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Agriculture: British Pig Industry

If the noble Lord had paid close attention to our position, I have identified the steps by which we have moved towards establishing the issue of food labelling. He will know that this is part of a European perspective: the whole issue about this industry is that we cannot look upon the pig industry as just a UK issue. It relates very much to the competitive position with Europe, and unless we get labelling which identifies the British product and is also accepted as far as the European perspective is concerned as well, we are no further forward. The noble Lord appears to think that these issues are easily tackled. They are not. We needed to get the industry together to address these issues and put its full weight behind these operations, and that is exactly the position we are in. This is despite the fact that a great deal needs to be done. When it comes to the question of regulation, I hope the noble Lord is not suggesting for one moment that the pig industry was in a heavily regulated position and such regulation just needs a minor tweak and the issues are there. It is exactly the opposite. The pig industry operated for a great period of time completely within the market without regulation, and we have had to work hard with the industry in the taskforce to adopt the kind of regulation that can be effective.