Schedule 1 - Adjusted compensation
Animal Health Bill
3:15 pm
Mrs Angela Browning (Tiverton and Honiton, Conservative)
I wish to add one or two points to those made by my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton. The 25 per cent. reduction will apply not just to the owners of animals on infected premises, but to people who will be eligible for compensation because they own the animals but their animals are on someone else's premises for good reasons. As we saw frequently during the foot and mouth outbreak, many lambs are overwintered in lowland areas. That is common practice at the time of year when the foot and mouth outbreak struck. Pigs that go to fattening units are not necessarily all owned by the same farmer. It is common practice for farmers who own animals and would be entitled to compensation to send their animals to someone else's farm in good faith. The provision is unfair to that group of farmers in particular. Farmers who send lambs to be overwintered elsewhere have the choice of where to send them, but it is unlikely that they could carry out a full biosecurity check of the farm that they choose. We all recognise good and bad practice in general terms, but it puts an onus on farmers that they have not had to consider in the past.
For those reasons, and those outlined by my hon. Friends, the Minister should consider the amendment. He is rightly concerned about biosecurity, but I agree with comments from both sides of the House on Second Reading that it is wrong to assume automatically that a breakdown in biosecurity comes only from farmers--
Sitting suspended for a Division in the House.
On resuming--