SHEEP: MOVEMENT AND SLAUGHTER CONTROLS (Hansard, 24 July 1986)

§ The Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Lord Belstead)

My right honourable friends the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and the Secretary of State for Wales are making a new order today under the Food and Environment Protection Act 1985 which will release further areas in South-West Cumbria from restrictions. These further releases, which will free some 280 holdings, 150 with sheep, from controls, are being made in the light of results of continued monitoring.

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The order will retain restrictions on the movement and slaughter of sheep in the remaining areas. These areas will be reduced further as soon as the results of testing reveal a fall in radio-caesium to acceptable levels.

So far as compensation is concerned, the Government recognise that farmers who were prevented by the restrictions from marketing finished lambs at the usual time may have a higher proportion than normal rejected for variable premium because they will have become over-fat by the time they are eventually able to be sold; and that these animals may also attract lower than average prices in the market. Where such losses have been sustained and can be substantiated, the Government will be prepared to meet them. Details of the application procedures will be announced shortly.

The Government also recognise that some farmers could face difficulties if it is found necessary to continue the restrictions to an extent which prevents them from moving store lambs and draft and cull ewes off their holdings at the normal time. We hope that it may prove possible to devise arrangements under which such movements could be permitted, subject to suitable restrictions to ensure that the animals concerned could not enter the food chain until it was wholly safe for them to do so. The farmers' unions have also drawn our attention to the fact that some of the farmers concerned are already being faced with extra expenditure. We shall be holding urgent discussions with the unions about these problems and also about what compensation might be appropriate to cover the direct losses which the farmers concerned may thereby incur.

Parliamentary approval for compensation payments will be sought in Winter Supplementary Estimates for the Class IV Vote 3, Class XVI Vote 1 and Class XII Vote 1. Pending that approval, urgent expenditure will be financed by repayable advances from the Contingencies Fund.

I am placing a map indicating the newly derestricted area in Cumbria, plus the monitoring data available since 10th July, in the Library of the House. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Wales will be making a similar announcement in respect of restrictions in Wales.

I am also placing in the Library of the House the results of monitoring of the aquatic environment in England and Wales since Chernobyl undertaken by the Ministry's Directorate of Fisheries Research, Lowestoft.