The hon. Gentleman raises another good point. We must use intelligence. When I was doing work on illegal imports of meat products from Africa, it became apparent that the people involved in that were also involved in other criminal activities, such as drug smuggling and people smuggling. The penalties for drug smuggling and smuggling individuals across borders were high, but the penalties for smuggling meat were low and yet profits were high. There was a huge incentive to get involved, because the smugglers would not end up in prison for very long, but would probably get a paltry little fine having made a lot of money. The hon. Gentleman gets the point: we must put pressure on our European partners to work with us to share intelligence, which is so important.
I believe that a single market is hugely important for British agriculture, but to have a single market, we must have the same standards in Europe that we expect in Britain. Only when we can rely on our European partners to deliver that famous level playing field can we have confidence in the single market. I want to say a few words about why a single market is important for British agriculture: 90% of Welsh lamb is consumed outside Wales and 40% of UK lamb is exported, mostly to continental Europe. Those of us in the farming business remember when that market could be open one day and shut another. We do not want things to be that way now; we want it to be as it is at the moment, with the market available to us every day of the year. We cannot be certain that we will have continuous access to the market if the conditions, processes and inspection regimes on the continent are not the same as those we have in Britain.
I call on the Minister to continue the work. The job of examining what went on is not finished. It has only just begun in terms of working with our European partners to ensure that process are in place to ensure that such contamination does not happen in the future.
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