................................................................................ 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...