animals' health. It will provide incentives for good practice, and it aims to make the balance of the cost between producer, consumer and taxpayer more equitable if problems do occur.
Against that background, I urge the House to reject the motion and support our amendment.
4.16 pm
Mr. Roger Williams (Brecon and Radnorshire) (LD): First, let me draw attention to my entries in the Register of Members' Interests in relation to livestock farming.
I am pleased that we have the opportunity to debate these issues today, as too often we have been prevented from doing so. My hon. Friend the Member for St. Ives (Andrew George) has frequently chided the Secretary of State for treating the House as a notice board rather than as a debating chamber where we can scrutinise Government policy, and perhaps contribute to making it more beneficial to the British agriculture industry. I would go a little further: I think that DEFRA does treat the House as a notice board, but often it has no messages to put on the notice board.
The farming industry finds it very difficult to plan for the future when so little information is given to it. We are still waiting, for instance, for information on tenants and new entrants in the mid-term review of the common agricultural policy. They are the most vulnerable people in the industry. The over-30 month scheme seems to
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have disappeared over the political horizon, and if we had to depend on the Government for the fallen stock scheme the stock would remain fallen on the farms, which would cause a great problem for everyone.
Mr. James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con): Thank God for the hunts.
Bovine TB is getting out of hand. It is spreading across the country at an alarming rate. What causes farmers the most distress, though, is the Government's inactivity and lack of resolution.
Mr. Martlew: I do not disagree with the hon. Gentleman about the spread of bovine TB. In Cumbria we were exempt, but when we were "killed out" after foot and mouth we imported cattle with TB from the south-west. It was not badgers that spread the disease in our area.
Mr. Williams: I do not think we have yet resolved the question of whether TB is always spread from bovine to bovine, or from wildlife to bovine animals. Part of our concern is the need to get on and do the fundamental research that is so important. As the Minister said, we must make decisions based on sound science. If we start to base them on knee-jerk reactions, we will probably end up in a worse situation than at present. The hon. Member for Carlisle (Mr. Martlew) made a good point on the movement of cattle. We are considering the consultation document on TB and will have something to say on pre-movement and post-movement testing.
The Government seem to have no confidence in themselves to deal with a number of the issues, and as a result, the industry has no confidence in the Government. That is a poor base on which to establish a sound and realistic approach to preventing disease from entering this country, and to stop the spread of disease if it does enter the country and take hold.
Of course, I accept that the Government have had to start from a very weak base. It was the Conservative Government who closed veterinary investigation centres and presided over the closure of veterinary departments in universities. Had it not been for work done by my predecessor, they would have closed the veterinary department in my university, Cambridge, but luckily, that survives. They also centralised the state veterinary service and reduced the number of vets involved in it, and I shall come back to that. As the Minister said, when this Government took over, the contingency plans in place were often incomplete, inadequate or incomprehensible to read, and they were of no use in dealing with diseases when they occurred.
Much mention has been made of the problem with imports, which is fundamental. I am sure that farmers' and the agriculture industry's trust in the Government would be enhanced if the Government were much more open about the importance of import controls. We can hardly hear them speak about import controls without their then going on to talk about biosecurity in the
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farming industry. Farmers accept that, but they would also like to see a much more open, definite and strong voice when the Government talk about import controls.
Some 18 months ago, I spoke in support of a ten-minute Bill in the House that asked that import controls be put in the hands of one agency. I was therefore very encouraged when the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs announced one day that that would happen, and that controls would be put into the hands of Customs and Excise. That is the right move, but I do not know if it has achieved as much success as we would have liked. The sheer quantity, as the hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) pointed out, of illegal meat that comes into this country makes it almost certain that at some stage we will get an exotic disease that is either infective to animals, whether to domestic animals or wildlife, or is a zoonotic disease—one which spreads to human beings. All the public uproar that we had over BSE and foot and mouth would be as nothing compared with the public uproar if a disease came in that affected the human population.
Mr. Russell Brown: I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way, because I tried to intervene on the hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May). Much is said about import controls, and I wholeheartedly agree that despite what we have done, we need to toughen them up. Much emphasis is given to what the United States does, but I point out to the hon. Gentleman and the hon. Lady that what we have seized in this country is only a fraction of what they have seized in the United States. We say that that country has a good system, but it seizes literally hundreds of thousands of kilos. That seems to be forgotten.
Mr. Williams: The hon. Gentleman makes a good point, but there is a huge market in ethnic foods in this country, which contributes to the scale of the problem.
I have visited Heathrow, through which, as the hon. Member for Maidenhead said, more than 60 million people a year pass. That is an enormous number of inspections to carry out. We will never tackle this problem if we attempt to do so on a random or lottery basis, and greater emphasis must be placed on an intelligence-driven system. The people involved in illegal meat imports are often the same people who are involved in narcotic and drug imports. They see the former as an almost equally profitable business to be in, but without the great danger of being apprehended, and with virtually no danger of any punishment if they are caught.
In addition to an intelligence-based system, we want magistrates and judges to be given more training in the nature of this offence, and to be made aware of the severe consequences if illegal meat imports continue. The best deterrent of all is a very stiff sentence. We look to the courts and the training systems to ensure that that issue is addressed.
Mr. Kidney:
I missed the hon. Gentleman this morning at Windsor Great Park—[Interruption.] I was there and he was not. He is making some very constructive suggestions in respect of illegal imports, but will he distinguish—as I asked the Minister to do—
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between such imports and legal commercial imports conducted through import posts, at which the inspections are thorough and reliable?
Mr. Williams: I am not sure that I understand the hon. Gentleman. If he is talking about commercial meat imports into this country that come through recognised ports and which are declared, I take his point. We still have a problem with beef imports from south America, for example, where foot and mouth remains endemic. We import from areas that are "foot and mouth free", and we depend very much on the work done in those countries to ensure that meat is sent there with a credible assurance that it is free of foot and mouth.
One of my concerns is that when cargo consignments enter this country, they are often labelled as consolidated, with no indication given of what might be in the container or package. Clive Lawrence—he has been mentioned before—points that out as a great weakness in the system. It would be of great help at airports and seaports if full details of the contents of imports were given on containers.
Mr. Drew: The problem with the debate about illegal imports—and legal imports, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney) alluded to—is that it is not as straightforward as it appears. The EU has been in dispute with the US for countless years about hormones in beef, and in my view the EU is right; indeed, I had an argument with my noble Friend Lord Rooker about whether such opposition is legitimate. The situation is not as straightforward as "Illegal imports bad, legal imports good."
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