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Lord Lucas: My Lords, I do not have an answer to the noble Lord's specific question.

As regards his general question, nationalisation is not the word that I would have used to describe the process. Perhaps it is centralisation since an operation under public control locally became an operation under public control centrally. The report that we are discussing today documented the very poor state of the industry under that local control and, I think, entirely justified our decision to take it under central control and to put a lot of effort into improving the situation.

As to the seriousness of people being infected by E. coli, of course it is a horrible disease and a fatal one. The world is full of dangers. Smoking, driving, and walking the street at night are dangers that exist. The Government are putting a lot of effort into improving the situation. That is what we are doing in this case. We cannot eliminate all dangers by wishing them away. We shall never eliminate the possibility of contamination in raw meat. There is nothing that we can do to reduce it to zero. But we can work at improving the situation, as we can work at reducing many other dangers to which we are subject in this life; and that is what we have been doing.

Baroness Carnegy of Lour: My Lords, noble Lords are doubtless aware that the business of a slaughterhouse is extremely messy, both as regards the killing of animals and dealing with the carcass. The position can be greatly helped, and the cost greatly reduced, if farmers are very particular about how they deliver their cattle to the slaughterhouse, making sure that they are absolutely clean.

Does the Minister know whether slaughterhouses produce an incentive to encourage farmers to do that; or do they simply trust them? It costs a bit of money to make the cattle absolutely clean but it is extremely important for public health.

Lord Lucas: My Lords, the proposal advocated by my noble friend has been advocated for a long time by the Meat Hygiene Service and will form a major part of the recommendations and code of guidance which is to be published in a month's time. It is sensible. Some slaughterhouses, in particular those associated with the major supermarkets, already do so. We wish to see that process become universal.

Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: My Lords, will the Minister expand a little on his earlier statement about Professor Pennington not asking for information. Given the widespread publicity on the E. coli infection, could anyone involved and responsible for producing reports which contained reference to E. coli have been unaware of the need to draw this to Professor Pennington's attention?

Lord Lucas: My Lords, no, I do not suppose there was. That is of course why we immediately offered

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Professor Pennington evidence. It is inconceivable that he would not want evidence on the operations of slaughterhouses. We are waiting for him to ask. He will then have all the evidence he wishes.

The professor must be able to take the evidence in the order he wishes. I believe that to date he is concentrating on the specific problems that occurred in the distribution chain downstream from the point of cooking in a certain butcher's shop in Scotland. He is known to wish to address the question of how that infection got into the butcher's shop in the first place. But at present it appears that he has not turned his mind to it.

Lord Soulsby of Swaffham Prior: My Lords, regardless of the question of whether there was suppression of the report, its contents must be of concern to all, especially the finding that certain slaughterhouses are deficient in their practices. None of the practices apparently described in the report should occur in any slaughterhouse, let alone a few. Will the Minister assure the House that more effective supervisory procedures will be set in place in the future to safeguard against these undesirable practices? Will he also agree that they should be in the hands of an increased veterinary staff?

Lord Lucas: My Lords, I agree with my noble friend on the importance of veterinary staff. A major part of the Meat Hygiene Service effort is to make sure that appropriately skilled staff are on hand to watch operations in slaughterhouses. Regarding my noble friend's point about the need to change things, we are satisfied that what we are doing and what is being done by the Meat Hygiene Service will result, as hoped for and as planned, in a much better standard of hygiene in our slaughterhouses and in the meat that they produce.

Baroness Mallalieu: My Lords, is the Minister aware that this morning a number of European newspapers reported this matter as an attempt by the British Government to conceal the true state of poor hygiene in our abattoirs? In view of the possible consequences that that may have for the ultimate lifting of the beef export ban, will the Minister tell the House what steps the Government propose to take to correct that view if it is wrong?

Lord Lucas: My Lords, the noble Baroness gives me even more cause to regret the action by the Financial Times. One would have hoped that it was the last responsible newspaper left in this country and that it would have acted otherwise. Since it did not, we must deal with the press through the press. My right honourable friend will hold a press conference shortly which I hope will address all these matters. It will certainly make available to the press members of the Meat Hygiene Service, the Chief Veterinary Officer and others, who will be available to answer questions on this matter. We have nothing to hide. It is a story of success that we have to tell. It is a story of known problems going back a long way. The European Community sends

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its own inspectors round abattoirs. They know exactly what they are like. There really is nothing to hide, and nothing has been hidden.

Viscount Waverley: My Lords, am I right in thinking that large quantities of meat are imported from the developing world? If so, to what degree do those countries meet the hygiene regulations of this country and the European Union?

Lord Lucas: My Lords, I do not have the information with me to answer that question. I shall write to the noble Viscount.

Viscount Ullswater: My Lords, instead of blaming the Meat Hygiene Service, as we heard, and not expecting the report, which is critical, to lead to better standards within abattoirs, is it not a fact that the failure to deliver a high standard of hygiene within slaughterhouses was the fault of local authority inspectors; and that that failure led not only to the establishment of the Meat Hygiene Service but to this report? Should the Government not now give all support to the Meat Hygiene Service to deliver a high standard of hygiene within the service, and, as my noble friend Lord Soulsby said, to bring in the necessary experts to deliver that high standard?

Lord Lucas: My Lords, I do not think we should blame local authorities too much. The system was very difficult to operate, with 300 different authorities all trying to operate independently or semi-independently of each other. There was never any hope that they would achieve a unified standard. That is one of the reasons why the Meat Hygiene Service was the right organisation to bring into place. I am delighted to say that noble Lords on all sides of the House supported that measure. I am sorry that the same cannot be said of colleagues in another place.

Lord Rea: My Lords, does the Minister not feel that, had the report from the Meat Hygiene Service of a year ago been brought into the public eye then, the slaughterhouse industry would have taken far greater note of its criticisms than it did while it was privately circulated? According to a report I read, Professor Pennington said in conversation that he had just about reached the conclusion that a survey of all slaughterhouses such as was described in the report was necessary; however, he did not know that it had been carried out and that the results had been available all this time. Surely it should have been the Government's job at least to have told Professor Pennington that the report was available.

Lord Lucas: My Lords, if Professor Pennington feels that we have done less than we should have done to inform him of what was going on, then of course I accept that criticism. We have offered all the evidence. I am sure that the Professor knows of the existence of the Meat Hygiene Service and what it does and that it will therefore have a lot of information

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available for him. If he had asked for evidence from us and we had failed to produce that particular report among it, I should find it possible to accept criticism now. However, since the Professor asked for nothing, I am not surprised that we did not provide him with this piece of information, which is not of itself the sort of information in which we should have thought he would have a particular interest.

I do not think that what was done by the Meat Hygiene Service is in any way subject to reasonable criticism. It has acted extremely well throughout. The same can be said for the vast majority in the slaughterhouse industry. They have responded to the introduction of the MHS very well. They are making in large numbers the improvements that are required of them and are steadily improving their performance. There are of course some recidivists. They are nearing the end of their licence to fail to improve. One loses one's patience in the end, and they will be dealt with severely.

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