Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20
- 39)
TUESDAY 23 OCTOBER 2007
RT HON
HILARY BENN
MP
Q20 Mr Gray: We are going to come
back to that precise question on Bluetongue in a moment but the
nature of my question was not that, the nature of my question
was this, if you are saying in the future the livestock industry
are gong to have the fantastic privilege of sharing decisions
with the Government, then presumably there must be decisions which
the livestock industry are not currently sharing with Government.
What I want to get from you is one example, any example of any
decision which the livestock industry should have been sharing
with Government but has not and, indeed, of course, a supplementary
question to that would be, if they have not, why have they not
because surely you ought to be consulting with the livestock industry?
Hilary Benn: With respect, sharing
with Government, in what circumstances? In relation to diseases
which are zoonotic, where there is both an implication for animal
health and human health, then obviously the Government has got
to play a part, but if you take Bluetongue then I do not see in
future why a decision about where you would draw those control
zones, in this case actually should not be taken by a body—we
have not yet worked out exactly what it is going to look like—representing
the industry, there may be Government representation on it. I
would envisage a different system in future where the holder of
this office was not taking a decision like that because, fundamentally,
Mr Gray, the impact is felt by the industry. There is a trade-off,
as we know, in relation to Bluetongue as to where you draw the
boundaries.
Q21 Mr Gray: Forgive me, I have always
acted on the presumption that the Secretary of State for Defra
was taking these decision in the best interests of the livestock
industry and of human health and, therefore, in the office you
hold, you were doing the best thing for the nation. What you now
seem to be telling me is under this new regime, which the livestock
industry are going to pay a lot of money for, goodness gracious
me, they will have the opportunity to differ from you. What I
want to know from you is one example of any area of health and
safety with regard to the livestock industry, any area, where
you would say in the event that this new regime had been in place
you would have done something different from what you are currently
doing, with regard to Bluetongue, with regard to Foot and Mouth?
Hilary Benn: With respect it is
not a question—
Q22 Mr Gray: What are they paying
for? What will they get in return for the money?
Hilary Benn: The ability to take
the decisions about how animal diseases are dealt with within
the constraints which are provided by Europe and internationally.
With respect, what strikes me very forcefully, Mr Gray, is that
sometimes farmers will say, "Well you have got these restrictions
on us, as if it was for our benefit or for reasons other than
trying to control animal disease". I think the people who
are in the best position to take those decisions are those who
have the greatest incentive in the decisions being the right ones,
that is not to say the holder of this office does not have the
same incentive, but I think it would be a much better system to
have clarity about who is in the lead here and I am describing
to the Committee a change under which decisions which are currently
taken now could be taken by a new body which represents the industry.
Q23 Mr Gray: What you are now saying
is that the Government intends to abdicate responsibility—
Hilary Benn: No.
Q24 Mr Gray:—which many ordinary
people could reasonably presume to be good decisions for the Government
to take, and you would be handing that over to an industry, in
this case the livestock farmers, to ask them to take decisions
which the Government ought to be doing. In return for doing that,
even though you ought probably to have been listening to farmers
anyhow, the livestock farmers are going to have to be able to
pay large sums of money for that privilege. It sounds like a pretty
dumb deal to me.
Hilary Benn: With respect I would
not agree. I think there are those in the farming industry who
look, and I know the current situation is very difficult because
of the two diseases which farmers are having to deal with, who
can see that this is a different way and in truth a better way
of doing things. It is about trusting, it is a different system
in which you would trust the farming industry to say, "Well,
actually these diseases affect you, you are the ones who have
to manage it, therefore why should you not be taking these decisions
as opposed to the holder of this office?" I can see you are
not persuaded.
Q25 Mr Gray: Not entirely persuaded.
You and I were on this Committee together 11 years ago, although
your political career has been rather more successful than mine
in the meantime.
Hilary Benn: Not quite 11 years
ago.
Chairman: We are looking forward to your
consultation on this, to see how it is going to work, particularly
if the livestock industry got the wrong decision and you had to
pick up the pieces. Mr Gray wants to ask you some questions now
about Bluetongue. You will do those very quickly, will you not,
Mr Gray.
Q26 Mr Gray: Very swiftly indeed.
Are you content with the way in which it has been done, you briefly
touched on this question of the two zones, there are difficulties
associated with that. Particularly in my own area, for example,
just outside my constituency, the border goes through the middle
of one farm, the farmer cannot move the animals across the border.
Would it not be better to have a UK wide one or an England wide
one or something like that?
Hilary Benn: On that last point,
this is a genuine dilemma and it goes back to the previous answer
I gave. If you declared the whole of England now, the price you
pay is that the disease may move further and faster than would
otherwise be the case, bearing in mind temperatures are now dropping,
but I think there is a little doubt if you look at the experience
of Europe that it will be back next year. Weighing that against
the benefit that would then flow to those who are locked in by
the Bluetongue control and protection zones. Now, fundamentally,
I think the industry has to try and answer that question because
they are balancing the different interests that they have got.
The stakeholder group with whom we have met so far, and consulted
on this, has said, "Let's try and keep it where it is"
bearing in mind that winter is coming but because of the cases,
and the 20 and the 150 kilometre radius, in effect it has now
taken a great chunk of England in the middle, leaving the North
and the South West out of the zone but we will have to see what
happens in terms of the further development of the cases. We have
at the same time tried to ease some of those restrictions of the
farmers I spoke to and those you represent by getting access to
slaughterhouses in particular. Clearly if a boundary runs right
through the middle of a farm it does not strike me as a terribly
sensible way of doing it and I know that in drawing the boundaries
we have consulted with a stakeholder group, in so far as we have
discretion, keeping within the circles that we have to draw, to
follow more natural or sensible boundaries than just literally
taking a straight line, a curve, which means it is sometimes difficult
for people to know which side of the line they are.
Q27 Mr Gray: Lastly, the vaccine,
what about a Bluetongue vaccine?
Hilary Benn: There are three companies
working away at it. Everybody is very anxious that we should get
a vaccine. I hope it will be available next year, precisely when
I do not know, it depends on how quickly one can be developed
that can be shown to be safe and effective. Then, of course, there
will be great demand for it because of the number of countries
which have been affected by BTV8 Bluetongue but we need to work
very hard to bring one to the market as quickly as possible.
Q28 Chairman: Are these vaccine developments
wholly privately funded?
Hilary Benn: As far as I am aware,
I will let the Committee know if I have got that wrong, yes. There
are three companies, Merial, of course, being one of them and
the names of the other two have escaped me for the moment but
as far as I am aware they are.
Q29 Chairman: The reason I ask is
that there are different types of Bluetongue. I do not know, technically,
whether it is easy or difficult to produce the vaccine. Obviously
Defra is involved in the work, for example, in taking forward
vaccine work on TB but, on the other hand, I wonder if this is
more straight forward. Anyway, perhaps you could come back and
enlighten us in due course?
Hilary Benn: Okay.
Q30 Dan Rogerson: Moving very much
in the manner of your summer from one outbreak to another, Foot
and Mouth. It caused a huge anxiety in terms of restrictions and
obstacles to the industry and great cost to farmers and, indeed,
to the Department. Looking at the source of the recent outbreaks,
as the licensor, regulator and inspector of facilities working
with the virus, was Defra responsible for ensuring that the drainage
on the Pirbright site was fit for purpose? Do you accept that
under the SAPO licences Defra issue it should have ensured that
the drains were up to containing the virus?
Hilary Benn: As I have said to
the House, on two occasions, what happened should not have happened
and we have to understand why it happened and have a better system
in future; that is the first point. Secondly, under the SAPO licence
arrangements, the licensor, in this case Defra, specifies what
has to be achieved and the person who holds the licence has the
responsibility for ensuring that they deliver it. In response
to the very direct question, did that licensing and taking responsibility
arrangement involve having a look see at the state of the drains,
the answer is no it did not. With hindsight, that is one of the
lessons we ought to learn. The other conclusion that I have drawn
is, again with hindsight, it is not a good idea to have a major
customer institution also being the licensor and the regulator.
That is why, having had the HSE and Spratt reports, in establishing
the two reviews, one the BBSRC will lead looking at funding and
governance at IAH, the second one is Bill Callaghan's review which
is going to ask the question, to what extent does the licensing
and regulation and inspection arrangements for category 3 and
4 animal pathogen handling laboratories differ from those for
human pathogens, 1 and 2, what is the right way forward, now I
want to look and see what Bill Callaghan has to say about what
the right way forward is because we need to learn from what has
gone wrong in this case. I am very frank about that.
Q31 Dan Rogerson: The correspondence
published on the Department's website indicates that Defra staff
were aware of the problems with the drains, there was a need for
repairs. Was that information available to those in charge of
inspecting?
Hilary Benn: Do you mean those
who went in and did the annual inspections? I do not know?
Q32 Dan Rogerson: The transfer of
information.
Hilary Benn: Yes, I need to check
on that. The correspondence with Defra was about the replacement
of the drains. We have to be very careful here in how we describe
it. It is not the case that Defra as the licensor and the regulator
knew that the drains were leaking in the way that we discovered
they were leaking, that they were damaged in the way that they
were when the HSE went down and had a look as part of their investigations
in August. That was not the case. Why was Defra written to? Defra
was written to as the licensor and the regulator to be asked,
if we change the system, because we know the drains are old, we
know they need replacement but nobody thought, as far as I have
seen, that they were in the condition that they turned out to
be, had that been the case, well things would have been different,
"Is it all right if we do it in this way". On funding,
I do not know whether we will come on to funding, but you would
not ask your licensor and your regulator to fund works that you
thought were necessary, and I have drawn the parallel with the
HSE, you would not go and ask the HSE for money and Defra was
not asked for money, in that respect, yes.
Q33 Chairman: Secretary of State,
I want to follow up Mr Rogerson's line of enquiry. You said that
Defra were the licensing body and it was Pirbright who had the
duty to comply with the terms of the licence and deliver the requirements
for the safe containment under a SAPO 4 licence but if I take
the provision of a driving licence, I have to go along with a
driving instructor and demonstrate before his very eyes my capability
as being somebody suitable to grant a licence to conduct a motor
vehicle on the highway.
Hilary Benn: Yes.
Q34 Chairman: What you have said
effectively is, we defined the terms, they told us they could
do it so we gave them the licence. If you read the HSE report
you will find that they point out that the requirements for containment
level 4 were not met thus constituting a breach of biosecurity.
I just want to ask you about how detailed the process is that
a licence applicant has to go through before as a Department you
can be satisfied that somebody meets those conditions. It is quite
clear, with the benefit of hindsight, that the systems which were
in place, when the SAPO 4 licence was applied for, were not capable
of providing safe containment under a variety of conditions about
the way in which this site was operated. I note from page 53,
for example, of the HSE report, it says, "A discussion with
the site representatives confirmed that there were no routine
maintenance instructions or testing undertaken within either the
effluent or surface drainage systems. Any maintenance is undertaken
on a reactive basis". What I want to know is against that
background, why did your rigorous licensing policy not tease out
this deficit?
Hilary Benn: The honest answer
is it was a weakness in the system, that is the truth. It was
a weakness in the system. Now you go back to how a SAPO licence
was originally granted, you are going back quite a few years,
and the regulatory system has evolved over time. There is a series
of regular inspections where the inspectors go in and check and
draw things to the attention of those who have got responsibility
but I think in any licensing arrangement you do have that balance
of responsibilities. It is not unique.
Q35 Chairman: Somebody has got to
demonstrate capabilities to meet a licence requirement of safe
containment. Quite clearly that, with the benefit of hindsight,
reality and in fact seemingly the condition of this place when
it got its licence—when was the last SAPO 4 given for Pirbright?
Hilary Benn: The last inspection
was, I think, in December of last year. The other thing we have
to bear in mind is the nature of the layout of the drains because
it is quite important.
Q36 Chairman: No, no, I do not think
it has got anything to do with the layout of the drains, I am
talking about what happened when the licence was granted by the
person or persons who had information from Pirbright. How did
they demonstrate to those giving the licence that they could meet
the requirement for safe containment because the rest of the HSE
Report says that one bit of safe containment, i.e. the drainage
system was found wanting? Surely, before you get a licence you
have to demonstrate that the entity of the Pirbright site and
systems was capable of meeting the licence requirements? You do
not just accept that somebody says, "We can do this",
surely you have to have some evidence. What was the evidence?
Hilary Benn: I was just going
to come on to explain, Chairman, that the layout of the drainage
system and the two part system for inactivating virus is important
here because both the Institute for Animal Health and Merial had
their own activities, obviously Merial produces a much larger
amount of virus than the IAH does. They both had their first stage
procedures. In the case of Merial, we were aware that did not
completely inactivate, that is true. It then went into this pipe
system and there was a second stage. The important thing is the
second stage process which did finally inactivate any remaining
virus so that the effluent which went out into the system was
safe. There was a two part protection, belt and braces, to ensure
this was the case. Now, with hindsight, this bit of pipe work
in effect was part of a high containment system, it was not to
the standard that it should have been, that was a fault of the
system.
Q37 Chairman: Just concluding my
line of questioning, on page 12 of the HSE Report it says, "Before
any licence is issued, Defra inspectors will normally inspect
the facility where the work is intended to be done. A licence
will not be granted until and unless the inspectors are satisfied
that the management facilities and documented operating procedures
comply fully with the standards for the safe containment of the
pathogen concerned". It strikes me that that process was
found wanting?
Hilary Benn: Clearly it did not
work but I come back to the answer I gave to Mr Rogerson earlier.
It is not the case that anybody, either at the Institute for Animal
Health or indeed Defra's licensor and regulator, had any evidence
to believe that the drains were in the state that it turned out
that they were. It is quite important this because some people
have said the drains needed to be replaced because they were old.
Professor Spratt makes the point himself in his report that old
does not necessarily mean unsafe, it depends on the system that
you operate but undoubtedly a weakness that we have now learnt
about at great cost in the system is if a bit of drains is going
to be part of a high containment system—we are now changing
that because Merial will not be allowed to put anything into that
bit of re-lined drain until it has been completely inactivated,
they are going to have to provide now a heat treatment facility,
that is something that we have learnt as a result of this—clearly
any bit of drain that is part of a high containment system ought
to have a way of checking whether in fact it is doing its job
and that was a weakness of the system.
Q38 Mr Cox: Secretary of State, can
we agree on a number of things? The first is that this length
of drain was an essential part of the safety containment of the
disease; correct?
Hilary Benn: It was indeed, yes.
Q39 Mr Cox: The second point is that
Defra knew that the inactivation by citric acid that was applied
by Merial did not fully deal with live virus being flushed down
the drain.
Hilary Benn: Correct.
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