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The Countess of Mar: I too have much sympathy with the amendment of the noble Baroness. I wonder whether the matter is not covered in Clause 11, where it states that,
- "A person commits an offence if without lawful authority or excuse ... he knowingly does anything".
Lord Whitty: I do not quite know how to respond to this matter. On the one hand, it is clearly part of the folklore of this disease that staff of MAFF/DEFRA and its contractors were responsible for some spreading of the disease. There is actually no proven case where that happened. The idea that a large proportion of 79 per cent of local spread was down to officials or contractors is nonsense.
Lord Greaves: I am sorry. I was not saying that a large proportion of it was. I am saying that there is
enough anecdotal evidence and evidence from people I trust to indicate that perhaps a small part of it was. That is all I am saying.
Lord Whitty: I thank the noble Lord for clarifying that matter. It is important to recognise that mistakes were made, some corners were undoubtedly cut and some inappropriate people were deployed who probably would not have been had we had a full contingency plan in operation of the kind that we now have. It is also important to recognise that all the staff and contractors of MAFF/DEFRA were under the code of conduct of biosecurity precautions. No doubt there were lapses, but it is not the case that the Government took no responsibility for their staff or other people employed by the organisation.
Nor is it the case that the Bill points the finger to say that it was entirely the farmers' fault. As the noble Countess, Lady Mar, pointed out, where an offence is created under the Act, it affects not a farmer but a person. That may be a person employed directly or indirectly by the department. As she also says, "knowingly" is an important factor, because one might suppose that officials of the department and its agencies would be more knowing than another private person. They could be held under that offence, just as all other animal health offences are not primarily directed at the farmer alone. They may relate to people moving on and off farms, to drivers, dealers and traders, to the markets and so forth. So it is wrong to characterise the Bill or the drafting of animal health legislation generally as blaming farmers.
Government officials and those who work for them are subject to a tight code of conduct and the criminal law, in the same way as anyone else. So singling them out as would the amendment would balance the scales in the opposite direction in an unhelpful way. On behalf of the departmental staff and others employed by us, I accept our responsibility, as much as that of farmers and others, to observe biosecurity provisions and to act within the law as laid down in the Bill and elsewhere. But we do not need a separate provision in the Bill to that effect.
Baroness Byford: I thank all Members of the Committee, including the Minister, for the short debate that we have had on my amendment. The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, is right: there is still great bitterness; the Minister would acknowledge that all is not fully healed from last year.
I had not read into the Bill what the noble Countess, Lady Mar, reads: that it will apply equally to anyone. That was perhaps my oversight, but on the whole the Bill gives the Government—and therefore people within the department—powers to bring someone up for an offence. It had not struck me that they might be bringing one of their own personnel up for an offence, although I know that certain people who worked for the department have been found guilty of committing crime during the outbreak of foot and mouth disease. But that is another matter.
I should like to reconsider the matter. I still think that it would be helpful to have some sort of code of conduct, as it were. The wording of my amendment
may not be quite right. Perhaps it should be headed "Code of conduct" rather than "Officials: biosecurity"; perhaps that would be less abrasive. However, it was intended to be helpful by suggesting that in future we could tighten up and improve performance by both those engaged in farming and those who come to their aid in times of need.The other distinction that I would make is that, on the whole, once an outbreak occurred, farmers did not move onto other people's farms, whereas officials had to. That is their job; they had to go there. Although the Minister did not agree with the analysis of the noble Lord, Lord Greaves—I did not take it that the noble Lord was suggesting that the 70 per cent spread was caused by officials—by the nature of the work with which those officials are involved, they must go into such places; they have no option. That was my reasoning.
The Countess of Mar: Perhaps the noble Baroness would like to know that in my locality, where veterinary surgeons were working for the ministry, if they entered an infected farm they were grounded for seven days. They did not go anywhere else.
Baroness Byford: I indeed understand what the noble Countess says and appreciate that there were clean vets and dirty vets and that they were not allowed to mix. One of the crucial things to come out of our short debate and out of some of our earlier discussions is the need to reach a conclusion on how the spread occurred in so many cases about which there is still uncertainty. I suppose that science will not help us with that. In some cases, we will never know how the spread occurred.
10 p.m.
Lord Livsey of Talgarth: There is one point that has not been raised about the amendment. It says:
- "The Minister, or any persons acting on his behalf".
The Countess of Mar: At a later stage, we could impose a duty on the Minister to ensure that all his contractors understand the need for biosecurity. That would ensure that everybody knew what they were supposed to do. If they deliberately infringed those requirements, they could be punished.
Baroness Byford: I thank everybody who has contributed. I may return with an improved amendment. The Minister and all who help and support him might consider producing an even better amendment. At this stage, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 13 [Prosecutions: time limit]:
Baroness Byford moved Amendment No. 312:
- Page 9, line 31, leave out "an" and insert "any"
The noble Baroness said: This amendment deals with just a typo error. I think that line 31 should say "any", but I may be wrong. I shall allow the Minister to respond. I beg to move.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: Legal proceedings are started in court by laying an information—a document. Changing the phrase would mean that we would lose the specific legal meaning. There has been a misunderstanding behind the laying of the amendment.
Baroness Byford: In that case, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 313 and 314 not moved.]
Baroness Byford moved Amendment No. 315:
- Page 10, line 7, leave out "conclusive" and insert "reasonable"
The noble Baroness said: The Government have been delighted with the amount of reasonableness in the Chamber in the past two days. I understand that the word "conclusive" in this clause means "cannot be challenged".
It is conceivable that a reasonable challenge could be made, especially if the prosecutor is a corporate entity—for example, the Crown Prosecution Service. It is unreasonable that someone accused of an offence should have to cope with delays that are not of his or her making. That could apply to the gathering of sufficient evidence for a prosecution if the prosecutor has given an outline of the case but it takes several weeks or months for the file to be assembled.
How do the Government envisage that prosecutions will be handled? Will the local or regional inspector produce a summary of events, as he or his staff recall them, and hand the matter over to the local police? Will they call in the CPS? Will the department initiate events, call for local evidence and use its own legal staff in local courts? Will it use the CPS? If the CPS is to be involved, has the Minister received adequate evidence that CPS record-keeping is of a sufficient standard to comply with the clause on all occasions and with total accuracy? Is he prepared to share that evidence with the Committee? I beg to move.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: Certification by a magistrate of the date on which evidence was brought to his attention is a well-precedented procedure. If the court were uneasy with the certification of the prosecutor and believed it had been made in bad faith, it would be able to consider the evidence behind it even though it had the status of conclusive proof. Therefore
we need to resist the amendment. In moving the amendment the noble Baroness asked many technical legal questions on which I should prefer to write to her.
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