Examination of witnesses (Questions 1-19)
WEDNESDAY 21 MARCH 2001
THE RT
HON NICHOLAS
BROWN, MP, AND
MR JIM
SCUDAMORE
Chairman
1. Thank you for coming, Minister. We realise
that you have a double whammy today. This is a sort of aperitif
but as you know the aperitif can be a more discerning morsel.
I think you would like to bring us up to date with events first
of all and then we will go into normal questioning. I will leave
it to both of you to decide who is the sensible person to reply
to the questions put to you, unless they are addressed specifically
to one of you.
(Mr Brown) I would like to bring the
Committee up to date with the present situation as at ten o'clock
this morning. There were 394 confirmed cases in Great Britain
and there is one case, which is now three weeks old, in Northern
Ireland. As the outbreak has gone on, our response has grown as
our understanding of the outbreak has grown. I think it is widely
recognised that the State Veterinary Service responded with great
speed and effectiveness to the outbreak. That is the view of our
European Union partners, both at the Council of Ministers with
whom I have discussed this issue twice now, and at the Standing
Veterinary Committee which is a meeting of veterinary experts
from each of the Member States. This was also the view of the
Commission's mission to the United Kingdom which took place last
week. In the 1967 outbreak, the Government had to slaughter some
450,000 animals over six months. We have already authorised the
slaughter of 350,000 animals in four weeks. Backlogs have developed
and I am determined to overcome them. It is not a question of
will; it is not a question of cost; it is a question of practicality
and logistics. I would like to take the Committee through some
of the key issues, because I know these are what you want to ask
me about. The first key issue has been the availability of vets.
The State Veterinary Service normally has some 220 vets. Over
the past four weeks, this has been increased from private practice,
from overseas state veterinary services, to some 700 and there
are more vets on their way. There have been difficulties with
the speed of disease confirmation, difficulties with the speed
in which we have been able to kill the animals and difficulties
with disposing of the carcasses. This is particularly true of
the major disease areas. It took time for it to emerge but we
now know they are Cumbria, Devon and the area on the Welsh/English
borders. Most critical for disease control is a narrowing of the
gap between discovery of the disease in animals and the killing
of the animals. This is partly a question of veterinary resource
and partly other factors: access to the sites, suitability for
on-site burial, the scale of the on-farm incineration pyres, environmental
and local authority consents, the process of valuation and the
availability of rendering capacity. All of these issues have in
the past tied up veterinary manpower. We have taken a number of
key steps to increase management and logistical support to free
vets for disease control and veterinary management. I would like
to outline to the Committee what we have done. In Cumbria and
Devon we have brought in Army logistical teams to provide on-site
advice for contracting and supervision of carcass disposal. In
other words, they are not disposing of the carcasses themselves;
they are supervising contractors. We have also put in place new
senior Ministry of Agriculture directors of operations, working
alongside veterinary management to handle all the non-veterinary
tasks and to work closely with the stakeholders and the local
media. This was both in Cumbria and south Scotland as one area
and in Devon as another. In London we have the Intervention Board
chief executive to coordinate the provision of slaughtering, rendering
and disposal capacity across the country. We have had a meeting
with the chief executive of the Intervention Board to work on
precisely this problem before coming here this morning. In other
words, to substantially increase the amount of rendering capacity
available to the Government so that we can use that as a disposal
route. We are also looking urgently with the industry at a shorter
route to fair valuation. In other words, establishing a single
price or a range of prices which would either be accepted or go
to arbitration but take one route or the other. Our disease control
strategy is as I set out to the House last Thursday. We are seeking
to keep the currently disease-free area clear of foot and mouth
disease. We have intensive surveillance patrols in Devon. We have
the precautionary three kilometre cull of infected or exposed
sheep and pigs in Cumbria, Dumfries and Galloway. The Scottish
authorities are working in parallel with our own. We intend to
destroy those animals that are traced from the three infected
markets and we are taking similar action in respect of the animals
homed by the two main sheep dealers. These disease control measures
and questions are at the top of our agenda but we have also tackled
speedily, effectively and in close cooperation with the affected
communities other issues posed by foot and mouth disease. We have
tightly controlled movement of animals to slaughter for the human
food chain where it has proved practical to do so. It is important
to try to get the domestic market moving again where we can. We
have had some success with that, particularly with cattle and
pigs. We have taken precautionary but proportionate measures to
limit public access to the countryside. We have introduced schemes
to deal with the welfare problems posed to our animals that are
caught up in restrictions and the scheme here parallels the scheme
we put in place in East Anglia last summer during the classical
swine fever outbreak. We have announced initial support measures
for farmers through the rural task force for the rural economy.
I want to make it absolutely clear to the Committee that there
is more to be done on support measures for farmers. I am not in
a position to make a statement today but it will cost the public
money. I have in the forefront of my mind not just what is necessary
to help farmers who are at present in difficulties but to make
sure we have a comprehensive and workable recovery plan so that,
once we are through and out the other side of this very serious
disease outbreak, we can have an industry that is viable and returning
a decent income to the farmers who are going to return to livestock
farming.
2. Thank you. You have covered a lot of ground
which we will seek further detail on obviously. As you know, there
have been rumours swirling around, and they were articulated very
clearly on the radio this morning, that ministry officials, some
time before the announcement of that first outbreak, had been
making inquiries about the procurement of timber and materials
to build fires to dispose of carcasses. This is now taking some
material form. It would be helpful if you would take the opportunity
now to let us know what that situation is, what substance there
is to that and if you could clarify that matter.
(Mr Brown) I was first informed about the disease
on the Tuesday night of the week the outbreak in the Essex abattoir
and the Essex farm was discovered. It was the week the House was
in recess. That Wednesday morning, I made a speech in Cambridge
about non-food crops and then came straight back to London. Of
course, by the end of the day, we had the export restrictions
in place. In fact, they had been in place on the day before because
officials had put a hold on all export certificates. The following
Thursday, I was notified of the potential cases in Northumbria.
That Friday morning, it was confirmed. Early Friday afternoon,
I spoke to the Prime Minister, who was in America—it would
be morning, by his time—and at five o'clock that night we
imposed a control zone and restrictions right across the whole
of Great Britain. There are a number of urban legends doing the
rounds about whether the ministry knew before. That is not true.
There are legends that sheep farmers were reporting it earlier
on. That is not true. There are legends that a veterinary inspector
on the farm where the outbreak took place visited the farm and
missed the disease. That is not true. The only thing that might
have happened is that each year, as the two of you who have been
Agriculture Ministers will know, there is a contingency exercise
covering a whole range of circumstances and, as part of that exercise,
we regularly check on supplies of materials the industry might
need to take up from the private sector at short notice. It is
perfectly possible that a junior official would be ringing round
suppliers to check the availability of a range of materials, as
we do every year, in case they need them, but it is nothing to
do with the disease outbreak, apart from contingency planning.
3. As some people who claim they have been recipients
of the phone calls were on the radio this morning, I am sure if
you were able to seek positive confirmation that that is what
happened, it would no doubt help everybody.
(Mr Brown) I intend to do exactly that. We will trace
the people who were on the radio and ask them for the telephone
number that they rang. If they can remember the name of the official,
that will be fine. If they cannot, we will telephone the official.
If it is one of ours, we will find out what they were enquiring
about or why. I am pretty certain it will turn out to have been
the regular contingency planning that is part of the routine work
of the Department. I can give the Committee this assurance: we
did not know of foot and mouth disease in this country at a time
earlier than has been reported to Parliament. It is an important
question. It has been reported overseas that there was some deliberate
concealment. There was not.
4. That is why I asked the question first of
all, to give you an opportunity to set it right on the record.
(Mr Brown) I have set out the timetable in some detail
because I think it is right that it should be a matter of public
record.
5. I would like to ask you about two micro-management
matters. Would you agree that perhaps some of the people worst
affected by this are not farmers who have foot and mouth in their
own flocks and herds but those who are caught within exclusion
zones which might be, in my constituency, as far as 25 miles away
from the nearest outbreak, who cannot sell stock, who cannot move
stock, whose stock is now literally going past its sell-by date,
which are eating capital and not producing revenue and for which
there is no prospect of compensation that I am aware of?
(Mr Brown) This is a very serious question. I cannot
say that it is of a more serious order than somebody whose business
is wiped out because they have foot and mouth disease directly
on the farm, but it most certainly is a serious question. I have
done a number of things to try to help. Where it has been possible,
we have tried to get the supply chain moving again, although admittedly
under very carefully controlled conditions. There are no unlicensed
movements of livestock around Great Britain at the moment at all.
It is an illegal act to move livestock at the moment without a
permit. The purpose of the licensed scheme is to try to get the
trade working normally where it can safely be done and the licensed
movements are from farm holding to slaughter house. That does
not pose a great risk of spreading the disease as long as it is
a single journey and the animals in transit do not mix with other
animals that are going to live on. The disease is dramatically
reduced when the animals are dead because they are not breathing
out the virus. I have opened up again a welfare scheme very similar
to the one that we developed from scratch last summer in the circumstances
of the classical swine fever outbreak in East Anglia. This is
a voluntary scheme. The payment rates are below the market rate,
partly because it is a voluntary scheme but particularly because
if it was at market rate that would be opening a whole alternative
market into which animals would be presented. The purpose of that
is to deal with the animals that are caught by moving restrictions
in quarantine areas, but also to try to ameliorate the very difficult
situation that the sheep sector finds itself in, where animals
are on winter tack and it is difficult to get them back to their
home quarters. Our proposed order of solutions is this: firstly,
where we can move animals safely and under licence for welfare
reasons, we are doing that. It is a very strictly controlled scheme
and we have to make sure we have eliminated the risks of infectivity
in the lorries, the animals having infectivity before they move
or, when they arrive, then being infected. That risk has to be
reduced to as low as we can get it. If that cannot be done, our
second preferred route is the management of the problem in its
location, even if the location is not ideal. We are giving advice
about temporary housing, about moving the shepherds to the flock
rather than moving the flock to the shepherds. In some cases,
this is a practical route, but not in every case. The third route
is for the animals to be sold into the welfare scheme, a particularly
difficult issue for the sheep sector because of the market conditions.
In the other two sectors, cattle and pigs, we have a fair bit
of the market, about 80 per cent, back to working, back to there
being trade. I cannot say it is working normally because the licensing
conditions impose pretty heavy restrictions on how things can
be done but 80 per cent of volume is moving again with cattle
and pigs, but not with sheep. There is a particular series of
difficulties with the sheep sector.
6. The problem is that the areas of exclusion
are drawn very widely and sometimes it is quite difficult to understand
why they have been drawn where they are, other than to conform
to natural or major features. That means farmers 25 miles from
an outbreak can be excluded but ones 15 miles away can be in a
territory which is not.
(Mr Brown) Apart from farms where the disease is directly
discovered, where the animals have to be purchased and slaughtered,
we have tried to deal with local anomalies by a local licensing
scheme which we got up and running pretty early on during the
disease outbreak. The restrictions are that it has to be in a
five kilometre radius of the original holding or ten by road.
It is a restricted local scheme but it is designed to help farmers
move animals across roads to new pastures and from pastures to
where there are sheds for the purposes of lambing in tightly controlled,
local circumstances. The longer journeys of animals have absolutely
to be strictly controlled because if we have the unlicensed movement
of unchecked livestock around the country the risk of spreading
the current disease is substantial.
7. I appreciate that and you will equally appreciate
that there are obvious cases of farmers whose cattle are now going
beyond the 30 months because they cannot be moved. There is also
the less obvious one of lambs which are now pushing up two teeth
and therefore they will eventually be slaughtered as mutton, not
as lamb. It is an analogous circumstance but a significant market
loss for the farmer as well.
(Mr Brown) I am looking at what can be done for cattle
caught by the workings of the over 30 months scheme. There are
not a great many animals involved. The position with sheep is
rather more complex and intractable because a substantial volume
of the total number of animals now confined to the United Kingdom
was clearly destined for export. It is not going to be exported.
There is no prospect of it being exported in the near future,
even if the market was there. The animals are lightweight lambs.
They are not bred for the United Kingdom market. There is no demand
for them on the United Kingdom market. There are two problems.
We have a product that was not destined for the United Kingdom
coming on to the United Kingdom market creating an unwanted product
that the market is not structured for. Also, it creates a huge
surplus and that forces the price down. With sheep, we only have
about a third of the normal domestic supply chain moving at the
minute. There is a gap there and the problem is not directly amenable
to a market orientated solution.
8. There has been a lot of discussion as to
what does the expression "under control" mean. There
is probably a consensus that "under control" means that
all the outbreaks can be traced back to the original, primary
source. Are you confident that where we are now, about to go over
the 400 threshold, every single one of those has an umbilical
cord going back to the original outbreaks and, in that sense,
can be still described as "under control"?
(Mr Brown) That is essentially right. We understand
what is happening but there are two uncertainties. One uncertainty
is how much infectivity is out there; the other is what is incubating
but has not yet shown itself. That is what I mean by "under
control". I mean something else as well. In as much as we
have imposed blanket movement restrictions across the whole of
Great Britain, all movements are controlled. In other words, we
are not spreading the disease by the movement of animals. That
is also what I mean by "under control". When I am asked
this question, I always try and state two caveats alongside it.
There is the uncertainty as to how much infectivity has spread
and the incubating of flocks and the uncertainty as to where this
will emerge. I do not want to get involved in a semantic debate
but that is what I mean by "under control". As the disease
has emerged, we have been faced with a new range of problems in
Cumbria and south Scotland, in Devon and on the Welsh/English
border. There is lateral infectivity. You are right to say it
can all be traced eventually back to the original outbreak but
with the very latest cases there is nothing that is so anomalous
as to suggest that there is some other outbreak as well as the
one originally sourced back, we still believe, to the farm on
Heddon-on-the-Wall. What we are now finding is that there is sheep
to sheep transmission in the areas where the disease is most intensive.
We are finding cattle to cattle transmission as well. The stages
at which this can be traced back in the most extreme circumstances
are from a fourth farm, back to a third farm, back to a second
farm, back to a first farm, back to the Longtown market and then
back probably to—
Mr Todd
9. Can you explain the relative roles of MAFF
and trading standards in dealing with movement controls, because
the point David has already made about dealing with local movements
to ensure animal welfare and to deal with lambing difficulties
certainly applies in my area. I have had a number of cases raised
with me where it has proved extremely difficult to obtain proper
movement licenses, partly because of the processes that seem to
be expected of farmers.
(Mr Brown) The extra work that all this has necessitated
has put a strain on the department and the local authorities who
are part of this. They had to put new procedures into place very
quickly with existing resources in the same way that we have done.
The advantage that we have is that, being a Government department,
we can call on the extra resources of Government that are needed
to deal with a situation of this kind. It is the local authorities,
the trading standards authorities, that are the licensing authorities
for the purposes of the movement. The movement itself has to be
certified in two ways. A vet has to give consent and the farmer
has to certify that the animals are clean. In other words, that
they are not showing signs of the disease. That certificate has
to be signed as a daily certificate. It cannot be signed and deemed
to be true a fortnight later.
10. The difficulty that has been drawn to my
attention is that, in my area, that may mean getting your vet
to give a view and sending that to Nottingham, which is the local
RSC for our area. That for some reason is transacted to Cambridge
for a further check, sent back to Nottingham, back through the
vet, back to the farmer, who has to obtain the licence from Matlock
which is some distance away, who will not transact that process
by fax but have to do it in person. It means that this is a task
for which there are plenty of obstructions in the way. No one
wishes to see casual movement control because that risks spread.
In my area, we have not had an outbreak for a week or so. We are
hoping and praying it will not happen and are therefore keen to
see vigilance, but clearly there are difficulties in the administrative
process.
(Mr Brown) It sounds to me that there is an extra
transaction there but can I check it?
11. I would welcome a review of the way in which
the paperwork moves around the various districts.
(Mr Brown) It sounds as if it is something to do with
an incompetent local authority but let me check. Perhaps I can
let the Committee have a note on how these schemes operate and
what the authorisations are.
Chairman
12. In my own constituency, the movement to
bring ewes back home, which is not going to happen, is separate,
but you apply to the regional service centre. They courier down
to Leeds and back to Northallerton and send out from there.
(Mr Brown) These are two separate areas.
13. They illustrate the same point.
(Mr Brown) Except that I cannot conceal from the Committee
how serious the question of the longer movement of sheep is. Yes,
we want to do the right thing by the animal for welfare reasons.
Yes, we would like to get the industry working as close to normal
as we can. However, the overriding priority has to be to protect
the movement of the disease and the most likely route of spreading
the disease is that animals vulnerable to the disease will carry
it as they are moved. Difficult though it is, we have to be very
tough minded about this. There is a substantial number of animals
involved in what you describe, hundreds of thousands. To move
them all, if they all need to move at the same time, also means
a very substantial movement of animals and I do not want that
authorised substantial movement of animals to mask the unauthorised
movement of animals because the temptations are out there. I am
urging people not to do it. The authorities, when they stop wagons
and check licences, meaning the police—I do not want to
make their job any harder, by masking the unauthorised movement
of animals.
Mr Mitchell
14. I wonder if we should not have implemented
more draconian controls as soon as the outbreak was notified.
The French have gone in guns blazing, slaughtering cattle and
sheep just on suspicion. The Irish have cancelled all their sporting
events and introduced a strict disinfecting policy, not before
time, on the border. Should we have acted more quickly with more
draconian controls?
(Mr Brown) We have probably had more guns blazing
than anyone else literally. Remember, the animals are shot. The
movement restriction across the whole of Great Britain that Friday
involved bringing the whole of the livestock sector to a standstill.
That was a very dramatic thing to do. At the time, people were
critical. They said that we were panicking. I was advised to do
it by the chief vet. My private view is that he was absolutely
right to make the recommendation that he did. I telephoned the
Prime Minister in America to say what I intended to do. He accepted
it as well on the same professional advice that I had received.
We discussed it with colleagues in the territorial departments
because it clearly impacts on Scotland and Wales; we discussed
it with the authorities in Northern Ireland who felt that they
could do something slightly different because of the slightly
different veterinary regime in Northern Ireland and there is the
land border with the south. In retrospect, I believe that was
the right thing to do. I believe it was right to impose the quarantine
measures around the affected holdings and to make the statement
that I made last Thursday, that where the infection is continuing
to spread, because of the intensity of the infection, further
preemptive measures are necessary. I support what the French authorities
have done. They have caught their, I hope, one outbreak, taking
the most rigorous measures to confine it to that. Our problem
was that on Friday we discovered that it was not a single outbreak
in an abattoir in Essex and a neighbouring farm. At that stage
that was all we knew about in the country. When we discovered
the third case in the second region affected, we found two new
things. We had a case on the border of Northumberland and Tyne
and Wear at Heddon-on-the-Wall and the infectivity appeared to
have been in the animals for about a fortnight. We had had the
disease in pigs concentrated for about a fortnight. The potential
consequences were not lost on anybody. It was confirmed on the
Friday morning. By the end of that day I had spoken to the Prime
Minister and the whole livestock industry in Great Britain was
at a standstill. That seems to be pretty tough, decisive action,
straight away. I am absolutely convinced that what we did was
necessary to limit the spread of the disease. What we could never
limit was what was already in the national herd. As we now know,
but could not have known then, these cases were all pigs at the
beginning. We know how it got there: a plume of disease from the
Heddon-on-the-Wall farm across to neighbouring farms in Northumberland,
into the livestock markets, a huge amount of infectivity at the
Longtown market and spread by dealers throughout the country,
completely unwittingly, because of the incubation period of the
disease. When people see the number of cases growing, there is
a tendency for it to be reported as if the cases were spreading.
They are not spreading. Mostly, what we are seeing is as a result
of what has already happened a fortnight earlier. The two uncertainties
in this are how much of it there is—a lot more than anyone
could have hoped for—and where it is. We now know the answers
to that as well.
15. There seems to be some improvisation about
movement policy. You had a complete ban on 23 February. On 2 March,
licensed movements for slaughter and you talked of collection
points. You cancelled the collection points on the 15 March and
on 16 March you allowed movements within affected areas, having
suspended the drivers' hours regulations on 6 March. This seems
to be increased improvisation rather than clear policy.
(Mr Brown) I do not think that. I would have liked
the collection centres to have been a workable proposition but
we believe that to divert resources into managing them to make
sure that there is no acceptable risk of spreading the disease
is not the right priority. We will return to the proposal later.
I do not think it is the right thing to do now because the risks
are unacceptable. We are absolutely right to try to get as much
of the livestock industry working under controlled conditions
as we can. The risk of transporting clean animals on their final
journey is very low. These are sheep mostly. Even if they are
carrying the disease and the farmer has a signed certificate saying
they are, the risk of them forming a plume that could infect other
animals in the transportation on the highway is incredibly low.
What would be a risk is if the animals parked up or were unloaded
and reloaded and had the ability to come into contact with other
animals which are going to move on. That is not acceptable. These
very tight control measures are necessary. We have relaxed the
rules about drivers' hours because the risk of the driver driving
slightly longer than he should is much lower than the risk of
the animals stopping and there being some other transaction. It
is essential that the animals are inspected to ensure they are
clean; they are loaded into a disinfected wagon on the farm, the
lorry leaves the farm and does not stop again until it has got
to the abattoir and then the animals are killed and will therefore
not be breathing out the virus.
16. The difference between sheep and pigs is
that pigs spread much more quickly over a wider area so there
is a case for differential treatment and differential movement.
(Mr Brown) Fortunately, the seeding does not seem
to have got into the national pig herd. If it had, people would
know about it. It is a virulent disease and it is particularly
devastating to pigs. They pump the virus out far more effectively
than cattle or sheep, so much so that they are capable of pumping
out sufficient virus to form what is called a plume above the
herd and that can be wind-borne and remain in sufficient concentration
to cause infectivity where it settles. That can be miles away.
It is not the same with sheep or cattle. The major problem we
are faced with has been a substantial spread of the virus through
markets by dealers in sheep.
17. To a layman like me, the control policy
does not appear to have been changed all that much since the last
outbreak in 1967 but agricultural practice seems to have changed
enormously, particularly the amazing distribution because of the
closure of abattoirs, the amazing movement in livestock and also
the increase in the sizes of herds. To what extent have the changes
in agricultural practice that have gone on since 1967 been taken
into account in the control policy?
(Mr Brown) I have asked for a review in the department
of three things. Is there anything that makes our country more
vulnerable to these disease outbreaks in the pattern of trade?
Clearly, I am looking not just at the initial outbreak but also
the way in which it is spread. Separately, I have asked do our
control measures work. In other words, are our border controls
to make sure this virus and indeed classical swine fever do not
get into our country sufficient? I have asked for a specific report
on precisely how the original outbreak happened and how far back
we can trace the virus. Remember, this did not start in our country.
It must have got into the European Union from some external source.
I want a public debate about that before finalising the obvious
consequences for policy makers. That is for the future. On disease
management, the debate about the number of abattoirs is not the
correct thing to focus on. This is not about abattoirs or supermarkets.
It is about livestock markets and the feed practices of pigs.
You are absolutely right to say that the size of herds nowadays
is much larger than they were in 1967. Some of the things said
about the 1967 outbreak are not applicable in the current context.
For example, one of the things I heard the other day was that,
in 1967, the vet would carry a pistol with him and shoot the animals
there and then. If there were 40-odd animals on a farm, that was
a practical proposition. We are dealing with holdings of sheep
of some 10,000 and to expect the poor old vet to shoot them in
an afternoon is asking too much. We are bringing in qualified
slaughtermen to get the job done in a professional, manageable
way.
Mr Mitchell: I am provoked by the Euro enthusiast
on my left. Since we are on the subject of varying degrees of
abuse from Europe on our policies, or shall I say helpful advice,
how far would it be fair to speculate that European intervention
has not been helpful in the situation—one, the closure of
abattoirs because they were required to have vets which caused
many of them to go bankrupt; two, illegal sheep movements to top
up herds because of numbers claimed; three, inability to bury
animals because of European environmental regulations.
Chairman: Could it be a rapid speculation, Minister?
Mr Mitchell
18. But a balanced one.
(Mr Brown) There are three separate issues here of
varying validity. The number of abattoirs is not really an issue
in this. There are perfectly good public policy reasons for supporting
small abattoirs to do with diversity, organic farming, specialist
markets, animal welfare but not to do with disease control. Once
the animal is dead, it is not pumping out disease and it is not
that last journey to the abattoir that is the risk of spreading
the disease; it is the journey to some other holding from a holding
that has infectivity to a holding that currently does not, or
just travelling in a lorry that may not have been cleaned out
properly on the last journey that poses a greater risk. You are
on to a stronger point when you talk about the movement of animals.
I think it is fair to say that the sheep sector is driven by the
sheep premium under the Common Agricultural Policy and the hill
farm allowances. As you know, as a matter of policy, I am trying
to move away from headage payments to area based payments and,
thirdly, what drives the industry is the market. The market essentially
falls into three parts. There is the market for the cast ewes,
for mutton, the least important part of it. There is the domestic
market for lamb which is bred to the domestic requirements of
the major retailers and then there are the lightweight lambs that
are essentially bred as a specialist, lightweight product for
export. When people have an order, it tends to be in round figures.
If their flock is not quite the right number to meet the order,
they will purchase extra animals to make up the package. That,
at least in part, accounts for the movement of animals. One of
the policy issues that we have under active consideration is as
to whether, after every movement of animals, there should not
be a legal requirement for the animals to pause, say, for 21 days
to see if they are incubating any disease at all before they move
on. That is a policy issue that will be part of the debate afterwards.
On your third point, we are burying animals. They are being buried.
We are in discussions with the Environment Agency about the balance
of priorities between the water table and the need to get rid
of the carcasses. We are looking at landfill as well as a disposal
route. We are opening up extra rendering plants as a disposal
route, but we are also having to use on-site burning. It is an
effective way of removing the animals. It does take time to get
the materials into place to start the fire. These are not small
quantities of wood and coal that are needed. We have to bring
in mechanical diggers to dig a trench so that the fire has something
built around it. It is quite a difficult, logistical task. I am
often asked why not bring in the Army. The truth is it is better
to use specialist contractors if we can take them up. If we have
not enough, we can call on other resources, including the Army.
There is no obstacle to using the Army. I saw in the press this
morning that somebody was saying we would have to pay for it.
The two of you who have been ministers will know that there is
no reserved budget in the Ministry of Agriculture for this. The
whole cost of this control is a claim on central Government. If
the Army are used, the taxpayer will be paying for the Army, but
the taxpayer would be paying for the Army anyway.
Mr Jack
19. I would like to ask Mr Scudamore about the
epidemiology. It seems to be spreading with increasing numbers
when, given all that the Minister has said, you might have expected
to see the number of cases coming down. Could you tell us what
your projection is for the way that this thing will develop? Can
you tell us how the disease is spreading? Do you believe that
the measures you have taken will stop it and when do you predict
that will occur?
(Mr Scudamore) We are evaluating preliminary results
with three epidemiology groups. We have provided all our statistics
and the information on the outbreak to a number of groups in universities
and in Government to look at how it is developing and they will
be producing preliminary results on predictions as to how far
it will go and how long it will persist.
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