HL Deb 05 December 1967 vol 287 cc526-9

2.45 p.m.

LORD WISE

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.

[The Question was as follows:

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether a different method can now be tried to eradicate foot-and-mouth disease with a view to cutting down the wasteful slaughter of animals which are free from the disease, can be kept under observation, and may never contract it.]

LORD BESWICK

My Lords, foot-and-mouth disease is one of the most infectious diseases found in animals and will spread rapidly to contact animals, and it is therefore necessary to slaughter both affected animals and the contacts as soon as possible, in order to prevent the build up of infection within the herd and so minimise the risk of spread to contiguous herds. The control of foot-and-mouth disease was last examined by the Departmental Committee on Foot-and-Mouth Disease, 1952–54. This Committee recommended, on economic grounds, that the slaughter policy should be continued. My right honourable friend has recently reaffirmed his belief in this policy and his intention to stamp out the present epidemic by slaughter, but has announced his arrangements for a supply of vaccine for use as a second line of defence should this become inevitable.

BARONESS SUMMERSKILL

My Lords, in view of what my noble friend has said, would he not agree that the great tragedy here is the slaughter of the healthy animals? Since, as so far, nothing which has been tried has been successful, why should we not try removing the healthy contacts, giving them a vaccine, isolating them and keeping them under strict supervision?

LORD BESWICK

My Lords, it is conceivable that my noble friend who put down the Question in the first place wished to advance a somewhat similar point of view. But the fact is, as I have said, that it is impossible to say that the contacts are not infected. There is an incubation period of up to ten days. If one allows that period to expire before deciding whether one has to slaughter, the viruses multiply and the risk of infection has been widely spread.

BARONESS SUMMERSKILL

My Lords, would my noble friend agree that, as everything has so far failed, we should try giving the vaccine to a limited number of healthy animals and to isolate them under strict supervision? Why not try?

LORD BESWICK

My Lords, I respect the opinion of my noble friend, but I respect even more the letter recently published in The Times from the President of The Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons and the Vice-President of the British Veterinary Association in which they compliment my right honourable friend the Minister of Agriculture on his activities, and ask that this policy should be pursued with the maximum amount of public support.

LORD SALTOUN

My Lords, may I ask Her Majesty's Government whether the highly infectious nature of this disease is not due to the policy of slaughter that has been followed for the past fifty years?

LORD BESWICK

What I think we want to do is to get back to the position when this country was free of foot-and-mouth disease. It is quite impossible to guarantee complete freedom once one has recourse to a policy of vaccination.

BARONESS EMMET OF AMBERLEY

My Lords, will the Minister please say why the Government have changed their policy of giving us two or three bulletins a day, and provide only one, which, under present conditions, seems insufficient?

LORD BESWICK

My Lords, I am afraid I cannot answer that. I suspect it is because those of my right honourable friend's staff who are concerned in this matter are very active indeed in trying to stamp out the disease.

LORD WISE

My Lords, at last I am able to put a supplementary question. Before I do that, I want to say that my sympathy goes out to the Minister in the serious situation which has arisen. I would ask him quite plainly, straight away to consider another way of dealing with the outbreak. At the moment it seems only a question of slaughter and possibly vaccination. Is the Minister aware that it is possible to cure the disease, as was customary in my early farming days, by a simple method of isolation, clean bedding, care and attention and the application of Stockholm tar, disinfectant, ground rock-salt and home-made soft soap?

Why cannot the Minister stop this wholesale and seemingly futile slaughter of healthy animals, which, if the present rate goes on, may extend throughout the whole of the herds of Britain, and, if and when new cases arise, undertake an experiment on the lines I have suggested? It cannot make matters worse. A comparative examination of results might prove that I am right and he is wrong, and in that event we should have saved thousands of healthy, innocent animals and staved off the ruin of many farmers.

LORD BESWICK

My Lords, perhaps I may quote one extract from the letter to which I referred earlier—it was published last Friday—in which the joint signatories say: Everyone is disappointed that after comparative freedom from foot-and-mouth disease in recent years up to 1966—indeed complete freedom in 1963 and 1964—this major epidemic has arisen. Nevertheless official farming circles are fully in agreement with the policy which is being followed and the whole veterinary profession is behind it. One respects the views of those like my noble friend Lord Wise, and others who, I have noticed, have written to the Press and who speak of old-fashioned remedies. But this matter has been considered very carefully by those most qualified to go into it, and their advice is to stick to the policy of slaughter, at any rate for the time being.

LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD

My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that as Chairman of the Animal Virus Research Station I felt a little inhibited from joining in these questionings? Is the noble Lord aware that in the minds of most people in the farming world and, I think, most people in the scientific world there can be no doubt that the statement he has just made is the right one? There now appears to be a fair prospect of the slaughter policy succeeding, and if that is so it is the best thing we could achieve. The right thing to do is to take a look at the whole policy after we have finished.

LORD BESWICK

My Lords, I am much obliged to the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, for what he has said.

THE EARL OF LONGFORD

My Lords, I think that we have reached a point where if noble Lords wish to pursue this subject they will probably wish to do it in some other way. I know that there is no subject which in recent times has caused more understandable feeling than this, but we are going a long way beyond our usual limit for questions.