Food Industry Competitiveness

I obviously do not have time to retail a long list. We have two debates on the dairy industry in the House and Committee next week, when my hon. Friend might want to go into a bit more detail. Many dairy farmers are making a profit: part of the problem is the 6p or 7p a litre difference between the highest and lowest prices paid. The other issue is the cost of production. In a market in which the Government no longer—rightly—set prices, they are bound to do what they can to reduce the input costs, and that is part of what I am addressing, especially on regulation. On the issue of regulation, can the Minister bring us up to date on the situation with battery cages? We are hearing many stories of backing down on the 2012 ban, and we know that most European countries have hardly begun to introduce the enriched cages. What will the Government do to protect our industry and those farmers who have made significant new investment, but face egg imports from countries that have not done so? The Minister also referred to public sector food procurement. He mentioned improvement, but there has been precious little of that. This country should be predominant in supply of orchard fruit, given the industry in Kent and parts of the Welsh marches, but domestic supply fell from 46 per cent. in 2007-07 to 30 per cent. in 2007-08. The Government are consulting on a pilot healthier food mark, but does the Minister agree that that should involve the Red Tractor, or is it true that they propose to drop it from their proposals? Animal health is critical if we are to compete with other countries, especially in the grazing sector. The Government have announced their responsibility and cost-sharing proposals and appointed Rosemary Radcliffe to look into the issue and produce a report in November. However, we will have a draft Bill this month or next. What can be in that Bill if we will not have the substantive proposals from Ms Radcliffe until November? We cannot talk about increasing production and ignore the fact that some 40,000 head of cattle were culled last year because of bovine tuberculosis, up from 3,000 head a year when the Government took office—