HC Deb 25 January 1995 vol 253 cc216-7W
Sir Jerry Wiggin

To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what is his response to the recommendations in the recent Agriculture Select Committee report on health controls on live animal imports.

Mr. Waldegrave

The Government have today laid before Parliament a Command Paper which details its response to the various recommendations in the Agriculture Select Committee report on health controls on live animal imports. This welcomes the Agriculture Select Committee's thorough examination of the health controls which operate for agricultural animals, birds and fish and details our intentions for implementing them. We are also pleased to note the Committee's general endorsement of our current health controls on imported livestock and their recognition that these controls enabled the lifting of routine internal border controls to take place on 1 January 1993 without appreciable increase in the risk of livestock disease entering the United Kingdom.

The Government also welcome the important contribution which the Committee's report has made to the discussion about future policy on rabies. We believe the changes which the Select Committee recommended would be premature before the eradication programme for rabies in the European Union is complete, and while the new import arrangements for traded cats and dogs in the UK, as well as the rules operating in Norway and Sweden which the Select Committee has taken as a model, are novel and unproven. The Government will, however, continue to monitor closely the performance of these new arrangements and the progress being made within the European Union towards the eradication of rabies.