Schedule 1 - Adjusted compensation
Animal Health Bill
3:00 pm
Mrs Ann Winterton (Congleton, Conservative)
I beg to move amendment No. 27, in page 12, line 16, leave out `B' and insert `A'.
This is a more meaty amendment. Under the terms of the adjusted compensation scheme, and in the case of infected premises, the Bill provides for only 75 per cent. of the value of animals to be paid in compensation to farmers in the first instance. Disease risk assessments are to be made in every IP case. Despite that, Ministers have said on many occasions that they believe only a small minority of farmers failed to meet appropriate biosecurity standards and risked spreading the disease by their action--or, indeed, their inaction.
At best, the Bill would significantly slow down the delivery of full compensation for the majority of farmers. The Minister talked earlier about the balance in the Bill, but I he will appreciate that the balance is quite wrong in this regard. The amendment would address that balance. It would also introduce a resource-intensive regime, whereby state vets would spend substantial amounts of their time, which is a scarce professional resource in the middle of an epidemic, producing disease risk assessments. It is reasonable to suppose that, in most cases, those would merely confirm that the farmer had done everything that he could have reasonably have done, and was therefore entitled to 100 per cent. compensation.
In paragraph 46 of the explanatory notes, it is conceded that additional costs to the Government will result from these arrangements. However, it also says that
``it is not possible to predict these costs with any certainty''.