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Lord Livsey of Talgarth: What are the Government doing about creating more rendering capacity and siting that rendering capacity nearer to where livestock exists to speed up the whole process? What work has been done in that regard?
Lord Whitty: We are discussing with the rendering industry how capacity could be made available urgently and on what terms; likewise with landfill operators. Instead of having to negotiate contracts from scratch, as we were effectively doing during the previous epidemic—running to stand still—this
arrangement would be in place as part of the contingency plan in advance of any future disease. The noble Lord was right to suggest that rendering capacity is finite. Nevertheless, we should have the ability to maximise capacity this time, which we did not have previously.
Baroness Byford: I thank the Minister for his response. He did not respond to Amendment No. 268, which involved the alternative of using a vaccine.
Lord Whitty: The requirement to vaccinate if disposal capacity was insufficient could compromise other efforts. Vaccination in general must be part of a planned priority list of where we would vaccinate, whereas this approach appears to envisage that we should give priority to vaccination when disposal capacity is inadequate to meet the 48-hour target. I know that that is covered by a separate amendment but the strategy appears to be: "If you cannot meet the 48-hour requirement, vaccinate to slow down the disposal rate". In fact, vaccination and the logistics of vaccination need to be directed at the priority areas in order to stop the disease spreading. That would imply a priority to help out in relation to the disposal side, which again is the wrong priority at the height of a disease.
Baroness Byford: I thank the Minister for that but I do not necessarily follow his argument. I shall come back on a couple of issues.
In relation to Amendment No. 121, I accept that notices are required to be and will be given. On the proposal that no slaughter should take place within 24 hours, I accept what the Minister says. However, there is a major concern about the question of a challenge, which, as the Minister knows, happened last time. There may be provisions in the Bill that I have missed that allow for the possibility of that challenge without slaughter having taken place first; in other words, if someone wanted to make a challenge, he could do so in relation to testing. That might overcome the issue. My understanding is that there is no such proposal in the Bill. I am not absolutely convinced in relation to Amendment No. 121.
On Amendment No. 131, I accept that there may be circumstances in which carcasses cannot be removed or buried or that disposal cannot take place within 48 hours. The noble Lord, Lord Livsey, touched on rendering. Have the Government set themselves any targets about how they would bring in or make available such a system and geographically where would it be? Will animals be trundled around, as they were last time, from pillar to post to reach rendering sites? I accept that the Government have decided that burning and burial are last resorts. They were first resorts last time. However, big questions remain. We still do not quite know how the system will cope if a large number of animals are killed next time. I am still concerned in that regard.
If animals have to wait for disposal for more than 48 hours and are going to rendering, is the idea still that they will be left on the farm where they have been destroyed and that they will not be moved off that farm to another place before going to rendering?
I believe that part of the cause of the problems and the great distress which occurred during the previous outbreak was the fact that families saw their animals lying dead for days and days. I was going to say "weeks"; that is perhaps a little unkind, but I believe that in one or two cases the animals may well have been left lying for a week. In responding to these amendments, I wonder whether the Government had considered moving the animals to a designated place if a delay were to occur before rendering could take place. Perhaps the Minister will answer that point.
Finally, I turn to the question of vaccination and the hope that vaccination rather than cull will be used as the first resort. Where a real outbreak of the disease is seen to occur, would it not be sensible for animals to be vaccinated in order to ease back on the pressures on the Government in disposing of the animals? Although the Minister did not agree with me, I cannot see a reason for not accepting the logic of that argument. He seemed to indicate that the vaccines might be needed elsewhere—perhaps in another attempt to control the cull. But I should hope that there would be sufficient vaccine to cope with any such emergency in the future. I do not see why the two should be in opposition; they could be used together. I wonder whether the Minister slightly misunderstood my argument in relation to Amendment No. 268 and thereby suggested that it was not necessary. Perhaps he will kindly clarify that point.
Lord Whitty: I shall attempt to do so. I was making the point that Amendment No. 268 would put on to the face of the Bill an area in which vaccine should be used but which would not necessarily be the priority area if one was engaged in a strategy which primarily relied on vaccination. It suggests that vaccination should be used where difficulties are experienced with disposal, whereas the disease control priorities might be in an entirely different part of the county or country. That is why I would not want vaccination to be prioritised in that sense. I am not saying that we should not use vaccination to slow down disposal requirements; I am saying that we should not give priority to it.
As to Amendment No. 131 concerning whether there would be an intermediate step between farm slaughter and rendering, I believe that the general answer to that would probably be "no". There is difficulty enough in creating burial and other mass sites. Ideally one would go straight from the farm to rendering as rapidly as possible. However, I was querying whether we could always do so within 48 hours. There is no built-in half-way house because of the lack of rendering capacity.
Of course, it must be borne in mind that during the last few months of the outbreak of the disease, even with the rather inadequate arrangements that were in
place with rendering companies at that time, the rendering capacity was capable of dealing with the throughput. Only at the height of the disease was a problem experienced. If we consider the hierarchy, I do not believe that we are often left with significant problems on the farms. However, there may be particular areas where a temporary problem occurs.
The Countess of Mar: Before the noble Lord sits down, I am a little puzzled. There is an urgency behind the Bill. The Minister has stressed that since January, although we are now in October. Yet he says to the noble Lord, Lord Livsey, that the Government have still not sorted out the rendering capacity in case of another outbreak of foot and mouth disease. It is now 18 months or more since the last outbreak began. Yet we still do not have something as important as this in place when rendering is the prime means of disposing of the carcasses. Is it not time that someone pulled their socks up?
Lord Whitty: I do not believe that I said to the noble Lord, Lord Livsey, that we had nothing in place. I said that I could not say which plant would be the designated rendering plant at the time. However, we have discussed with the rendering and landfill industries the terms on which their premises would become available were an emergency to arise. They would become available immediately, and we would not have to engage in the often quite difficult contractual relationships experienced on the previous occasion. So there is an understanding with the industry. However, I cannot say which rendering plants would deal with a volume of carcasses from a given county. We have to play it by ear, but the understanding is there and the contractual arrangements can be triggered.
9.45 p.m.
The Earl of Onslow: On the Clonmel principle that we would not be starting from here if there is another outbreak due to the acceptance of vaccinations, and the principle thereof, I hope that we shall never have to slaughter that number of animals. The argument is about how we dealt with last year's outbreak as opposed to how we deal with an outbreak the next time around. No one in their right mind would do what happened last time. We shall vaccinate, vaccinate, vaccinate. Everyone will say that we knew that all along. We were in favour of the exchange rate mechanism until we came out of it; it is that syndrome. I suspect that the rendering argument is slightly arcane and slightly unnecessary simply on the grounds that it will not arise because we will vaccinate and will not have to slaughter however many millions of animals. That is probably not very helpful.
Baroness Byford: The intervention of my noble friend Lord Onslow, useful or not, brings us back to where we started today. We are dealing with a Bill that was out of date before we started to discuss it, which shows the nightmare that we are in. Over many weeks and months we have had to prepare our amendments
on the assumption that the Bill is as it stands. We now find ourselves in a totally different scenario and it is difficult to argue the case for something that would be applicable to what we have in front of us when we should be talking about something to the side of us. I hope that I am not the only one who finds this experience very difficult. Having said that, I beg leave to withdraw Amendment No. 121.Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 122 and 123 not moved.]
Clause 1, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 2 [Extension of power to slaughter]:
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