Disposal of Fallen Stock

Part of New Clause 1 – in the House of Commons at 6:45 pm on 27 February 2001.

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Photo of Geoffrey Clifton-Brown Geoffrey Clifton-Brown Shadow Spokesperson (Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) 6:45, 27 February 2001

I am grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend for giving the House a helpful reminder of a paragraph of which I was, of course, aware. If the Minister needs further reminders, he might recall that, when the landfill tax was introduced—making it more difficult to dispose of rubbish by landfill—the incidence of illegal fly tipping greatly increased. If that argument does not persuade the Minister that my suggestion about what is likely to happen in the countryside will be borne out, he should think carefully.

Amendment No. 40 deals with compensation. It has already been made clear that compensation has been awarded in other cases. When we discussed the Fur Farming (Prohibition) Bill, the Government were perfectly prepared to compensate fur farmers for the loss of business—and rightly so. As my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh) pointed out, under section 5(1) of the Fur Farming (Prohibition) Act 2000, the Minister is required to provide compensation for fur farmers who go out of business.

If the Government are going to put out of employment the 6,000 to 8,000 people whom Burns estimates will be directly affected if hunts are put out of business, it would be wholly immoral not to compensate them. The Government are only too keen to compensate the car industry when its workers are put out of their jobs. Why is it that, through sheer prejudice, they do not even consider compensation for people who will lose their jobs under this Bill?

Increasingly, huge numbers of the urban population are becoming aware of the current suffering of the rural population. The Government must think carefully about compensation. To introduce a Bill with no provision for compensation will cause large waves of sympathy for people in the countryside.