Foot and Mouth/Bluetongue

Having broken out of the Whips Office, I wish to use my re-established ability to address the House to talk about the effect that foot and mouth has had in my constituency of Brigg and Goole. In particular, I want to talk about the pig industry and the severe problems that have been caused, even though my constituency is some way from Pirbright and all that happened there. First, let me add to the comment made by those in the farming industry, other commentators and, in fairness, in the Opposition's motion that swift and decisive action by DEFRA when the outbreak was first notified reduced its potential to spread. As the British Veterinary Association says in its briefing for the debate, the overall approach was highly successful in that regard. However, that does not mean that there have been no problems, or that there is nothing more that the Government could do to help. I also want to speak a little about animal welfare. Having chaired the associate parliamentary group for animal welfare, I know that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, his officials in DEFRA and other agencies take a strong interest in animal welfare and try to do the right thing, even if they do not always do everything that I tell them they should do. It was therefore unfortunate that the shadow Secretary of State accused DEFRA and its agencies of a disregard for the welfare of animals that arose out of either callousness or stupidity. I notice that the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Paice) did not repeat that remark in his opening speech, and I hope that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will accept that many of us in the House would not accuse his officials of that. In the past few days, I have visited Stuart Teanby, a pig farmer in Winterton where I live. Stuart has a small operation—run by just himself and one other—with a weaner unit producing pigs that are reared and then moved on to other farms for fattening. I also met John Godfrey, who is not my constituent but farms so much in my area that I sometimes feel that he owns most of it. From John, I heard how the outbreak has hit someone right at the other end of farming—a huge organisation with large numbers of pigs to be dealt with. However, both are suffering from the consequences of movement restrictions and both feel there are things that DEFRA could do to assist. I have spoken before in the House about the need to support our pig industry, which is unsubsidised. The industry has high animal welfare standards, particularly when compared with other methods of production in other countries, but that brings additional costs; in addition, increases in feed prices this year had already added another burden on to the sector. When movements stop, weaners are still coming into the production chain at a rate of about 66,000 a month and, between the ages of 12 to 22 weeks, they grow at a rate of 900 g a day—or 2 lb as I prefer to call it. A unit such as Stuart's is rapidly filled, the pigs continue to grow, the welfare conditions deteriorate and, as I know from my days in the Whips Office, fighting and bullying can break out. Anyone who knows anything about pigs will know that they can cause a lot of damage. The partial lifting of the movement ban helped only to a certain extent. The day before I visited Stuart's farm, he had finally been able to sell on 880 pigs. He still had too many, but it was a start. However, the price had collapsed and he had to sell each pig at about £14 less than his production cost. That is a loss of more than £12,000, which he, as a small farmer, can ill afford. In the past, the Government have helped the pig industry with storage schemes to allow the throughput to continue and to keep a decent price. It will be some time before the market naturally balances out again and I hope that my right hon. and hon. Friends will consider implementing such a scheme again. The other issue for both Stuart and John is the culling of sows, which the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire mentioned. The market was stable and lucrative before the outbreak; now, there are major problems both financially and in animal welfare terms. About 200,000 sows are slaughtered each year in the UK. There is virtually no domestic market for this meat; 99 per cent. of the meat is exported, most of it to Germany, and EU restrictions effectively stop the trade. As the hon. Gentleman said, the flow is largely handled by one abattoir in Essex, which cannot export at the moment. The result is not only that we have the 40,000 extra sows that he mentioned, but that the figure is growing by about 4,000 every week.