§ 22. Mr. GINNELLasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Agriculture if he will state the average annual cost, including salaries, travelling and other expenses, of the entire veterinary staff of the Hoard of Agriculture and Fisheries; the total cost of the Departmental Committee of Inquiry into foot-and-mouth disease; why the simple experiments made by that Committee, and reported by them to have been futile, were not carried out by the local staff at the place of experiment; and whether the entire veterinary staff still admit ignorance of the disease and inability to prevent or cure it?
§ The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of AGRICULTURE (Sir Harry Verney)The answer to the first part of the question is £48,300. The total expenditure on the Foot-and-Mouth Disease Indian Inquiry, to which I presume the hon. Member refers in the second part of his question, was £2,360 2s. 4d. With regard to the third part of the question, the Government of India were not able to release a sufficient number of their veterinary officers to carry out the experiments, which were not, in the opinion of the Board, simple. The answer to the last part of the question is in the negative.