Foot and Mouth Outbreak: The Rural Economy

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 6:45 pm on 20 March 2001.

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Photo of Lord Whitty Lord Whitty Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Transport and the Regions) 6:45, 20 March 2001

My Lords, that last question is impossible to answer. Clearly, the impact is both immediate and longer term. We do not have figures that relate to the knock-on impact of the disease across the whole of the rural and tourist economy. Such figures are not capable of being produced until the crisis is over. It is to be hoped that the job losses will be short term.

The different regimes in England and in Scotland are a consequence of devolution, on which I appreciate that some noble Lords are not particularly keen. Nevertheless, it is important that decisions are taken locally. That means locally by the Scottish authorities, both at national Scottish level, including the Scottish environmental authorities and by the Scottish county and other local authorities. That probably means that there will be slight differences of treatment in different parts of the country. However, the (thankfully so far) relatively small areas of Scotland affected are different topographically and in terms of their agricultural nature from areas in England and therefore one would expect some decisions to be slightly different.

In relation to the Environment Agency, as I have said, we want to speed up the process of decision-making, but that sometimes means that one makes decisions too fast. I am not sure whether it was the Scottish or English Environment Agency to which the noble Earl was referring, but I hope that we can avoid conflicting advice and avoid mistakes. In all these cases speed is important, but it is also important that the decision is robust and meets all the requirements. I hope that people will recognise that, like the MAFF veterinary service, the county and other veterinary services, the Environment Agency is doing its desperate best to ensure that the situation is contained as much as possible. A great deal of work is being done by huge numbers of government people who are working 18 and 20 hours a day in some cases. So we are committed to containing the disease. The package is intended to ensure that the knock-on effects of the disease are minimised as far as possible. Nevertheless, some desperate situations will arise, both in the farming community and in the rest of the rural area. We need to do our best to minimise that.