................................................................................
ON THE RECORD
JACK CUNNINGHAM INTERVIEW
RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1 DATE: 22.6.97
................................................................................
JOHN HUMPHRYS: Jack Cunningham, your lot promised that
being friendly, being positive with Europe, having a good relationship with
Europe would work, would do the trick, would get the beef ban lifted. In fact,
we're actually no further forward now than we were under the last lot.
JACK CUNNINGHAM MP: We argued it would give us a better
chance of making progress, John. I don't think that having a constructive and
sensible, positive relationship with the European Union, guarantees the results
we want to see. But it does give us a better opportunity to make progress on
those things that are important to us. We've inherited a terrible mess in
terms of BSE and the beef ban. It's hugely expensive to taxpayers, it's
damaged farmers and the meat industry and of course it means that a lot of
people are importing beef into Britain which we could well do without. So the
market is in a terrible state. Beef producers are having a very bad time and I
don't think anyone reasonably anticipated or expected that we were going to
resolve all that in seven weeks of a Labour Government.
HUMPHRYS: So you're going to say it's going to
take a very...are you saying it's going to take a very long time?
CUNNINGHAM: Well I'm not going to make a promise
that I can't keep. I well recall that Mr Major and Mr Rifkind, having had the
Florence terms imposed upon them, because it's not a very good deal for
Britain, came back to the House of Commons and promised the beef ban would be
lifted by last November. In the event they didn't even begin implementing the
selective cull until March of this year. So that statement was a complete
fraud.
Now people will press me to fix a date
but I'm not going to because, as I said, I want to keep commitments to getting
the ban lifted and fixing an arbitrary date now wouldn't be sensible, it
wouldn't be rational.
HUMPHRYS: Which does rather suggest that you,
yourself, have no idea when it might happen and we could be in this situation a
year from now.
CUNNINGHAM: That is possible and indeed that..the
idea that the whole of the ban may be lifted in one go is also something that
we need to ask some questions about. I think it's more realistic to expect
that the ban may be lifted in a step wise fashion and that some products, some
herds, some animals born after a certain day can have the ban lifted, but not
the whole of the ban being lifted in one go.
HUMPHRYS: But when farmers hear you say, as you've
just said, that it's possible that it could last at least another year, they're
going to say, many of them: "we can't hold out that long, we literally cannot
hold out that long".
CUNNINGHAM: I don't want them to. And I don't want
the ban to last for another year, that's why we have given particular emphasis
and priority to work on getting it lifted. That's why we are having, almost
daily, certainly weekly, discussions and dialogue, with people in the European
Union. But you know, we are in this situation, exactly because of the
mis-management of the previous Conservative Government, of this BSE issue and
of the beef ban itself.
HUMPHRYS: But inspite of all those talks, inspite
of all of that, you're not getting anywhere.
CUNNINGHAM: Well that's not true.
HUMPHRYS: Well it is true if you tell me you don't
know whether it's going to be lifted in a year from now, it manifestly is true.
CUNNINGHAM: No, I'm saying John, and quite candidly
I'm not going to put a date on it and people can press or criticise me for not
putting a date on it. But I'm not going to because the moment that we got to
that date, if the ban hadn't been completely lifted, people would say: "there
is another failure". I will work as effectively and certainly as consistently
and as energetically as I can with officials on all aspects of the ban. But I
perserved with the Certified Herd Scheme which was introduced by the
Conservative Government...
HUMPHRYS: Which they rejected.
CUNNINGHAM: No, no, you see that's not true.
HUMPHRYS: Well the Veterinary...
CUNNINGHAM: The Scientific Veterinary Committee has
raised some questions about it. Well that's perfectly predictable, indeed we
did predict that they would raise questions about it.
HUMPHRYS: More than raise questions, said "we
don't like it, we don't approve of it".
CUNNINGHAM: No, they said they thought in some
respects it wasn't adequate enough.
HUMPHRYS: The same thing.
CUNNINGHAM: The moment they said that I had
officials out there talking to them. I wished they'd spoken to some of our
scientific experts before they'd reached their conclusion, they didn't and all
that happened before we came to office. But we're working now to satisfy them
on the points, the questions they have raised, about the Certified Herd
Scheme. We're pressing ahead with the introduction of a Cattle Traceability
Scheme, which was another consequence of the Florence terms, another matter
which the previous Conservative Government hadn't successfully concluded and
there's a lot of work to do, believe me.
HUMPHRYS: Alright, let's look at some of that work
then and see how you are going to find or how you are going to persuade them to
accept what you are doing. This business, first of all, of the young cattle,
ten months and younger - which you would say entirely safe, entirely free of
anything, can't be contaminated in any way, how are you going to persuade them
to accept that?
CUNNINGHAM: That's not quite true unfortunately is
it, you see. I am pressing ahead with discussions about a born after, a
certain date scheme..
HUMPHRYS: After which of course they would not
have eaten contaminated food.
CUNNINGHAM: Yes, but since then we've had the issue
of maternal transmission and that has arisen..
HUMPHRYS: Hasn't been proved though.
CUNNINGHAM: No, well, we have to take account of the
fact that it probably exists. It's the most probable explanation and so we
have to now put other measures in place to deal with that. So anyone who
thinks that getting the beef ban lifted in part or in whole, is just a question
of going across to Brussels and shouting and balling at them and threatening
beef wars, frankly is deluding themselves, as the previous government did.
HUMPHRYS: So even that Young Animal Scheme, as far
as you are concerned, cannot and this is you, and you want it to happen
obviously, but even you say it can't go ahead until we can prove that maternal
transmission is not a problem.
CUNNINGHAM: We have to deal with the consequences or
the potential consequences of maternal transmission. We have to have some
measures in place and we're looking at these now and discussing them again. I
shall be in Luxembourg three days next week talking at the Agriculture Council
about these matters, with the Commissioner and with Ministerial colleagues and
our officials will be working on it. We've got to move that issue forward.
HUMPHRYS: But how can you if, as you say, there is
doubt about whether..maternal transmisson, whether a mother can give the calf
the disease.
CUNNINGHAM: Well we can seek out the cohorts and
take them out of the food chain.
HUMPHRYS: Meaning?
CUNNINGHAM: Meaning that what we've got to do is
deal with calves born from mothers which subsequently may go down with BSE.
We've got to have a way of making sure they don't get into the food chain.
HUMPHRYS: Again a difficult problem.
CUNNINGHAM: It is a difficult problem. Listen, this
is one of the most difficult problems any minister has inherited. It is a real
mess and the responsibility for where we are - I understand the anger and the
frustration of farmers, afterall I represent a lot of farmers myself and have
done for twenty-seven years - I know they're having a difficult time. But the
people responsible for the circumstances we're in and for the position with
Europe being so bad, are the previous Conservative Government.
HUMPHRYS: But that's then, and this is now that
we're dealing with, and you have these problems. You talk about as you put it
"seeking out the cohorts" in this particular case with these young animals.
CUNNINGHAM: Yes, yes.
HUMPHRYS: The problem here, as with all the rest
of it - you touched on it earlier - is the traceability, is having proper
records for the animals from as it were the pasture to the plate. We haven't
satisfied Europe on that yet either. So what are we going to do about that?
CUNNINGHAM: That is true, that's another one of the
terms that hasn't been fully met. Well, we're pressing ahead, we've
accelerated work on the selective cull, we're accelerating work on the cattle
traceability scheme. We hope to have a scheme which is acceptable by about the
end of this year. If sooner we shall do it sooner, but you can see from what
I'm saying, and people in the industry know, there is a huge backlog of work
yet to be completed as a consequence of the Florence agreement which we want to
complete as quickly as possible.
HUMPHRYS: Because what they want is the entire
herd to be computerised, to have electronic tags or chips or whatever it is,
in the animals' ears or something. Do you regard that as a legitimate demand
from them?
CUNNINGHAM: Well, in the long term I would like to
see an information technology based scheme.
HUMPHRYS: As advanced as that?
CUNNINGHAM: For cattle traceability yes, but in the
shorter term we shall have to probably have a tagging and paper scheme so that
we can get a scheme up and working as quickly as possible.
HUMPHRYS: But they may well not accept that.
CUNNINGHAM: Well, I think we can get a scheme which
is aceptable. After ...
HUMPHRYS: The track record's not very good is it?
CUNNINGHAM: After all we're talking to them
constantly about these matters, and I don't want anyone, and I've made this
clear to Mr Fischler and Mrs Bonino that they shall be kept appraised of our
movements, our decisions at every step. I don't want someone to wait 'till the
end of this year and suddenly say to me: the scheme that you're introducing is
not good enough.
HUMPHRYS: Well, exactly ...
CUNNINGHAM: If they feel that they've got to tell us
now.
HUMPHRYS: Right. But then why not go straight to
a computerised tagging - electronic tagging scheme. Is it just money, is that
the problem?
CUNNINGHAM: Well, as it was clear from your film
before we began talking John, there are considerable questions about capital
investment here. It's not particularly large for maybe some farmers, but when
you think you have to have a system which can trace animals every time they
move, either from farm to farm or from farm to market and then to another farm
or to the abattoir whereever it might be, you can see that installing
equipment, and installing equipment which is reliable and has a universal
approach is not something we can rush into immediately.
HUMPHRYS: How much would it cost then, do you
reckon?
CUNNINGHAM: I don't know the answer to that.
HUMPHRYS: But hundreds of millions of
dollars..pounds presumably.
CUNNINGHAM: We're looking at the cost and also of
course, I notice that at least a couple of people in your interview said: and
this should all be paid for by the taxpayer. Well, I'm afraid it's just not
that simple. We are bound, we are bound by serious constraints on public
expenditure and there's no way I can just go and knock on the door of the
Treasury and say I want X more millions for this scheme.
HUMPHRYS: Well, but why not, because look, we're
talking about something that may cost...
CUNNINGHAM Well, you say why not,
HUMPHRYS: Well, let me finish the question...
CUNNINGHAM: The over thirty months scheme is costing
us five hundred million pounds a year already, and these are...
HUMPHRYS: But my point precisely.
CUNNINGHAM: These are huge costs and we cannot just
go on extending them indefinitely.
HUMPHRYS: But what a crazy false economy isn't
it? We're talking about something that has cost the taxpayer now approaching
two billion pounds - one-point-five billion so far. It's cost the industry
itself eight hundred million pounds, it's cost the farmers, we don't even know
how much it's cost the farmers ..
CUNNINGHAM: A lot.
HUMPHRYS: A lot. Absolutely, many farmers have
been driven out of business as a result of it, and you're saying we cannot
raise the amount that's needed to introduce a scheme which would, in all
probability sort this out. That is false economy of the daftest sort isn't it.
CUNNINGHAM: I'm not saying that John, I'm not
saying that. I'm saying we cannot automatically assume that all the cost of
this is going to fall on the taxpayer, I'm not...
HUMPHRYS: Well alright, pay half of it or
something.
CUNNINGHAM: I'm not saying that we can't raise the
money, you're absolutely right of course we...the better the scheme, the more
reliable the scheme, the more advanced the scheme, the more it is likely to be
accepted and perhaps used elsewhere too as a model, so I'm for the best
possible scheme.
HUMPHRYS: So are you arguing with Gordon Brown
that this should happen?
CUNNINGHAM: What I'm saying is that there has to be
some discussion about who bears the cost of the scheme.
HUMPHRYS: Well, of course there does, but at the
end of all that you've obviously given it a great deal of thought. Is it your
view that Gordon Brown, the Treasury - should, we the taxpayers should
stump up?
CUNNINGHAM: I think that we have to look to how we
can save money elsewhere to get finance. After all we fought an election you
know, and I'm no exemption to this, in which we said that we would stand by the
proposed public expenditure totals in the first two years of this parliament.
That makes life tough ..
HUMPHRYS: Well, indeed it does.
CUNNINGHAM: ... for us, and at the same time, you
know, people in other important ministries, Health and Education are faced with
these same difficulties. I can't say that I'm an exception to that.
HUMPHRYS: Right. But you would like within
that context, you would like to spend money on this because...
CUNNINGHAM: Oh, of course ..
HUMPHRYS: As you pointed out it will save money
in the long run.
CUNNINGHAM: Of course I would. The sooner we can
get rid of BSE which is our objective, and the sooner we can get the ban lifted
the sooner these huge economic burdens will be removed, so it does make sense
to have that kind of investment.
HUMPHRYS: Right. We talked about British beef.
What about European beef. We are eating beef from Europe that doesn't meet the
standards that we demand and they demand of our own beef. That can't be right
can it?
CUNNINGHAM: Well, I thought it was quite astonishing
when I discovered that people were able to import beef into the United Kingdom
regardless of whether there was incidence of BSE in the country of origin with
no controls at all. It was proposed last year in the European Union that the
removal of specified risk materials as they're called, the risk parts of the
carcass should be carried out a European-wide basis. The Council of Ministers
rejected that. I think that was unacceptable. I proposed to Mr Fischler
and Mrs Bonino and the President of the Council of Agriculture Ministers in May
that these European-wide restrictions should be reintroduced, but if they
weren't I would act unilaterally in the UK. I'd much prefer it to be done on
an agreed European-wide basis, I'd act to ensure that beef coming into Britain,
and it's about twenty per cent of the beef we consume so it's a lot of beef,
had to be subject to the same stringent health controls as our own beef. It
seems to me only rational to do that in the circumstances, and what's more I've
been advised by the Independent Advisory Committee that I should do it.
HUMPHRYS: And that is not just a negotiating ploy,
that's not just tit for tat to try and persuade them to ease the ban on our
beef?
CUNNINGHAM: No, no, I have the draft parliamentary
orders necessary to give effect to this on my desk now and I've given European
colleagues until the 22nd July, which is the Agriculture Council after the one
which takes place next week, so they've had effectively more than two months to
consider all this. If they don't do it then I shall introduce the order.
HUMPHRYS: Some of them of course do see that as a
kind of blackmail.
CUNNINGHAM: No, no. I think what they see it as is
what the Commission - what Commissioner Fischler wants to happen, what the
President of the Agriculture Council of Ministers wants to happen, Mr Van
Artzen from the Netherlands, what the Parliamentary Committee and the European
Parliament wants to happen and what I want to happen. There's a lot of people
- there are a lot of people - who want to see these regulations brought in on a
European Union wide basis. Now, it's for those Ministers in those countries
who are objecting to explain why they don't want it to happen.
HUMPHRYS: But they have and they ...
CUNNINGHAM: Well, they haven't actually. They
haven't explained. They've just voted against us.
HUMPHRYS: Precisely. It comes to the same thing,
doesn't it.
CUNNINGHAM: If they are going to do that, well
that's a matter for them but I am going to act if that's what they do.
HUMPHRYS: Whatever the political consequences of
that may be.
CUNNINGHAM: I think the political consequences are
always there to be considered but I have considered them and it, in any event,
my position would be rather difficult if when Professor Patterson of the
Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee and his colleagues recommended me
to take this action on the grounds of public health and consumer safety, if I
didn't do it I would be in a rather difficult position myself.
HUMPHRYS: So no cosiness with our European
colleagues there?
CUNNINGHAM: Oh, constructive dialogue. I think ...
HUMPHRYS: More than that.
CUNNINGHAM: I think they recognise that this should
be done. I hope they will agree to do it. But if they don't then I shall do
it unilaterally.
HUMPHRYS: All right, let's have a look then at
this whole picture of food safety. Now, BSE happened because the Ministry of
Agriculture failed spectacularly to do what it should have been doing. You
were hugely critical of them when you were in Opposition. So were your
colleagues. You are now setting up a Food Standards Agency. That obviously
must be independent of the Ministry of Agriculture. The question is, how
independent?
CUNNINGHAM: Professor James's report is the basis
that we are working on. He worked very quickly and effectively to produce a
report which he got to the Prime Minister, I think on day one of the new Labour
Government. I saw this report for the first time the day I was appointed. The
Prime Minister asked me to go away and study it and recommend to him what we
should do. I read it over that weekend, I said we should publish it, go to
consultation. That has been done. We shall produce a White Paper later this
year and then a draft Bill towards the turn of the year. At every stage,
people, consumer organisations, people in the food industries, academics, any
one with an interest, will have the opportunity to criticise, give us their
advice, say what they think should happen. And in the next legislative
programme we shall have what I hope by then will be pretty finely tuned
legislation to give a completely independent Food Standards Agency -
independent of the Ministry of Agriculture or whatever we call it then, since
we are going to change the name, independent of the Department of Health, with
executive power to make recommendations and proposed legislation and to take
action on inspection and to enforce it.
HUMPHRYS: I want to come back to that change of
name in a minute, but just to deal with the independence of the agency first of
all. If, God forbid, something like BSE happened again, this new Agency would
have the power to deal with it directly, to order that actions be taken
directly without having to go through a politician or through the Ministry of
Agriculture, obviously. It would be that independent would it?
CUNNINGHAM: Yes. That's what I anticipate. There's
little point in saying we have an independent agency, John, if indeed behind it
- lurking - are Ministers, you know, pushing it or pulling it or preventing it
doing what it should do. The best example around I think is probably the
Health and Safety Executive which acts in exactly those ways and seeks to
ensure that health and safety at work is a priority for everyone and to enforce
that where necessary. Now, that's the kind of model that we are looking at and
although I suspect that some people are, you know, suspicious of Ministers and
government departments, be in no doubt this is going to happen. I've already
reorganised the Ministry of Agriculture to separate out the officials who ...
HUMPHRYS: Right well, I tell you what. In that
case instead of ...
CUNNINGHAM: And the Prime Minister has set up a Food
Safety Committee of the Cabinet which is chaired by David Clark, to look at all
of these issues.
HUMPHRYS: Now let's just deal quickly then with
this question of the name. What are you going to call it? You've reorganised
it, you say, you are going to give it a new name. What are you going to call
it?
CUNNINGHAM: Well, first of all I haven't ... I can't
tell you. If I could tell you that now I would. We haven't decided. I am
looking at a new mission statement for the Ministry of Agriculture which will -
as Jeff Rooker has said in the introductory film, put the health and wellbeing
of people and the environment at the top of the agenda for this Ministry.
Secondly, we are opening up the Ministry to many more consumer voices. All the
advisory committees that I have that report to me will have a consumer - at
least one - consumer or lay representative on them. We are opening up MAFF
in a way which has never happened before to direct dialogue with people.
HUMPHRYS: Why not, instead of opening up, why not
...
CUNNINGHAM: And we are going to change the name and
we are consulting about all of those things, including a new name.
HUMPHRYS: Instead of opening it up, why not do
what a lot of people have said should have happened to it a long time ago, and
close it down altogether. I realise that you would be out of a job then, maybe
they would find you something else to do, but look, quite seriously, you've
taken away from it this vital question of food safety because it never did it
well anyway. So, effectively, now it has become - what it always was, some
people would say anyway - a Ministry for Farmers. Well, this New Labour
Government doesn't believe in Ministries for individual sets of producers, does
it? It is not part of your philosophy.
CUNNINGHAM: Well, let me say first of all that it
hasn't always done everything badly and compared with many countries ...
HUMPHRYS: Well, all right, but you can't roll back
from what you said earlier about the mess it made of an absolutely vital issue.
CUNNINGHAM: Compared with many countries, we have
had reasonable standards of food safety and food hygiene, compared with almost
anywhere else. So it hasn't always been a failure. That's the first point.
But of course we do want to make fundamental changes, you are right. There
will still have to be a Ministry or part of a Ministry ...
HUMPHRYS: Ah, part of.
CUNNINGHAM: I envisage a Ministry at the moment, but
this is a matter for the Prime Minister, not for me of course - whether he
wants to fundamentally reorganise Whitehall in the medium term is a matter for
him. But, a Ministry for food production, for rural affairs and for most
countryside activities related to the rural economy and farming, that's the way
I want to see the Common Agricultural Policy ...
HUMPHRYS: So you wouldn't actually rule it out,
then?
CUNNINGHAM: We are not getting rid of it ...
HUMPHRYS: Because, after all rural affairs could
go to the Department of the Environment, food production could and probably
should go to the BTI.
CUNNINGHAM: Getting rid of it's not on my agenda,
it's not on the agenda at the moment. What I am saying is I think that the
policies that we oversee - like the CAP itself - have to evolve and get away
from the huge inputs into agriculture and into more investment in rural
activities and the rural economy. That's the way the CAP should evolve, I
think that's the way the current Ministry of Agriculture should evolve too.
HUMPHRYS: But I mean if you take energy - vital to
the nation, just as food is vital to the nation - that doesn't have its own
department, it operates very well inside the ...
CUNNINGHAM: Some people think it should, of course.
HUMPHRYS: Well, some people think it should but it
doesn't and the fact is ...
CUNNINGHAM: Anyway, look, we are not going to get an
answer to this question, John, interesting though the discussion may be because
it is not for me to decide whether Ministries are wound up or whether there is
a major reorganisation of this kind in Whitehall. There will be fundamental
change to the Ministry of Agriculture. We shall have to see how effective that
is, how well that works and then it will be for the Prime Minister to decide
and obviously if I am still in the Ministry at that time I shall be involved in
the discussion.
HUMPHRYS: But you are not going to go to the stake
for it?
CUNNINGHAM: Well, it's not a question of going to
the stake. I am saying to you I can see a major role for food and rural
affairs in this Ministry even after the creation and the separation of the Food
Standards Agency.
HUMPHRYS: Jack Cunningham, thank you very much
indeed.
CUNNINGHAM: Thank you.
...oooOooo...
|