Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1-19)
WEDNESDAY 17 OCTOBER 2001
THE RT
HON MARGARET
BECKETT AND
MR JIM
SCUDAMORE
Chairman
1. Secretary of State, I think The Sunday
Times had you as one of the "The Magnificent Seven".
I hope you will not mind my saying that I think you are the doyenne
of the Magnificent Seven.
(Margaret Beckett) The eldest, certainly, I think,
yes.
2. We only have a Magnificent One, in the shape
of Diana here. We are quite sure she will hold her own, worthy
of seven. I am sorry we have got a rather crowded room. I am allergic
to the Boothroyd Room in Portcullis House because the witnesses
are so far from the Committee that you need Semaphore in order
to communicate, and rooms 15 and 16 are being used for storage
at the moment, so I apologise for the discomfort of the surroundings,
but good political advice is always cram into a smaller room rather
than have empty seats in a big room. That is not a reference to
my party's recent congress. Welcome to Jim Scudamore, as well.
We are delighted to see you both. I think we may get to see each
other relatively frequently and that will be, I have no doubt,
a pleasure for both of us. If it is not we will have to get by
without it being a pleasure. May I ask two or three general points
to begin with, Secretary of State. We have now had over 2,000
cases of foot and mouth disease. When we began with this epidemic
the policy of slaughter was justified on the grounds that we had
to maintain the disease-free status of the United Kingdom. There
was never any real costing put upon the value of disease-free
status in comparison with the cost of the slaughter policy in
terms of the compensation paid, on the one hand, and, on the other,
the dislocation of businesses for farmers who did not have the
disease but who were caught by the restrictions and, of course,
perhaps biggest of all, the dislocation of other businesses which
were deprived of customers. In the light of that, do you think
the policy has been worth it?
(Margaret Beckett) Obviously it is going to be very
difficult, and I am sure lots of people will try to cost all of
these different implications. I think my principal reaction, Mr
Chairman, to your question is "What is the alternative?"
Without wishing to pre-empt any of the results of the various
inquiries which are taking place, it is not clear to me that there
was much of an alternative in treating the outbreak of a disease
of this nature. So, basically, I am sure that will be one of the
things that is given extensive consideration, and when it is people
will have to look at the costs of any alternatives. Given the
arguments about the efficacy, for example, of trying to pursue
a vaccination policy, in the circumstances in which we found ourselves
when it was first realised how it had begun, I do not think there
was much else that anyone could have done differently, in the
circumstances.
3. Getting back to normal is going to depend
heavily upon the progress of the blood testing, which vets call
"bleeding". Could you give us a report on when that
process will be finished, so that normality can be restored? Is
there anything you can say to businesses—which next week
have the school half-term and the last opportunity, perhaps, to
be able to earn a little before winter sets in—about their
prospects?
(Margaret Beckett) I will ask Jim, if I may, in a
moment to give us the latest indication. I think it is an indication
of the success of the scale of the action that has been taken
to try and tackle this disease the extent to which testing has
been racked up. I believe when the outbreak began the normal capacity
to conduct tests was something like 400 a week, but we are now
just over 170,000 and I believe we hope to have a capacity of
200,000 by November. So I think what has been done and the hours
that people have been prepared to put in have been quite remarkable
and very much worthy of praise. I will ask Jim in a second just
to say where he thinks we are at in terms of timescale for finishing.
It is also worth saying, because when the wide scale testing began
there was concern it would reveal the disease was endemic in parts
of the country, and that has not turned out to be the case. The
latest figures, I think, are just under 400 positive tests out
of something like 700,000 or thereabouts. So that is reassuring.
As to the issue of normality, of course we have now got 92 per
cent of footpaths in England re-opened. That is 109,000 miles
out of a total of 118,200. We have continued to say to people
throughout the period, once the initial stage of assessment had
passed, that provided that people moved with caution and are cautious
about contact with susceptible livestock there is no reason why
people should not use the countryside in the normal way. I think
that has broadly got across. I understand that in many areas there
has been more of a recovery from what had been anticipated in
business over the summer, but I share your view. We are having,
mercifully, some mild weather and I hope people are recognising,
and do recognise, that not only is this an opportunity for them
to enjoy themselves in the English countryside but, also, an opportunity
to help those who have suffered very seriously from the tackling
of this disease.
4. Before the Chief Vet replies, may I ask a
supplementary which you may wish to embrace as well? As you say,
you are finding relatively little incidence of whole disease or
residual disease. Of course, if we are seeking disease-free status
to be restored, how do we demonstrate there is no disease—residual
disease?
(Margaret Beckett) As you say, it is something he
may want to address, but in terms of disease-free status where
we are at present is that 104 counties are now classed as foot
and mouth disease free. In Scotland all 23 counties are classed
as free and 21, of course, never had an outbreak of any kind.
Only two counties, Cumbria and Northumberland, have had outbreaks
in the past four weeks, and we have not had a case, as of this
morning, for 16 consecutive days. Having said that, I think it
is only right to say immediately that, of course, we all fully
recognise—and I know all this Committee will recognise—particularly
given the fact that we have had to licence some autumn movement,
although trying to take account of the balance of risk that is
very, very clearly there—it would be a miracle if we get
through the period when autumn movement is taking place without
seeing a resurgence. Certainly there must be that very real danger,
but where we are at the moment is certainly better than one might
have feared.
5. You may have just written a headline.
(Mr Scudamore) On the serology we have done around
about 1.6 million tests now. As the Secretary of State said, about
700,000 of those have been in protection zones, and we have had
around about 400 positives. Of the 1.6 million that have been
done in protection zones, we have had—
6. The protection zones are 3 kilometres outside
an infected—
(Mr Scudamore) The 3-kilometre zone around an infected
premises. We have done 700,000 of those. In the surveillance zones,
which is between 3 and 10 kilometres, where we do not test all
the flocks but test a statistical number of the flocks, we have
tested about 460,000 and we have had 0.02 per cent of the animals
positive. The remainder of the tests have been done for epidemiological
diagnosis. To give you the overall result, in the protection zones,
for example, we have tested 9,950 flocks and we have had 28 positives.
7. Twenty-eight positive flocks?
(Mr Scudamore) With evidence of antibodies. Of those
28 we found no evidence of virus in 26 of them, so of the 28 that
were antibody-positive only two had virus present, which indicates
that the flocks have been exposed to the disease but there was
no longer any active disease in those flocks. In the surveillance
zone we have tested 6,658 flocks as at 15th and four of those
were positive on antibodies but had no evidence of any virus.
So we are working through this testing and we are not getting
a high proportion of the flocks positive. What we are seeing is
evidence of old disease in a number of flocks, and it is possible
there might still be one or two flocks out there with active virus
in them. So that comes on to the second question and that is how
will we know when it is all over? I think we are going to have
to set criteria to say that it is all over. The first thing is
we can say we have no disease in a lot of the counties and we
can say that when we have had no disease in the country for three
months that is a good indication that it is all over. When we
have converted all the counties to free counties—that means
we have completed all the serological work in those counties—that
will be another indication. But we still remain with the problem
of how do we finally clear it and say we have got no virus present
in the country? The way we do that is, I think, that as we get
test results in we will have to analyse them and see what they
mean and what they show, and then we might have to do more testing
in some areas to demonstrate there is no virus left in the national
flock.
8. I am going to ask David Drew to come in in
a minute, but I have one final question from me, Secretary of
State. I think perhaps one of the most common criticisms levelled
during the course of this outbreak—and obviously my constituents
have been seriously affected—has been the dislocation in
the process of decisions taken in London and implementation locally,
as far as movements are concerned. This goes right back to the
original welfare scheme, various licensing schemes and the most
recent autumn movement scheme. The trading standards office in
Northallerton was wholly unable to deal with requests because
the DEFRA computer collapsed on them. I have been told the DEFRA
computer was programmed to deal with 8,000 hits a day and it collapsed
at 2,000 a day. In every single case, a week after the chiefs
had announced something in London the Indians in the constituencies
have been saying "Can we have a few arrow heads?" "We
have not got detailed instructions." "We do not know
how to carry this out". Do you think that is a valid criticism,
and what do you think can be done to make sure that when instructions
or initiatives are taken in London that they are capable of being
implemented efficiently and without dislocation?
(Margaret Beckett) I think the Committee is aware
and, indeed, my predecessor spoke to the Committee before about
some of the earlier problems with the issue of licensing. I think
we did have a particular problem with licensing movement, and
I am not going to pretend that there have not been very, very
real problems on the ground. We are extremely conscious of that
and we do not attempt to conceal it for a second. I would like
to take the opportunity to pay very real tribute to the local
authorities because they did a magnificent job. Part of our anxiety
at the beginning when we were trying to put this system in place
was that the local authorities would find it difficult to start
up and put the procedures in place actually to do their end. I
have to say they have been magnificent. They have certainly carried
out their role and there is not any doubt whatsoever that, as
you have identified in the example you gave, we have had very,
very real problems with the programme. It has been extremely difficult
to do. It was a very difficult exercise to devise a good programme
for. While the work was being undertaken to develop arrangements
and to develop the software and so on, the Hexham outbreak occurred,
which completely changed the background against which the planning
had been undertaken and made everybody even more risk-averse and
even more conscious of the problems we would need to address,
and we had, as you say, very real problems. However, I understand
and indeed hope that those problems have now been resolved and
something like 26,000 licences have been issued and another 8,000
have been processed and we hope will be issued very shortly.
Mr Drew
9. If I can just look at the issue of autumn
licensing in a little bit more detail, is there a need to look
at the system? You quite rightly paid tribute to local authority
officers but there is inevitably going to be some conflict where
you have got people in DEFRA offices saying one thing to farmers
and then they go to local authorities for the licences to be issued
and it does not seem to happen very efficiently. Are you actually
looking at that system now?
(Margaret Beckett) Yes, we are because, as I say,
we are conscious that we have had very real problems. Obviously
human error does occur, but I would have thought that anyone who
contacted DEFRA would have been told that, first of all, when
we announced the scheme we made it absolutely evident that it
would take time to build up, that it would be extremely difficult
and complex and that we were very, very mindful of the fact that
if everybody came along on day one it could not possibly cope.
All the way through we have been very cautious about saying "This
is what we are trying to do, it is going to be difficult, we are
going to have to build up to it slowly" and that was even
before we understood the scale of the problems we were having
with the computer systems. I would hope that any of our staff
have been somewhat cautious but saying "This is what we are
trying to do, this is how you go about it and we are doing our
best to satisfy demand".
10. Notwithstanding that we obviously have got
to make a guesstimate of when foot and mouth will end and given
that you do that, is licensing here to stay or is it very much
connected to the foot and mouth outbreak?
(Margaret Beckett) I think you will be aware that
there was some discussion about whether we do want to control
movement and there has been some consultation, which received
what I can only describe as an unfavourable response. Clearly,
again, these are exactly the kinds of issues that people will
have to look at in the aftermath of this particular outbreak.
This outbreak does seem to have very much been linked to animal
movement. The question we will all have to consider is whether
that is always likely to be the case in the circumstances in which
farming operates today or whether it is much more to do with anybody
knowing there was an outbreak. So all of these things we will
have to thrash out.
11. Surely the way forward is traceability of
sheep? That must be your prime concern, at the moment. I know
the Department is working on that. I was a bit surprised to hear
a couple of days ago that if and when you introduce this you may
have to do it with a paper-based system rather than using information
technology. Could you perhaps say where you are with regard to
that?
(Margaret Beckett) There is still a great deal of
work to be done on it, and I think it is a consequence of the
problems we were talking about with the autumn movement system;
people are concerned as to security and actually having accurate
records. People have not been able, because of the range of other
things that are taking place, to develop what would be, I agree,
desirable in the long-term, which is good IT to maintain these
records. The principles, in fact, that underlie the whole autumn
movement regime are three-fold: the principle of all movement
having to be licensed, the principle of that having to be linked
to some form of inspection and then there is variation of degree
depending on the severity of the problem, and then thirdly, of
course, identification. I think that for a whole variety of reasons,
not just to do with foot and mouth but to do even with marketing,
people are talking more and more about whether we can get greater
individual identification and whether we can get greater traceability.
Really, everybody is talking about flocks rather than individual
beasts.
Mr Todd
12. Why was there a three-week gap between the
announcement of the autumn movement scheme and the announcement
of the Sole Occupancy Licence Scheme?
(Margaret Beckett) Simply a matter of being able to
get agreement on what the criteria should be, given the changing
situation, and actually beginning to implement the scheme.
13. Had this Sole Occupancy Licence Scheme been
conceived of as part of the autumn movement scheme process, or
was it an after-thought, after people said "Well, this is
not going to work in the way you are suggesting, here is another
way which will make something function effectively"?
(Margaret Beckett) I am not sure I would say it was
an after-thought.
(Mr Scudamore) We have been trying to develop a movement
scheme that balances the risks and it is quite a complicated scheme.
It is continually changing as the risks alter and the scheme has
been looked at, so we are constantly looking and still looking
at whether pigs can move separately to the way cattle can and
have different rules on how sheep are moved. So the scheme was
devised to allow movements where there was minimal risk. We have
also had to try to devise a scheme where we have got the capacity
in terms of serology to do the testing. One of the issues we were
looking at, as the number of cases was declining and as they were
being limited to Cumbria and Northumberland, was whether we could
allow movements within 20 kilometres with a sole movement licence
to allow people to move the premises within same ownership. At
the same time we were having regular meeting with all the stakeholders,
so we had regular meetings with all the people with an interest
and there was an intensive set of meetings during this period
with the Farmers' Union, LACOTS and others to try and devise a
system which would minimise the risk and which would match the
resources we had and allow movements. It is an on-going development.
14. Yes, but it certainly gave the impression
of confusion, because I was rung by several local farmers who
had seen the autumn movement licence announcement and recognised
that that simply would not work in their circumstances. They pointed
out the fact that they had fields in ownership within a radius
of, say, four to five miles, and why could they not move their
stock between them? When I inquired, of course, it became clear
that another scheme—which we now have—was being worked
on at that time. That communication had not got through into the
farming community and a lot of them were wasting time both ringing
me (and, of course, that is part of my job) and, also, ringing
up trading standards, DEFRA and so on, to try and find out what
was going on and how they could carry on their business. You nod.
(Mr Scudamore) Yes, I agree that communications is
an area that we have to look at. However, in this particular case
there were a lot of intensive meetings with the Farmers' Union
and with LACOTS and all those with interest to try and get a scheme
which would allow this sort of movement to take place and, at
the same time, give us an assurance that the disease—
15. The puzzle is why it was not conceived at
the start as part of the original announcement and instead was
added as an after action.
(Margaret Beckett) There is always creative tension.
One makes proposals and then people look at them and say "Wait
a minute, could we not tweak the scheme here or make some changes
there", and then say "Are you being consistent?"
I think if people want policies to be adopted and schemes to exist
that are responsive to the concerns that they express then they
have to recognise that that means there will be change. The second
thing I would say is that leaving all of that aside, the underlying
concern all the way through has been—going back to what
I said to the Chairman some little time ago—the acceptance
of the very real fear of the risks that we were running. So it
is not that people have no awareness of some of these difficulties;
it has been a very cautious, step-by-step move to look at different
relaxations because there is such an unease and concern about
the very real risks that allowing any movement presents. That,
again, is something that underpins all the steps. So, in those
circumstances too, what you are bound to get is a degree of gradual
evolution rather than a perfect scheme coming right at the very
beginning.
Mr Drew
16. If we could, again, look in some kind of
detail at the responses to the 20-day standstill consultation,
you have already alluded to the fact that it has not gone down
very well. What are you going to do to try and alleviate some
of the fears?
(Margaret Beckett) I think this goes back to the point
Jim made about communication. Everybody is going to have to take
a step back and look at the full range of experience of this whole
outbreak and look at it against what has happened elsewhere, what
has happened in the past and then consider whether we have had
a complete one-off. As I understand it—and Jim will correct
me if I am wrong, I am sure—it is unprecedented for an outbreak
to have taken place and to have run for so long without it becoming
known that an outbreak had taken place. Does that mean that this
is something that we should never expect to happen again? I suspect
not, actually. I think it is against that background that people
will have to look at all of these issues, including traceability
and licensing. I am sure the Committee is aware, Chairman, that
the Dutch Government is sponsoring a conference in December which
is going to look at a range of issues, and I will be quite surprised
if those issues do not come up.
17. What are you going to do about the dealers?
(Margaret Beckett) I am not entirely sure what you
are suggesting.
18. I could say, if you wish.
(Margaret Beckett) The role of the dealers is something
that has evolved alongside the whole issue of movement. I am not
sure which came first, whether it was the greater use of dealers
that came first or whether it was greater movement. It has clearly
played a very major role in the movement of animals, and that
has on this occasion contributed to the disease. So, again, I
go back to what I said earlier that I think to some extent how
people look at the pattern of farming and the pattern of marketing
and sale will depend on the degree to which they think this is
something which could happen again in a similar sort of way.
19. Does that mean that the Government has a
key role to intervene to set the parameters? At the moment you
almost get the worst of both worlds. It is not a free market but,
at the same time, the Government has got limited powers to really
be able to intervene. Is this something where you have got to
look very carefully at much more intervention and actually almost
say what movements and when—which is effectively what you
are doing with licensing anyway?
(Margaret Beckett) As I say, this is all part of the
conversation and discussion that British people are having on
the back of that consultation about which you were told earlier.
If you have uncovered someone who actually thought it was a good
idea to have that control I would be very interested to hear it.
(Mr Scudamore) There is a comment, and that is we
have had to have a 21-day standstill in the pig industry since
1974, so there already has been a precedent set in the pig industry,
where following swine fever and vesicular disease and other problems
there was a 21-day standstill on pigs. However, that standstill
was then relaxed in certain circumstances. If the pigs were in
a pyramid and they moved a certain way where there was no disease
risk then there were exemptions to the 21-day standstill. This
is a question, really, for pigs and other sheep and cattle.
|
