§ 4.0 p.m.
§ LORD BESWICKMy Lords, with the permission of the House I will now repeat the Statement made in another place by the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. It is as follows:
"The Report of the Joint Committee on the Use of Antibiotics in Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Medicine has been laid before Parliament and published to-day. My right honourable friends and I would like to thank the Committee for its detailed and precise analysis of a most complex matter and for its clear findings and recommendations.
"The Committee found that the administration of antibiotics to farm livestock poses certain hazards to human and animal health since it has led to the emergence of strains of bacteria which are resistant to antibiotics. The Committee was satisfied that these hazards can largely be avoided and has put forward a number of recommendations to that end.
"We accept, in general, the Committee's proposals for the control of antibiotics. 1083 "The Committee's principal recommendation is that antibiotics should be classified as either 'feed' or 'therapeutic' and that in future only 'feed' antibiotics should be available without prescription for use in feedingstuffs. The Committee also defines 'feed' antibiotics in a way which will enable us to ensure that hazards to human health cannot arise from their use in feedingstuffs. The use of antibiotics on prescription by the veterinary profession would not be limited. We accept these recommendations.
"As a consequence of its main proposal, the Committee recommends that the use of penicillin and the tetracyclines in feedingstuffs should be prohibited; and that certain other drugs which are now freely available should also be available only on prescription. We also accept these recommendations.
"Some of the Committee's more detailed recommendations and longer-term proposals on research and veterinary epidemiology will need further study.
"The implementation of these recommendations will require consultations. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Social Services and the other Health Ministers will therefore be consulting medical and pharmaceutical interests. I and the other agricultural Minisiters will be consulting veterinary, agricultural and animal feedingstuffs interests. We are proceeding to these consultations immediately".
§ LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORDMy Lords, may I thank the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, for that Statement, and add my personal welcome for the Swann Committee's Report which I had a chance to read briefly this morning? It has been a constant surprise to me that whereas I need a doctor's prescription to buy a few pills of an antibiotic, I can buy hundred-weights of antibiotics for my farm without any control at all. Therefore I welcome the main recommendation here that these antibiotics should be differentiated into those of therapeutic value and those of feed value, and that the former should be supplied on a veterinary prescription only.
1084 There is one point on which I should like the noble Lord's further assurance, and that is with regard to the Report's recommendation, to which the noble Lord referred, about further work in veterinary epidemiology. This is obviously urgent, and as more and more antibiotics come out it will be necessary to put a value on them and to give advice on how they can be used for disease purposes. Would the noble Lord give me a firm assurance that it is the Government's intention to promote this research and make available all necessary resources, especially in the field of veterinary epidemiology where it tends to overlap into human epidemiology, because here there is undoubtedly a field of great danger about which the public is feeling some anxiety?
LORD HENLEYMy Lords, I very much welcome this unanimous and forthright Report, with its clear recommendations on what is in fact a very frightening subject. I notice that the noble Lord, in repeating the Statement, quoted the words "these hazards can largely be avoided." He did not quote other words used by the Committee which say, "and should not therefore be allowed to continue." This is in my view very important indeed, and I wonder what proposals the Government have for going into action immediately. I notice that there are certain things which require further study— and I quite understand that. But before further study takes place, and before further legislation is introduced, it is important that the Government should do something. Furthermore, I hope that they will start consultations internationally. because this matter affects not only our own meatstuffs but what we import.
Lastly, I notice that the Government are to consult other interests. Among other interests is the pharmaceutical industry. The pharmaceutical industry bears a very heavy responsibility in this respect, and I hope that the Government will press the pharmaceutical industry to put its own house in order. I am sure that the pharmaceutical industry is only too aware of this, but there are weaker brethren within any industry, and I hope the Government will make it absolutely certain that it will no longer be possible for drugs to be manufactured in a way that enables the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, to point out that they can be bought by the hundredweight.
§ LORD BESWICKMy Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, and the noble Lord, Lord Henley, for the welcome they have given, both to the Report and, as I understand it, to the Statement made about the Government's reaction to it. The noble Lord, Lord Henley, asked me about the action to be taken. I should have thought that what we are now proposing to do would meet any reasonable requirements. The drugs which will not be allowed are carefully defined, and those which will be allowed, as I stated, will be on the prescription of a veterinary surgeon, a veterinary officer.
I was asked by the noble Lord, Lord Nugent, about the further work that is required. I think that if he looks at pages 53 and 54 of the Report he will see that the recommendations on epidemiology are very wide and very detailed, and that it would not be possible to take action in the immediate future. However, I can give him an assurance that the consultations about the implementation of those recommendations will proceed immediately, and that the Government do take the recommendations very seriously indeed and accept them in principle.
I was asked by the noble Lord, Lord Henley, about imports. He will find it stated in the Report that there is no hazard from imported foodstuffs, but my right honourable friend has indicated in the Statement that a survey will be taken of imported foodstuffs to see whether there is any hazard arising from the residue of the stock feed in which antibiotics may have been given. I think that I have answered all the questions put to me.
§ BARONESS SUMMERSKILLMy Lords, in view of the importance of this Report, and indeed of the whole question to the consumer, may I ask my noble friend whether he will consider giving time for a debate in this House, not only on the findings in this Report but on the whole question of the indiscriminate use of drugs which have been inadequately tested? I feel that the country is very concerned about this matter.
§ LORD BESWICKMy Lords, I accept what my noble friend says about the concern of the country in this matter. It so happens that before Christmas we unusually have a very heavy legislative programme and I do not see any possibility 1086 of a debate before Christmas. But I will certainly see, through the usual channels, what can be done after Christmas. I was asked a further question by the noble Lord, Lord Henley, about the pharmaceutical industry. I am sure that what he has said in that regard will be noted.
THE EARL OF SELKIRKMy Lords, could the noble Lord say whether, as a matter of routine, this information is passed to other countries whose schools of medicine are similar to our own—for instance, to members of the Commonwealth?
§ LORD BESWICKMy Lords, I am not sure whether it is done as a matter of routine, but arrangements will be made to see that this Report is freely available.
§ LORD BALERNOMy Lords, will the Government make arrangements whereby they can discover to what extent antibiotics are put in the feed of animals imported into this country?
§ LORD BESWICKMy Lords, as I said in answer to the noble Lord, Lord Henley, the Report says that so far as the Committee could see there is no hazard arising from this source. Nevertheless, Her Majesty's Government feel that a survey into this matter would be justified.