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Lord Pearson of Rannoch: My Lords, is the Government's mind open to the concept of a full, honest and open public inquiry into this matter? Or is that something the Government will not accept during the Committee stage?
Lord Whitty: My Lords, that is not something the Government will accept during Committee stage. The noble Baroness, Lady Byford, indicated that she has tabled an amendment to that effect, but we have made it clear that we believe the two inquiries will more rapidly establish the lessons to be learnt that are not already apparent. We shall proceed along those lines and take very seriously the outcome of the inquiries. A full quasi-judicial and very legalistic public inquiry would take far too long. There have been a number of examples where public inquiries have led to that kind of delay.
I find it slightly ironic that the people who argue for a public inquiry, which could take years, are the same people who are now arguing that we should delay until one has been held. We need to know the results quickly and we believe that the independent inquiries will give us those results.
The Earl of Onslow: My Lords, will the noble Lord undertake that if the inquiries come up with something which runs contrary to the Bill, and if the Bill has by then become an Act, the Government will immediately introduce an Act repealing those sections of the Bill which have been found by their own inquiry to be inadequate? If he will not give such an undertaking, the case for the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Moran, will be overwhelming.
Lord Whitty: My Lords, we have always said that the inquiries—both the scientific inquiry and the lessons learned inquiry under Dr Anderson—could well lead to recommendations for legislation which is different from the existing Animal Health Act or any amendment to that Act carried during the passage of this Bill. Therefore, if the inquiries recommend that we should legislate on these issues, and the Government accept the recommendation, we shall take the matter very seriously. Therefore, I do not think that that issue arises. The issue is whether the House wishes to deprive the Government of powers which in their judgment the Government consider are wanting for the period between the passage of this Bill and a point at which we can further legislate.
Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer: My Lords, I have asked the Minister this question previously regarding interim recommendations that may be coming forward. The terms of reference for the lessons learned inquiry specifically state:
- "If there are important emerging recommendations that should be passed to the Government sooner, the inquiry will publish interim findings".
Lord Whitty: My Lords, Dr Anderson's inquiry has the ability to bring forward interim recommendations. However, the conduct of that inquiry and whether he wishes to do so is a matter for him; it is not a matter for the Government. It is an independent inquiry and the procedure adopted by Dr Anderson at present does not seem to be leading to interim recommendations. But, as I say, that is a matter for him.
The point that I as a Government Minister have to face—and, frankly, the House has to face—is what powers are available to the Government were a disease, whether foot and mouth or any other, to occur over the coming year or so, which would be the minimum period which would ensue were we to legislate post the outcome of these inquiries.
Baroness Byford: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. Will he define to the House exactly what powers he needs that he does not have?
Lord Whitty: My Lords, that is fairly clear in the Bill. We consider that the Bill does not answer all the questions as to what lessons can be learnt. We do not expect all those lessons to be learnt until we have the full outcome of those inquiries. But we already know what some of those lessons are. Some are now incorporated within the interim contingency plan. But some are also about legislative powers. It is clear to us—in particular in carrying out a contiguous cull, but also in potentially carrying out other strategies to contain diseases, whether vaccination, blood tests, serology or alternative approaches—that we do not have adequate powers of entry or rapid enough powers for enforcing entry in order to contain the disease.
However many specious cases and statistics are raised in the Sunday Telegraph, they are not relevant to this matter. What is clear is that the more rapidly we achieved our targets under the contiguous cull strategy, the more rapidly the disease was contained. That is not to say that there is not an alternative strategy that we might at some stage have to pursue.
The Countess of Mar: My Lords, of course, if you kill all the animals, they will not get the disease. We need to have rational grounds for showing that those animals would have caught the disease. There is absolutely no indication of that. Using DEFRA's own figures, less than 2 per cent of the animals killed in the contiguous cull had the disease—and that even includes the 120 mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke.
Lord Whitty: My Lords, I have tried to explain this matter to the House on numerous occasions. I tried again in response to one of the supplementary questions to the noble Countess's Question the other day. A contiguous cull is to eliminate the spread of a disease. We should not expect the majority of animals, or even a significant minority, to have developed the disease if a contiguous cull is carried out within 48 hours of the disease appearing on the initial farm. Indeed, the more effective the contiguous cull, the lower would be the level of post-mortem tests showing the disease to have spread. If anything, the statistics reported in the Sunday Telegraph, and quoted by the noble Countess, are an indication of the relative success of the contiguous cull. The whole point of a contiguous cull is to ensure that other animals do not die; and the degree to which we achieve success in a contiguous cull reduces the ultimate number of animals that will be exposed to the disease.
The Countess of Mar: My Lords, the noble Lord himself, in relation to the Thirsk outbreak, pointed out that the contiguous cull had been delayed in Thirsk. He said—believe it or not—that it was a matter of luck and the good will of the farmers and other people in the
community who took care with disease control. We do not have the scientific proof that it was the contiguous cull that prevented the spread of the disease.
Lord Whitty: My Lords, the noble Countess completely misinterprets what I said at that time. The point was that, in the Thirsk outbreak, there were a number of delays to the contiguous cull. Where there was delay, there were a number of cases of animals having the disease—within a very few days in some cases. The disease was therefore spreading. At one point, it looked as if it was spreading in the general direction of the south east, towards the intensive pig units of the East Riding. It would have been an utter catastrophe had the disease got into those pig units. In fact, the disease spread in a different direction. When I referred to "luck", it was a matter of luck that the delay in the contiguous cull led to the disease spreading in a northerly direction. Had it spread to the south east, the pig industry and the whole of the East Riding and the East Midlands would have faced utter catastrophe. That was the point I was making.
The fact that we eventually contained the disease did depend to a large degree on the co-operation of the vast majority of farmers. But we are not talking about the vast majority of farmers; we are talking about those very few farmers who, one way or another, delayed the undertaking of the contiguous cull.
Nor am I saying that at some future point, either as a result of the inquiries or as a result of a reassessment of what the correct strategy should be at European level, a different strategy might not be adopted. But, whatever strategy is adopted, whether contiguous cull, vaccination or a mixture of the two, entry to premises will be required. The Bill provides a greater rapidity of access to such premises and greater rights of access. Those are the powers that we currently lack. Were there to be a further outbreak—let us all hope and pray that there is no further outbreak of foot and mouth or any other such virulent disease—the lack of those powers will inhibit the Government.
It would be utterly irresponsible of any Minister in this House—having the hindsight which neither the authors of the Animal Health Act 1981 nor my predecessors at the beginning of the recent epidemic could possibly have had, and knowing that we could have those powers—were he able to persuade the House to agree to them, to sit back and say: "Oh, sorry. Okay, I will take the view of the House and delay pressing for those powers".
I am talking about interim powers in many respects. We need to have the full reports of the inquiries. But those interim powers could be crucial: for the health of our agricultural industry, and possibly, in the case of some exotic diseases that might enter this country, for public health and for human health as well.
I believe that neither the noble Baroness opposite, nor the noble Baroness, Lady Miller of Chilthorne Domer, were they in government, would take a different view from mine. The Government need to
acquire the powers that we know we need in such circumstances. There may be other things that we need.
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