Clause 1 - Foot-and-Mouth Disease

Part of Animal Health Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 9:15 am on 29 November 2001.

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Photo of Ann Winterton Ann Winterton Conservative, Congleton 9:15, 29 November 2001

I am grateful for the hon. Lady's clarification. I was merely quoting from the information that her constituent sent to me, but if Oaklands Park can send its produce for slaughter to two small abattoirs, that is excellent and I wish that it were the case throughout the United Kingdom. We all know how often the big supermarket chains insist on slaughter taking place in a specified slaughterhouse, which is often hundreds of miles from the farm. No one feels happy about that.

The Oaklands Park people went on to comment on the Minister's assertion that the contiguous cull was a success. Their letter states:

``On the contrary the contiguous cull has been shown to be heavy-handed due to unnecessary means to control FMD in the light of international developments in vaccination and blood testing that the Government were aware of in March if not earlier.''

The letter states that the hon. Lady said:

``the Forest of Dean is considered as one premise for the purpose of the contiguous cull'' and asserts that that is an unworkable and unreasonable ruling, given the large area and the diversity of the farming practices that border it. It continues by stating that it was alleged that

``the Forest of Dean suffered 47 confirmed cases.''

This relates to the pets and animal sanctuaries issue—there is little difference because all are animals that could contract foot and mouth; they are parallel arguments. The letter asked:

``How many of these `confirmed cases' were tested, and how many were merely clinically confirmed, later to be shown negative when tests were returned from Pirbright after culling?''

It stated that the national foot and mouth group had been requesting that information from the DEFRA headquarters in Page street since 1 May and still does not have it. Will the Minister look into that?

The letter continues:

``It is possible that the actual number of positive cases in the Forest of Dean, could be minute. This is information that should be in the public domain by now, and its absence begs more questions.''

Diana Organ indicated dissent.