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Sir Geoffrey Johnson Smith (Wealden): I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has secured this debate. Having been a co-opted member of the East Sussex NFU for a great many years, I agree with all his points. He has not exaggerated and I am delighted to be associated with him this evening.
Mr. Baker: I am grateful for those comments. Understandably, I agree entirely with my next-door neighbour.
There is great worry among local farmers about what genetically modified crops mean for them. I had a meeting with farmers at which that view was put forcefully. They do not want to be left standing in the middle when the music stops, as happened with BSE. They regard GM crops not as a future saviour, as Monsanto would have us believe, but as a threat, problem and nuisance. That is not to say that there are no potential benefits, but farmers have significant worries, including the liability issue. I hope that the Minister takes that on board.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Jeff Rooker):
I shall do my best to respond to the questions put by the hon. Member for Lewes (Mr. Baker). I do not criticise him, because I greatly respect his activity and performances in the House, but he did not raise many specific issues in relation to East Sussex that I can address. He made many general points. He is a vociferous questioner of the Government--and that is quite right; I was too at one time. However, from my point of view, it means that, as the issues that he raised are less predictable, I cannot give him such a considered response from the Dispatch Box. I have come to the Chamber armed with briefings galore because I did not know, from such a general title, exactly which issues he intended to raise in the debate. I do not expect to
Perhaps the hon. Member for Lewes could have phoned to say that he intended to refer to the viability of farming. It is no criticism, but he has asked me about 12 subject areas--all of which are general to farming, food and agriculture, and all of which are important. However, none of them is actually specific to East Sussex, so I cannot home in on the specific matters that affect the hon. Gentleman's constituency.
Sir Geoffrey Johnson Smith:
In justice and fairness to the hon. Member for Lewes (Mr. Baker), he emphasised the increased regulatory costs that bear heavily on farmers in an area that is not prosperous in terms of the soil or the land that is farmed. Part of the land is designated as an area of outstanding natural beauty, which is a difficult problem for the farmers. The dairy industry suffers strongly from the attack that has been made on its relationship with Milk Marque, which the hon. Gentleman mentioned. Those matters are specific to the area.
Mr. Rooker:
I could not say--by any stretch of the imagination--that East Sussex was not affected. However, the difficulty that I face is how we can offer advice and information on issues that are specific to East Sussex.
One of the first points mentioned by the hon. Member for Lewes was the decline in the labour force in East Sussex. Our records show that in 1993, 6,223 people in the total labour force worked in agriculture and that in 1997, that number was down to 5,588--a decline from 1.5 per cent. to 1.4 per cent. of the total in England
There is no doubt that the right hon. Member for Wealden (Sir G. Johnson Smith) and the hon. Member for Lewes represent an incredibly lovely part of the country. Much of it is designated as an area of outstanding natural beauty; of the 47 miles of coastline, a six-mile stretch is designated as heritage coast.
In relation to the make-up of the agricultural sector, there are more than 100,000 hectares of agricultural land--most of which is grassland. Crops take up 35,000 hectares; of those, 22,000 hectares are cereals, with the rest being split between oilseed rape, linseed and horticulture. Horticulture is quite small--potatoes are grown on only 185 hectares. Potatoes happen to be one of the successes at present; even with the strong pound, we are able to export them. The dairy herd in East Sussex is estimated to be about 16,000, but has gone down by a third over the past 10 years. The beef herd is 9,000; that has gone up by 80 per cent. during the past 10 years. The number of lambs and ewes is down slightly. Pig numbers have also suffered; they are down by 53 per cent. during the past 10 years. There are 660,000 poultry; that number has fallen by nearly 40 per cent. over the past 10 years. There are about 2,200 holdings in East Sussex, the largest number of which--800--are in cattle and sheep; 240 holdings are given over exclusively to cereals. Farm size is somewhat smaller than the UK average, with 1,700 holdings of less than 50 hectares. From those statistics, it can be seen that certain issues relating to East Sussex might naturally arise.
The hon. Member for Lewes mentioned the difference between farmgate prices and supermarket prices. I have heard similar remarks, justifying the practice and otherwise, from hon. Members on both sides of the House over the past 18 months and I suspect that there is more than a grain of truth in their comments. The hon. Gentleman has made certain suggestions and the Government are happy to receive suggestions, because we always want to do better.
The hon. Gentleman does not blame the Government for the beef ban and I am grateful for that; however, it is our job to get it lifted. We have made a modest start with the certified herd scheme in Northern Ireland, but thekey is to get the date-based scheme accepted. The Commission inspectors came over in April, only three weeks ago, to carry out a full inspection of our facilities and system for operating a fairly complicated scheme. We await their report, and we have a verbal promise that it will come in 20 working days, which means that the report is imminent.
We are confident that we can satisfy the requirements of a date-based export scheme and we cannot wait to get the scheme in operation, so that the market, our farmers and the meat industry can start to export again. I hope that that will happen in the near future. If the Commission inspectors raise any matters, they will be addressed immediately, but we are quite confident that we shall be able to operate the scheme soon. As hon. Members will have seen in the press last week, there has been a slight hiccup--a technical difficulty with the Northern Ireland scheme. However, that issue would not arise under the date-based scheme, so there should be no knock-on effect.
The hon. Gentleman asked about the beef-on-the-bone ban, as he is entitled to do. I give him the same answer as I have given everyone else: we await the further inquiry and assessment of the chief medical officer, because we would be stupid not to act according to medical advice. As the hon. Gentleman said, the meat is safe: we have no evidence that there is any infectivity in the meat and we never have had such evidence, but that is not the issue with beef on the bone. The issue in that respect is the nervous tissue and dorsal root ganglia that remain after cooking, either on the bone or in the juices.
People have died, people are dying and, regrettably, more people will die, of new-variant CJD. There is a full-scale public inquiry going on, so I cannot comment further. We want both bans lifted as quickly as possible and we shall not hesitate to act, once we have received advice from the chief medical officer.
As I have hinted before, the over-30-months scheme ensures that no meat from cattle over 30 months goes into the human food chain, so the only possible route of transmission of BSE is maternal transmission. It takes nine months to produce a calf, and 39 months from August 1996--the date line for the feed ban--are up in November this year. It is easy to see that, after that date, there should be no possibility of risk from maternal transmission. As the scientists predicted, the reduction in the incidence of BSE has been dramatic because of the successful operation of the feed ban. The House will return to the issue again in the near future.
I apologise for being somewhat distracted at the start of the hon. Gentleman's remarks about British beef, but I shall certainly look into the matter and write to him. There should be no difficulty in anyone supplying British beef--
I do not agree with his arguments about people not being able to do one thing or another. The fact is that we have got the beef-labelling scheme going on a voluntary basis, and the last time I checked, 83 accredited organisations were operating the beef-labelling scheme. If someone wants to market or purchase beef under the beef-labelling scheme, which we encourage, there should be no difficulty. The claims made on the label are subject to independent verification, but there should be no argument about sourcing British beef for people in this country.
The consumption of British beef is increasing in this country. Since the beef-on-the-bone ban was introduced, consumption has increased from about 70 to almost 80 per cent. There should be no problems in that regard, but I shall consider the point raised by the hon. Gentleman and respond to him in writing.
Meat hygiene charges are a fairly hot issue, and I remind the hon. Gentleman that we will have Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food questions in a couple of days. We have promised to examine the specified risk material controls for another year and we have had another quick look at the ordinary Meat Hygiene Service charges. Some people have complained about the seven days of consultation. Let's face it: everyone has known for months that this issue must be considered annually. We want to take another quick look before we introduce the charges and we cannot do that retrospectively. MAFF is carrying the costs--some £300,000--at present, and we want to be fair.
Charging on the basis of throughput is a seductive idea. However, we are required to ensure that we collect the cost of operating the service. We can do that through the introduction of an hourly charge, but it would be very unfair to small abattoirs. Some 80 per cent. of cattleare slaughtered in 20 per cent. of this country's slaughterhouses: it is an unbalanced industry. There are a few huge slaughterhouses and big factories, and many very small slaughterhouses. Charging on the basis of throughput would be unfair to the big slaughterhouses which have made big investments, and charging via an hourly rate could be very expensive and would be unfair to the small producers. We are trying to find a third way--if I may put it like that--that is also consistent with our European Union obligations.
We have no plans to close small abattoirs. As I revealed in a recent debate, 600 small abattoirs have closed in the past 18 years, leaving about 350. Those closures were due not to policy, but to changes in the market.
The milk marketing inquiry is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. However, MAFF wants farmers and food producers to have greater control over the added value in the food chain. We are seeking co-operative and collaborative marketing. In that respect, this country is a failure compared with other countries where the producers have more control. Milk Marque--which is a big interest--is up, because of its operation, before the competitive authorities. I cannot comment on the details of that case, but we intend to push the industry down that path so that it acquires a greater share of the added value. It is not fair that a large share of the added value should go to non-producers.
I am not aware of the NFU's criticisms of our organic farming scheme. We have doubled assistance for organic farming and we wish to encourage it. It is easy for people to claim that we have not done enough and that we do not like organic farming, but the bottom line is that we have doubled the amount of taxpayers' money that we are spending to encourage farmers to convert to organic methods. We will subsidise not production, but the conversion to organic farming. As a matter of active policy, we have doubled the--albeit modest--MAFF research budget. My right hon. Friend the present Minister for the Cabinet Office made that announcement 18 months ago, and it was his second biggest priority after getting the beef ban lifted.
Of course, the assistance will never be enough. The scheme is so successful that MAFF's offices were inundated with inquiries last summer. We did not give false advice because we wanted to mislead farmers. Those who were thinking of converting under the old scheme instead of waiting for the new scheme received fair advice; we did not intend to put them at a disadvantage.
I agree entirely with the hon. Gentleman's comments about welfare-friendly produce. I wish that British people would pay more attention to this subject. The more effort we can put into marketing welfare-friendly produce, the better. We will offer all the support we can to ensure that the rules do not operate against British producers, and we will certainly follow up the promises that the supermarkets made last November regarding the pig industry.
I regret that I have not been able to cover all the points raised by the hon. Gentleman. These are important issues both for the hon. Gentleman and for other hon. Members who represent that part of the world, and I will do my best to write to the hon. Gentleman about any matters to which I have failed to respond tonight.
Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at twenty-nine minutes past Ten o'clock.
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