Clause 1 - FOOT-AND-MOUTH DISEASE
Animal Health Bill
4:00 pm
Mr Bill Wiggin (Leominster, Conservative)
I am grateful to all hon. Members who have contributed so constructively to the discussion. It was particularly useful to hear the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire suggest that the amendment should apply to sub-paragraph (1A)(b) and (c). That was a tremendous suggestion and I am grateful for it.
The suggestion that carcases could be disposed of by Blue Circle Cement was also interesting. However, the germ of the amendment concerns the 48 hours in which to dispose of carcases, the key point being that disposal should be commensurate with slaughter. If that is not possible, we should move to vaccination. Although my attempts at amending the Bill may have been a little amateur, I took a germ of hope from the Minister's kind response to my first couple of points. I was thinking that I should perhaps take the amendment away and have another go, but I could not possibly do that because it is fundamental to how we all live our lives, how we face our farmers and how our export market is seen internationally. We must grasp the first opportunity to show that we are compassionate, that in legislation there must be hope, and that we recognise that the mass cull must never happen again. I am convinced that we should take the earliest opportunity to include vaccination in the legislation.
Labour Members may be thinking furtively that they would like to vote against my amendment, but I am sure that they will think twice about that; I certainly hope so. When they go to bed at night, perhaps after eating an imported lamb sandwich, and cannot sleep, they may count sheep jumping over a gate, but when they remember that they voted against the opportunity for vaccination, they will count sheep dripping in gore and being loaded into the back of a lorry. Nobody would want to live with that and nobody would want to send themselves into a nightmare sleep. That brings be back to my sweet dreams of one day being a Minister with responsibility for agriculture. I urge Labour Members to support my amendment.
Question put, That the amendment be made:--
The Committee divided: Ayes 5, Noes 11.