Schedule 1 - Adjusted compensation
Animal Health Bill
3:35 pm
Mr Richard Bacon (South Norfolk, Conservative)
In the light of the warning that my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton did not quite issue to me, I shall be careful to confine my remarks to schedule 1, page 12, line 16 and the issue of compensation. In doing so, I want to refer to the question of trust--the trust that farmers do or do not have in the Department. Many Members on both sides of the Committee would agree that trust is at an all-time low, and the Department needs to do something about it.
I want to cite two examples of farmers' distrust, and indeed fear, of the Department. A pedigree dairy farmer in mid-Devon was told that he faced a contiguous cull because of his proximity to his neighbour's herd. He resisted, because the neighbour said that his cows did not have foot and mouth. He was then told that if he did not allow his herd to be slaughtered, he would not receive compensation in future, and that his neighbour, despite his protestations, definitely had the disease. He asked to wait for test results on his neighbour's stock, but was told that that would not do. He very reluctantly agreed to a contiguous cull, then found out a few weeks later that the neighbour's tests had come back negative.
Another Devon farmer resisted culling for several weeks and reached the point where he was almost the only farmer left in his valley who had not been culled. His cows were still healthy and were inspected by MAFF vets every day. They passed the 21-day threshold, so they fell out of the contiguous culling policy. However, the Department built a pyre for various neighbours' stock, which included stock from infected premises next to his cattle sheds. He therefore applied to the Department for an emergency licence so that he could temporarily move his healthy cattle across the road away from the fumes, heat and smoke from the pyre. The Department refused the licence and the farmer had no choice but to have his cattle slaughtered. The Department told him that he would not be compensated if his cattle got foot and mouth, and he could not face years of health problems in his herd if it were affected.
There are many more examples. I mentioned those two because they are specific cases in which farmers were effectively threatened that they would not get compensation unless they toed the line and behaved as the Department wanted them to. The Bill explicitly assumes that most farmers have done something wrong and that they are, in some sense, guilty or culpable. Perhaps civil service rules do not permit it, but my earlier analogy stands about departmental officials and what should happen to their salaries.
In light of the poor relations between the Minister's Department and farmers, and the extraordinary sweeping powers in clause 1 and the clauses on enforcement to which we shall come, there are probably few clauses in the Bill that could be amended so simply. The Minister could obtain more credibility in farmers' eyes by addressing in their favour the question of compensation. He should make it clear that the vast majority of farmers are trying to do the right thing, to be honest and to abide by the law. No one will have a problem with taking severe action against the minority of farmers who do not act in the right way, but that does not apply to the vast majority.
There is huge distrust between farmers and the Department, and it is time that the Minister and his Department recognised that. Accepting the amendment would be an excellent way to make a gesture in the right direction after years of mistrust.