Infectious Salmon Anaemia

Part of the debate – in the Scottish Parliament at 2:31 pm on 24 May 2000.

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Photo of John Home Robertson John Home Robertson Labour 2:31, 24 May 2000

Maureen Macmillan raises several questions, some of which are characteristically difficult. That is something which she does rather effectively.

Maureen Macmillan is right about vaccines. I understand that vaccines for ISA are not available at present, and that that virus is particularly difficult to deal with because it mutates continuously. However, a vaccine has been used in Canada with limited success. This change in European law, which hitherto has banned the use of vaccines, will provide an incentive for pharmaceutical companies to take forward work on the development of a vaccine. I understand that such work is already under way, but obviously I cannot say how long that will take. I hope that the more flexible approach to controls will make it possible for fish farmers to insure against the risk in the future, and that the application of the controls will have a less draconian effect because of the considerations that I have been talking about.

Meanwhile, we have put forward the scheme, with funding of £9 million and to be monitored by Highlands and Islands Enterprise, to help farms affected by the controls to restart. We had originally intended to run the restart programme over three years, but because it has taken so long to obtain approval from the European Union— there has been a delay of a year already—we intend to speed things up a bit. I hope to make £5 million available in the current financial year, and £4 million in the subsequent financial year, which will speed up the availability of that money for the farms that have been hit by the existing regulations.