House of Lords debates you might have missed - Agriculture: British Pig Industry

There is a delicious irony that the last question for short debate in the Lords before the General Election was related to all things porcine. Lord Palmer was keen to debate the difficulties faced by the British pig industry, a subject dear to my own heart, as I live in a county with significant numbers of pig farms, a number of which can be seen from the A14, where pigs roam free, wallowing in the mud, before becoming pork (I'm rather fond of pork).

Lord Palmer, who had called for the debate, noted that 70% of the pigmeat imported into this country would be illegal if it had been produced here, and that only 29% of bacon consumed here is produced in the United Kingdom.

For the Liberal Democrats, Lord Livsey of Talgarth, our former MP for Brecon & Radnor, spoke of his experiences managing a farm in Perthshire where there were 70 sows producing 600 bacon pigs. His concerns were linked to the behaviour of supermarket chains, who have 80% of the retail market, and he called upon the Government to fully install the supermarket retail ombudsman.

Apparently, whilst all of this was going on, someone was seeking the dissolution of Parliament and launching an election campaign. Given that members of the House of Lords don't get a vote anyway, there are undoubtedly those who hadn't noticed...