Janet:
Minister, over many years, I've been becoming quite concerned at the number of cases taken by trading standards against our farmers, who end up in court simply for the case to fall. An allegation that a farmer—this is in north Wales—took an unreasonable time to dispose of carcasses was dropped. A case against three farmers and their management of a flock of Welsh mountain sheep went to court and was dropped. And I know of a farmer taken to court for failing to provide fresh golden-coloured straw for bedding. This was unsuccessful in court too. So, unsurprisingly, there is a feeling that local authorities do seem determined to prosecute in the first instance rather than looking to work more constructively.
Only recently, a farmer in my own constituency was taken to court, over many months of an actual agonising decision—and I can see other Members agreeing with me. The court costs were £100,000, and the case was dropped. This situation has to change, as farmers are unfairly crippled by the cost of combating criminal cases. Will you review the efficiency of local authorities and their inspection regimes to look at a way of perhaps looking at a better way of working more co-operatively with farmers, rather than taking farmers to court using taxpayers' money in terms of court expenses paid for by local authorities, and, indeed, leaving our hard-working farmers, at the end of the day, with massive court costs, only for a failed court case?
Minister for Housing and Local Government:
Well, I've no idea of the detail of the cases that Janet Finch-Saunders is setting out. If you want to write in, that's fine. But, first of all, trading standards is a non-devolved service provided by our local authorities, and, secondly, it's very difficult to make a general statement about the efficacy or otherwise of a prosecution policy off the back of three cases that I've just heard about. So, if you want to write in and tell me the detail of that, I'm happy to look at it.
In general, though, local authorities are very restrained in taking court action because it's a huge use of their resources in constrained circumstances. But I'll be more than happy to look at the specifics of the cases that she raised.
