HC Deb 20 November 1967 vol 754 c254W
Mr. Biffen

asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what was the estimated annual expenditure of public funds on research into foot-and-mouth disease during each of the past five years.

Mr. Gordon Walker

Research on foot-and-mouth disease is concentrated at the Animal Virus Reseach Institute, Pirbright, where it constitutes approximately three-quarters of the work of that Institute. The grants from the Agricultural Research Council to the Institute for the last five financial years have been as follows:

Year Total
1962/63 536,587
1963/64 248,863
1964/65 390,462
1965/66 499,379
1966/67 522,821
Net expenditure and hence the size of grant needed varies with variations in revenue from the sale of vaccines overseas, which in turn depends on outbreaks of the disease overseas.