Speeches by Zeichner.

“When I say the system is working well, what I mean is, in terms of the way it has been set up and what it has been asked to do.”

“A lot of time has been spent discussing pollack over the last few years, and I will probably bring my expert colleagues in. But immediately I would say that part of the problem is that the advice is that it is not necessarily thriving, and that is what we have to follow. That then leads us into the complex issue of cho…”

“You carry on, Mike.”

“I really appreciate how strong the feelings are. I have been down and spoken to people, and I can absolutely see how difficult this has been, but I genuinely think we have to follow the scientific advice. On the recreational side, yes, again, I understand the frustration that people in the commercial fleet feel. Volunt…”

“First, I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman, because he did a lot of this work before he came into Parliament, and he and I used to discuss it. It is relatively early days for the ASCA, and we will see what is needed, but at the moment I am confident that he is happy with the resources that he has to do the job. There i…”

“Yes.”

“That goes to the heart of the whole discussion we are having, and it goes right back to the beginning, about how we allocate the resources available. Some comes from the taxpayer, quite a lot comes through the food system. But we need to make sure that we have proper fairness. I actually think that the key to a lot of …”

“No, please do.”

“Not many, in my experience. I do not know the exact number—I would have to go away and find out.”

“To tax and subsidies?”

“What we are doing is putting a huge amount of energy into introducing the fair dealing regulations, which we have the capability of doing, and it is really important that we concentrate our energy on that. That seems to me a very productive way forward on what we have been asked to do. There is no complacency here; I a…”

“There absolutely is a sense of urgency because that is what we are doing and getting on with. Only in the last few weeks some of the secondary legislation has been laid, and it will go on being laid as we work with the sector. What I would say is that it is very important that we get these things right, because they ar…”

“That is a very big question, and I will probably call on my colleagues to give you the more detailed answers. But the overall view is that we very much follow the scientific advice, which is a starting point. That 46% level is broadly similar to the level the year before. Basically, I rely very heavily on the advice fr…”

“There is unhappiness, clearly, within the agricultural sector about the way they are sometimes treated. But I would not want to characterise the food system as being anything other than actually, overall, successful. We do have a successful food system in this country. I am trying to choose my words carefully here beca…”

“I will pass that one to my colleague.”

“Again, I am going to seek expert advice on that one.”

“It is.”

“I understand the point you are making. What I would just gently say is there is a fairly clear legal system around labelling, and labelling should not be inaccurate. Where it is inaccurate, there is a legal issue. But we are, as you rightly say, looking very closely at the whole issue of labelling and it should always …”

“Obviously, we are very concerned to hear, first, about the outbreak in Germany, and then about the outbreak in Hungary and the recent outbreaks in Slovakia. We have a very comprehensive, tried and tested system for responding to those kinds of situations, which is very much guided by the advice of the chief vet. Those …”

“Those budgetary decisions will, again, follow the spending review, but obviously we will do everything that is necessary to maintain confidence and tackle what is a really distressing disease for so many farmers. Very early on, I asked the Department to look at the whole system again, because we are concerned about its…”