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Lord Faulkner of Worcester: My Lords, does my noble and learned friend accept that there are two aspects of the strategic plan which are particularly welcome to those of us who care about the future of the railways? The first is the recognition that transport now deserves a much higher priority on the national political stage and that the problems of the railways in particular will have a great deal of attention devoted to them over the coming three or four years. Secondly, this is the first attempt that has been made for many years to plan a railway for growth and expansion. The motive underlying privatisation, and indeed many of the Treasury policies pursued by governments of both parties in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, was to plan for contraction and reducing the level of public subsidy. I particularly welcome the acceptance in the strategic plan and the Statement that the railways will have a larger part to play in the carriage of people and freight in the future.
In congratulating Richard Bowker on his impressive start, I hope that my noble and learned friend will endorse the comment in the foreword:
- "I want to see fewer accountants, fewer lawyers and fewer consultants. Instead I want to see more engineers, more operators, more project managers and especially more young graduates, apprentices and school leavers joining an industry with a future".
Animal Health Bill
Second Reading debate resumed.
5.11 p.m.
Lord Jopling: My Lords, we have heard three excellent speeches in this debate so far, following the Minister's introductory speech. I should like particularly to highlight the outstanding speech of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Hereford, which I felt was enormously full of good sense, with a scholarly smattering of Greek in the middle. My reaction to that speech—I hope that this does not embarrass him too much—is "Hereford for Canterbury". I do not know whether that will happen.
I find this a most unfortunate Bill, but before I deal with it I must declare my interest as a livestock farmer in the region of Thirsk in North Yorkshire, which has been referred to. If it were not for the convention in your Lordships' House on voting against Commons Bills, I would have wished firmly to have helped to vote down the Bill.
I criticise the Bill for seven principal reasons, all of which I shall try to explain. They graphically reflect the Government's incompetence in the wider sense. First, this is a knee-jerk reaction to a serious problem. Secondly, it tackles only part of the problem. Thirdly, it is unco-ordinated. Fourthly, it is mean. Fifthly, it lacks scientific justification. Sixthly, it is arrogant and unfair. Seventhly, over the past year, the whole problem has been presided over by first a Minister and now a Secretary of State who do not command and have not commanded the respect of the farming community and they do not appear to have a grip of the facts.
My first point is that the Bill is a knee-jerk reaction. The NFU has told us—I find this hard to believe—that there was no consultation before its publication. What is called the "lessons learnt" inquiry is only just starting and we have been told at the weekend of a new, separate consultation arrangement. I cannot understand how the Government can bring in such legislation at this stage.
Last March, I was one of the first to demand in your Lordships' House a public inquiry into the whole foot and mouth problem while the outbreak was going on. I suggested at the time that my noble friend Lord Plumb, with all his prestige as a former President of the European Parliament and a former member of the Northumberland committee, would be the ideal person to head that inquiry.
The Government were all very ready to set up a great inquiry into BSE, but they have been strangely quiet and unprepared to set up a similar public inquiry into foot and mouth disease. This has been a massive cover-up of the gross incompetence and mismanagement, which all farmers recognise, of the handling of the tragic outbreak. In spite of all that, to bring forward such draconian powers long before the lessons have been learnt seems clearly to demonstrate a knee-jerk reaction to the problem.
Secondly, I said that the Bill tackles only part of the problem. While some measures may well be needed to amend the 1981 Act—I am in favour of that—some measures are not addressed at all in the Bill. It would allow government officials to enter farms and slaughter animals of any sort whenever they feel like it. However, it does not address the behaviour of government officials when they carry out such work on farms. I shall quote one example, which came to my attention some time ago. It is the case of Mrs Anderson from East Harlsey, near Northallerton in North Yorkshire. This is what she said about the slaughter of cattle on her farm:
- "they started the process of trying to slaughter them at 3 p.m. on Tuesday, there followed 5 hours of chasing them round the field trying to get them into a pen that was way too small in a corner of the field where there are lorries, JCBs and up to ten cars, people and disinfection trucks waiting, with us failing to convince them that if it was done quietly and calmly without all these people around the cows may come near".
- "Finally, 3 cows pushed through the fence onto the road followed in hot pursuit by a slaughterman with a rifle, pointing the gun across the road whilst oncoming traffic are coming down the road as there are not enough army personnel around to stop the traffic".
That shows that the Bill tackles only part of the problem. There have been many similar cases throughout the country over the past year. I heard of another case very close to the one that I have quoted in which some cattle escaped and got into a field of dairy cows. They, too, then had to be slaughtered because of the way in which the cattle were handled.
Surely the Bill should have a provision for a code of practice approved by Parliament by order, to avoid such rodeo-like tragedies when officials go on to farms to slaughter cattle.
My third reason for opposing the Bill is that it is unco-ordinated. The Bill applies only to England and Wales. What happens with regard to Scotland? Will there be parallel legislation? What would happen if we were to get another outbreak that straddled the area between Northumberland and Berwickshire? We saw what happened with the tragic outbreak in Cumbria and Dumfriesshire. There seems to be no co-ordination between England and Wales and the rest of the United Kingdom.
Fourthly, I said that the Bill was mean. Only 75 per cent of the compensation is to be paid to farmers at the outset. The remaining 25 per cent will be payable only if the farmer complies with certain appropriate biosecurity measures. In my view, that is totally the wrong way round. The Bill's drafting does not appreciate that, for a farmer, losing a herd or flock is the most traumatic thing that can happen to him apart from the death of a family member. At a later stage of our consideration, we must re-examine and reverse the proposed arrangement. It is both unsympathetic and, as I said, mean to bully and browbeat farmers in that way.
Fifthly, I said that I feel that the Bill has no scientific basis. However, I shall not dwell on that point as it has been dealt with already in the two admirable speeches by the Front-Benchers.
Sixthly, I said that I believe that the Bill is arrogant and unfair. I say that because the clauses on enforcement allow government officials to apply to a magistrate for a warrant to obtain powers of entry for treatment, slaughter and other functions. Although the Bill provides for the Government to give notice of their intention to apply for a warrant to the occupier of the land or premises, I can find nothing in the Bill that allows a farmer or anyone else affected to be given the name of the magistrate or the time and place at which the sworn evidence will be presented. There is a major need to change the Bill in that respect also, and to include provisions—as I hope that we shall attempt to do—to provide those added details so that a proper appeal can be made.
I thought I heard the Minister say at the beginning of the debate that he felt the Bill strengthens farmers' right to appeal. All I can say to him is that he could have fooled me. I believe that the provisions are both arrogant and unfair.
The seventh and final reason why I oppose the Bill is the way in which Ministers have handled the situation. I opened the previous debate, I believe, in which your Lordships discussed this subject, and I shall not repeat the reasons why I believe that the Ministry has been totally incompetent in the relevant period. Nevertheless, I think that the Ministry was quite unprepared for this outbreak and ignored or forgot the recommendations of the Northumberland committee.
I am concerned about Ministers' behaviour and leadership in this outbreak. Mercifully, most of the Ministers who dealt with the early part of the outbreak seem to have slid out of sight for one reason or another. I exclude the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, from what I am about to say, as I have no evidence to doubt his competence.
The behaviour of Mrs. Beckett seems to demonstrate her total misunderstanding of the situation. In the other place, on Second Reading, when dealing with the situation in the Thirsk area—to which the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, also referred, by which I understood him to be referring to what is described as the "Thirsk blue box"—Mrs. Beckett said:
- "I am someone who tries to use words with great accuracy, and of course such things are never susceptible to 100 per cent. proof. I shall give the hon. Gentleman and the House an example.
- In Thirsk this summer, 55 local appeals were lodged against the contiguous cull. Of the 29 upheld by the divisional veterinary manager, nine cases of infection were subsequently revealed—and that, in turn, triggered additional contiguous culling. In the cases where the appeal had been rejected by the DVM, two also became infected premises. Again, that, in turn, triggered culling on additional farms".—[Official Report, Commons, 12/11/01; col. 577.]
I am a farmer in the Thirsk area—although, mercifully, I was able to avoid infection on my farm—and I know that those remarks caused huge irritation and anger to local farmers. On 14th November, two days after the remarks were made, they were challenged by the local NFU secretary, who wrote to Mrs. Beckett as follows:
- "The result was and continues to be a total loss in confidence in your department and its ability to control Foot and Mouth disease. It should never have even reached Thirsk".
The NFU secretary is still awaiting a reply to that letter.
Worse, on 4th December, I tabled a Question asking for details on the allegations of farmers' obstruction in the Thirsk area. I did not receive a reply to the Question until very recently. The Minister, on behalf of the Secretary of State, said:
- "The 55 appeals that she"—
- "quoted were in the whole of North Yorkshire, rather than in the Thirsk area. The number of appeals upheld by the divisional veterinary manager is 26 and not 29".—[Official Report, 20/12/01; col. WA85.]
That is why I say that I believe that the Secretary of State has not been in touch with the facts. So much, too, for the beginning of Mrs. Beckett's accusations, which I have quoted above, when she said that she is someone who tries to use words with great accuracy. The truth is that, of the appeals that she quoted, in the whole of North Yorkshire, only nine of the 37 parishes in which there were appeals were in the "Thirsk blue box".
I cannot express to your Lordships how infuriated farmers in the Thirsk area have been by this affair, which reflects the Government's sloppy, unco-ordinated, mean, arrogant and unfair approach to the whole business. It has been presided over by a Secretary of State who clearly finds her job far beyond her. I believe that she should resign or, at the very least, apologise for her and her predecessor's incompetence in these matters.
5.28 p.m.
Viscount Bledisloe: My Lords, I agree very much with that stirring speech by the noble Lord, Lord Jopling, both in its substance and in its ringing endorsement of the rousing speech by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Hereford. I, too, must declare an interest, as someone who with his family farms livestock, and does so in an area where we had many cases of foot and mouth very close to us. I approach the Bill from the combined points of view of a lawyer and a farmer.
I wholeheartedly agree with previous speakers in finding the Bill's timing extraordinary. The Government are apparently putting in place what they think is needed to do better next time, but doing so without consultation with the farming bodies or awaiting the benefit of the inquiry that they have appointed. One of those inquiries is called "Learning the Lessons". In my day, one learned one's lessons before attempting to write the answers; the Government seemingly prefer the opposite approach.
The Minister's excuse for the rush is that we might have another emergency. In other words, this is yet another dose of knee-jerk legislation where the Government misuse the excuse of an emergency to give themselves a batch of new draconian powers unjustified by the real risk.
The appearance of the Bill at this stage has to be postulated on the risk of a new outbreak of foot and mouth to be fought with these new powers. But do the Government really believe that if tomorrow there was a new outbreak of foot and mouth, the public, the media, the farmers or, indeed, anyone would actually allow them to embark upon another policy of mass slaughter, more funeral pyres, more piles of carcasses, more ruined lives and heartbreak homes? If the Government really believe that, they are living in Cloud-cuckoo-land.
What is needed are not more powers but proper steps to prevent the import of the disease, as has already been said, and an efficient and effective organisation to deal with a crisis. As the noble Lord, Lord Jopling, has said, MAFF, and its clone, DEFRA, are regarded throughout the farming community as a bunch of disorganised incompetents whose incapacity to cope with a crisis generates a mixture of laughter, contempt and despair. If the Minister thinks that that is extravagant language, I suggest that he visits those at the grassroots to discover whether that is the case.
It is not the fault of DEFRA's staff. They are by training bureaucrats, not fire-fighters. Jeremy Bentham told us many years ago that civil servants are not the right people to deal with emergencies. They will always be more concerned with formalities and paper than with action. What is needed is a small national body solely devoted to crisis management which can step in and take charge of a crisis of any kind without being overcome by the necessity of ensuring that the paperwork is in order. Surely that was demonstrated by the transformation which occurred in Cumbria once a brigadier took over from a civil servant.
The Bill gives amazing powers which it is frightening to entrust to anyone but are wholly unacceptable to entrust to an organisation which has entirely lost the confidence of the rural community. Under subsection (2) of Clause 1 the Minister can order the slaughter of "any animals" if he thinks that that is the way to prevent the spread of foot and mouth. However, the easiest way to prevent the spread of foot and mouth is to slaughter all the animals in the country, then the disease cannot spread. The Government are taking powers which have not been exercised since the days of King Herod. The animals concerned can be wholly unaffected by and not in any way in contact with or exposed to disease. Has it ever occurred to the Government that the veterinary profession may have an ethical objection to slaughter of wholly healthy animals on that kind of scale?
Clause 7 enables an inspector, who, it appears, can be anyone, to require,
- "any person on the premises",
Therefore, I wrote to the Minister and asked his departmental staff to let me know what precedents there were for that kind of provision. This morning I received an impressive letter with a list of no fewer than nine examples which appeared to be convincing and to destroy my point. However, being of a somewhat non-trusting nature, I checked virtually all of the references. None of them is in any way similar to the provisions I am discussing. All they do is require one to give information or access to an inspector whose job it is to see that things are safe or that records are kept. None of them requires one to take action to do the job itself by rounding up animals, holding them or indeed doing the slaughtering oneself. The real answer is that these powers are unprecedented and, unfortunately for the Minister, his department has not got away with pretending that they are not.
Schedule 1 reduces the compensation for every farmer whose animals are slaughtered on premises which were subject to a foot and mouth notice unless and until that farmer proves that nothing had been done or omitted on his farm which might create a significant risk of the spread of foot and mouth. There is no question of whether there was good reason or excuse for his conduct and no question of whether the relevant conduct had anything to do with the actual outbreak. He loses 25 per cent of his compensation if he has not fully obeyed any one of the rules laid down. Is that in accordance with human rights legislation? It is one thing to reduce compensation if the Government can show that your conduct has contributed to your own loss but quite another to say that the Government can seize and kill your property and then refuse to give you proper compensation as you did not do everything they think you should have done, or were not as helpful as the inspector would have liked. The Minister had the gall to describe these provisions as "creating an incentive". Tell that to the farmers.
5.37 p.m.
Baroness Gibson of Market Rasen: My Lords, I support the Bill and the principles behind it. I do not know why but I get the feeling that I may be one of the few to do so. But as a woman who came to your Lordships' House from the male dominated trade union movement, I am used to being in a minority. Overall, I believe the Bill worthy of support. I particularly welcome the section on deliberate infection of animals. I do, however, have a few reservations on the Bill and questions about it to which I shall come later.
I am sad that the Bill is necessary but I have no doubt that it is. Perhaps I should begin by putting it into context. The foot and mouth outbreak last year was the worst there has ever been in the UK and possibly in the world. The history of foot and mouth shows that it occurred regularly in the years up to the 1967 outbreak.
We have been lucky in that we have had 30 years of freedom from the disease, but that does not mean that it will not return quickly. If we do not act and foot and mouth disease returns, the country will be right to place the blame firmly and squarely on Parliament. That is why action is necessary now, not in six or 12 months' time, or even longer. We cannot have it both ways. In the previous outbreak precious time was lost while it was decided whether or not animals had been exposed to foot and mouth disease. Looking back, we can see that even short delays encouraged its spread, and we cannot afford that. People who I met over the Christmas holidays in Lincolnshire in particular but also in rural Essex were frank and forthright in their views about what the Government should do. I could not repeat in your Lordships' House some of the language that their comments were couched in. Their proposals were varied but they all agreed on one thing: that action was needed now, not in six or 12 months' time.
The Bill introduces measures for swifter culling where appropriate. The Government made it very clear that they do not propose to slaughter willy-nilly, as has been suggested by some noble Lords. When introducing the measures in the other place, the Secretary of State, Margaret Beckett, said:
- "I will say quite frankly to . . . the House that I was not enthusiastic about seeking to take these powers, but I have become convinced that they are necessary ... We are mindful of the fact that these are strong powers and should be used, if they are used, only with great caution".—[Official Report, Commons, 12/11/01; col. 576-9.]
The Bill will introduce measures that were, we now see with hindsight, previously lacking and whose absence hampered the response to the earlier outbreak. The measures are needed. The Bill does not commit the Government to just one way of tackling any resurgence of foot and mouth; it broadens the options that are available to them. It states that if culling is to take place, it should be quick and effective. By taking more effective and speedier action, fewer animals will be affected by foot and mouth and therefore fewer will be culled. It will not stop further legislation being taken, if necessary, once the independent inquiry and the consultation process have come to fruition.
The legislation will not be written in tablets of stone. Further, by acting swiftly and decisively, the Government hope to allay the public's natural concerns about foot and mouth—those concerns have not gone away—and bring back confidence to the British meat and dairy industry. That is a responsible attitude that any government should take and which has been called for time and again in this Chamber in our debates on foot and mouth.
It is a good job that herrings are not able to catch foot and mouth disease because there have already been plenty of red herrings swimming around the Bill. Some newspapers went so far as to suggest that following the Bill's implementation even pet goldfish would be under threat. Sometimes one wonders about the mental state of some journalists. Others have made wild claims about the culling of animals. They have talked about indiscriminate culling, including the culling of dogs, horses and pets. Anyone who has studied the disease knows that animals such as dogs and horses are not susceptible to foot and mouth, and the suggestion, obviously, is idiocy.
I remind noble Lords that in Section 87 of the Animal Health Act 1981, the animals that are covered are defined as,
- "(a) cattle, sheep and goats, and
- (b) all other ruminating animals and swine".
Further red herrings concern farmers who took legal action to save stock from slaughter during the outbreak. Some have inferred that the Government may attach some blame to those farmers for spreading foot and mouth. I have not heard the Government claim that the Bill will combat farmers who took legal action but I have heard them say, and repeat, that they recognise that the vast majority of farmers ensure high standards of animal care but that a small minority, through irresponsible actions or an irresponsible approach—either potentially or actually—contributed to the disease's spread. The Bill sends a clear message that irresponsibility must be countered. That is for the sake of the vast majority of caring and responsible farmers and of the country and the countryside. The Bill is not, as has been claimed, only about bad farming; it will protect and assist the good farmer.
It is not just farmers who are affected. The tourist industry, market towns, shopkeepers and many others suffered during the foot and mouth outbreak last year. As so often, the behaviour of a small minority had a detrimental effect on many.
I turn to safeguards and appeals. As always in legislation, there must be safeguards in relation to implementation. I carefully examined the safeguards and appeals procedure. The Bill contains safeguards relating to culling for diseases other than those that have already been identified. It does so, for example, before action can be taken, and affirmative resolution procedures have to be laid before both Houses, which
I welcome. There is also a comprehensive appeal procedure relating to culling, which will be explained to stock owners. If the owner seeks a review of the decision to cull, an assessment will be made by the divisional veterinary manager, who will know the specific local practice and take it into account when determining animals' exposure to disease. That part of the appeal procedure will come into the process. If there is a further dispute, the local JP will be asked to issue a warrant. So far, so good. However, this is where my first reservation occurs. As the Bill is currently drafted, the divisional veterinary manager will be able to give the JP an account of the difficulties that have arisen, but the farmer or owner will not. That disturbs me. As always, justice must be seen to be done, and that approach does not appear to provide a level playing field. I ask my noble friend the Minister to look again at that part of the appeal procedure.I turn to compensation. I have no problem with the logic that lies behind the proposed 75 per cent figure. If a farmer or his or her staff have created a significant risk of spreading foot and mouth, they should be penalised. Again, that is for the sake of all of those who have been scrupulous about their responsibilities. My query concerns those who will advise the Minister about whether or not the 25 per cent additional payment should be paid when the disease risk is being assessed. In Schedule 1, on page 12, the Bill refers to,
- "a person appointed to be an inspector",
As has already been mentioned, the appeals procedure currently appears to be unwieldy. Farmers may need to lodge three separate appeals relating to disease risk assessment, compensation and valuation. That would have to be done when they were facing the traumas of culling, which is an emotional and difficult time for the whole family. Again, that seems to need some form of rationalisation. In turn, enough time must be allowed for the appeals to be lodged.
Finally, like the noble Baroness, Lady Miller of Chilthorne Domer, I wish that the Bill referred to animal movement and—this is an interrelated issue—the need to reintroduce local abattoirs. In my view, the Conservative government's closing of abattoirs undoubtedly added to the spread of foot and mouth.
As I said, the Bill is worthy of support. I have no problems with its presentation—indeed, I welcome it—or with the overall thrust of its contents. I look forward to the Minister's response.
5.49 p.m.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, I start by apologising to your Lordships and, indeed, to the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, for having failed to be present for the first part of the Minister's speech. I regret that I was unexpectedly and inadvertently delayed and unable to be here earlier. Secondly, I declare an interest in that I am engaged in agriculture and have a herd of rare-breed animals.
I was glad to listen to the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Gibson of Market Rasen. I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, must have been even more glad to hear her because so far he has not had many supporters around the Chamber. However, one light did flicker in the background and he must have been grateful for that.
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Hereford expressed the matter well in a scintillating speech when he said that he would love to have given even a qualified welcome to the Bill but could not do so. Everyone understands that the Government wish to take steps against foot and mouth disease. I agree with the remarks of the right reverend Prelate; we all want to see foot and mouth disease curtailed. One can understand that the Government want to curtail it, but I am bound to say that I find the Bill most unacceptable. I view it with concern and horror.
I start with a slightly pedantic point. Why is the Bill called an "animal health" Bill? It is not that at all; it is an animal health (amendment) Bill. It starts by stating in Clause 1(2):
- "In sub-paragraph (1) omit 'and' at the end of paragraph (a), and after paragraph (b) insert"
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