Clause 1 - FOOT-AND-MOUTH DISEASE
Animal Health Bill
2:30 pm
Mr Elliot Morley (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Scunthorpe, Labour)
Thank you, Mr. Conway. I am pleased to see you in the Chair for this sitting, and look forward to your guidance of the Committee.
To recap briefly on my remarks on amendment No. 86, the principles in it involve taking into account the risks with animals not carrying foot and mouth disease, animals that have not been exposed to the disease and animals that have been kept indoors since the day before the outbreak was first announced. Those are legitimate issues that vets on the ground would take into account in their risk assessments in any culling programme or contiguous cull.
It would not make sense to include that in the Bill because it would put an undue burden on the Government to demonstrate that animals did not fall into any of those categories before the cull took place. That would give great opportunity to anyone who wished to, to delay proceedings. The whole idea is to ensure that culls are carried out as quickly as possible. Those aspects, as part of a risk assessment, are perfectly reasonable and there is no reason why our veterinary service cannot take them into account, as it currently does.