My hon. Friend the Member for Dept-ford (Sir L. Plummer) has dealt with the subject of bacon, but I wish to emphasise that we have another Crisis in the Pig Industry.
But who created the Crisis in the Pig Industry?
In the short term we want to know how these measures could be brought in to help the present Crisis in the Pig Industry.
If the Under-Secretary of State and the Government are to honour their objectives in "Food from Our Own Resources", does he agree that his right hon. Friend will have to declare to his colleagues and counterparts in the Council of Agricultural Ministers in Europe that there is a desperate Crisis in the Pig Industry, and that unless there is a recalculation of the MCAs immediately irreparable damage will be done to the industry, which will be damaging to the housewife and consumer in the United Kingdom?
I acknowledge that there is a Crisis in the Pig Industry.
I take the current Crisis in the Pig Industry very seriously.
Will he use those powers to alleviate the Crisis in the Pig Industry, where producers are being undercut by meat from abroad that is reared in much less suitable circumstances and fed on feeds that would be illegal in this country?
The Crisis in the Pig Industry has already been described, so I shall not go over that again.
Does the Minister not realise that, given the Crisis in the Pig Industry, what Britain needs is a fair deal for British pig farmers?
Does the Minister accept that the Government are presiding over the biggest Crisis in the Pig Industry that the country has known?
Government are very aware of the Crisis in the Pig Industry.
Miss Anne McIntosh (Vale of York): I am grateful for the opportunity to initiate an Adjournment debate on the Crisis in the Pig Industry.
I accept that MAFF is a piggy in the middle—that is, perhaps, not the best phrase to use, given that Agriculture questions today were largely devoted to the Pig Industry Crisis.
The noble Lords, Lord Molyneaux, my noble friend Lord Dubs and the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, also raised the issue of the Crisis in the Pig Industry.
I remember one of the issues that we faced in the Crisis in the Pig Industry.
When I spoke to the then Minister about the Crisis in the Pig Industry, I said to him that the difference between the French Government and ours was that they would save the pig industry but ours would have it destroyed.