HC Deb 21 November 1996 vol 285 cc1094-5
10. Mr. Tony Banks

To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what plans he has to vary current quarantine regulations. [3729]

Mrs. Browning

We are looking again at rabies control policy, taking account of the most recent information. If new moves are decided on, an announcement will be made. I stress that our paramount need is to protect the health of people and animals in this country.

Mr. Banks

Is the Minister aware that the great weight of public opinion and, increasingly, scientific opinion, is moving against the absurd rabies and quarantine regulations in this country? There has been no recorded outbreak of rabies coming from a pet animal anywhere in Europe, ever, yet thousands of animals and pets die in quarantine each year because of all the diseases that they pick up while there from other animals, and the appalling conditions that prevail in many quarantine kennels. Is it true, as was reported in The Sunday Telegraph, that the Prime Minister has asked the Minister to produce a report on the regulations by the end of this month? Is that true, and will he have that report?

Mrs. Browning

I certainly will not comment on reports in the newspapers that are a private matter between the Prime Minister and a Minister. I have made it clear to the House—I shall repeat it for the hon. Gentleman if he did not hear me the first time—that we are looking again at rabies control policy, taking account of the most recent information, which will, of course, include recent scientific information.

Sir Jerry Wiggin

My hon. Friend will be aware that her Department has spent considerable sums over the past few years—or rather more than the past few years—in promoting a fear of rabies in the British population. Will she now consider spending a similar sum in bringing up to date the scientific advice, on not only the veterinary side but the health side, so that the British public can view the matter in a rather different light from mediaeval witchcraft?

Mrs. Browning

My hon. Friend was Chairman of the Agriculture Select Committee, which produced a very useful document, and we promised to keep the policy under review. I assure him, as I have the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks), that all the latest scientific evidence on this subject—some of it is quite recent—will be taken into account as part of the review.

Mr. Pickthall

Has the Minister read the report by the Agriculture Select Committee? If so, she will have noticed that the previous Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food ruled out any change in quarantine regulations before the Select Committee had made its recommendations and reached a conclusion. Is it not time that the Ministry revisited that report? Will she bear it in mind that many of us on that Committee approached the study convinced that quarantine had to remain, but we were convinced of the opposite after we had examined all the evidence?

Mrs. Browning

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will remember that the Select Committee report generated quite a long debate on the Floor of the House in which he and I took part. I can assure him that we shall study the report as part of the review.

Mr. Key

I warmly welcome the cautious but determined way in which the Government are reconsidering this issue. Does my hon. Friend agree that nobody—including me—who advocates change to our quarantine rules is advocating relaxing or slackening the rules? It is quite the reverse. We wish to see a tightening of the regulations, using the latest scientific and technological equipment to eradicate the need for smuggling, which is probably the greatest threat.

Mrs. Browning

I am familiar with my hon. Friend's views. He has made them available to the Ministry on more than one occasion. We hear quite a few reports of smuggling, but the fact that a few people break a rule is not necessarily a reason to abolish that rule.

Mrs. Dunwoody

Will the Minister bear it in mind that anyone who is concerned about human beings does not want a single person in the United Kingdom to die from rabies? The decisions that she takes will have an immediate and important effect, and I know that she will bear that in mind.

Mrs. Browning

I am conscious of the very important point that the hon. Lady mentioned. Indeed, I would go further and say that any proposal that is to be seriously considered must also take into account the fact that, in countries on mainland Europe that have been free of rabies for many years, people bitten or scratched by an animal still must have preventive treatment. For example, 10,000 people in France had to undergo injections as a result of being scratched or bitten by a dog. In the UK, that is not a treatment that people have to endure.