Schedule 1 - Adjusted compensation
Animal Health Bill
3:45 pm
Mr Elliot Morley (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Scunthorpe, Labour)
The way in which this measure is applied is clearly important. I have made it clear on several occasions that I am not blaming the majority of farmers, who were sensible and responsible in their approach to biosecurity. However, a minority were not sensible, and it does not take many such farmers to spread the disease. That is recognised within the farming community, and I pay tribute to organisations, such as the NFU and Ben Gill, that joined the Department on public platforms to emphasise the need for good biosecurity. We spent a great deal of money sending out to all farmers videos that explained biosecurity measures. The videos were also useful to those who reported the disease, because it helped them identify symptoms.
It is a fact that 80 per cent. of the disease's spread was a function of local spread, which was caused by contact between animals and movement of personnel, vehicles and machinery. Much of that would have been inadvertent, but some of it was the result of irresponsibility, which we know from the blue box restricted zones. I do not want to point at poor North Yorkshire and Cumbria, but we had the blue boxes in place and we have figures on the number of people who were stopped, the number who were cautioned and the number who were prosecuted for poor biosecurity. Although it was a minority, as I keep emphasising, those figures were depressingly high given all the warnings that we gave and the united front that the Department formed with farming organisations to get the message across.
We must therefore consider the majority of farmers who are at risk from the minority, and we take that seriously. I experienced the outbreak from the beginning because I served in MAFF and DEFRA. However, I did not take responsibility for animal health before the general election, although I played a role in the Department. Our officials were in despair. They were working seven days a week on the various committees, including the Disease Emergency Control Centre, the Cabinet Office Briefing Room and the Joint Consultative Committee, with reports coming in on how and why the disease was being spread by a minority of people. That will all come out in the inquiries, because no one has yet heard the views of our officials. That opportunity will come and some of the examples that Members are asking for will be made public. The number of people who are being prosecuted is already public. The figures are available now and I have put them on record in our discussions.
I am not blaming farmers uniquely for the spread of the disease. Other factors were involved, such as vehicles, including milk tankers, although I pay attribute to the dairies. I went to Thirsk where the main co-operative had invested in very sophisticated equipment for cleaning its milk tankers. We worked with the co-operative and put money into an on-board disinfectant system so that each time a tanker went to a farm it could be sprayed with an on-board electric machine. That co-operative took its responsibilities very seriously and I want to put on record my appreciation and recognition of the many people and organisations who worked in partnership with us to deal with the problem.