Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-12-12-Speech-3-407"
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"en.20071212.37.3-407"2
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"Mr President, let me start by answering a question that was put to me by Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf. He was asking why my amendments seek to make this system voluntary. I can tell Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf very quickly why I seek to make it voluntary.
Last week in my constituency in Scotland, cast ewes – for the non-agricultural people in the Chamber (there are not many people in the Chamber), they are old female sheep – were selling for GBP 2 a head. A year ago they were selling for GBP 60 a head; this year, GBP 2 a head. I ask the rapporteur: how is a farmer who is only getting two quid a head for his sheep supposed to fit microchips and buy expensive scanners and readers that can comply with a mandatory electronic ID system? This is the economic problem.
The original Commission proposal was perfectly correct in seeking stakeholder consultation and in seeking economic-impact cost-benefit analysis. I have not seen all the figures. I do not know what the intention would be for the sheep farmers in my constituency. I have to remind the Members in this House that the UK has the biggest sheep flock in the whole of Europe – by far the biggest. The impact of this would be catastrophic with the economic situation the way it is. It would actually mean – if this becomes mandatory and we go by the dates set by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development in their vote on Monday night, and we set 31 December 2009 as the mandatory introduction – that a whole group of sheep farmers in Britain will close down and go out of business. The upland areas and the hills that have been looked after by sheep farmers and grazed by sheep for centuries will go wild and then the public will realise the damage that has been done.
While we are wreaking this damage in a flock that already has the best traceability in Europe – we have absolute guaranteed traceability in the UK at the present time and the sheep farmers cannot understand why we want to impose a new system of electronic identification when they already have high-quality traceability – we are importing sheep meat into the EU from outside, from countries that do not respect our levels of hygiene and welfare and the rigorous regulations that we apply to our sheep farmers.
So, let us have a little bit of sensitivity here. I hope that when we come to vote on this tomorrow the Members will see the reason why we are asking for a voluntary system and not yet fixing a mandatory date for the introduction of electronic ID."@en1
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