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Mr. Morley: New clauses 9 and 10 are important. My hon. Friend is right. If the aim is to stop disease spreading and to control and manage disease, the movement of animals is key. During the outbreak, a 20-day stop was put in place. My hon. Friend is also right about the long-distance movement of animals and the growth of livestock dealers. In the period between the introduction of the disease into this country and its identification, there were probably 1.3 million sheep movements, which spread the disease through the markets all the way down the west coast and into the west country.

Those are serious issues, which we must address. My hon. Friend is right to raise them, and he might take some encouragement from what I am about to say. On the transport of animals, there is currently an eight-hour limit within the UK. Under EU rules, longer journeys are permitted in a higher standard of vehicle. The long-distance movement of animals is not just a UK issue. The conditions for the movement of animals over long distances throughout the EU and across boundaries is an EU issue.

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I was pleased to hear yesterday that Commissioner Byrne identified animal movements as one of the matters that the EU will have to address through the Council of Ministers as part of disease control. The place to consider time restrictions on the long-distance movement of animals is in the EU, because the limits must apply to all farmers, not just those in the UK. They must apply to the long-distance transport of live exports for slaughter from this country all the way down to Italy and Greece, which I find very hard to justify.

Tony Cunningham: Given that by 2004 an enlarged European Union may include 25 countries, and given that there are probably more farmers in Poland and Romania than in all the current 15 EU countries combined, will not the problem be even bigger in the future?

Mr. Morley: That is absolutely right, which is all the more reason why we must address the problem now in terms of European directives. I assure my hon. Friend that that is what we will do and that we will press the matter in the Council of Ministers.

5.30 pm

On the 20-day stop, my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Leicestershire (David Taylor) was again absolutely right. I not only accept his argument in relation to markets, but believe that we need to go further. Animals are moved around for a range of reasons. We need a package of measures dealing with a series of scenarios in which animals need to be stopped for disease-control purposes, which go beyond the issue of markets. There are also issues in relation to the practicalities of the livestock industry. In that respect, we must take into account some of the legitimate concerns of livestock farmers about quarantine stops, and we intend to do so. So, the other assurance that I can give him is that we take absolutely seriously the point that he made, but will deal with it in a package of measures that includes that point but also goes a bit further.

Ms Candy Atherton (Falmouth and Camborne): That is very welcome news. Can my hon. Friend give a timetable that tells us when the package of measures might be introduced? The package will be well received in my constituency and more widely.

Mr. Morley: Yes, I can. The 21-day stop is currently in place as a disease-control measure. We sympathise with livestock farmers in terms of some of the practicalities of the livestock trade. We want to address those issues, but we also want to put in place a package of measures in relation to stops, including markets and other scenarios, as part of a disease-control measure. We will start discussions with the agriculture and livestock sector immediately with a view to securing agreement on the matter some time in the new year.

David Taylor: My purpose in tabling new clauses 9 and 10 was rooted in my belief that animal welfare and therefore animal health are seriously compromised both by the length of journey times and the number of journeys that individual animals make. The review this year of the European directive on transportation is indeed a good opportunity to reduce the maximum journey time to eight hours and I am encouraged by what my hon. Friend said

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in that regard. The system of multiple journeys in the United Kingdom, which is often related to the involvement of dealers, must be reviewed without delay.

Animal welfare and animal health are twin themes and have been interwoven throughout this whole debate. They are part of the same issue. We need to reflect on that issue and tackle it as a Government. I am encouraged by what my hon. Friend said about the standstill proposals that he hopes to bring to the House at some future date. For that reason, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Motion and clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Clause 11

National Contingency Plan

'In the 1981 Act, the following section is inserted after section 36—
"36A National Contingency Plan
The Government shall prepare and regularly maintain in consultation with interested public and private bodies a national contingency plan for foot–and–mouth disease, which shall be laid before Parliament.".'.—[Mr. Peter Ainsworth.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Mr. Peter Ainsworth: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

The purpose of the new clause is to require the Government to draw up, maintain and publish a national contingency plan for dealing with future outbreaks of foot and mouth disease. There is widespread evidence that the Government and their agencies were wholly unprepared for the emergency that broke earlier this year. I have looked at the Government's published contingency plan, which is available on the internet. To say that it is rudimentary would be an understatement. It turns out to be very much what the Minister himself described as an outline strategy. It is our contention that an outline strategy is insufficient to deal with an outbreak of foot and mouth, as we found in the course of this year. That might explain why the strategy was so hopelessly inadequate and had no identifiable bearing on the way the Government carried out their duties in the event of this year's outbreak. An outline strategy was a recipe for chaos and confusion, and I am afraid that that is precisely what we got.

The evidence of the public inquiry in Devon, which was chaired by Professor Mercer and was mentioned earlier, is especially revealing about the state of preparations in the Department. It reported:

"It was not obvious to us from the evidence received that MAFF was working to any form of coherent contingency plan. This, in spite of actual evidence that the Government had submitted such a plan to the European Union in 1993 and that some low level MAFF planning was proceeding in 1999. Lessons, which should have been learned from the outbreak in 1967, did not appear to have been implemented, and recommendations of the official report into that outbreak were ignored."

That point was supported by Mr. Alan Richardson, a retired vet who was involved with the 1967 outbreak and offered his services in Cumbria on the outbreak of the disease this year. He said that the lessons learned from the 1967 epidemic were set out in the report of the Northumberland committee, and that

"the public had every reason to suppose that its conclusions formed the basis of the contingency plan in place in January 2001."

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It is curious that Ministers are at pains to point out that the circumstances have changed greatly since 1967. The Minister did so in an earlier debate. The Government have published a document called "Comparisons with 1967: How the 2001 outbreak of Foot and Mouth differs from the 1967 outbreak". The aim of the paper is not only to let them off the hook but to boast about how well they did in controlling the latest outbreak. That is incredible. It is one of the most unjustified pieces of self-congratulatory humbug that I have come across for a long time.

The Government have gone to enormous lengths to point out the differences between 1967 and today. One would therefore expect them to disagree with Mr. Alan Richardson's comments that the public had every reason to suppose that the conclusion of the Northumberland report formed the basis of the 2001 contingency plan. However, in a written answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Mr. Steen) on 13 July, the Minister stated:

"The recommendations in 'The Report of the Committee of Inquiry on Foot-and-Mouth Disease', parts 1 and 2, published 7 March 1969 and 3 November 1969 (the Northumberland report) formed the basis of the Government's policy for keeping the disease out of the country, and of our contingency plans for fighting an outbreak of foot and mouth."—[Official Report, 13 July 2001; Vol. 371, c. 686W.]

On the one hand, we are told that there are enormous differences between 1967 and now, and on the other, that the 1967 experience formed the basis for the contingency plan that was in place in 2001. We have a mess that is riddled with contradictions. That may help explain the subsequent problems. Alan Richardson reported for duty at the Carlisle office on 1 March. If a proper contingency plan had been in place, would he have said:

"At the Carlisle Office . . . there was inadequate office space and very few supplies of any kind . . . There was not a spare thermometer in the office . . . The organisation was completely overwhelmed and the bemused confusion among the staff of all ranks proclaimed that there had been no contingency planning at all. This situation persisted for some weeks"?

The evidence from Devon and Cumbria, from one end of the country to the other, clearly established that there was no effective contingency plan in place. We therefore entirely endorse the recommendation in the preliminary findings of the Mercer inquiry. It states that

"a National Contingency Plan . . . needs to be developed. It should identify the organisations that will be involved in response to Foot and Mouth in a County or Unitary authority area, and explain their responsibilities and the ways they will work together. It should be part of an emergency planning process that involves all the main players in its construction, testing and regular rehearsal."

For geographical equilibrium, I should say that we also support the first recommendation of the Shropshire county council inquiry. The Minister said that he had not seen it. That recommendation states:

"It is essential that a high level Foot and Mouth Contingency Plan is prepared by DEFRA to link in with Local Authority emergency plans in general and animal health and welfare contingency plans in particular."

Like the Mercer inquiry in Devon, the Shropshire inquiry found evidence of serious and avoidable flaws in the way the outbreak was handled. The inquiry heard about the

"lack of a consistent policy from MAFF on the culling of animals . . . a lack of communication"

from the local office,

"problems in having to deal with different veterinary regions",

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and the

"frustration caused by the lack of communication from DEFRA on issues relating to the licensing and movement of animals".

I could go on, but time is pressing. The Minister really should have looked at the Shropshire county council report, and I recommend that he does so as soon as possible. He might learn some useful information from it.

From Devon to Cumbria to Shropshire we find that the problems on the ground were the same. They were avoidable problems that affected every area of the country in which foot and mouth broke out. If there had been a proper contingency plan, action would have been swifter, the damage could have been dramatically limited and the cost—in every sense—could have been dramatically reduced. If there had been a proper contingency plan, all animal movements would have stopped as soon as the outbreak was officially reported, the Army would have been brought into play sooner, and we would not have had the dithering and confusion over the benefits or otherwise of vaccination which characterised much of the debate earlier in the year.

In the light of the terrible experience suffered by rural communities, businesses and families, the massive cost to our economy which will be counted for months if not years to come, and the tragedy for animal welfare, I have to ask the House whether an outline strategy is really enough. The Minister has asserted that, despite all the differences between 1967 and now, the Northumberland report forms the basis of the Government's policy for foot and mouth disease.

Recommendation 5 of the report states:

"A comprehensive plan should be in readiness for the mobilisation of resources within and outside the Ministry . . . in the event of an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease."

In other words, it recommends a contingency plan. That is what the new clause would achieve, and I commend it to the House.

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