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Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now adjourn during pleasure until 9.2 p.m.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
[The Sitting was suspended from 8.59 to 9.2 p.m.]
Animal Health Bill
House again in Committee on Clause 1.
[Amendment No. 118 not moved.]
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Ampthill): I should tell the Committee that if Amendment No. 119 is agreed to, I cannot call Amendment No. 120 because of pre-emption.
Baroness Byford moved Amendment No. 119:
- Page 1, leave out lines 17 and 18.
The noble Baroness said: This amendment is linked with Amendments Nos. 122 and 123. The clause states in effect that, whenever the Minister "feels a slaughter movement coming on", he can go ahead without paying any attention to whether the animals he wants killed have been exposed to infection.
My reading of the three UK reports leads me to believe that the National Audit Office was less than impressed with the cost-effectiveness of the pre-emptive cull. Anderson and the Royal Society did not in any sense praise it. Anderson commented how much better the Scottish authorities were at implementing their control of the disease. The report from the EU is still awaited, but Commissioner Byrne, in his speech of 12th September, reported that the Commission feels,
- "that emergency vaccination should be moved to the forefront of the response mechanism".
- "must also remain possible as a strategy for reducing the number of susceptible animals in the vicinity of an outbreak".
I now turn to Amendment No. 120. It is obvious that I am in retreat before the weight of numbers of government representatives, particularly in another place. However, I am seriously concerned about the principles involved here. Given that the Government insist on slaughter policies which are totally unrelated to the Title and sub-Title of this part of the Bill, they must be made to exercise these powers reasonably and responsibly.
The cattle we are discussing have not got foot and mouth; they have not been in contact with infected animals nor with people whose lives take them onto infected farms; nor have they ever been exposed to infection under any government definition, but nevertheless the Secretary of State, who sees all things and who must be obeyed, decrees their demise. At the very least, we are asking that the post-killing action should be carried out expeditiously. A delay of more than 48 hours is cruel and inhumane and likely to cause extreme distress to both the owners and obviously the
keepers of the livestock affected. I again refer the Minister to number 60 of the working party recommendations which states that emergency vaccination ought always to be used in cases which make it possible to avoid mass burial or burning on pyres. I beg to move.
Lord Livsey of Talgarth: I refer to Amendment No. 120. I believe that it is very important indeed that animals are buried within the 48-hour period. I am speaking from memory, but if one examines the Northumberland report I believe that the conclusion was that they should be buried very much quicker than that. I believe that it was 12 hours. Perhaps someone will correct me on that.
One matter which was apparent during the recent outbreak was that animals were not buried rapidly enough. I am sure that we all remember that Brigadier Birtwhistle was brought into Cumbria to sort out the problem. I know that it was a very bad outbreak and that there were many cases. Had the outbreak been controlled at the beginning; had the Army been involved at a much earlier stage and in sufficient numbers; and had local contractors also been involved at an earlier stage, I believe that we could have achieved a much better burial rate instead of having many thousands of carcasses lying around the countryside. We must never see such a situation again. I believe that a 48-hour rule is a good start. However, I think that it should be somewhat less than that; in fact, considerably less.
Lord Whitty: The noble Baroness has confused me slightly. As I understand it, she has spoken to Amendments Nos. 119 and 120.
Baroness Byford: I apologise to the Minister. This is my mistake. Some confusion arose because my two colleagues were not here at the restart of proceedings. Amendment No. 120 should be discussed with Amendment No. 121. Therefore, perhaps we can take Amendments Nos. 118 and 119 at this stage, and deal with the other amendments in due course.
Lord Whitty: Amendment No. 119 in part goes over some of the territory we were debating before the dinner break in relation to the word "immaterial" in that it seeks to delete part of subsection (3). The arguments put forward by the noble Baroness suggest that she was indeed thinking of not allowing an extension of the powers to provide for the pre-emptive cull. I simply repeat what I said before dinner; namely, that this does increase the scope. It also reflects a clear recommendation of Anderson that we should clarify and increase the scope in this regard.
If the objection is to the word "immaterial", I have already said that a more mellifluous form of words might be considered. However, the points of principle still apply, as does my commitment to bringing forward an amendment that would include a requirement to produce a slaughter protocol to deal with some of these points in terms of the anxieties expressed.
In relation to Amendment No. 120, which deals with the disposal of carcasses, clearly the objective must be supported. The difficulty about accepting a 48-hour deadline—or, indeed, any other deadline—unless supported by the contingency plan, is that at the height of an epidemic such as the one we witnessed last year, disposal is of a lower priority than slaughter, vaccination, or whatever strategy is adopted. If the logistics meant that we could not meet the disposal target but that was the only target specified in primary legislation, we would be in difficulty as regards deciding the priorities in terms of disease control.
Although I fully support the objective of this amendment—namely, to reduce the time taken to dispose of carcasses—I could not accept the proposal as an overriding commitment when compared with commitments that should be dealt with in the national contingency plan. Therefore, rather than place on the face of the Bill a provision stating that we would deal with it in the contingency plan—
Lord Livsey of Talgarth: I thank the Minister for giving way. The noble Lord has rightly addressed his response to those who are directly involved in tackling the disease. However, there are many capable machine operators in the countryside driving JCBs, and so on, who are not involved in that process. Likewise, Army personnel are not involved in that side of the matter. It seems to me that they could have been deployed at a much earlier stage to tackle that side of the problem—that is to say, the burial of carcasses—while the tackling of infection could have continued at the same time and been accomplished just as rapidly, if not more so, than was the case.
The Countess of Mar: Was it not the publication of pictures of bloated animals with their feet in the air that had such a disastrous effect on our tourism industry? Further, was it not the sight of these animals lying in fields near houses where children lived that had a disastrous effect on the psychology of children and of their parents?
Lord Whitty: The noble Countess is correct to highlight the pyres method of disposal. We have said quite clearly that we would not resort to the use of mass pyres in future. The interim contingency plan clearly states that aim—
The Countess of Mar: I was not talking about the mass pyres; I was talking about the delay in getting rid of the bodies of animals.
Lord Whitty: There are two aspects to the matter; first, how quickly we can dispose of bodies in the height of an epidemic, and, secondly, how rapidly we can gear the logistics to achieving that aim without undermining the efforts regarding disease control. The noble Lord, Lord Livsey, is partially right to say that different people would be carrying out such disposal. However, he is not entirely right. Clearly, some of the support logistics and the allocation of personnel could be very tight, especially in areas like, say, Cumbria,
where the disease was so rife at any given time. In such circumstances, one would have to make a choice between disposal and eradication through slaughter, or prevention through vaccination or pre-emptive cull.For those reasons, I would prefer not to see a target included in the primary legislation, even if we could come up with ones for this and other aspects of the disease eradication programme in the contingency plan. If targets were included, they might be given primacy over other possibly more important aspects of disease control logistics.
Baroness Byford: I am grateful for the Minister's response to the amendment. Obviously, we were anxious about the possibility of carcasses being left to rot or remaining visible as happened during the previous outbreak. The Bill is likely to be changed yet again if vaccination proposals come into being, so it is difficult to push the Government to accept some amendments, given that they may later be altered. On the other hand, tremendous damage was done not only to the farming community but to the entire rural community and the UK as a whole.
As the Minister knows, numerous people cancelled their holiday to Britain because they considered our country to be diseased and did not wish to come here. That had huge financial implications for businesses in the UK. I would have thought that the Government would welcome an amendment that requires them to get rid of carcasses within a 48-hour target. However, I have heard the Minister's comments, and I will give the matter due consideration. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 120 not moved.]
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