Northern Ireland (Appropriation)

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 8:24 pm on 7 March 1994.

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Photo of John Taylor John Taylor , Strangford 8:24, 7 March 1994

I hope that, in return, the Minister will take my point: he will be given a greater chance to answer in detail when we have our Select Committee.

Several hon. Members have mentioned agriculture. I am surprised that the one aspect of agriculture that has not been mentioned so far is Northern Ireland's milk industry, which is the biggest sector of our agriculture industry. I hope that the Minister will answer some questions about the future of the industry. As he will know, a complete reorganisation of the milk marketing schemes is taking place throughout the United Kingdom, involving the milk marketing boards of Scotland, England and Wales and Northern Ireland.

We have heard recently that the proposed reforms in England and Wales have been postponed—put on hold. We want to hear the Northern Ireland milk marketing board's latest proposals to reform milk marketing. It submitted its proposals to the Department, which gave 18 February as the closing date, for people to comment on the board's proposals.

We have passed that date, but still have not heard when the Department intends to issue its response. The responses of interested people were to be made available for public inspection once the consultation period had ended. Are their responses now available for inspection, and when do the Government intend to respond to the proposals of the Northern Ireland milk marketing board? Its proposals for a new co-operative to market milk were due to take effect as from 1 April 1994, but it is obvious that that will not be achieved, so will the Minister please update us on the progress that has been made?

A few weeks ago, I was at a large dairy producers' rally in Banbridge which was attended by about 500 dairy farmers. It was a successful meeting, which was organised by the milk marketing board. There is tremendous concern throughout the milk industry about its future. I was impressed by the number of young farmers who were present, asking good and intelligent questions, thereby expressing their concern about the future of the greatest sector of the milk industry.

My next point is about pensions for small farmers. A new early retirement scheme for farmers has been announced by the European Community. It is meant to apply mainly to smaller farmers. The issue was raised about eight weeks ago by my colleague and the Member of the European Parliament for Northern Ireland, Mr. Jim Nicholson. He has discovered that there are 6,620 farmers in Northern Ireland between the ages of 55 and 65 and that they own a total area of 174,800 hectares. Of those 6,620, about 5,960, who own 120,000 hectares, could benefit financially from this scheme.

The scheme is important to small farmers because it means that a farmer over 55 could have an annual pension of about £3,730, plus £233 per hectare, up to a maximum of £9,300 a year. The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food has said that it will take little interest in the new scheme because most farms in Britain are quite big and would not qualify for it, but the situation is entirely different in Northern Ireland, which has thousands of small family farms. It is an ideal region for the new early retirement scheme for farmers, which would enable the sons of our farmers to take over farms and get involved in agriculture. At the moment, they cannot do so because their fathers must hold on until they are unfit to continue.

Will the proposal be considered seriously by the Northern Ireland Office and the Northern Ireland Department of Agriculture? Let us use Northern Ireland as a trial to see how successful the scheme would be and what its take-up would be by smaller farmers. I believe that there would be a good response from small farmers from all sections of the community in Northern Ireland.

My final point on agriculture, about which the Minister can write to me because it is somewhat detailed, is on sheep annual premium scheme quotas. The Department issued notes and guidance to sheep producers on how the quotas should be applied. Paragraph 38 of its document contains a phrase that seems to be causing much confusion. It says: You may transfer or lease all your quota rights. Many sheep producers have transferred all their quota rights to several producers, but unfortunately the Department is now saying that they misinterpreted the document and that it should have said: You may transfer or lease all your quota rights to one person. It did not say "to one person", and that is the problem. Many people are caught in a trap created by this misunderstanding. I therefore ask the Minister to pursue that matter further, because I know that the situation facing many sheep producers would be eased if that misunderstanding were removed.

The hon. Member for South Down (Mr. McGrady) referred to fishing—and rightly so, because he and I represent the two fishing areas of Northern Ireland. Portavogie is in my constituency. The situation in the fishing industry is more serious now than I have known it in my 15 years as its representative in the European Parliament and now here in our national Parliament. On Saturday evening, a young fisherman from Portavogie, who is married with one child, rang to say, "We are sitting here in the house freezing; we cannot even afford to buy a bag of coal." He was telling me the truth; I know the chap inside out. The skipper of his boat rang me this morning with much the same story. He, likewise, was in despair.

A serious situation is developing in the fishing industry. Of some 90 boats in Portavogie, 18 took part in the decommissioning scheme, but the position still remains dire. Weather conditions have been poor for fishing so far this year and fish prices have collapsed, which is causing unemployment in the Portavogie area. I join in welcoming Lady Denton as our new Minister with responsibility for agriculture in Northern Ireland. I have had a meeting with her about various other aspects of her responsibilities, and I look forward to the day when she comes to Portavogie to see the problems for herself.

In that rural village on the east coast of County Down, which has no other sources of employment, nearly 1,000 people are involved in a fishing industry that is now in decline. Some 300 work in the processing plants and 700 in the fishing fleet.

I ask the Northern Ireland Office to impress on our national fishing authorities and Ministers responsible for fishing the need to find out whether national aids are given to rival fishing fleets in the European Union. It has been reported that France is giving such aids to its fishermen. That is unfair competition for the fishermen of Northern Ireland.

Portavogie is a village with only one public building—the toilets. No public facilities exist other than the WC. We tried to get a community centre for Portavogie but the then Minister responsible for community relations, who left us a few months ago, wrote to say that it was not possible because there were not sufficient people from the two sections of the community living in Portavogie. In other words, Portavogie was discriminated against in terms of Government funding because too many people of one religion live there.

When Portavogie applied to the International Fund for Ireland more than a year ago, it was turned down again, but for a different reason. On this occasion, it was turned down in a letter which stated, ridiculously, that although the project was recognised as interesting and worthy of consideration, a similar proposal had, however, come from Greencastle in County Donegal. That proposal was proceeding and, instead of building a second structure of a similar type in Portavogie, it was recommended that fishermen from Portavogie travel to Greencastle. There are a variety of reasons why the fishermen of Portavogie would not be happy travelling to Greencastle in County Donegal—I shall not spell them out tonight—but it was the most ridiculous reply that I have ever heard from a public authority, if one can call the International Fund for Ireland a public authority.

As a result, I raised the matter in Washington, of all places, this time last year when I met representatives of the Irish lobby there and, especially, board members of the International Fund for Ireland. I said that there was discrimination against the village of Portavogie because it was overwhelmingly Protestant. I followed that up by writing a firm letter to the new chairman of the International Fund for Ireland—in fact, I wrote to the previous chairman, but he resigned shortly after receiving my letter and the reply came from Mr. William McCarter, the new chairman. The reply was reasonably promising. I see that the hon. Member for South Down has now returned to the Chamber, perhaps because I am now discussing fishing.

In the past few weeks, the International Fund for Ireland has announced a scheme for Annalong, Kilkeel, Ardglass and Portavogie. I put it on record that I greatly welcome the scheme and I hope that all our fishing villages will benefit from it. In Portavogie we are already in a good position to take advantage of the programme because, as I said, we have been working on it for the past few years. The Portavogie and district community association produced a report on what was needed in the village. Portavogie is, in fact, a small town with 3,500 people. I hope that the Northern Ireland Departments of the Environment and of Agriculture are reading the association's report and taking it seriously.

The report suggests that Portavogie should have a multi-purpose centre which would provide many facilities. As I said, we have only the one public building—the toilets. We need a multi-purpose centre to provide a location for health facilities and the training of fishermen and to provide a community hall. It would also provide accommodation for people connected with the fishing industry who have to stay in Portavogie overnight. I hope that the International Fund for Ireland, in co-operation with the Department of the Environment, will concentrate on the project now proposed by the local community in Portavogie.

The third paragraph of the press release of the International Fund for Ireland states: This programme will be run in conjunction with the Department of the Environment for Northern Ireland and will provide a major cross-community economic based project. I emphasise the fact that 90 per cent. of Portavogie's 3,500 population are Protestant. There is cross-community co-operation but, obviously, it has to be limited in the context of the balance of the population. I hope that the fact that Portavogie is mainly Protestant will not be held against the village and prevent it from receiving benefits.

The hon. Member for South Down mentioned Strangford lough. There is an important meeting tonight about the future of Strangford lough in the main town of my constituency in Newtownards. I had hoped to attend the meeting last Thursday in Killyleagh in the hon. Gentleman's constituency but I could not because of the "Newsnight" programme on the Select Committee for Northern Ireland. I cannot be in Newtownards tonight either, but I underline the concern of the fishermen in and around Strangford lough about the Government's proposals for a marine nature reserve. It is suggested that dredging, trawling and dive collection will be forbidden and that the maximum boat length which is currently allowed will be reduced from 15.23 m to 12.19 m.

Families have been fishing in Strangford lough for generations. The hon. Member for South Down would perhaps claim that they have been doing so since the day St. Patrick arrived in South Down.