Monday, 1st March 2010
Compliance not more legislation for animal transport
I am delighted to have this opportunity to come to Wick today to hear the views of farmers and hauliers about the proposed regulation on animal transport. I particularly wanted to come to Wick because it is in areas like the Highlands and Islands that the farming industry has to confront the necessity of long-distance travel to slaughter for livestock and therefore any attempts to impose new regulations that go even further than the current legislation could have a disastrous impact.
We are all too well aware of the propensity for bad regulation that has emerged from the European Commission in the past. We need look no further than the ludicrous EID regulations to find an example of something that was both impractical and unnecessary and better suited to the sun-kissed uplands of Spain than the rain-swept hillsides of Caithness & Sutherland.
New rules to protect animals during transportation were introduced by the EU in 2004 and entered into force in January 2007 in all 27 EU Member States. We fought and won approval for special derogations to be applied to longer journeys where it could be demonstrated that vehicle standards had been upgraded, to allow animals access to water, temperature control and adequate ventilation. We argued that if a strict 8-hour maximum limit to journey times was applied without any derogations, it would effectively end sheep farming in Shetland, where the ferry crossing from Lerwick to Aberdeen takes 14 hours alone. It would also have had a disastrous impact on remote farming areas across Scotland.
Having won these arguments, I was somewhat astonished when last September the Commission announced that they were about to publish yet another set of new regulations covering the transport of livestock to slaughter. At the last minute, however, they withheld publication of the new draft legislative proposals in case it frightened Irish farmers before their referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.
The Commission subsequently announced that the new draft regulations would be published during the Spanish presidency of the EU, which runs from 1st January this year until 30th June. Now, I understand the proposals may not see the light of day until the autumn of this year. There are many reasons to welcome this delay, not least because it allows MEPs like me to gather the views of my constituents, so that I can put forward robust counter-proposals when the new draft legislation is published. But secondly, because in the meantime, the Lisbon Treaty has been approved by all 27 Member States and has come into force across the EU with all the massive changes this entails.
One of the key changes brought in by the Lisbon Treaty is the alteration in status of the European Parliament’s Agriculture Committee. Formerly this committee was purely consultative, so when the European Commission came forward with new ideas for legislation, such as EID for sheep, the members of the agriculture committee could protest and bang their desks, but the Commission could chose to ignore them if it wished. And it often did!
Now, post-Lisbon, all committees of the European Parliament have become what are known as co-decision committees. This means they are fully legislative; if the agriculture committee votes for or against a specific proposal and that decision is ratified by the full European Parliament in Strasbourg, then it effectively becomes law. The Commission and the Council of Ministers cannot now ignore the parliament on key issues like animal transport.
The second important change is that we now have a new Commission in place. We have just gone through the process of vetting the 27 new commissioners and I am pleased to say that the new Commissioner for Agriculture – Dacian Cioloş – looks very promising. At only 41 years of age he is the youngest member of the European Commission and he comes from an upbringing and education steeped in agriculture. He is Romanian and attended an agricultural school before going on to study horticulture and agriculture at university. He then did his Masters Degree and Doctorate in Agriculture at universities in France, before taking up a post in an Agricultural Think Tank and latterly becoming Minister of Agriculture in Romania. He is also a Conservative, so he is an all-round good guy!
Each of the Commissioners-designate is subjected to a gruelling 3 hour interrogation by their respective committees and Mr Cioloş sailed through with flying colours, proving himself to be both knowledgeable and likable and clearly fit for purpose. So I think we can look forward to some years of good cooperation between the new powerful Agriculture Committee and the new Commissioner.
The second bit of good news is that our former Nemesis in the European Commission – Androula Vassiliou – although still a member of the new Commission – has been shifted to a new post. Some of you may recall that she was formerly the Commissioner for Consumer Affairs and Health. As such she was responsible for animal health and welfare and consumer safety. She was the Commissioner who brought in the dreaded EID regulations and would not listen to any reasoned arguments against them. She was behind the attempt to ban 500 commonly used agri-chemicals and pesticides. Now she has been shifted to a new post where she is in charge of Education, culture and multi-lingualism, so her ability to harm Europe’s farming sector has been seriously curtailed, unless we want to tell her what we think of her in 23 different languages!
The new Commissioner for Health and Consumer Affairs is John Dalli from Malta. He is an accountant by training and former Finance Minister of many years’ standing, so has considerable political experience. Let us hope that he will be more sympathetic to the agricultural industry than his predecessor.
So that is the new Commission. But there is also another aspect to the Lisbon Treaty which should benefit farmers. For the first time, it will be a mandatory condition that the European Commission must send any draft legislative proposal simultaneously to all 27 Member States on the same day that they send it to the European parliament. The 27 Member States will then have exactly 8 weeks during which they can submit a reasoned opinion on the proposals. The European Parliament cannot conclude their deliberations on any draft legislative proposal until this 8-week period has expired and then they are required to take into consideration all submitted opinions form the Member States.
Now in reality, this is going to introduce some tough new constraints on the way we do business. Just let’s look at the new Livestock Transport Regulations as an example. When the draft legislative proposals are published later this year they will be sent to the Agriculture Committee and the Environment Committee in the European Parliament and at the same time to all 27 EU Member States. They will land on the desk of the DEFRA Minister in Whitehall. He or she will have to send them on for scrutiny to the Agriculture Committee in the House of Commons, but also, because it is a devolved subject, to Holyrood, Cardiff and Stormont. In each case, there will be some attempt to debate the proposals and to find out the views of key stakeholders, such as the NFU, the hauliers, abattoir owners etc. Can all of this be done within the 8 week timescale? I very much doubt it, knowing the way the wheels of government turn.
I have been lecturing our civil servants and Ministers about this new set-up and urging them to start looking over the horizon to spot what is in the legislative pipeline, so that the stakeholder consultation can be concluded at an early stage and can be taken into account whenever the draft legislative proposal arrives and the 8 week consultation period begins. That is the key reason why I wanted to hold this meeting today, so that I have the views of Scottish farmers and hauliers before the draft regulations are published.
So, having set the scene, let me cut to the chase. Since the new rules were introduced in January 2007 they have been strictly observed by farmers and hauliers in Scotland who have demonstrated the effective application of derogations, where longer journey times are required, as in the case of the Highlands. A huge amount of investment has been involved, with the purchase, operation and maintenance of highly expensive new vehicles which provide access to water, temperature control and proper ventilation. The government has also invested in a vigorous inspection and compliance regime that ensures the toughest standards are applied at all times. We can now proudly proclaim that we have some of the highest welfare standards for the transportation of animals anywhere in Europe, or indeed anywhere in the world.
Sadly, the new rules have not been implemented with the same vigour elsewhere and this is what has provoked the Commission into coming forward with new legislative proposals. There have been repeated exposés of animals subjected to cruel and gruelling long-distance journeys to slaughter, usually in countries in Eastern or Southern Europe. Cross border journeys in overcrowded trucks, with poor ventilation and sometimes in searing heat waves have been filmed by animal welfare organisations. These have involved horses travelling from Spain to Southern Italy for slaughter, or sheep moving from Greece to Romania. Some of these journeys can take up to 70 hours and intolerable suffering is involved that brings the whole farming industry into disrepute. The animals arrive exhausted and sometimes dead and the resulting newsreels outrage the public and lead to a clamour for tougher laws.
I have repeatedly called for the European Commission to provide information on the level of compliance amongst Member States, arguing that tougher measures should be taken to ensure all countries comply with the rules in the same rigorous way that Britain does, rather than re-writing the regulations every two or three years. Those countries that break the rules should be named and shamed.
However, I simply do not agree that each time someone is caught breaking the existing rules we need to draw up a whole set of new rules. That is madness. Compliance is the problem and clearly there are weak links in the chain which have to be exposed and eradicated. I accept that there are real difficulties and costs involved in ensuring adequate compliance on the ground. But we know where these weak links are and we should concentrate our resources in these countries to ensure that they adhere to the same standards of welfare as everyone else.
The Commission has to recognise that there has been real progress made in the past 5 years and most of Europe now applies the strictest standards of animal welfare during long distance transport. Let us not rush to new legislation simply because some Member States continue to turn a blind-eye to serial law-breakers. Until issues surrounding proper compliance are in place in every Member State, it is impossible to judge how well the current regulations are working across the EU. It would be disproportionate and unnecessary to introduce a whole new raft of regulations which would simply again target those who abide by the law and would continue to be ignored by those who don’t.
So my message to the new European Commission is that they must take action to eradicate any suffering or ill treatment of livestock during transportation, but we don’t need a whole welter of new regulations, we just need better policing of and compliance with the existing regulations.
These are the specific questions that I want to address with you today:
1. Current regulations state that journey times shall not exceed 8 hours, after which the animals shall be unloaded and given access to food, water and at least 24 hours rest. However, derogations allow cattle and sheep to be transported for up to 28 hours with a rest of at least 1 hour after 14 hours, after which they must be unloaded and given food, water and at least 24 hours rest. Should these rules be maintained?
2. If the higher vehicle standards are attained, pigs and horses can be transported for 24 hours, after which they must be unloaded and given food, water and rest for at least 24 hours. Should these rules be maintained or toughened?
3. Un-weaned animals can be transported in high standard vehicles for a maximum of 18 hours, (with a rest of at least one hour after 9 hours), after which they must be unloaded and given access to food, water and rest for at least 24 hours. Should these rules be maintained or toughened?
4. Should these patterns of travel and rest be repeated indefinitely?
5. Is the unloading and loading of animals during a long distance journey a cause of additional stress and a potential bio-security risk?
6. Could rest periods be undertaken on board vehicles?
7. Can journeys by ferry be exempted from the regulations and if so, what special provisions are necessary to ensure compliance with high welfare standards during these journeys?
8. Should there be a maximum distance imposed of say 300 miles or 500 km for all journeys to slaughter?
9. Should the current strict limits on density in cattle trucks and rules on ventilation, temperature control and access to water be toughened?
10. Should there be a ban on the long-distance transport of calves and lambs or should there be a strictly applied minimum age limit for such livestock?
