Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between James Paice and Tim Farron

Thursday 5th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paice]

I think the House will recognise synthetic anger when it sees it.

I am absolutely determined to do everything in the Government’s power to put things right. I have already explained that we want a voluntary code, on which I am more than prepared to bang heads together, and that we will consult on a compulsory code. We have also made it clear that we strongly support the idea of producer organisations, but I have to point out to the hon. Gentleman that the biggest cut announced this week was by a producer organisation.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

Dairy farmers in Cumbria and across the country are being exploited appallingly by supermarkets and milk buyers of all kinds. They are now getting an average price per litre of 6p less than the cost of production. I am sure we all welcome the introduction of the groceries code adjudicator, which is real action to tackle the problem in the long term, but will the Minister take immediate action to call in the supermarkets and other buyers and tell them that the current situation is not only morally reprehensible but massively counter-productive? The low cost of milk under the Labour Government saw 50% of dairy farms close.

[Mr Paice]

We have to look at the picture in the round. The reality is that most farmers on aligned supermarket contracts have not had their prices cut. The problem is with supermarkets and the other big retailers that operate in the middle ground, whose processors have continued to invest in new bottling plant and undercut each other for contracts instead of attacking growing markets both overseas and in import substitution.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between James Paice and Tim Farron

Thursday 24th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paice]

I can assure the hon. Gentleman that we have absolutely no intention of reducing standards. We in this country—particularly under the last Government—seem to have become obsessed with the view that to maintain standards, we must have high levels of intervention in how people comply with regulations. We have become obsessed with process. I can assure the House that we have absolutely no intention of allowing our standards to fall, be they in health and safety, food safety, pollution or anything else. We are focusing on reducing the burden on businesses regarding how they comply with such regulations by concentrating on whether they do.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

I welcome the Minister to his position. He will not be surprised to learn of my recent conversation with a farmer in South Westmorland who bought a bull from market to his farm and was then unable to move any sheep from a field two miles away because of the six-day movement rule. That made absolute sense during the foot and mouth crisis of 2001, but is now an unnecessary burden on the farming industry. When will the Minister scrap it?

[Mr Paice]

I have a lot of sympathy with the hon. Gentleman, whose constituency I have visited; I have probably had the same farmer saying the same thing to me there, as well as farmers in many other places over the many years when I sat on the Opposition side of the House. I tend to share his doubts about the six-day rule, but the advice I have received so far is that there is a very sound reason for it. It will certainly be one of the issues considered by the taskforce and I hope that, along with other such provisions, it will recommend getting rid of the rule.