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Mr. Robert Ainsworth (Coventry, North-East): I was rather hoping that the hon. Gentleman would tell us about the consequences of the closure of the company in his constituency for the people who ran it. The principals of two companies in my constituency--Lilacmead andA. J. and J. A. Cattermole Ltd.--have lost their businesses and their homes as a result of the crisis. Was that the consequence of Touchmead's closure as well?
Mr. Key: Two generations of the Styles family, the owners of the business who started it from nothing in the town of Amesbury, have been affected. More than 60 families have been directly affected due to lay-offs as a result of the arbitrary action. Many, I am glad to say, have been re-employed, but too many have not.
Mr. Malcolm Bruce (Gordon): I join other hon. Members in congratulating the hon. Member for Gosport (Mr. Viggers) not just on securing this debate, but on the
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consistent work that he has done from the outset on behalf of head boners. I know that that work is appreciated on both sides of the House and across the country. We welcome the fact that the hon. Gentleman is continuing to press the case and we are glad to have the opportunity to back him up.
I have said before that my constituency is probably more affected by the BSE crisis than any other. It is affected across the range of the industry, from hill farms to abattoirs--there are two abattoirs in my constituency, but with the new boundaries there will be three. I represent a range of aspects of the meat processing industry. To take some of the edge off his support for the Government's measures on the cattle cull, I can tell the hon. Member for Salisbury (Mr. Key) and the House that Scottish farmers will not be satisfied until the Florence agreement is implemented and the selective cull is in process. That is essential before the ban can be lifted or a timetable for that lifting can be drawn up. The industry is 30 per cent. dependent on exports.
Mr. David Trimble (Upper Bann):
The situation is worse in Northern Ireland.
Mr. Bruce:
I understand that the proportion is even greater there. We need progress towards the lifting of the ban.
We are addressing the particular problems of the head boners this morning. Mr. John Troup, who lives in Deystone in my constituency, was the principal of T and T Meats, a small company that used to exist in Aberdeen. He is in the same desperate plight as other hon. Members have had to bring to the attention of the House. His small business employed five people, specialising exclusively in taking the meat off cattle heads. He was trading profitably, making between £50,000 and £60,000 on the business in the previous full financial year. He had reinvested that money in the business and, like others, had extended the mortgage on his house.
Mr. Troup is desperately fighting a rearguard action to save his house, working as a fish packer to get some money to try to meet his basic overheads. His wife has been forced to abandon the further education course that she was pursuing and take a manual job in an attempt to keep enough cash coming in to avoid the house being recovered by the building society.
That is the effect on a previously successful small business that has been closed down by Government edict. The Government have said only that they are not paying compensation because it is not Government policy to do so. There is no legal remit: the Government have simply decided not to.
I have a letter--I am sure that other hon. Members have similar letters--from Lord Lindsay, the Scottish Office Minister responsible for agriculture, to the solicitors representing the Scottish head boners. He says:
We are not talking about business failure resulting from the cumulative effect of a number of measures over time. We are talking about people who went to work as usual one morning to find a fax on the machine telling them to cease business immediately--the same day--without compensation and that disregarding that fax would be a criminal offence. That is quite different from going out of business because of various measures that make the business non-viable, which usually allows for some time to readjust and retrieve something, rather than having the entire business taken away.
I understand that the Association of Cattle Head De-Boners is taking the Government to the European Court of Human Rights. Lord Lester QC has advised that there is no domestic remedy, but the European route has a high probability of success. The association's solicitors say:
Mr. John Whittingdale (Colchester, South and Maldon):
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Mr. Viggers) on his determination and persistence in pursuing the case for the head boning industry and on the eloquent way in which he has put the case this morning, which will allow me to be comparatively brief.
Until the beginning of the year, I was unaware of the existence of the head boning industry. I became aware of it when I received a letter from my hon. Friend the
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The proprietor, Mr. Ken Pearson, had requested a derogation, but my hon. Friend was minded to turn it down. However, she offered to meet Mr. Pearson, and we met on 19 February. I pay tribute to her sympathetic and understanding attitude. As a result of that meeting, it was agreed that Mr. Pearson would make the necessary changes. He has spent some £30,000 to bring his premises up to European requirements. That is a substantial sum for a business of that size, but he was able to borrow the money because he was running a thriving, successful business. The business concentrated on the sale of fresh meats, but 40 per cent. of it was in head boning. He was boning some 400 ox heads a week.
The Government's announcement six weeks later wiped out that part of his business at a stroke. He immediately had to lay off two people and was left with £15,000 worth of virtually unsaleable stock. The loss of the ox head boning business also affected the rest of his business, more than halving his turnover. Six months later, after the Government's measures, he is just about going, but it is still a struggle.
Although there are only about 30 head boning firms in the country, I soon discovered that a second one, Pearce Meats, was also located in my constituency. Bigger than Latchingdon Fresh Meats, it is exclusively a head boning business. Before the Government's measures, it was boning some 2,000 ox heads, and between 4,500 and 5,000 pig heads a week. The Government's measures have wiped out between 25 per cent. and 30 per cent. of its business. The company immediately had to lay off four people.
Like Mr. Pearson, Pearce Meats had also invested to meet European standards--some £80,000 to £100,000 during the previous four years. On each ox head, it previously made a profit of about £3. The Government's ban immediately cost the company around £6,000 a week. As a result of expanding the pig head business, Mr. Pearce has just about got the company back into profit, but it has taken four months, during which he did not think that his business could possibly survive. Those whom he was forced to lay off have not found new jobs.
"I sympathise with the head deboners"--
I am afraid that sympathy will not be enough--
"whose business activities have been greatly affected by the measures introduced on 29 March and I fully understand the difficulties this has presented for them;"--
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I wonder whether he does--
"but as has been made clear previously, the purpose of the financial assistance which the Government has made available is to provide market support to keep the essential links in the beef supply chain operating while companies adjust to the changed market circumstances. It is not, and has never been, Government policy to utilise public funds to compensate businesses for losses incurred as a consequence of decisions taken to strengthen public health controls."
That says only that it is a policy because it is a policy. The House must recognise that the distress of those businesses requires the Government to revisit the policy and decide what to do about it.
"the Junior Counsel engaged on the drafting of the documentation believes that the chances of the members succeeding has increased greatly since the initial consultation with Lord Lester."
I do not want to intrude on the Government's grief in their experiences in European courts, but it would surely be better for them to face up to their domestic responsibilities than for the issue to be resolved in the European Court of Human Rights, creating another cause of potential humiliation and perhaps anger in some quarters of the Government. They can avoid that by taking action in advance.
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