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LORD STRACHIE rose to draw attention to Order No. 4420 of the Ministry of Agriculture which provides that offals fed to animals shall be boiled on the farm instead of providing that such offals shall be sterilized before being sold. The noble Lord said: My Lords, the subject to which I want to draw the attention of the House has reference to the Order issued lately by the Ministry of Agriculture. I hold it in my hand, and as it is very short I will read it to the House. It is as follows:—
Every person having in his possession or under his charge:—
which are intended to be fed to animals shall cause all such foodstuffs to be boiled for at least one hour before they are brought into contact with or fed to animals.
There really is a little difficulty in that Order. It is not quite certain what is the proper interpretation of it, because it might mean that the stuff had to be sterilised at the source, and not after being brought on to the farms.
§ I have the advantage of knowing, from what the noble, Lord, the Parliamentary 384 Secretary of the Ministry, said the other day to the council of the Agriculture Society, what it means. The interpretation which is put upon it by the Ministry is that the stuff has to be sterilised after it has been brought on to the farm. That is their intention. I ask the noble Lord now to consider very carefully whether what he proposes under this Order is really going to be of advantage in protecting our flocks and herds from foot-and-mouth disease, because it has been laid down by the important Committee on Foot-and-Mouth Disease that infection can be brought, and has been proved to be brought, by fresh carcases imported into this country. I shall have something to say presently about frozen or chilled carcases. Now, that having once been admitted, I cannot understand why this Order does not at once deal with the source of infection when it is detected, and why the foodstuff should not be sterilised there before it is distributed throughout the country. The noble Lord will remember that a very important member of the council of the Royal Agricultural Society pointed out that a great many farmers have not the means for properly sterilising swills and offals. It is ridiculous to think that smallholders would be able to sterilise them. I may be told that these offals will not go to these farms, but that is not the point. It is very much better to lock the door against any means of infection.
§ There is another point to remember. You must have some sort of supervision, to see that these offals and swills are properly sterilised. It is much easier for that, supervision to take place at a few big hotels and eating houses than at every single farm in the country. It may be that this Government likes creating officials. We all know how many officials were created under the Coalition Government, which was practically a Conservative Government, though it had a Radical at the head of it. But what would happen under this Order? If you had this inspection made on the farms you would have to increase the number of officials. Therefore, on the ground of economy it is desirable to have it done at the source. I should like to refer to the very interesting Report on Research, brought out the other day, which makes it quite clear—what has not been known in the past—that the microbe of foot-and-mouth disease, which is, of course, 385 still undiscovered, has great powers of life, because, as the Report states, the blood taken from chilled carcases is infected for thirty or forty days, and the marrow has been found to be infected for seventy-six days. The risk, therefore, is very great indeed if any of this stuff coming from abroad is not properly sterilised before it gets to the farms.
§ I hope that more attention will be paid to this matter by the Ministry, and that in future we shall not be told, as we have been told by the Ministry, that birds coming from the Continent are a possible source of infection. I have always contested that, and I am perfectly certain I am right, for the very good reason that during the War, when free communication with France was interrupted, there were no cases of foot-and-mouth disease, although birds were coming all the time. I am perfectly well aware that my noble friend is probably not in a position to give me any definite answer to-day, nor do I wish him to do so. All I would urge upon him is not to answer me with a non possumus. I would ask him carefully to consider this question, and to represent the views of agriculturists at the Ministry, because they are not at all satisfied with the Orders as they stand at the present moment. This country is very free of foot-and-mouth disease at the present time, but it is always a danger hanging over us, and in certain areas farmers are simply haunted by the idea of having a recurrence of these dreadful outbreaks, such as we had in Cheshire. I hope, therefore, that the noble Lord will represent to the Ministry the views of agriculturists, knowing, as he does quite well, that when this question was raised at the council of the Royal Agricultural Society only objections were raised to his Order, and not one word said in favour of it.
§ THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY OF THE MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES (LORD BLEDISLOE)My Lords, as regards the last sentence of the noble Lord's speech, the proceedings at meetings of the council of the Royal Agricultural Society, as the noble Lord is aware, are always very brief, and, although I believe he is right in saying that there were no arguments advanced, except possibly by myself, as against the contention which he put before the council of that body, there was, if my 386 memory serves me aright, no large number of persons who supported his view. But I told him then that I myself was quite open to be persuaded, and that I would explore the whole position before he raised it in your Lordships' House, and that I have done.
But may I first of all deal with that part of his speech which had reference to the unknown origin of foot-and-mouth disease coming into this country. We have clearly established—and it means that we have travelled a long way—at any rate one important source of contagion brought from abroad in connection with foot-and-mouth disease; but I should not like to take the responsibility, and I am quite sure the Foot-and-Mouth Disease Research Committee, now sitting at the Lister Institute, would not take the responsibility, of saying that this was either the sole or even the main source of contagion. All we know is that we have blocked up one channel by which obviously this disease has been coming into this country for some time past. Beyond that we are not prepared to go Whether this micro-organism is brought on the feet of birds or by other means. I think it would be very rash in the present light of scientific knowledge for any of us to speak pontifically.
But as regards the particular criticism which the noble Lord has made with reference to this Order, which, as he rightly says, was founded upon this very interesting Report—which is called the Second Progress Report of the Foot-and-Mouth Disease Research Committee—we think, and we have some reason for thinking, that the Order would be much easier to enforce, and involve far fewer officials, to whom my noble friend rightly objects, if the boiling which is provided for in the Order took place where the animals are fed, and not at, the source of supply. May I remind your Lordships that this offal—I think the noble Lord described it as offal, but of course it includes anything that ultimately becomes what is called "swill"—is derived from several different sources, and travels in many different directions. In other words, the fat and the bones and the waste meat do not all become animal food. A good deal of the bone is converted into buttons; a very large proportion of it, and also some of the meat waste, is converted into 387 manure; some of it, is converted into gelatine and other similar commodities. A very large proportion of the fat is used for soap boiling. Your Lordships are aware that soap is a glyceride of a fatty acid, and animal fat is very largely the basis of these fatty acids.
Let me ask the noble Lord whether he could picture the sort of hotel he has in mind, say the Carlton, or the Savoy Hotel in London, starting to boil fat and other similar offals. Even if it were possible under the restrictive covenants under which they hold their leases—under which it is probably out of the question—would not all their neighbours very strongly protest against any such noisome or noxious process? At any rate it is obviously impossible to deal with it there. But whether it be a hotel or a butcher that has to deal with this stuff, quite admittedly what is called animal protein is a foodstuff the value of which is being recognised every year as a source of useful food for pigs and other live stock. But it is comparatively worthless stuff, and if you are going to put those restrictions upon the supplier I venture to suggest that it will not be forthcoming and will not be available for many of the poorer pig-feeders who utilise it at the present time.
I told the noble Lord quite frankly when he raised this question at the council of the Royal Agricultural Society that I thought, to use an expression that has just fallen from the noble Earl behind me, it was "a distinctly debatable point" but on further exploration of the 388 matter by the Ministry I am quite convinced that the Order would be less easy to enforce and would operate as a hardship upon the pig-feeder rather than be a benefit if his suggestion were adopted. After all, it is the pig-feeder who gets the benefit. First of all, he avoids having tainted or disease-affected food upon his premises which may spread foot-and-mouth disease. He avoids the risk of his premises being scheduled as infected premises and subjected to all the restrictions that follow upon an outbreak of the disease. I hope, after the explanation I have given the noble Lord, that he will not press the matter further. I can assure him that I have explored it in the best interests of that class in which we are both so deeply interested.