Badger Cull

Debate between Mary Creagh and James Paice

Wednesday 5th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mary Creagh]

I will make progress, then I will take some interventions.

There is huge concern among scientists over the lack of rigour in the design, implementation, monitoring and efficacy of the culls. The proportion of badgers that are infected with bovine TB is not, as the Secretary of State claims, significant. In the RBCT, it was one in nine or about 12%.

I come now to another significant difference between the pilot culls and Labour’s RBCT.

[Sir James Paice (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way and apologise for missing her opening remarks. She is right that perturbation is a key issue, but she is not right to say that the Independent Scientific Group trials were based on hard boundaries. The fact is that the areas had to be exactly 100 sq km, otherwise they would not have been comparable. The boundaries therefore had to be accepted largely as they were. The difference with the current culls is that they do not have a maximum size, so the zone can be chosen to meet whatever good hard boundaries can be found and steps can be taken to minimise perturbation. The net benefit should therefore be much higher than was achieved in the ISG trials.

Agricultural Wages Board

Debate between Mary Creagh and James Paice

Wednesday 24th April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mary Creagh]

They are certainly driven by ideology, although the ideology of the Minister of State seems to have changed from when he was a Back Bencher, now that he enjoys the privilege of a Government car. I do not know what has changed for him.

Without the AWB, farm workers will be worse off. As my hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Andy Sawford) said, there will be no minimum wage for children under 16. Seasonal workers will lose their entitlement to their own bed, which is currently guaranteed by the board. The cap on the amount employers can charge workers for tied accommodation, currently £4.82 a day for a caravan, will be removed. Some 42,000 casual workers will see their pay cut to the minimum wage as soon as they finish their current job. The rest will see their wages eroded over time.

[Sir James Paice (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

What evidence does the hon. Lady have for her statement that all those casual workers will see their pay cut immediately at the end of their contracts? Farmers are desperate to get casual workers, and that is why they are keen for us to continue the schemes to bring them in from eastern Europe. They will not be able to get the staff if, as she suggests, they cut their pay.

[Mary Creagh]

I will be talking in detail about the seasonal agricultural workers scheme. I just say to the right hon. Gentleman that 1,610 people in his constituency will be affected by the reduction in pay. I do not know whether he has read the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs impact assessment that was conducted when he was the Minister; I certainly have. It states that 42,000 casual workers are likely to see their pay default to the national minimum wage when their current employment comes to an end. The cost to the rural economy that the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills impact assessment estimates—there are varying figures—are to do with the direct loss of wages, holiday pay and sick pay out of workers’ pockets.

Badger Cull

Debate between Mary Creagh and James Paice

Thursday 25th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mary Creagh]

The Secretary of State got his Sisyphus mixed up with his Tantalus. I think he will find that he has undertaken the labours of Hercules in DEFRA—I will not go any further on that, but the Augean stables spring to mind. I agree with what my hon. Friend said, because I am concerned that the scientists are being ripped to pieces on this, and the situation is difficult. She rightly says that there is a scientific method: the scientists are paid to come up with solutions, and then we try to roll them out and test them in field conditions. That is what needs to be done.

I have asked a lot of parliamentary questions. The Secretary of State asked 600, but perhaps some of his data are less than fresh. My data are pretty fresh. Last year, I asked the Government how many cattle herds breakdowns would be prevented over nine years if the cull went ahead. The answer came back that using a 150 km area, 47 cattle breakdowns would be prevented over nine years. So if we double the cull area and if it was to go ahead in a 300 sq km area, 94 herd breakdowns would be prevented. That, again, is not a fantastic result for the huge investment involved in this cull.

There has been huge concern from the scientists about the lack of Government rigour in the design, implementation, monitoring and efficacy of these culls. We know that there would be no post-mortem testing of whether the badgers had bovine TB, but there would be post-mortem testing to see whether they had been shot cleanly. So those who are interested in science, and who want to know how much of a vector in this disease the badgers are, will again have to go back to Labour’s cull, which showed that only 12% of the animals actually carried the disease.

[Sir James Paice]

I want to challenge the hon. Lady again on these figures. I did not dispute, in my speech, the 16% figure, and I do not believe anyone else has done. That is the figure agreed by all the scientists. I want her to confirm that that 16% is the net overall figure, and that if we could reduce or even eliminate perturbation, the net figure is bound to be much higher than that. That is part of the objective in the design of these pilots.

[Mary Creagh]

The scientists gave a range of between 12% and 16% if the cull was carried out under exactly the same conditions as Labour’s RBCT. The cull that the right hon. Gentleman proposed differed significantly, as it would have taken place over six weeks rather than two and would have involved free shooting rather than cage-trapping and shooting. As any GCSE science student knows, as soon as we depart from the methodology, we immediately increase the range of the differentials in the results. That is why the scientists were concerned.

The lack of rigour in the methodology was shown in Tuesday’s announcement. A cull that depends on killing at least 70% of the animals was about to begin with no reliable estimate of how many needed to be shot. On 19 July 2011, I asked a question in Parliament on that exact point, because it had occurred to me, a mere humble member of Her Majesty’s Opposition. I received the answer

“there is no precise knowledge of the size of the badger population”.—[Official Report, 19 July 2011; Vol. 531, c. 815.]

That prompts the question of why Ministers did not ask that. Why did they not start the count then so that farmers could plan properly? Instead, they allowed the farmers to submit their own estimates of the numbers, thought, “Mm, that looks a bit low,” and left it until September to go out into the field and conduct the analysis that should have been done a year ago. I want Ministers to tell us whether those numbers were calibrated to test their accuracy. It seems clear to me that they were not.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mary Creagh and James Paice

Thursday 1st March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paice]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for allowing me to address that issue, which also comes up later on the Order Paper. We do not believe that any regulation on the Schmallenberg virus is necessary. The important point to note is that all the evidence of it that we are now seeing—the deformed lambs and a few deformed calves—is from infection caused last autumn in the midge season. We are working closely with the other member states in northern Europe, where the disease was found earlier than in the UK, to develop the science. A year ago we had never heard of the virus, so we are having to develop all the basic science to move forward with tests and maybe vaccination.

[Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)]

I begin by wishing all Welsh colleagues dydd gwyl Dewi hapus, which my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies) reliably informs me is “happy St David’s day”. I hope I have not offended anyone with my pronunciation.

We are grateful to the Minister for his speedy offer of a meeting with the chief vet on the Schmallenberg disease, which we hope to have early next week. As the Minister says, there is much that we do not yet know. Has the arrival of the virus in England led to any changes or pauses in the implementation of the Macdonald report?

[Mr Paice]

The short answer is no. At this stage, we do not see any need to change the decisions arising from the Macdonald report. I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her thanks for the briefing by the chief vet. It is important that all Members are properly informed about the disease. When her party was in government it kindly briefed me on such subjects, and it is only right to reciprocate. She will be aware that I wrote to all Members about a fortnight or three weeks ago with a very clear exposition of the situation.

[Mary Creagh]

I thank the Minister for those comments. May I suggest that it might be useful for the chief vet to meet all Members of Parliament to give those with badly affected constituencies the opportunity to question him?

The Minister argued against the disease being made notifiable in the EU. Will he explain why, when many farmers want it to be notifiable so that scientists can build up the full picture and help develop the effective vaccine that we all want? What steps has he taken to scale up the Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency so that it is not overwhelmed by testing as we enter the peak lambing season? How much will that extra resource cost and who will pay for it?

[Mr Paice]

On the last point, I assure the hon. Lady that, as this is—I will not say it is an emergency—obviously very urgent, we are finding the necessary resources. It is only right and proper that we do so. I cannot give a figure because it is all changing as we go. The chief executive of the AHVLA is addressing the issue of its resources. I am afraid that I have forgotten her first point.

[Mary Creagh]

Notifiability.

[Mr Paice]

I am grateful. The advice from the vets is that that is not necessary. We are receiving a tremendous amount of information from the private veterinary sector and, of course, samples from those in that sector and some directly from farmers, which all go into our labs for testing. As she implies, I urge all farmers to report any particular evidence. At the moment, we do not see any need for notifiability, but the matter is under review.

Public Bodies Bill [Lords]

Debate between Mary Creagh and James Paice

Tuesday 25th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paice]

The hon. Gentleman is mixing his figures. Nobody is disputing £270,000-odd as the annual cost of running the board. That is not the reason for abolishing it. The purpose of abolition, as we have tried to say, is to release the industry and free it up to increase employment opportunities.

[Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)]

I have seen a DEFRA impact assessment, which says that the cumulative impact of holiday pay and reductions in sick pay is £90 million over 10 years, which is where the £9 million a year net present value comes from. I am happy to send the Minister that document if he has not seen it yet.

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[Mr Paice]

I am happy to debate that matter with the hon. Lady outside. [Interruption.] I do not have the document to hand and I am not in a position to dispute the point. I certainly do not wish to be responsible for misleading the House.

On the second part of this group of amendments about the loss of an independent voice for rural communities, the Government have clearly stated that they are firmly of the view that democratically accountable Ministers should take responsibility for policy functions. A single centre of rural expertise, the rural communities policy unit operating within DEFRA, has already been able to engage more effectively since it was started earlier this year. It is already established.

In response to two points made by my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives, I should say that the commission has not been legally disbanded. That is part of the proposal in the Bill. The rural advocate’s post to which he referred is not a statutory post. It did not require any legislative change.

The work programme of the rural communities policy unit will shortly be published on the DEFRA website and the unit will be using a range of methods to provide public updates about progress and impact. I emphasise that we believe it is DEFRA Ministers who are primarily responsible for ensuring that rural issues are championed within the whole of Government. There are many rural commentators and independent organisations who already advocate strongly, work to us and see us regularly, and all of us are Ministers with strong rural backgrounds. It is our job to be accountable to Parliament for the way that we fulfil our role as rural champions. We will publish various documents and policy proposals over the coming weeks and months to demonstrate clearly that we understand the real needs of rural communities.

I am pleased to say that the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee has indicated that it will wish to scrutinise the work of the rural communities policy unit. The Government welcome that as further evidence of the importance that many in this House and in the other place attach to the interests of rural communities.

[Mary Creagh]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. I want to apologise for misleading the House earlier. The total loss to agricultural workers is in fact £93 million over 10 years.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mary Creagh and James Paice

Thursday 13th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paice]

My hon. Friend is perfectly correct. The results of the Krebs trials, which were conducted by the independent scientific group on cattle TB, demonstrated that after nine years—long after the end of the trials themselves—there was a reduction of 27%, and even 29%, in the cull zone, which was slightly offset by a temporary increase in the peripheral area. What matters, however, are the measures that are taken to reduce that increase, which is why we are now saying that any group or farmer must now put forward their own ideas about how they will minimise this perturbation.

[Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)]

In a parliamentary answer to me on 5 September, the Minister said that the science showed that his badger cull would lead to five fewer herd breakdowns a year in each cull area. Last year there were more than 2,025 confirmed herd breakdowns in England, so even with 10 cull areas after 2013 the cull would prevent just 50 herd breakdowns a year, a reduction of only 2.5%. However, the cost to farmers in cull areas will run to tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of pounds. Why should they bother?

[Mr Paice]

I suggest that the hon. Lady asks the farmers. As my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray) has just said, the farming community is anxious to do something after 13 years of neglect under the Labour party. Of course it will be expensive for the groups of farmers involved, but that is up to them. This is one part of a large package of measures, all the rest of which the Government are doing.

[Mary Creagh]

The Minister says “do something”, but surely doing something effective is more useful. We know that the Home Secretary has objected to the cull and is concerned that it will divert scarce police resources away from policing the Olympic games next summer. The latest impact assessment, the consultation for which has just closed, put no figure on the costs, although last year’s consultation put the costs at £200,000. Have those costs risen or fallen since then and will he undertake to make them public so that taxpayers can see how much they are contributing to the cull before a final decision is taken on whether to proceed?

[Mr Paice]

I am glad the hon. Lady recognises that no final decision has been made, a point that I need to emphasise. The fact is that the proposals that we laid before the House, and the consultation that has just finished, were agreed by the whole Government. On the policing costs, we are in discussions, and have been for some months, with the Association of Chief Police Officers. Its attention was unfortunately but quite understandably diverted by the disturbances and riots, so it has only recently refocused, but I assure the hon. Lady that all that information will be used and involved in the final decision, when we bring it to the House.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mary Creagh and James Paice

Thursday 30th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paice]

Perhaps my hon. Friend will accept tomorrow as being close enough to immediately. I can tell him that as of tomorrow, dairy farmers who are covered as members of the assured dairy scheme will find their state inspections going down to once every 10 years, as they are regularly inspected as part of the scheme to which they belong.

[Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)]

In two weeks’ time this House will debate the Public Bodies Bill, which abolishes the Agricultural Wages Board, which sets pay and conditions for 150,000 farm workers in England and Wales. If the AWB is abolished, every farmer in the country will become responsible for negotiating pay and conditions with their workers. Can the Minister tell the House what estimate he has made of the extra time and money this new regulatory burden will place on farm businesses?

[Mr Paice]

I have rarely heard such nonsense. The whole purpose of abolishing the Agricultural Wages Board is to reduce regulation, not to increase it. The change has been sought by the industry, which does not see it as regulatory, so what the hon. Lady has to come and tell us that it will increase regulation I really do not know.

[Mary Creagh]

The Agricultural Wages Board guarantees farm workers other benefits, such as bereavement pay and sick pay. Without it, their sick pay will fall from roughly £180 a week for a grade 1 worker to the statutory minimum of £81.60 a week. The AWB also guarantees children under 16 who work on farms £2.98 an hour. The minimum wage does not cover children under 16, so when the AWB is abolished children on farms will have no wage protection. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman has considered the impact of the change on the under-16s. Can he tell the House what protections he will put in place to protect child workers from exploitation?

[Mr Paice]

There are many other regulations that deal with young people in employment across the whole of industry. The reality is that the board has been in existence for 60 years and it is now well past its sell-by date. The industry has asked for its abolition and, as the Public Bodies Bill stands, we will have to consult on that. The hon. Lady will be able to make her views known at that point—but I must emphasise that the contracts of employment of everyone currently employed in the industry will remain in existence.

Wild Animals (Circuses)

Debate between Mary Creagh and James Paice

Thursday 19th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to explain her decision not to ban the use of wild animals in circuses.

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr James Paice)]

I apologise for the absence of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, who is on ministerial business elsewhere. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh) for her question, because it allows me to draw the House’s attention to the written ministerial statement laid by my right hon. Friend at 9.30 this morning.

During oral questions last Thursday, and in the written ministerial statement on Friday, my right hon. Friend and I referred to a current case against the Austrian Government relating to their ban on circuses. However, we now understand that the initiation of court proceedings against the Austrian Government has been delayed, although a case is in preparation and proceedings are expected to commence shortly. On behalf of my right hon. Friend, I would be very happy to clarify the confusion that we might have caused. This does not, however, affect our policy to introduce a tough licensing regime. The very strong legal advice that we have received, which is consistent with the case being prepared against Austria, is that a total ban on wild animals in circuses might well be seen as disproportionate action under the European Union services directive and under our own Human Rights Act 1998—[Interruption.]

[Mr Paice]

We believe that to have pursued a ban in the light of that legal advice would have been irresponsible.

[Mary Creagh]

As the Minister has said, the Secretary of State told the House at DEFRA questions last Thursday that

“the Austrian Government have been taken to court by a German circus company because of a breach of the EU services directive.”—[Official Report, 12 May 2011; Vol. 527, c. 1347.]

Her written ministerial statement the following day repeated that allegation, yet today’s statement has confirmed that no legal challenge exists. The DEFRA big top is spinning out of control on these legal cases that do not exist, and hiding behind human rights legislation—

[Mary Creagh]

It is the Department that is pathetic.

Given that everything read on the internet should not be trusted, for the future avoidance of doubt will the Minister place in the Library the evidence and the legal advice he has received? The Austrian embassy in London confirms that there was a legal challenge against Austria by the Commission, but it was closed in 2005. The European ombudsman closed the case in 2010.

This House relies on Ministers giving us accurate and timely information, so will he take the opportunity to apologise for misleading the House and the British public and will he stop hiding behind some circus owners who, after six years of failed national and European legal challenges, might well bring another case? That provides no reason not to ban wild animals in British circuses.

There is a further point. The Minister wants councils to license circuses, but there is a problem: circuses move from place to place, so conditions might be adequate in one town, but not in another. Is he aware that the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government proposes to remove the powers of local authorities to prosecute owners for animal cruelty as part of his so-called review of the “burdens” on local authorities. He is proposing a scheme that gives authorities the power to license, but no ability to prosecute owners if cases of animal cruelty are discovered.

This is another all-singing, all-dancing disaster from the worst-performing Department in government. The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs briefed the Daily Express on 3 April that the Department wanted a ban; the Minister’s Back Benchers and the rest of the House want a ban: it is time for another DEFRA U-turn and a ban on wild animals in British circuses.

[Mr Paice]

I am afraid that the hon. Lady’s record of events is somewhat distorted. We have not claimed that the case brought by the European Commission was anything to do with our decision. I referred specifically to a case that we understand is being prepared, as I have explained, by the European Circus Association against the Austrian Government. I can assure her that my officials have spoken today to the lawyer acting for the European Circus Association to confirm the validity of that. As I have said, we also received advice from our lawyers that the ban could be inconsistent with the provisions of the EU services directive. The hon. Lady has to ask, first, if this is so critical, why did her own Government not do it; and, secondly, if she were a Minister, would she be prepared to override the advice of her own lawyers and risk being taken to court for it, and subsequently having to withdraw the legislation she introduced?

Public Forest Estate (England)

Debate between Mary Creagh and James Paice

Wednesday 2nd February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mary Creagh]

I am delighted by my hon. Friend’s mention of the Mersey forest, where 1 million trees were planted in and around her constituency.

How did the Government get this so wrong? Over the summer, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs rolled up her sleeves and took the axe to her own Department. She cut the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs by 30%—the biggest cut of any spending Department. There are cuts to flood defence schemes, and nature reserves are next on the transfer list. England’s forests were slipped into the Public Bodies Bill in the bonfire of the quangos. However, she was seeking not a bonfire of the quangos, but the power to sell off all England’s forests.

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr James Paice)]

If the hon. Lady is so opposed to this Government taking the powers in the Public Bodies Bill, why do the Labour-led Welsh Assembly Government want the same powers?

[Mary Creagh]

The right hon. Gentleman makes a point about the future—[Interruption.] My question back to him is what is happening to the future of forestry in this country under his Government? If they take the heart out of the Forestry Commission model—take away what is happening in Scotland and Wales—they will effectively destroy the system that has protected the national forests for 100 years.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mary Creagh]

Absolutely; I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that point.

Let us look at the maths. The Forestry Commission costs each of us 30p a year. Our ancient trees, worshipped by our ancestors as a source of food, fuel and shelter, will go in this sale of the century. The Secretary of State wants to finish a task that proved too much even for Mrs Thatcher.

[Mr Paice]

How many acres of ancient trees?

[Mary Creagh]

The Minister asks how many acres of ancient trees we have. The answer is that he does not know, because I met Forestry Commission officials this morning, and they told me that the mapping tool that the Government are using has excluded sites of special scientific interest. [Interruption.] The Minister should perhaps talk to his staff a little more. I have been talking to a lot of them, and I have not met a single one who supports his plans.

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[Mary Creagh]

My hon. Friend is taking all my lines. How can the Liberal Democrats fight forestry sell-offs in Scotland, yet vote for them here in the Lobby tonight? We can answer that question: they are just doing on the national stage what they have always done on the local stage.

[Mr Paice]

When the hon. Lady provides the House with quotes, it would be useful if she properly attributed them in the context of the events that they addressed. She referred to the current Chief Secretary to the Treasury, but is she not aware that what he said was in response to the then Scottish Government’s proposals? Is she not aware that we are proposing not 75-year leases, but 150-year leases? Most importantly, is she not aware that under the Scottish national land use scheme—[Interruption.]

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[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr James Paice)]

A lot of issues have been raised in the debate, and I intend to respond to as many as possible. I undertake to write to hon. Members who have asked specific questions if I do not have time to answer them all.

We have heard speculation about all sorts of risks to aspects of forests if our proposals go ahead. I hope in the next few minutes to be able to debunk most of that nonsense. Those risks have been invented for totally spurious reasons. I stress that this is a consultation, and that it will last for the full 12 weeks, as is the convention. During it, we will listen to many of the organisations referred to this evening that have an interest in the matter, and I will personally discuss it with them.

We have repeatedly stated that existing public benefits will be protected in any transaction. I shall return to that point later. I also emphasise that the programme that we propose will take 10 years. It is not, as one Member suggested, a fire sale; it is a long and transitional but dramatic change in the ownership and management of Britain’s farms and woodlands. If we are not satisfied with any offer that comes forward, there will be no deal on the forest in question.

I am afraid that the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh) demonstrated a considerable lack of true knowledge. [Interruption.] If Labour Members wait, they will hear the reality. She asserted that there was no information available about the area of ancient woodlands involved—it is 53,000 hectares, for her information—and, contrary to what she said, SSSIs are included in the mapping process. She also went on about Labour having sold only a net 4,000 hectares, but the fact is that it got rid of 9,000 hectares without adequate protection for public benefits.

[Mary Creagh]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Paice]

On the issue of—[Hon. Members: “Give way!”] No, I am not going to give way.

On the issue of funding, the reality is open for us to see in the Forestry Commission’s accounts. It costs £17 million a year to run the Forest Enterprise in England, excluding research and regulatory costs.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mary Creagh and James Paice

Thursday 9th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)]

The right hon. Lady’s colleague the Minister of State, who has responsibility for forestry, wrote to all MPs in October saying that he would consult the public on the sale of England’s forests before the end of the year. We now hear that he has postponed that consultation until the new year—yet in a parliamentary answer to me he revealed that he is busy meeting forestry companies on this very issue. When will the public get their say on the future of England’s forests?

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr James Paice)]

The hon. Lady is getting a bit carried away. The consultation will start in January, and it is perfectly reasonable for us to discuss with experts in the field the possible implications of all the things that we are thinking of doing before we firm up the ideas that we put to the public for consultation. The hon. Lady must be extremely careful on this subject, because we have just discovered that the previous Labour Government sold 12,000 hectares of forest without any form of sustainable protection for any of it.