Schedule 1 - Adjusted compensation
Animal Health Bill
4:45 pm
Mr Elliot Morley (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Scunthorpe, Labour)
I certainly hope that it will. That is one of the issues that we want to address as part of the consultation. The 1981 Act includes the following definition of an inspector:
``a person appointed to be an inspector for the purposes of this Act by the Minister or a local authority, and, when used in relation to an officer of the Ministry, includes a veterinary inspector''.
In reality, inspectors would come from a range of people who have the experience and the necessary training to carry out such assessments. That certainly does not rule out local vets. However, the reality is that it is unlikely that local vets would be available in all circumstances. Therefore, we have to rely on our own staff, or, possibly, local authority staff.