Dairy Industry

I congratulate the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mark Williams) on securing this very important debate. I concur with almost everything that he said. When I was elected to Parliament, I started to realise the extent of the crisis in the dairy sector through meeting many of the dairy farmers in my constituency. Two constituents in particular, Mr. Stuart Jones of Asterley and Mr. Andrew Bebb from Cruckton, managed to teach me a great deal about the industry and have encouraged me throughout to pursue their interests and those of the wider dairy sector. Mr. Bebb is a member of Farmers for Action, and I pay tribute to the work that he does. As a result of those meetings, about a year ago I started to campaign for action by supermarkets, but when I met chief executives of supermarkets, they were intransigent. At that time, they were saying, ““We’re already doing a great deal. Don’t bother trying to kick up a fuss over this issue, because we’re not going to do anything about it.”” That was their attitude. I was particularly disappointed with some of the comments from Asda at the time. I therefore decided to set up the all-party parliamentary group on dairy farmers, because as we all know in the House, numbers speak and it is important for Members of Parliament from all political parties to co-operate to show the extent of feeling. It is a tribute to the extent of feeling on this issue that so many MPs are here today to take part in the debate. I introduced a debate the other week on Anglo-Russian relations and I was the only Member present.