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European Standing
Committee A
Wednesday 21 May 2003
[Mr. David Amess in the Chair]
Control of Foot and Mouth Disease
[Relevant Document: European Union Document No. 15831/02.]
2 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr. Elliot Morley): How nice it is to see you in the Chair, Mr. Amess, especially as you have a long-standing interest in a range of animal welfare issues, which is recognised and acknowledged in the House. It is also nice to see the hon. Member for Leominster (Mr. Wiggin), who is speaking for the Opposition. That is a new experience for him, so I welcome him to the Committee.
I do not intend to say much as hon. Members will want the opportunity to ask questions about the draft directive. It might, however, be useful if I briefly outline its main points. That might give Committee members an opportunity to concentrate on particular issues.
The draft directive deals with the control of foot and mouth disease. It sets a framework for all member states in dealing with outbreaks in their own countries; it takes into account scientific developments from 2001 and it recognises our experience at that time in dealing with the world's biggest outbreak of foot and mouth disease. The shape and nature of that outbreak rendered just about all contingency plans in all countries obsolete. It was therefore appropriate that we had to revise and update our own contingency arrangements; it was also right that the EU could not ignore our experiences and their implications for the whole of the European Union. Indeed, I should mention the experiences of Holland in particular and also France, where there were more limited outbreaks.
The draft directive takes on board many of the recommendations made during the United Kingdom inquiries, which we warmly welcomed on behalf of the Government and the European Parliament temporary committee of inquiry report. It provides for the EU to retain its internationally recognised Office International des Epizooties status of being
''free from foot and mouth disease without vaccination'',
which is important to trade; it rejects a return to prophylactic routine annual vaccination, which existed in many parts of Europe and is considered undesirable for various reasons; and it also retains the basic approach of eradicating foot and mouth in the initial outbreaks by ''stamping out'', which involves culling the infected animals and animals with which they are suspected of having been in contact. That approach gives greater prominence to emergency vaccination, which we have already acknowledged in our own contingency arrangements by moving the trigger for vaccination up the decision tree, and it takes into
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account the range of circumstances in which vaccination may need to be used.
The draft directive also requires arrangements to be in place for emergency vaccination; we already have those in place—we always did. It gives guidelines about how emergency vaccination should be considered as a control strategy. There is also an important change, which helps with vaccination, in OIE guidelines on the tradeability of vaccinated animals. There was a big problem in 2001 when there was a debate, especially in the livestock industry, about the impact and pros and cons of vaccination. At present, following emergency vaccination of animals that have not been slaughtered, disease-free status can be regained six months after the last vaccination provided that absence of infection is demonstrated by serology. That compares to the 12-month waiting list that applied in 2001, which is a big difference and helps a great deal in the debate on when, where and how vaccination would be used. This change in the OIE rules makes emergency ''vaccination to live'' a more viable strategy. As part of our animal health and welfare strategy we have held discussions with a wide range of stakeholders about the circumstances in which we would use it and the various options that we would apply in relation to controlling foot and mouth and other epidemics.
The draft directive is long and is split into 15 sections and 18 annexes. It deals with the action to be taken on suspicion of foot and mouth disease and after confirmation of disease and contingency planning in advance of an outbreak. It has a wealth of detail, which is welcome because it aids transparency over what actions can be taken. The epidemiology of every outbreak will be different and will accordingly call for a different response.
The directive also sets out minimum control measures that member states must take against foot and mouth disease and allows a member state to take more stringent measures if justified by epidemiological or other sound reasons. We managed to make a number of helpful changes to the directive. For example, stakeholders expressed concern about the implications of the treatment of meat and meat products, which enables meat from vaccinated animals to be sold. Conditions apply to that, for example, beef must be deboned and it also has to be matured because it changes the pH within the flesh, which kills the virus. It is a lot more difficult with sheep. Sheepmeat has to be heat treated, which causes problems but it is possible.
The directive also deals with the protection zones and the 10 km surveillance zones, particularly if they are in place for any length of time. Through negotiations we have now gained the ability to seek derogation to allow untreated meat on to the domestic market if zones remain in place for more than 30 days. That is very important. There may be an outbreak of foot and mouth in one part of the country that is contained in that zone. There would therefore be a control zone and a surveillance zone. The rest of the country might be unaffected. We could therefore market animals normally in the unaffected zones. We obviously could not export, but we could market
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within our own country. That resolves many of the problems that we experienced during the last epidemic when we could not move animals. Much depends on the nature of the outbreak and ensuring that it has been contained within a zone.
We also obtained provision for special measures to be applied in zoos, wildlife parks and for rare breeds and to provide for emergency vaccination. Originally the measures were restricted to rare breeds on non-farming premises, which would have excluded about 80 per cent. of rare breeds in the United Kingdom. Most rare breeds are on farms, many of which are working farms. There was a lot of concern about rare breeds in the last outbreak. We have now obtained an amendment to cover farming premises as well. The Rare Breeds Survival Trust has welcomed what we have achieved on this point. We listened carefully to its recommendations.
The original draft directive required milk to be processed within protection, surveillance and vaccination zones. As we know from experience, that can cause enormous problems with the supply chain from producers to dairies. We have gained an amendment to process milk outside those zones, subject to certain biosecurity conditions, which has been welcomed by the dairy industry. I emphasise that many of these conditions depend on strict and effective biosecurity measures being put in place.
The directive prohibits the feeding of catering waste throughout the EU. Such a ban is already in place in the UK because the original cause of the outbreak was linked to the illegal feeding of unprocessed waste on one farm. The act of breaking the regulations on that farm cost taxpayers about £3 billion and no end of anguish and knock-on consequences. That example demonstrates how important regulations are, even though people sometimes find them tedious, and why we need and must apply them.
We also discussed with the Commission its proposed right to impose emergency vaccination under article 50 and reached what we believe is a reasonable compromise. The Commission has the right to impose emergency vaccination only in cases where an outbreak threatens to become widespread and other member states are at risk from the affected state. It is unlikely that we would be in that situation because Britain is an island. The Commission decision would have to be taken in collaboration with the member states concerned, but we do not object to that. The criteria are clear and are laid out in annexe X.
Another issue is the treatment of products from vaccinated animals. It deals with heat treating and de-boning, which we accept and which is in line with OIE rules on international trade. We welcome the guidelines in the directive for phase 3 of vaccination; that is, the phase at which testing has been completed so that the absence of infection has been confirmed by serology. We argued that it should be possible to place untreated meat from vaccinated animals on the domestic market at that stage of the outbreak, when there are no more new cases and it is possible to ensure that any animals with antibodies are picked up. At the UK's request, a derogation has been provided in article 58 to allow for untreated meat from vaccinated
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cattle and sheep to be placed on the domestic market in phase 3 and we very much welcome that.
In conclusion, the directive is very much based on what is already in place in the UK. It has been updated to reflect our experience in the 2001 outbreak and it has some welcome measures for dealing with the trade of vaccinated meat and the rules for such trade under the OIE, which are helpful. In the unfortunate event that we have another outbreak, the directive will allow flexibility in the options that we may apply to deal with it in the best way, as quickly as possible and with a minimum impact on the livestock sector and the wider community.
The Chairman: We now have until 3 o'clock for questions to be put to the Minister. Questions should be brief and asked one at a time.
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