House of Commons Hansard Debates for 13 Nov 1996 (pt 24)

BSE Crisis

Madam Speaker: I have selected the amendment standing in the name of the Prime Minister.

3.31 pm

Mr. Robin Cook (Livingston): I beg to move,

That this House notes that after the Florence European Council the Prime Minister assured the House that by October the United Kingdom should meet the conditions for the ban to be lifted on the export of beef from certified herds and certain other categories and that by November the United Kingdom should meet the conditions for the ban to be lifted on all beef that can be sold in the United Kingdom; deplores the fact that the ban on the export of United Kingdom beef remains fully in place and that Her Majesty's Government has failed to meet the conditions for it to be lifted within the timetable they themselves announced; recalls that in advance of Florence Her Majesty's Government pursued a policy of non-co-operation which led to a deterioration in relations with the other member states of the European Union, and failed to resolve the crisis for the United Kingdom's beef industry; believes that the measures adopted by Her Majesty's Government following the identification of BSE a decade ago were inadequate and enforcement was unsatisfactory; notes the confusion and delay since the House was advised on 20th March that BSE was considered the most likely cause of a new variant of CJD and the failure of Her Majesty's Government to meet its own targets for the slaughter programme; deplores the hardship and suffering caused to beef farmers and the beef industry; and regrets that Her Majesty's Government has not protected the interests of United Kingdom consumers or producers of beef.

On Monday, the House was entertained to the vision offered by the Government of a world free of trade barriers by 2020. The Foreign Secretary, in a failed attempt to capture the headlines, described this as the Government's "2020 vision". There is, of course, an unreality about a Government who have five months to run setting out their vision for 2020, but there is a wider lack of reality about a Government who have visions of free trade around the globe in the next century when they comprehensively fail to get the ban on exports of UK beef across the channel lifted.

The crisis in the beef industry since the statement of 20 March dominated the proceedings from March to June. Since the House returned, there has been no statement and no debate initiated by the Government. The only statement that the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food gave the House was in response to the private notice question tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, East (Dr. Strang).

This is the first full day's debate on the subject, but--many hon. Members on both sides will be aware of this--the crisis caused by the statement on 20 March is still there around Britain. It is experienced by thousands of farmers, by the people who work in the industries that support farming, and by the people who work in the industries that process beef, all of whom are still living with the consequences of the statement of 20 March.

Those people might by now have expected to be out of that difficulty. They might have heard what the Prime Minister said at the victory celebrations on 24 June in this House when he returned from his triumph at Florence. In

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that statement, the Prime Minister assured the House that, by October, the Government would have met the conditions for lifting the ban in two stages--beef from certified herds and beef from young animals--and that, by November, the Government would have met the conditions for lifting the ban on all beef that at present is allowed to be sold only in the United Kingdom in order that it could be sold on the continent as well.

The House must agree that October has been and gone, and all those stages of the ban are still in place. Indeed, November is half over. I will cheerfully give way to any hon. Member who believes that the ban will be completely lifted in the next two weeks. Not only have the Government missed the target they set for the lifting of the ban, but I am prepared to have a small bet with any hon. Member that the Minister of Agriculture will not be able to give us the revised target for the lifting of the ban.

Before the recess, the Minister said that he hoped that the ban would be lifted completely by the back end of the year. Perhaps we should ask him what he meant by that.

Mr. Brian David Jenkins (South-East Staffordshire): Which year?

Mr. Cook: Indeed. Is December the back end of the year? Will the Minister stake what is left of his reputation that the ban will be lifted in December? If we miss December, will we not be looking down the front end of another year?

I hope that the Minister will tell his hon. Friends the truth--that he has no idea when the ban will be lifted. Far from being able to tell us when he will get agreement to lift further stages in the ban, he now cannot even tell us when he will implement the agreement that he has already secured to lift the ban on the trade in gelatine.

Conservative Members have to face the truth: that they will be fighting the general election with most of the beef ban still in place. That will lead to some interesting questions at their election meetings. The most difficult one to answer will be whatever happened to the Prime Minister's great triumph at Florence. Lifting the ban in stages was the victory of the beef war. If we take that away, what will happen to the victory?

I do not hold the Minister responsible for the beef war. He is held to account for enough without being held responsible for the beef war that he did not invent. The architect of the beef war was the Foreign Secretary, who, no doubt wisely, decided not to be here today to explain why the policy that he constructed has collapsed.

The Minister of Agriculture will recall that, last May, the Government brought in the Foreign Secretary to support him in his negotiations, because of the feeling that his diplomatic skills could be improved by assistance. The Foreign Secretary devised the policy of non-co-operation in Europe, or, as it graphically became known to diplomats, PONCE--a fitting acronym, given the posturing that it involved.

In pursuit of PONCE, the Government halted the work of the European Union by prolonged serial vetoing. They even vetoed measures that were more important to Britain than to the other member states. We blocked a measure that Britain had proposed to cut red tape. We blocked tougher powers of inspection against fraud, although Britain had lobbied for them. We blocked the sending of

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a letter to Iran about Salman Rushdie, although the only person who could have benefited directly from it was a British citizen.

We even blocked measures of value to countries outside the European Union that had no part in our quarrel with the continent over the trade in beef. In view of the human tragedy that is currently taking place on an epic scale in Zaire, the House should recall with some sense of shame that, in June, Britain blocked a joint declaration of concern at the rising ethnic tension in that region of Africa.

There has been a cost to Britain of that sustained disruption. I shall give only one example, which illustrates the damage to our relations with Europe. Last January, the Government of Portugal brought forward a resolution in the European Union to condemn Indonesian repression in East Timor. It is a big domestic issue in Portugal, because Indonesia is a former colony and because the people of Portugal have considerable sympathy with the Catholic majority of East Timor.

The British Minister in January requested the Portuguese to withdraw the motion because, at that time, British hostages were being held in Irian Jaya and Indonesia was assisting us in the release of those hostages. It would have been a source of embarrassment for Britain were that resolution to have been pressed. Happy to help, our oldest ally withdrew the resolution.

In the spring, the hostages were released. In June, Portugal brought back its resolution on East Timor, and Britain blocked it under the policy of non-co-operation. The fury that that double-cross caused in Lisbon may partly explain the warmth with which the Prime Minister of Portugal sent a message to our party conference hoping for a change of Government at the general election.

That loss of good will might have been a price that the Government were prepared to pay, if they had won the war. All wars have casualties, and it is victory that justifies the risk of casualties. Conservative Members claimed victory. The Foreign Secretary described Florence as a turning point. The Minister of Agriculture said that it was

"a great success, and provides a solid way forward."--[Official Report, 24 July 1996; Vol. 282, c. 369.]

As late as 4 July, the Prime Minister was asked by my right hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair):

"Does the Prime Minister still hold to November of this year as the date by which the ban will be completely lifted?"

The answer was:

"Yes".--[Official Report, 4 July 1996; Vol. 280, c. 1049.]

Of course, to meet that target the United Kingdom would have had to keep its side of the bargain. The most curious part of the Government's mystifying conduct over the BSE crisis is that, having hailed agreement in Florence as a victory, they then proceeded to break that agreement by not keeping their part of the bargain.

Mr. Robert Jackson (Wantage): The right hon. Gentleman talks about Britain keeping a bargain. If the Government were to introduce a selective cull to implement the Florence agreement, would the Labour party vote in favour?

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