Orders of the Day — Pig Husbandry Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 9:38 am on 25 January 1991.

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Photo of Mr Richard Body Mr Richard Body , Holland with Boston 9:38, 25 January 1991

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. Perhaps I may digress for a moment, because I realise that my hon. Friend the Minister is none too happy about the five-year period. Let me explain why it was selected. The lifespan of the stalls is usually about 15 years; the tethers have a considerably shorter lifespan. The Select Committee reached its decision 10 years ago and there was a considerable amount of reporting in the farming press when the report was published and debated. I cannot believe that any livestock farmer can have been unaware of what the Select Committee or the House had said. Moreover, when the welfare code was published in 1983, there can have been no doubt about the matter among pig farmers because, again, there was a considerable amount of publicity. If my arithmetic is right, 10 plus five makes 15. That means that by 1996, 15 years will have elapsed since the Select Committee unhesitatingly drew those conclusions which were then endorsed by the House.

There is another matter that concerns a number of producers. Will the European dimension put our farmers at a disadvantage compared with farmers on the continent, and will there be an increase in imports from countries that have a lower regard for their animals than we do? I do not think that will happen. I have given the matter careful thought. I have discussed it with a number of farmers and others. It will not happen because, in the first place, the system is not profitable. It has been made artificially profitable, as I sought to explain earlier, by the tax allowance. If it were profitable, the sow stall systems would not be disappearing as rapidly as it is. The figures show clearly that farmers are abandoning the system and, in the past three years, have not been replacing sow stalls that have ended their natural life. Any hon. Member who has an appreciable number of pig farmers in his constituency will know that pig farmers have had a pretty rough old time in the past few years and that pig farming is not always a highly profitable business. There has been acute pressure on farmers at the margins. One might have thought that that would be reflected in intensified systems and certainly more farmers would have gone over to sow stalls and tethering if that system had been seen to be more profitable. That is simply not the case.