Examination of Witnesses (Questions 60
- 79)
TUESDAY 23 OCTOBER 2007
RT HON
HILARY BENN
MP
Q60 Mr Drew: When?
Hilary Benn: I cannot tell the
Committee the absolute date. I will happily go away and look.
I received it in a letter on 30 July. There had been one or two
other things going on, which we have just spent the last 20 minutes
talking about. I have recently turned my attention to that bit
of advice, the ISG report. We reflected upon that. Sir David King
wanted to publish his advice. As I have said publicly, one of
the things I want to wait for before taking a view is the result
of the inquiry that this Committee is undertaking. I would simply
say to you, Mr Drew, that we thought it would be helpful and Sir
David King thought it would be helpful for it to be published
now given the inquiry that you are undertaking. I would simply
say that there is nothing Machiavellian about this. There is not
something going on. It is a piece of advice that has come to Government.
I thought it was right that Sir David King should be able to bring
it into the public domain. He, as you know, is very keen that
his advice to Government should be published. It is a view on
what the ISG report had to say. From the two meetings I have had
internally looking at this, this is a horrendously difficult issue
which polarises opinion and in which a lot hinges on your interpretation
of the evidence. In terms of how I propose to deal with it now
that I have got slightly more time, it is to meet first of all
John Bourne and to meet a wide range of organisations which have
an interest in this and to listen to what the Select Committee
has to say in eventually reaching a view about what we are going
to do. Genuinely, there is nothing suspicious. There is no subtle
message being sent here. That is exactly what has happened.
Q61 Mr Drew: There is one thing in
common between Bluetongue, Foot and Mouth and Bovine TB and that
is that we look over the hill and see the possibility of a vaccine.
We took evidence a week last Monday to look at how far advanced
the vaccination search was for Bovine TB. Is there not at least
some reason to question judgment inasmuch that we always slaughter
as a first recourse? We slaughter cattle and that costs an awful
lot of money. In terms of Bovine TB we are at £90 million
a year, probably soon to pass £100 million. Would it not
be sensible to invest heavily in each of those three diseases
to seek a vaccination solution on the basis that we all know where
we are going to? A Bluetongue vaccine is possibly within months
of being available. For Foot and Mouth there is a vaccine. It
has not been used but we have the opportunity. For Bovine TB it
is always ten years away but maybe it could be far less than ten
years away if we put serious resources into it. At what stage
do you take a policy decision to say, "Look: we cannot go
on slaughtering cattle the way we do. It is unaffordable, let
alone being very cruel. We are going to move to a vaccination
strategy and we are going to put the resources into this to make
it feasible"?
Hilary Benn: In relation to Bluetongue,
animal slaughter is not part of the disease control arrangements.
There was a very small number of animals slaughtered at the start
of the outbreak, but that is not the way in which it is dealt
with. In relation to Foot and Mouth, in both phases of the outbreak
we had the vaccination capacity available because that is what
the contingency plan said. I took advice from the Chief Veterinary
Officer and she took advice from independent scientists, and on
both occasions their view was that the approach we are taking,
which is very extensive testing and surveillance, slaughter, dangerous
contacts, looks as if it is working. The Committee will be aware
that here we are, two and a half months into this outbreak. There
have been eight infected premises in Surrey and a bit of Berkshire,
so in that sense the strategy to try and contain the outbreak
so far is working, but I learned in the beginning of September
not to make assumptions, but we would have had the capacity had
we needed it, so it is an issue which divides the industry itself.
On Bovine TB, I am no expert but I have asked the question, as
you have, and indeed am told it is always ten years away. I do
not know; is that because not enough effort and resource have
been put into it? The Committee may well be in a better position
to answer that question than I, but Bovine TB is obviously a real,
serious and growing problem in some parts of the country.
Q62 Chairman: Let us just be specific.
Are you as part of your consideration going to consider what I
would call a spend-to-save policy, that is, to examine whether
more resources put into the development of an appropriate vaccine
could fast-forward the use of that method of controlling this
disease on a faster time track than the scientists say is possible
at the moment?
Hilary Benn: I have not asked
that specific question yet because the answer I got to the first
question in relation to a vaccine at, I think, the first meeting
when I was looking at this was, "It is about ten years away
and has been for some considerable period of time".
Q63 Mr Drew: That was ten years ago.
Hilary Benn: And that was ten
years ago. If someone were to come and say, "But for want
of money we could make much faster progress on a vaccine",
I think that is something that lots of people would be interested
in. I am not aware of any evidence that that is the case, but
I will go and ask the question.
Mr Drew: It was certainly the impression
that we were given when we took evidence a week last Monday that
there was a resource issue.
Q64 Mr Cox: I have asked at least
two questions of your predecessors in the House over the last
two years and on each occasion they have promised a decision imminently.
One can go back to the Hansard record to see what the minister
of state said to me last summer. We had a three-month consultation
and a decision was supposed to be taken then, and now you are
talking about a further process of consultation with groups who
have been consulted many times. There must be some continuity,
one supposes, between secretaries of state in your position and
hand-on. When can we expect you to take a decision? Parts of the
countryside are burning. The flames may not be visible but they
are there. We saw them ourselves a week or so ago when we went
to my constituency and others in Devon. We need a decision. When
do you anticipate taking it?
Hilary Benn: I cannot give you
a date, Mr Cox, but I recognise that people want to know one way
or the other. I make no apology, with respect, for the fact that,
as someone who arrived in post in June, whatever process my predecessors
went through the one thing that there is not continuity of is
the body of knowledge and understanding. That is not transferred
from one post-holder to the next.
Q65 Mr Cox: That is not transferred?
Hilary Benn: This is a pretty
obvious statement but in my ministerial career I did not sit down
and look at Bovine TB as a problem until I arrived in this post
and there have been one or two other things that I have been up
to over the summer. If I am going to take the decision, and I
realise that responsibility falls to me, I want to have the time
and the space and the opportunity to understand the issue, the
arguments, the options, the different interpretations on the scientific
evidence, and that is the process I am going through, but I also
recognise the very strongly held view that we need to know one
way or the other, and I will reach a decision as soon as I can
but I am not going to apologise for trying to make sure that I
take the right decision because ultimately I will be the one who
is responsible.
Q66 Mr Cox: Nobody would expect you
to apologise for that and everybody would regard as reasonable
what you have just said, but can you bear in mind when you go
through this process of deliberation that at least one secretary
of state and numerous ministers of state have promised the farming
community and the countryside an answer imminently for two years
now?
Hilary Benn: I am acutely conscious
of that.
Q67 Dan Rogerson: When you are considering
all this evidence, and it is difficult when there are conflicting
scientific reports, can we have your assurance that you will be
looking at the science rather than any interpretation about practicalities
of measures which may have been placed on top of that scientific
evidence in terms of reports that have been produced?
Hilary Benn: Of course the science
is going to be hugely important, but I would not sit before the
Committee today and say that practicality is not going to be a
consideration also. I am sorry if I have misinterpreted your question,
Mr Rogerson.
Q68 Dan Rogerson: No; I did not phrase
it as well as I might have done. What I am saying is that that
would be a consideration that you would have to take into account
but it would not be something you would expect those representing
the scientific evidence to have taken into account, so that you
will look at the core of what their evidence is scientifically
rather than looking at any conclusion that may have had a particular
gloss placed on it.
Hilary Benn: I would not expect
scientists to place a gloss on the conclusions that they have
drawn. I will look very carefully at the science but there are
other considerations that have to be taken into account and obviously
the practicality of doing what the science may indicate could
be done is something that I will have to weigh up.
Q69 Chairman: I am delighted you
are going to see Professor Bourne because up to now one of his
concerns was that nobody had bothered to come and talk to him
after years and years of work. I was just a bit taken aback that
yesterday he expressed surprise that Professor Sir David King
had produced his document. This was the first he had heard of
it. Did they not talk to each other, perhaps just exchange a few
views, before this further work was done?
Hilary Benn: It was advice to
ministers that Professor Sir David King produced, but I take your
point, Chairman, and that is why the first person I propose to
see, of all of those who have worked long and hard on this, is
indeed John Bourne.
Q70 Chairman: Good.
Hilary Benn: And I am sorry that
I have not been able to do so already but I hope he will understand,
like the Committee, that there have been one or two other things
on the go.
Chairman: There you are. You heard it
here first and we will be seeing him tomorrow.
Q71 Mr Williams: Secretary of State,
when you announced the compensation to the farming industry you
indicated that hill farmers would receive round about a third
of their hill farming allowance by the beginning of November.
Given the record of the Rural Payments Agency on these matters,
how much confidence have you got that that payment will be made?
Hilary Benn: I really hope it
is going to be paid by then because that is what I have told the
House.
Q72 Mr Williams: Are you talking
to the Rural Payments Agency with a view to establishing whether
that will happen?
Hilary Benn: You can rest assured,
Mr Williams, that in considering that as a route of providing
some assistance, and I stress the phrase "some assistance",
yes, we asked the question, "Can you do this?". Since
I arrived, in relation to the Rural Payments Agency, my main concern
has been that, given the long and difficult history of the RPA,
which your Committee has looked into in great depth, the one thing
that we have to ensure now is that it does the things that it
says it is going to do and meets the targets that have been set
by my predecessors and by me, because that is the best way to
restore credibility after a very torrid time. I attach great importance
to that.
Q73 Mr Williams: When you made the
announcement I think you indicated that the compensation did not
match the losses, and indeed you have written to me subsequently
and said that you thought the losses to the farming industry were
around a million pounds. One way that would be helpful is if the
single farm payment could be made early in the window as well.
What shape are the Rural Payments Agency in to make that sort
of payment, even on an interim basis?
Hilary Benn: The shape they are
in is that, as you know, they slightly exceeded the target that
was set for payments by the end of June 2007 and their targets
for this year are 75 per cent of full payments by the end of March
2008 (the comparable figure last year was 38 per cent) and 90
per cent by the end of May. I have indeed asked the question and
I have not made the promise that they will do that for the reason
that I have just set out. It would be easy to say we will try
and see but I am not prepared to make promises that cannot be
kept because I think it would undermine credibility in the recovery
programme. I pay tribute to the work that Tony Cooper and all
of his staff have been doing to get themselves from where they
were to where they now are and where we wish them to be in meeting
targets and I do not want to jeopardise that. I understand absolutely
the argument, "Can you not bring it forward?". I have
formed the view that it might jeopardise the achievement of those
other targets and you would not forgive me if that happened, would
you?
Q74 Chairman: But what we could say
is, have you evaluated whether there is any ability for the RPA
to prioritise payments? I can understand why you are conservative
with a small "c" about fast-forwarding the payment window,
of changing those arrangements, but clearly, when it comes to
getting money to hill farmers in the first instance as opposed
to arable farmers who may have done reasonably well, one can see
the attractiveness of that strategy. Is that being looked at?
Hilary Benn: Indeed, getting support
to hill farmers early, and that is why I took the decision that
I did about the 30 per cent or so payment, and that will come
earlier than a brought-forward single farm payment would come
in any event. Yes, I have asked that question, and in the end
we took the view that we would run risks in doing that which would
jeopardise what I hold dear in relation to the RPA's recovery
and I did not want to take that risk. However, in relation to
serious hardship cases, the RPA does have a mechanism but I cannot
pretend to the Committee that they can run that in relation to
all of the farmers who have been affected by Foot and Mouth because
I cannot.
Q75 Mr Williams: If you are able
to make this one third of the hill farming payment early in November
that assumes that you really know how much hill farming payment
each farmer should have, so why can you not make the whole of
the hill farming payment plus the compensation at the beginning
of November?
Hilary Benn: Because it is a 30
per cent payment based on what we know we paid them previously,
not 30 per cent based on what we think we are going to pay them,
because they are still going through the system and trying to
identify what that sum is. We asked all of the questions that
you have been putting to me and came to the conclusion that the
method that we have taken for this £8.5 million support was
the simplest and the quickest and easiest method of getting it
to a group of farmers who have been particularly affected, and
that is why I decided to go down that route and not the others.
Q76 Mr Williams: Of course, it is
not just the farming industry that has been affected; it is rural
businesses as well.
Hilary Benn: Indeed.
Q77 Mr Williams: Is the announcement
you made on the Monday at the beginning of Parliament an interim
announcement or are you looking to clock up the total losses and
try to make some compensation in that league?
Hilary Benn: No, I am not looking
at further support payments because, as I have said very clearly,
it is not this Government's policy and never has been the policy
of any government to seek to offer full compensation in those
circumstances. We have done two things. One is to look at the
particular difficulties that the industry has been facing, and
that was encompassed in the package that I announced, and the
other things as well as the payment that we have just been discussing,
but it is pretty obvious that the most useful thing that can be
done is to try and enable the restrictions to be lifted to allow
people gradually to get back to normality. I recognise that normality
is going to be very different for quite some time to come but
I hope that the industry would recognise—and it goes back
to the questions that Mr Gray was putting to me—that we
have done that in really close partnership with the industry and
we have seen the benefits of that in the very considerable easing
of restrictions that most farmers have now seen, but I recognise
that this could not have come at a worse time in the year and
there is a residual impact.
Q78 Mr Williams: On that point you
make, we are very pleased that the export of carcasses has resumed.
Most ordinary farmers find it very difficult still to access the
export market because of the restrictions that the animals have
to go straight to the slaughterhouse, that no lambs can go for
export from farms that have had any stock come onto them in the
last 20 days and various other conditions. Are you making representations
to the European Union on that matter because unless you can ease
those restrictions export does not really mean anything to the
majority of farmers?
Hilary Benn: Indeed we have been
making representations and at SCoFCA last week—
Q79 Chairman: Would you like to explain
what that stands for?
Hilary Benn: The Standing Committee
on the Food Chain and Animal Health. This is the veterinary committee
which meets and takes decisions about European restrictions in
relation to disease. What they agreed on Friday was that they
would increase the area in which export and meat products can
take place, so that includes, for example, Norfolk and Suffolk,
because we put, if you like, a kind of buffer zone around Surrey,
the risk area, and then when Europe allowed a resumption of meat
product exports originally on 12 October, I think it was, we put
a bigger buffer round; we extended it as far as Herefordshire.
They have reduced that in size. Slaughterhouses slaughtering animals
for export can now be located anywhere in GB except in Surrey,
so that is a change and the industry has welcomed that very considerably,
and there is one slaughterhouse, Cheales in Essex, where a large
proportion of UK cull sows were slaughtered for export, so that
is now in play again and can be used. Previously, animals which
were going to be slaughtered for meat exports needed to be resident
on the holding for 30 days. This has now been reduced to 21 days,
and the direct-to-slaughter requirement is also being removed
and that allows for multiple pick-ups from farms to the slaughterhouse.
There are also some other changes in relation to standstill periods.
That is as a result of the representations that we had made. In
the end SCoFCA takes its decisions based on managing the risk
but it shows the benefit of the co-operation we have had with
Europe in trying to ease restrictions and enable the industry
to get back to business in the same way as we have done with the
partnership.
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