ROYAL ASSENT. (Hansard, 7 August 1912)

HC Deb 07 August 1912 vol 41 cc3290-8 3290

§ Message to attend the Lords Commissioners.

The House went, and having returned,

§ Mr. SPEAKER reported the Royal Assent to:—

§ Mr. RUNCIMAN
When the interruption took place I was pointing out the great distinction there was between the introduction of animals under ordinary conditions and the introduction of fat animals for immediate slaughter. I fear, from what the right hon. Gentleman said yesterday, he thinks that any restrictions, however severe, are irreconcilable with the introduction of fat animals from any part of Ireland until Ireland itself is certified to be entirely free from disease exactly in the same way as if Ireland were a foreign country. The right hon. Gentleman again to-day emphasised the same view. I am afraid I cannot treat Ireland as though she were a foreign country. She is still an integral part of the United Kingdom, and I cannot undertake to treat her as if she were a foreign country any more than I can treat Scotland as a foreign country.

§ Mr. CHAPLIN
That was not my intention or the view I intended to convey. In the form of a question across the Table it is not always very easy to put in precise 3295 terms exactly what you wish to convey. But the great objection I took to-day was this: When I used the words "a foreign country," I said "from what other country in the world would you admit animals into this country when the port was something like 25 miles from what is still an infected district, and in which you knew the disease had risen, and been concealed for some time."

§ Mr. RUNCIMAN
We should certainly admit animals from Scotland under exactly the same conditions as we are now admitting them from Ireland. It has been done in the past and no exception was taken to it on the other side of the House. On the occasion of the Leith outbreak animals were brought to London by steamer from Grangemouth and other parts of Scotland, and no exception was taken, and I know of no reason why the present safeguards being adequate, it can be suggested that any risk is run by treating Ireland in the same way as Scotland. The right hon. Gentleman suggests that one way of getting over the difficulty would be for the animals to be slaughtered in Ireland and imported here as dead meat. That has been done to some extent. I think he also went on to say that if that could not be done there were a large number of countries from which chilled beef could be got for this country. I do not feel inclined to encourage the importation of foreign meat into this country if, within the British Islands, we can get as much as we require. The whole impression given by the statement made yesterday by the right hon. Gentleman, and the statement he made to-day, is that undue risks are being taken in the administration of the Act as regards the safeguards against disease during the present outbreak. I really think, in justice to the Department, and with the idea of soothing those who may have been alarmed by this statement, I ought to point out how enormously, during the last few years, the administration on this side of the Board's work has improved. The right hon. Gentleman invited me to look back on the past history of epidemics in this country. I had already done so. I went back some twenty years to the time when the right hon. Gentleman himself was, with great popularity, administering the Department. I find that the kind of thing that was then considered quite adequate we to-day should consider quite inadequate. The disease was dis- 3296 covered in 1892 in the London Cattle Market. That, I believe, was early in the morning of February 4th. An Order prohibiting movement out of the district concerned was not issued until two days later, and an order prohibiting markets and sales was not issued until no less than four days later. I think the agriculturists of England ought to know that what was considered safe in 1892 is not considered safe to-day. In a parallel case an outbreak in Surrey occurred among pigs which belonged to a clergyman. Being an honest clergyman, he at once communicated with the police. I think that was on the Friday evening. Communications passed with the police, and on the Saturday morning we had our chief veterinary inspector on the spot. He examined the animals, confirmed the disease, and before 3 o'clock in the afternoon every one of the animals had been slaughtered. That, I venture to say, compares favourably with the four days in the parallel case before the order was issued in 1892. Take the cases of Kent, Cheshire, or anywhere else, and you will find that what the administration then thought adequate provided for delay before the movement of animals was stopped. We have made an enormous step in advance since then.
The next point in which we have greatly improved is the promptitude with which action is taken in resorting to slaughter. It was much less general in 1892 than now. The total number of animals attacked by foot-and-mouth disease in 1892 was 5,200, the total number of diseased animals slaughtered was 586, and the total number of healthy animals slaughtered was 1,409. Now every animal which is found to be suffering from the disease is slaughtered immediately, and a great number of healthy animals which may have been subject to infection are also slaughtered. We have slaughtered during the recent outbreaks 4,600 animals. In that respect promptitude of action of a thorough going kind has very much diminished the spread of the disease. These are three heads under which there has been great improvement over the very period the right hon. Gentleman invited me to cast my mind back. In regard to the restriction of movement, the regulations were much less severe previously than they are now. In 1892 there was no prohibition of movement within the scheduled areas. There was prohibition of movement out of the scheduled areas, or into the immediate vicinity, 3297 except for slaughter. In the scheduled areas animals circulated quite freely. Now we have a stand still Order. If we had not had a stand still Order in operation recently, we should have seen, not sixty outbreaks but hundreds. In that respect also we have vastly improved the administration and screwed up the restrictions. We have succeeded in isolating the disease mainly within two great areas, stretching from Liverpool across to the Humber, and from Cumberland across Northumberland. One or two outbreaks have occurred outside these areas, but we appear to have come to the end of them. I express the hope that during the coming recess we shall have no need to reimpose any of the restrictions which have been relaxed, and that the efforts made to isolate the disease will prove to have been effective.

§ Mr. CHAPLIN
May I be allowed to make a personal explanation in regard to the administration in 1892? I fully admit that the Board of Agriculture has made great advances since then. They have profited by the considerable experience which they have had. But in 1892 it was an entirely new office with a new staff. We were all of us new to the job. The disease at that time was detected in the Metropolitan Cattle Market—one of the most dangerous in which it could have occurred—on the 4th February among Danish Cattle which had been previously exposed in the Market on the 1st of that month. There was a Cabinet that morning, and the news, I remember as well as if it was yesterday, was brought to me there by the Chief Veterinary Inspector about one o'clock. I was at the Office in half an hour afterwards myself, and when the right hon. Gentleman talks of promptitude, speaking from memory, I can say I think with accuracy that all the animals in the London market which had run any risk of contracting the disease were traced and all of them slaughtered. But in spite of this and although the infection (carried no doubt by animals which had left the market before the disease was detected) spread into fifteen or sixteen counties, the country was free again by the middle of June.
In some respects no doubt great improvements have been made, for as I have said we were then only beginning; but seeing that in four months with an entirely new staff we successfully dealt with a task of such magnitude, I hope that for any shortcomings of which we may have been 3298 guilty at that time, though I am not aware of them, we may be leniently judged.

§ Mr. BARNSTON
As an agricultural Member I wish to refer to the activity and energy which the right hon. Gentleman has shown during the last few weeks when we who are agricultural Members must have been a great nuisance to him, but I am disappointed that the right hon. Gentleman seems so to set his face against preventing Irish cattle from coming into this country. The right hon. Gentleman has told us of the great precautions that he has taken, and I am sure that he is doing his best; but at the same time he must admit—though this has nothing to do with him—that there was undoubtedly most lax administration in Ireland, and however great his precautions are there might be cases where disease could very easily spread. The right hon. Gentleman made a great point about disinfecting clothes, but he must know perfectly well that people have been summoned and have gone away without having their clothes disinfected at all. He told us that things have been brighter within the last few days, and of course we are glad to hear that. But I do hope that if we have a renewed outbreak he will not let political or party considerations come into his mind, and that he will not shut his eyes to the necessity of shutting Irish cattle from coming into this country, because his first duty is to protect the cattle here.