British Agriculture and Food Labelling

No, I will not. That is why we have proposed a Bill to deal with the problem. That is why we support the proposals of the Competition Commission on supermarkets, why we supported the abandoned merger of two milk groups, and why we want all public procurement to specify British standards. We want regulation only where it is necessary, but, as our motion says, in the instance of food labelling the market has failed, and regulation is therefore necessary. The Minister referred to her constant meetings. The issue of the Jamie Oliver programme has cropped up several times, and she rightly mentioned our participation in it. The recording took place on 3 November, only a few days after the Minister had taken office. She could therefore be forgiven for not having all the answers that I, and others, wanted at the time. That was over four months ago, however, and we still have no answers. What was disappointing about the Minister's speech was that, although she was critical of our proposal for a statutory approach, she was not able to identify the right way forward. Four months since that recording, when she was exposed to a deceit which she recognised and called a disgrace, we have seen nothing. If our proposal is too broad, and the Minister would rather limit Government action to pigmeat, that is a start, but let her take the proposal to the Commission. If 10 per cent. is too low a threshold for the proportion of ingredients, let the Government ramp it up to 20 or 30 per cent., but let them take it to the Commission. The point is that they have not done that. It is more than 10 years since the present Chief Whip, the right hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, East and Wallsend (Mr. Brown), proclaimed, as Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, that he had secured a voluntary agreement. He then talked out my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Mr. O'Brien). Although the Minister may have been in office in this Department for only a few months, for most of the past 12 years she has been a member of this Government. She cannot deny the Government's failure to address the issue for all that time. I want also to touch on some of the comments made by Members. The hon. Member for Nottingham, South (Alan Simpson) made a tremendously thoughtful speech, much of which I agree and sympathise with. I do not go all the way with him, however. He is a strong supporter of the organic movement, and it has a great part to play, but what he did not do—I would welcome a debate on this on another occasion—is address the fundamental dilemma that organic production has lower yields than conventional systems. If we are worried about food security and total production, that crucial dilemma must be dealt with. The hon. Gentleman also rightly referred to the abuse of words such as ““fresh””, ““natural”” and ““pure””. I am reminded of the recent Cardhu whisky case involving the difference between pure malt and single malt whisky, which eventually had to be resolved by legislation. There is clearly room for a lot more work there. My hon. Friends the Members for Eddisbury (Mr. O'Brien) and for South Norfolk (Mr. Bacon), both former promoters of similar legislation, made clear their understandably intense anger that the Government have not taken the matter forward. My hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk referred to the operation of the market and the need for the Government to push much harder in Europe. My hon. Friend the Member for Leominster (Bill Wiggin) put forward a number of other issues, including tuberculosis, regulations and the cider tax, all of which need to be addressed. The TB issue was also referred to by the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson). Finally, my hon. Friends the Members for Clwyd, West (Mr. Jones) and for Westbury (Dr. Murrison) again emphasised the importance of local food and proper labelling, and my hon. Friend the Member for Westbury made a pertinent comment about the export of cruel and lower standards to other countries if we operate ahead of others. Much has also been said about the issue of food security, and I hope the Minister who responds to the debate will answer some fundamental questions. The Secretary of State has been in post for more than one and a half years, yet all that seems to have changed is the rhetoric. His predecessor, the current Foreign Secretary—presumably until the present Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs gets promoted, as seems to be the fashion in this Government—said in this House that food security was achieved by importing from many different countries. That was met with laughter and astonishment. We have had new rhetoric from the current Secretary of State, at the Oxford farming conference and last week before the National Farmers Union, that he wants to increase domestic production—no ifs, no buts. That is what he said. What are we to make, however, of DEFRA's website? We find pages dedicated to further reform of the common agricultural policy and to the document published in December 2005, ““A Vision for the Common Agricultural Policy””, which was signed off by the then Chancellor, now Prime Minister, and the then Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, now the Minister for Housing. That document is still published on DEFRA's website as the Government's vision for the CAP, and I quote, as I have before in debates in this House, the following statement:"““domestic production is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for food security.””" Nobody pretends it is sufficient, but not necessary? Who do we believe: the Secretary of State with his new rhetoric or the Prime Minister himself? The Secretary of State's argument is to increase domestic production, no ifs, no buts, as long as the consumer wants it and it is environmentally sustainable. We support that. Who in their right mind would not support it? However, the Secretary of State left out in his proclamations of the last couple of weeks a number of other ifs and buts: ““If you can comply with all the regulatory burden; if you can afford the extra storage to comply within the nitrate vulnerable zone regulations; if you can find time to do any farming after you have filled in all the Government forms.”” There are also a few more buts: ““But the Government won't help you to combat TB; but they will charge you for disease control; but you still won't get your money when other countries do; but we will demand repayment if we overpay you—you'll pay up at once; but we won't demand British standards for public-procured food; but you will have to face increased integrated pollution prevention and control or IPPC, you will have to face electronic identification or EID, and you will have to face the availability of pesticides.”” There are a lot more buts that the Secretary of State left out, one of which is that we are at the butt end of this Government. They are content to remain in office until the very last moment, but we have learned from this debate that they are prepared to let farmers and consumers suffer while they twiddle their thumbs. The final but is that it is time for the Government to butt out.