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Honours and Decorations
Mr. Fraser Kemp accordingly presented a Bill to make provision about the award of certain honours and decorations; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Wednesday 29 November, and to be printed [Bill 186].
Orders of the Day
Fur Farming (Prohibition) Bill
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Lord): I draw the House's attention to the fact that privilege is involved in Lords amendments Nos. 1, 2 and 5. If the House agrees to any of these Lords amendments, I shall ensure that the appropriate entry is made in the Journal.
Clause 5
Lords amendment: No. 1, in page 3, line 16, after second ("of") insert ("income and non-income").
4.58 pm
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Elliot Morley): I beg to move, That this House agrees with the Lords in the said amendment.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this it will be convenient to take Lords amendment No. 2, amendments (a) and (b) thereto, Lords amendments Nos. 3 and 4, Lords amendment No. 5 and amendments (a) and (b) thereto.
Mr. Morley: These amendments relate to the compensation scheme for fur farmers who will be put out of business by the ban on keeping animals soley or primarily for slaughter for the value of their fur. In the House and in another place, concerns were raised about the form of the proposed compensation scheme. As I explained at the time, this is an enabling Bill, and it is therefore not appropriate for the full and exact details of the compensation scheme to be included.
The intention is that Ministers will decide on the details of the compensation scheme after Royal Assent, when we have arranged for independent assessors to visit the fur farms to provide information on which a decision about the form of the scheme can be based. I made it clear, however, that the Government accept that fair compensation should be made available to fur farmers.
When the Bill received its Third Reading in the House, clause 5 did not specify whether compensation would include loss of income. That has been a cause for concern both here and in another place. Furthermore, the report of the House of Lords Select Committee on Delegated Powers and Deregulation recommended that the Bill should specify whether compensation includes loss of income, on the basis that that had important European convention on human rights implications and should not be left to ministerial discretion.
In the light of both those concerns and the Select Committee's report, the Government decided to table amendments in another place, committing Ministers to include loss of income in the compensation scheme. Thus clause 5(1) will now require the compensation scheme to cover both income and non-income losses incurred as a result of ceasing fur farming because of the enactment or the coming into force of the prohibition in clause 1.
Clause 5(2) will require the scheme to specify the descriptions of income and non-income losses in respect of which payments are to be made and the description of business to be compensated, although the scheme need not provide for all losses to be compensated. Clause 5(3) will provide that the scheme shall specify the basis of the valuation for determining losses; the amounts of the payments to be made, or the basis on which such amounts are to be calculated; and the procedure to be followed in respect of claims under the scheme.
Concerns were raised in the House that the use of the word "may" in clause 5(2) could allow the Government to avoid including the matters set out in that subsection in the compensation scheme. I made it clear at the time that that was never our intention. We have therefore removed any doubt as to the Government's commitment by changing the word "may" to "shall" in clause 5(2).
The full details of the scheme will be subject to a consultation exercise with the industry after Royal Assent and before the order introducing the compensation scheme is made. In another place, my noble Friend, the Minister of State, Baroness Hayman agreed that we would consider setting in motion before Royal Assent the steps needed to draw up a scheme. I should like to thank her for the way in which she dealt with the Bill and guided it through the other place. We have now set the wheels in motion and have written to all the fur farmers and the National Farmers Union, as their representative, seeking their agreement to independent consultants looking at their books. We are trying to speed the process as much as we can before Royal Assent. We await the NFU's response on behalf of fur farmers.
I appreciate that this is a narrow debate, limited to the Lords amendments, but it would be remiss of me not to put on record my thanks to the many hon. Members and Members of the House of Lords who have supported the Bill. It has received enormous support from the public, who have backed it in writing. We should all record our special thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Garston (Maria Eagle), who promoted the original private Member's Bill that forms the basis of the Government Bill.
Mr. Malcolm Moss (North-East Cambridgeshire): The debate is now drawing to a close on this rather contentious legislation. If one reads the reports of all the Bill's proceedings in both Houses, one does not find much support for it from the vast majority of Members who contributed to the debates. At all stages, compensation was the key issue. Given the weary resignation of fur farmers to the inevitability of the Bill reaching the statute book because of the Government's huge majority, the defence shifted from opposing the Bill in principle to achieving the best possible compensation deal for fur farmers.
From what the Minister said, it seems that the Government are no further down the road of setting the parameters for the compensation calculation. I wonder why the Government have not used the time over the summer recess to work more closely with fur farmers, at least to set some basic parameters and headings on the compensation issue.
If we were to ask the fur farmers whether, under these Lords amendments, they were any wiser about what they could realistically expect as compensation, their answer
would be an unequivocal no. They are no further forward with knowing what their businesses will be worth and how best to plan for their futures.Is not it true that the amendments were tabled only because the Government took fright at the recommendation of the Lords Select Committee on Delegated Powers and Deregulation that the question whether compensation should be included for loss of income, which has important human rights applications, should not be left to ministerial discretion. Thus income and non-income losses are now to be in the Bill, and the word "may" in line 20 is to be changed to "shall." I suppose that we should feel grateful to the Government for those hard-won concessions, but the definition of income losses and the amount of such losses are still unknown quantities.
As was said in the other place, the Government are in uncharted waters, especially in respect of a farming enterprise such as fur farming. The only evidence from valuations in the European Union comes from Austria, where a fur farmer in one of its regions was closed down and paid the equivalent of £390 for each breeding female.
The Government have not moved an inch from their estimate, which was published in the Bill's explanatory memorandum, of some £400,000 earmarked for asset losses and up to four times that figure--£1.6 million--if income losses are included. How does that square with the valuation of one of the fur farming businesses at £5 million worth of forced closure losses? On the basis of the Austrian valuation, the total compensation could be well over double that figure. Have the Government amended their figures on the possible outcome of total compensation? Has the Minister made any application to his departmental budget for additional resources to meet the likely increased costs, or will he take the money from the budget headings that are currently earmarked for our hard-pressed farmers and fishermen?
In the other place, Baroness Hayman confirmed that ancillary costs associated with the closing down of fur farming business, such as valuation fees, redundancy payments, interest payments for delayed compensation, costs of clearing land and the taking down of buildings and any legal fees, will all be considered by the Government during their consultations. We and the fur farmers need more than that. We would not accept "will be considered"--we need to hear the words "will be included." It would be helpful if the Minister could confirm, in any further remarks that he makes, that such income losses will be included in any assessment.
The Minister alluded to the fact that consultation is due to start in the near future, before Royal Assent, and we welcome that. Have the Government set a target date for the conclusion of the discussions?
The Government have moved in the direction that we asked them to take at all stages of the Bill in this House and in the other place. We welcome the fact that income losses have been included, but we are less than happy that, even at this late stage, a definition of those losses has not been forthcoming. The fur farmers who will be closed down in two years' time are no wiser about what they will receive in compensation.
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