Dairy Industry

Absolutely correct. I am grateful to the hon. Lady for that intervention. The hon. Member for Ceredigion referred to the help that we have received from the WI. I pay tribute to its campaign. It has been instrumental in the great milk debate, in which I recently participated, and it is much better than us politicians in getting publicity. I remember that a lovely lady, who I believe was from Gloucestershire, came here on a cold January morning in a bikini and had milk poured all over her in the garden next to the Palace of Westminster to highlight the plight of dairy farmers. I applaud her for doing that on such a cold January morning. As I said, I participated in the great milk debate in my constituency, at the West Midland showground in Shrewsbury. More than 400 farmers and constituents attended that event, which was one of the most popular events that certainly I have played a part in over the past few years. The campaign is starting to pay off. I am extremely encouraged by Tesco’s action. I appreciate the point made by the hon. Member for St. Ives (Andrew George) that it is only a very small, initial, tentative step. However, the investment by Tesco adds up to approximately £25 million and will affect 850 farmers, who will potentially receive a price of 22p a litre. I am even more encouraged by the initiative whereby it will employ 150 local farmers to produce local milk. The hon. Member for Ceredigion told us that Tesco does not yet want to sell Ceredigion milk, and I have to tell him that I have been banging on Tesco’s door, asking it to sell Shropshire milk in its Shropshire stores. I encourage every hon. Member to interact with Tesco and to continue trying to get it to sell local milk in their constituencies. I know that it is going to have a Dorset milk, so my question is, ““Why can’t you have a Shropshire milk?”” We in Shropshire are also major milk producers. Such proposals are an important first step, and I want other major supermarkets to follow suit. I have had numerous meetings with Mr. Justin King, the chief executive of Sainsbury, and I expect him and Sainsbury to follow Tesco’s action. Mr. King will be coming to the all-party group’s next meeting in the House of Commons, and I hope that hon. Members will attend and quiz Mr. King about his actions. When I met Mr. King, I showed him a full-page advert in The Daily Telegraph, which clearly highlighted Sainsbury’s policies on bananas, describing how the supermarket would pay banana growers in Belize, other central American countries and the Caribbean a fair price. I said, ““You show such enthusiasm and passion for telling your customers that you want to pay Belizean and Caribbean banana growers a fair price. Why can’t you show just a molecule of the same interest and passion for our British dairy farmers?”” Part of the reason is that there has been a great Fairtrade debate, and constituents up and down the country have very effectively shown the supermarkets how many people care about farmers in the third world being paid a fair price for their products. Together with the WI and other bodies, we in England and Wales must show supermarkets the same determination and interest so that they will follow suit on this issue. Let me add a couple of extra points. The all-party group’s report does not call for a regulator for the supermarkets. Having studied the issue, I desperately wanted a regulator, but, regrettably, I could not persuade the other MPs to agree. The only party that is prepared to contemplate a regulator is the Liberal Democrats—