A RADICAL overhaul of the way milk is sold has been shelved. The Commerce and Employment Department will instead take toned-down proposals to the States at the end of the month.
Its original plans, announced 18 months ago, threatened to repeal the Milk Law, which milk retailers feared would put them out of business.
That has now been scrapped in favour of modernising the way the Dairy operates and its relationship with the retailers.
The department has said that it is committed to continuing the existing network of rounds for deliveries to shops and homes. It also wants to continue to pay the annual £2m. support package under the farm contracts system introduced in 2001.
The department said that it had learned a lot over the 18 months since it proposed far-reaching changes. It went through a Scrutiny review and has been in consultation with all parties for more than a year. But it will not change its original belief that current arrangements are fragile and unlikely to last.
The department is worried that:
n the 1955 law, which bans the sale of imported milk, is no longer fit for purpose;
n milkmen believed their rounds were protected by law, when they are not;
n the protected status of the Dairy and restrictions on free trade appear to be in direct conflict with the island’s link with the European Union;
n it has taken legal advice that aspects of the law could not be defended if challenged;
n and Jersey and the Isle of Man were facing increasing pressure on their dairy industries.
Minister Stuart Falla said the department still considered that its best hope of resisting a challenge lay in restraining the retail price of milk. Its proposals tried to do that.
He has accepted criticism of the way it handled the issue.
‘While the department was acting with the best possible intentions, it fully accepts, with the benefit of hindsight and the advantage of the thorough Scrutiny review, that the proposed pace of change and the manner in which it was announced did not take full account of the genuine concern that was subsequently expressed by the public, States members, milk roundsmen, farmers and others,’ he said.
‘Above all, it now recognises that the pace of that change needs to be different and that clear and regular consultation with interested parties is essential.’
Now it is proposing a number of changes to how the Dairy handles its relationship with its licensed retailers, to be overseen by a new management board, and will also create an independent panel to set the retail price of milk and remove it from political control.
Article posted on 5th April, 2007 - 12.00am
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