Plenary, 21 Nov 2002

Meeting date: Thursday, November 21, 2002

Official Report 712KB pdf

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Foot-and-mouth Disease Inquiries

The next item of business is a debate on motion S1M-3602, in the name of Ross Finnie, on the Scottish Executive's response to the foot-and-mouth disease inquiries, and on two amendments. I invite those members who are leaving the chamber to do so as quickly and quietly as they can, so that we can protect as much time as possible for this short debate.

Few, if any, members of the Parliament do not have at least some experience of the devastation that foot-and-mouth disease brought to Scotland in 2001. Constituents of almost every member either had their farms, businesses and livelihoods affected by the disease itself or were caught by its wider impact. It had far-reaching consequences for our valuable livestock industry, in both domestic and export markets, and had a significant impact on the wider rural economy, including the tourism industry.

Difficult decisions had to be made and carried out against that often distressing background. As the minister responsible for tackling the outbreak in Scotland, I was, and remain, very appreciative of the support of Parliament and of all the stakeholder businesses during those difficult times.

It is fair to say that we have made very considerable strides towards recovery, although I recognise that, in many parts of Scotland and among many businesses, there is still a long way to go. The agriculture industry is a resilient industry, which was determined not to be beaten, either by the disease itself or by its consequences.

Foot-and-mouth was an experience that Scotland cannot afford to go through again. It is therefore vital that we extract every drop of knowledge from the trials we have endured. Against that background, it was clear that we needed independent and timeous analyses of the outbreak and of the lessons to be learned. To meet those needs, two inquiries were commissioned last year on a Great Britain basis: Dr Iain Anderson's lessons to be learned inquiry and the Royal Society's scientific study of infectious diseases in livestock. In addition, the Royal Society of Edinburgh undertook its own inquiry, focusing on the situation in Scotland.

As the Parliament will be aware, the reports of all three inquiries were published in July. I record my appreciation of the exceptional efforts that were made by Dr Iain Anderson, Sir Brian Follett, Professor Ian Cunningham and their respective teams in delivering the reports within such a tight time scale. Each report makes an invaluable contribution to our understanding of and knowledge about the handling of the 2001 outbreak, and informs how we might improve on that in the future. Given the importance of the inquiries, the Scottish Executive has made it a priority to respond to them all as quickly as it can, and we have undertaken to respond by December.

Before turning to the specifics of the Executive's response, I will take a moment to reflect on what the inquiries had to say about Scotland. All those involved—our farming industry, the local authorities and other support agencies, the Army, the state veterinary service and the Scottish Executive—can take some encouragement from Dr Iain Anderson's observation that

"This was, in our view, an example of the disease outbreak being handled as effectively as possible given the circumstances."

Just as Scotland's joined-up approach proved more successful in eradicating the disease once it had struck, so it must underpin the way in which we build robust defences against disease in the future.

The Executive's response to the inquiries is deliberately structured to follow the framework that is outlined by the report "Foot and Mouth Disease 2001: Lessons to be Learned Inquiry". The response deals with how we can reduce the risk of importing infectious diseases, how we can reduce the vulnerability of livestock and how we can minimise the impact of any future outbreak.

I am on record as emphasising the importance of keeping infected meat and meat products out of this country. I assure members that I share the many concerns on that score, as does the whole of the Scottish livestock industry. The checking of imported meat and meat products has already been stepped up. A fundamental review of the whole system of import controls has just been completed, which will streamline the tackling of the problems that arise from the sheer volume of goods and people that move into the country. Given the fact that the main entry ports are not in Scotland, it is important that we protect our interests via co-ordinated UK activity. A rigorous veterinary risk assessment has been undertaken to help enforcement agencies to target resources on the greatest threats.

I will deal with how we can reduce our livestock industry's vulnerability to disease. I have been greatly heartened by the level of support that I have received from Scotland's meat and livestock industry for our efforts to reduce the vulnerability of the industry to attack from serious diseases that penetrate the UK's outer defences. I draw the Parliament's attention to some of those efforts in particular: the complete ban on pig swill that was introduced in May 2001; the ban on rapid market-to-market movements, which contributed to the seriousness of the 2001 outbreak; and the 20-day movement regime, which—in the light of the inquiry recommendations—is currently undergoing an extensive veterinary risk and cost-benefit assessment to ensure that the system that is in place is proportionate to the risks involved.

The minister will be aware that the 20-day rule is causing a great deal of inconvenience for many of Scotland's stratified farms, particularly those in areas of the country that never suffered a case of foot-and-mouth disease. Will he indicate when the earliest possible opportunity will arise for him to announce that the regulation will not be made permanent?

We must be careful. Richard Lochhead would be wise not to suggest that we simply dismiss a key recommendation of the Anderson inquiry report. That report makes clear that we should have a risk and cost-benefit assessment. I make it clear to the chamber that I hope to have the early parts of that assessment report before the end of the year. At the earliest opportunity, I will ensure that the results of the assessment are made available to the Parliament. We will then be able to move forward from there.

I must say to Richard Lochhead that, although I receive many representations from those who are in the farming part of the livestock industry, I also receive—like Richard Lochhead, I am sure—many representations from those who are in other parts of the livestock industry. I have also received representations from those in the tourism industry, which is extremely concerned to ensure that we have the proper procedures in place to restrict the ability of a disease to spread as quickly as foot-and-mouth did last year.

I know that some are vehemently opposed to the 20-day rule, but I can only repeat that I will study the risk and cost-benefit assessment. No binding decisions on the future of the present standstill arrangements will be made without full consultation with all Scottish stakeholders.

I also attach great importance to improving the general level of on-farm biosecurity. After extensive consultation with stakeholders and the endorsement of the Rural Development Committee, I launched the biosecurity code of practice at the AgriScot exhibition this morning. The code provides sensible and practical guidance to the industry on how risk can be minimised. It will be complemented by a biosecurity website and by the development of the Scottish vocational qualification biosecurity training modules, which will help the industry to make changes to its practice that will contribute significantly to reducing the risk of disease spread.

In addressing the question of reducing the vulnerability of our livestock industry, I have so far covered individual initiatives, but the time has come to tackle the subject at a more strategic level. I will be joining the agriculture ministers from the other Administrations in drawing up a comprehensive animal health and welfare strategy for Great Britain. Animal health is a fully devolved policy area in Scotland, but Great Britain is a single epidemiological unit and disease knows no boundaries. Given general agreement on the principles of animal health and welfare, it makes sense to take on that challenging task at GB level.

I propose that within that overall strategic approach there will be scope for variation in implementation to reflect the special circumstances that pertain to Scotland. Delivery will also be considered carefully from a Scottish perspective and our stakeholders will be fully involved in its development and management.

Will the minister give a guarantee that if primary legislation is required as a result of the discussions, the legislation that refers to Scotland will be debated in this chamber and not at Westminster?

Yes, indeed. When I am talking about a strategy, that is to be distinguished from any amendments that might have to be made to the Animal Health Act 2002. If we require to revise that act, I am most anxious that it be done through Scottish primary legislation. At the moment, I am talking about bringing together the various elements that require to be put into an overall strategy. My suggestion that that be done on a Great Britain basis is because of my strong view that that is a single epidemiological unit.

Will the minister take a further intervention?

No, I would like to move on.

The state veterinary service in Scotland will contribute significantly to the strategy. It is important that there should be clear lines of accountability to Scottish ministers and the Scottish Parliament. Our experience during the recent outbreak reinforces that.

Accordingly, the post of chief veterinary officer for Scotland has been created to ensure that independent veterinary advice is available to the Executive. The chief veterinary officer for Scotland will have overall responsibility both for veterinary policy and for the SVS's delivery within Scotland. That significant change does not involve the break-up of the single GB state veterinary service; it reinforces it. I agree with Dr Anderson that the SVS ought to be maintained as a unified national service.

No matter how strong our outer and inner defences are, we cannot guarantee that there will never be another outbreak of a serious animal disease. The Executive has produced a contingency plan that explains how we will work with stakeholders and operational partners in the event of any further outbreak. I hope that that will ensure that we are better prepared than we have ever been.

Vaccination was a highly controversial issue during the outbreak. It was considered as an option at the time, but it carried with it a set of scientific, trade and consumer problems that have been very clearly explained by the Royal Society report in particular.

To resolve those problems and to allow vaccination to become the major tool of first resort, we will promote informed debate among Scottish stakeholders, building on the clear scientific advice that meat from vaccinated animals is safe to eat.

The scientific and technical problems that are associated with vaccination are not insurmountable. As we made clear in our response, however, they will require a degree of determined effort. I have made that point to other organisations.

The minister is well over his time.

I hope that Parliament will recognise the stress that I place on protecting Scotland's valuable livestock industry for the future. That is the driving force behind the Executive's response. We believe that we can build on the painful experiences of the past, and be informed by the impressive and valuable work of the three inquiries. I commend the Executive's response to those inquiries.

I move,

That the Parliament notes the conclusions and recommendations of the Lessons to be Learned, Royal Society and Royal Society of Edinburgh inquiries into foot-and-mouth disease and welcomes the Scottish Executive response which builds on their recommendations and aims to develop a framework for reducing the risk of importing infectious diseases, reducing the vulnerability of livestock and minimising the impact of any future outbreak to give better protection to Scotland's valuable livestock industry.

Last year's foot-and-mouth crisis had a devastating impact on those involved throughout the rural economy in Scotland. We saw 735,000 animals slaughtered. The experience was appalling and it caused great pain, hardship and misery to many people in Scotland.

I was pleased and a bit proud that, in response to that crisis at the time, members of the Scottish Parliament acted together in a broad spirit of consensus. Today, however, it is right that we consider the lessons to be learned from the inquiries.

I would like to tackle four of the more important issues, the first of which is import controls. The SNP believes that import controls have to be tackled properly, with the view that animal diseases do not respect boundaries. I am afraid that the evidence to date suggests that insufficient is being done to address the problem. Indeed, the president of the National Farmers Union of Scotland, Jim Walker, put matters rather more dramatically in The Scottish Farmer on 22 June, when he asked what Margaret Beckett had done in practice to ensure that infected meat is not imported into the UK. He said that Margaret Beckett

"has introduced the use of one sniffer dog across the whole of Great Britain to try and stamp out illegal imports of meat and meat products".

In addition, the deputy director of the Pirbright laboratory, Mr David Paton, gave a warning at the NFUS annual general meeting in St Andrews this year

"that a new wave of diseases could strike the UK at any time because of inadequate import controls".

I welcome some of the measures that are contained in the Executive's response, but we must acknowledge that the response to date has been one of words not followed up by deeds. It has not been adequate. We should heed the warnings of Mr Walker and Mr Paton. It is essential, not only for FMD but for a host of other animal diseases, that import controls are tightened up. Other countries—New Zealand and Australia—have far more rigorous regimes. Why do we not take a leaf out of their book? If there is some sacrifice or inconvenience to people, for example in the increased use of sniffer dogs, so be it. I think that society as a whole would be prepared to thole that, rather than have the possibility of a repeat of what we saw last year.

Secondly, in respect of vaccination, if we knew on 20 February last year what we know now, what would we have said? We were right to act on a united basis on the advice of the veterinary experts at the time. I took some trouble to seek out my own expert advice from various sources. We supported the Executive role, but were the situation to happen again, could we conceivably go down the same route of a slaughter eradication policy as, in effect, the single club? I think that we could not.

It is far too early to rule out routine vaccination. I note that in paragraphs 86 and 87 on page 27 of the response, it is not clear at all to what extent emergency vaccination would be used. The document does not say in what circumstances it would be used and does not respond directly to the RSE recommendation. Far more clarity is required. I do not think that the public would put up with the mass slaughter of animals again, and I do not think that it is sufficient simply to say that animals would be buried instead of burned.

Of course, there are practical problems; it is not simple. The report rightly states in the section on vaccination that a number of issues are to be resolved. In order that they are resolved, there is plainly the need for substantial extra research, which is my third point. Indeed, according to the specific recommendation that the Royal Society made on funding, the Government should

"increase investment in animal disease research and development by the order of £250 million over the next 10 years."

Recently, I obtained an answer to a parliamentary question from the Minister for Environment and Rural Development, which was a first in my experience. Instead of the somewhat non-responsive answers that we are accustomed to receiving, when I asked the Scottish Executive

"what information it has received on why no submission was made to the European Commission from the UK to receive a share of its financial package to fight … animal diseases"

the minister replied:

"EU legislation requires member states to submit applications for such funding by 1 June. The Executive is aware that due to an administrative oversight a submission from the UK was not submitted by that deadline. Administrative procedures have been amended to avoid a repetition in the future".—[Official Report, Written Answers, 11 November 2002; p 2182.]

I have never known a minister to reply to a parliamentary question with the admission, "It's a fair cop, gov. You've got me bang to rights."

I take no particular pleasure in saying that, because we urgently require funding. That is what the report recommends, but the UK has not even asked the EU for a share of the £94 million budget line for that research. That was available but was not applied for, which was a serious error. I hope that the minister will say whether the UK will obtain any of that money—not perhaps as much as France, which obtained £20 million—and how much will be used for the research that is required to develop effective vaccination techniques.

The fourth point that I will mention is access to the countryside. The Executive's rejection of the RSE's recommendation that closure should persist only for three weeks is premature. In retrospect, it can be seen that in the areas of Scotland that the outbreak did not affect, there was massive loss and disadvantage to people in tourism and particularly to small businesses and one-man businesses such as mountain guides, path repairers, vermin controllers, fencing contractors and hauliers. Suddenly, they all lost all their income. The former First Minister Henry McLeish stated that consequential compensation would be provided and we waited a long time for that, but it never arose.

I hope that the minister will pick up those four points in his winding-up speech and that we will not only learn lessons but act on and implement them.

I move amendment S1M-3602.2, to leave out from "and welcomes" to end and insert:

"; welcomes the fact that the Scottish Parliament was able to deal with the foot-and-mouth crisis more efficiently than it was tackled in England; endorses many of the proposals contained within the Scottish Executive response to the inquiries but considers that insufficient progress has been made to tighten import controls; believes that emergency vaccination should be deployed in any future outbreak, that there should be a total transfer to Scotland of all necessary power to handle any such outbreak and that the continued application of the 20-day rule is creating significant difficulties for Scottish farmers and crofters, and considers that the restrictions on access to the countryside were retained for far too long and had a severe impact upon the rural economy of many parts of Scotland."

I must draw attention to the fact that the debate should have taken place two weeks ago. That it did not owes more to Margaret Beckett's desire to be first to the dispatch box on the issue than Ross Finnie's apparent inability to have the Executive's response published on time. However, even that does not explain why the debate was truncated to 90 minutes when three hours had originally been scheduled for it. It is difficult to believe that any reason is behind that decision other than the Executive's desire to put the lid on the issue as quickly as possible and to move forward. I have no difficulty with the desire to move forward. It is clear that everyone who was involved in last year's foot-and-mouth outbreak desires to do that.

Will the member accept as a small matter of record that I as a minister have had no influence on the debate's timing? The parliamentary authorities disposed of that matter.

I accept that, but I did not allege that the minister had anything to do with the debate's timing. I regretted the fact that the debate was truncated.

Everyone who was involved in the outbreak desires to move forward, but it is important that we do so in the knowledge that lessons have been learned and that a firm, robust strategy is in place to cope with a future outbreak. That strategy should be regularly revisited and updated and should not suffer the same fate as its 1968 predecessor, the Northumberland report.

The Executive's response to the three inquiries is important, as it gives us a pointer as to how determined the Executive is that we improve our performance the next time round. On that basis, I welcome the debate—delayed and shortened though it is.

Paragraphs 42 to 48 of the Executive's response concentrate on the state veterinary service. We welcome the devolution of responsibility through the creation of a chief veterinary officer for Scotland, who I hope will be able to act in a future outbreak without constant compulsory reference to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. However, I am somewhat unclear about the Executive's intentions on the recommendation of all three inquiries that a sort of Territorial Army of vets be established.

The response waxes lyrical about local veterinary inspectors and temporary veterinary inspectors, but they already exist and were involved, as the response says. I recently spoke to a retired but active vet in Wigtownshire who offered his services last year. As he had been a practising vet during the 1967 outbreak, it would be expected that he would be highly valued. Instead, his offer and experience were dismissed as unwanted. A TA of vets would surely be invaluable in identifying such a resource. I hope that that will be given more substance in the minister's future considerations.

We also welcome the decision to locate a serological laboratory in Dumfries, but suggest that an equal need might exist for a similar facility in the north of Scotland. The slowness of sample analysis must have played a large part in the decision to adopt slaughter on suspicion, which led to increasing public unease with the cull policy. Any moves to cut analysis time are therefore welcome, but we urge the minister to consider two facilities.

The vexed compensation question is—rightly—addressed. It is quite right that compensation be paid to those who lose their livestock as part of a disease eradication programme. What is wrong is when our national Government uses that compensation as part of a farmer-bashing exercise only months after it vowed to stand four-square behind the agriculture industry. It is equally wrong that during the early part of last year's outbreak, compensation seemed to be based on a sliding scale that was almost dependent on the degree of resistance to the cull.

Much better use must be made of the practical expertise of members of the Institute of Auctioneers and Appraisers in Scotland, who seem to have been rewarded for their valiant efforts last year by having to go to court to try to obtain payment for their services at the agreed rate. The basis of the payment is being disputed by DEFRA even though it was agreed by the Scottish Executive environment and rural affairs department. I hope that the minister will do everything in his power to right that wrong.

Much weight is given throughout the response to the biosecurity code of practice, to which all farmers are now encouraged to adhere and which is rightly aimed at all users of farmland. Its aims might be worthy, but I was somewhat alarmed to discover recently at the Rural Development Committee that no exercise was ever carried out to show how such a code would have impacted on the spread of foot-and-mouth last year.

One can only speculate therefore that the benefits of the code are essentially aspirational and that, if it is to be fully effective, it will depend on 100 per cent take-up. Even with the best will in the world, I am not convinced that that is likely to happen. I suspect that the code may end up being treated with as much affection as the 20-day rule, which is another measure that is highlighted in the response.

Although the minister has introduced greater flexibility over the rule than exists in England, in some cases over the past few months, the rule made it all but impossible to carry out normal farming practices. That led to a temptation to flout and ignore the regulation, but that is the inevitable consequence of placing too great a burden on the industry. If the regulation is flouted and ignored, it becomes worthless. I hope that the minister will find a way to revoke it in the new year once the findings of the various studies have been published.

A senior member of one of the boards of inquiry told me only yesterday that he felt that the Executive was being devious on the policy behind vaccination. The Executive must not be devious on the issue. Its intentions must be clearly stated and defined so that everyone knows what will happen in the event of a future outbreak—given the rather pathetic efforts thus far of the UK Government to tighten up on illegal meat imports, such an outbreak is all the more likely.

The Executive response should be such that it points towards another outbreak being snuffed out so quickly that vaccination is unnecessary. That is the goal towards which we must aim. I accept that the Executive's response is aimed in that direction, but it does not have enough impetus for the ball to hit the back of the net.

I move amendment 3602.1, to leave out from "and welcomes" to end and insert:

"regrets the late publication of the Scottish Executive's response to the inquiries and the curtailment of the debate on the issue; considers the response to be vague and urges the Executive to clarify its position on key issues such as the future use of vaccinations; calls on the Executive to produce clear evidence that it is working urgently with Her Majesty's Government to reduce the risk of importing infectious diseases, and seeks reassurance that the outcome of the inquiries will form the basis for continuing vigilance and regular updated contingency arrangements in the event of a future outbreak."

I would be grateful if members did not start new passages of their speeches after their time has expired.

The fact that foot-and-mouth disease had a devastating effect on Scotland is not in doubt. It had a disastrous effect on farming communities, many of whom were already struggling from falling prices and income from the effects of BSE. The effect of foot-and-mouth disease on the farming industry cannot be measured only in financial terms; the emotional and psychological strain on farmers and their families certainly cannot be measured in that way.

The effect of the outbreak also went much wider than the farming industry. Tourism was hit badly and the impact of that underlined tourism's major contribution to the Scottish economy. Potential visitors to Scotland watched news reports of mass pyres burning around the country. Those reports gave the impression that that situation was commonplace throughout Scotland and visitors were also told that they would be unable to access the countryside, which discouraged those who wanted to come on walking holidays.

Much work was done and investment put in place to encourage foreign tourists back to the UK, which appears to have had an impact in some areas. The effects of foot-and-mouth disease on tourism shows how it touched the whole of Scotland, not only the rural areas.

Today, we are debating the Executive's response to the foot-and-mouth inquiries. I remember that when the inquiries were first announced a number of people discounted them and said that they were an attempt by the Government to cover up its mistakes. Anyone who has read the reports will know that that is not the case. The reports provide a coherent and well thought-through analysis of the way in which the Government handled the crisis. I want to commend in particular Dr Ian Anderson's report, because it presents the information very readably and in an easily accessible manner. Anyone who picks up that report will be able to make sense of what it describes and what it recommends.

The reports focus on a national strategy for disease control to keep disease out and, if that fails, to reduce stock vulnerability and to minimise the impact of any further outbreak. First, reducing the chance of disease entering the country is a UK-wide issue and work has already been carried out on that. For example, UK pressure on the European Commission has resulted in the banning of personal allowances of meat from outwith the European Union from next year on.

Secondly, we must examine the matter of stock vulnerability. As the minister said, we have already banned pig swill; however, we must also underline the importance of animal health and welfare. The outbreak would not have had such an impact if it had been identified and dealt with immediately. Although most farmers and crofters take animal welfare extremely seriously, we need to take steps to ensure that those who do not are removed from the industry.

We must consider empowering SEERAD vets to enable them to remove and dispose of animals that are being neglected or ill-treated before those cases come to court. As members know, that process can take a long time, so that matter must be dealt with first. Such powers must be given to improve animal welfare throughout Scotland.

Thirdly, we must be ready for future outbreaks. Although there are tighter controls on imports, we must not be complacent in that area. We need robust tracing systems, and measures such as the use of passports and tagging are helping to put those in place. Information technology will make it much easier to interrogate systems and to trace movements in case of an outbreak. Furthermore, in the event of an outbreak, we must have the power to impose immediate movement restrictions and to seal off affected areas and areas that will potentially be affected.

We must also issue clear guidelines to hauliers on the action that they should take in relation to animals in transit during any future outbreak. For example, during the previous outbreak, we heard about hauliers who stopped at Longtown as they were returning animals to their original owners. There was a huge risk of spreading the disease to otherwise unaffected areas such as the Highlands, where a few cases were still reported.

We must explore the use of vaccination to manage and control outbreaks and we must find out whether such an approach would help to isolate the disease. Although I do not want use of vaccines to be widespread, we need to know whether they would give us valuable breathing space in a crisis.

The lessons to be learned report highlights the fact that in Scotland there was better working between the Government and agencies and that the disease was tackled more effectively. In the light of that, we need to work with all stakeholders. I hope that, in any future consultation about a change in legislation, the Executive will throw the net as wide as possible to ensure that everyone is involved. If more people are involved in drawing up solutions, the solutions will attract more popular support.

Finally, our strategy must integrate with strategies in the rest of the UK. As we discovered during the previous outbreak, the disease does not recognise administrative borders.

I know that I have run out of time, but I could say an awful lot more on the subject. I am glad that the Executive is committed to improving systems and to introducing plans to ensure that a future outbreak does not have the same devastating effects as the last one had.

I did give you a little extra time because I was distracted by a note; that is how members should do it.

We now move into the open part of the debate. I ask members to stick to their four-minute time allocation if we are to get everyone in.

I welcome the debate and the fact that we have finally reached this point. It indicates that the wheels of government move quite slowly, given that the last case of foot-and-mouth disease in Scotland was reported at the end of May 2001. We have had to wait 18 months to have this debate on the way forward and to hear some of the ideas that are in the pipeline to ensure that such a terrible outbreak never happens again.

It is difficult to imagine what people who were affected by the outbreak went through, particularly those in the Borders and in Dumfries and Galloway. We should remember that the disease hit not only agriculture, but tourism. Indeed, the report notes that, although the agricultural sector lost £60 million, the tourism sector lost £200 million.

We must learn lessons this time. For example, all the reports have recommended that burning of animals should be the last option. Of course, the Northumberland report back in 1967 or 1968 said the same thing. Perhaps we should learn that lesson this time, because we obviously did not do so then.

We must acknowledge that Scotland dealt with the crisis better than it was dealt with south of the border. One reason was the existence of Scottish ministers, the Scottish Executive and our Parliament and Scottish institutions. Their response shows that we can respond better to Scottish circumstances. However, we should look for more powers and a greater Scottish response in the future, because we would have been able to do even more had we had the authority.

One difficulty that came out of the situation was the fact that because the minister had limited powers, he had to use them to be seen to be doing something. Most of what the minister did was worth while and was supported by all parties, but there is a feeling that the minister was over-zealous—for example in the way that the 20-day rule is still being applied—because he lacked the powers to tackle the root causes of the outbreak.

My constituents feel that they are still suffering from the foot-and-mouth outbreak despite the fact that there was never a case in north-east Scotland. The 20-day rule is causing great inconvenience to the stratified system of farming in north-east Scotland, where the right resource has to be on the right grounds at the right time, particularly in autumn and spring. There have to be many movements of livestock in a short space of time, which cannot happen with the 20-day rule. That is why there is so much concern that the rule's imposition might become permanent.

There is a feeling that in too many areas the minister continues to take his lead from DEFRA. We must have a Scottish response to Scottish circumstances. There is no doubt that use of the 20-day rule has been influenced by what DEFRA is doing south of the border, and there is a feeling in the industry that the starting point for the rules is what DEFRA does. The Scottish Executive seems to be saying, "There has been more relaxation in movements, but we're not going any further because DEFRA is refusing to budge south of the border."

Can the member produce one single shred of evidence for that last statement? The 20-day rule that operates in Scotland is entirely different to what is used south of the border. Any time that I go down south, I am berated because people there want to operate the rules as we have put them into effect in Scotland. There is no evidence that DEFRA is leading in the matter.

I shall give the minister an example of what I am talking about. The industry has been calling during the past 18 months for risk assessments and a cost benefit analysis. That was not forthcoming, but a decision was eventually taken because DEFRA decided that it was time to put such a scheme into place, and a few months ago we got it off the ground. However, that scheme should have been in place ages ago so that we could have put the rule to one side.

Imports are the root of the problem, and our farmers feel that they are bearing the brunt because the minister has limited influence. The root cause of the outbreak was illegal imports; that is where we must tackle the problem. It is one thing to try to prevent the spread of the disease if it happens again in Scotland—we supported most of the measures that were taken—but the key is surely to prevent it from happening in the first place. That is what the farmers want.

In July I went to several south-east Asian countries. I came back to Aberdeen via Heathrow, and was not checked once for illegal meat imports. There was one brief announcement at Heathrow airport, which is not good enough—I could have brought anything into the country. There was no check, which is still the situation today as far as I am aware. We need more urgency on controlling imports and the minister must have more authority.

I am grateful for the chance to add some observations from a constituency perspective on the foot-and-mouth outbreak last year. I reiterate the tribute that I paid in an earlier debate to the courage of my constituents and others in the south of Scotland. It was, in effect, their sacrifices that prevented the spread of disease further north and which meant that others did not have to suffer the horrors that foot-and-mouth disease imposed.

I want to touch on four points from my constituency experience. As the response says, there were during the outbreak problems with communication among farmers, vets and others. I suppose that that is inevitable when events move quickly, as for example when the disease jumped 40 miles from Newcastleton to Jedburgh and then to Duns. Therefore, the recommendations and intended actions in the report's paragraphs 113 and 114 are welcome. Accurate and timely communication with individual farmers is particularly important to ensure that all believe that their individual circumstances are handled in a manner that is consistent with the handling of neighbours and near-neighbours.

I turn now to slaughter policy. I do not recall anyone in my constituency suggesting that animals on an infected premises should not be slaughtered. That action was agreed by nearly everyone. However, during the outbreak, concern was expressed about slaughter in contiguous farms, where there was only a suggested adjacent infected premises, and particularly about slaughter on non-contiguous premises within 3km.

With hindsight, some of the culls in the non-contiguous farms could have been avoided if the results of blood tests, which turned out to be negative, had been produced more quickly. If we are to use the 3km bands in the unfortunate event of another outbreak, it is in the non-contiguous farms within those 3km bands that vaccination might play a part in producing the fire break that the cull policy was intended to create. The problem was that, with slaughter on the non-contiguous farms, flocks such as the south country Cheviots were severely affected. Somewhere between a quarter and a third of that entire breed was lost and precious bloodlines went. It would have been better if the policy had been handled in a slightly different way, because we could have preserved some of those bloodlines in the south country Cheviot flock.

Vaccination could play a part in protecting the very rare breeds, of which some in my constituency had to be slaughtered. No one is suggesting that an infected animal should be left alive, but there could be vaccination of other rare breed animals within the group, perhaps with a policy of isolating all the animals. That could preserve some of the very rare breeds, especially if they are not to enter the food chain.

I welcome the comprehensive response that the Executive has made. Every effort must be made to prevent the return of that hideous disease to our shores, and I am sure that the efforts that the UK Government will need to make must be enhanced. Every effort must be made to ensure that we do not see the return of foot-and-mouth disease or of other "exotic diseases", as they are described, which can cause such devastation.

I would like to talk specifically about the impact of foot-and-mouth disease on the Scottish tourism industry. As colleagues will be aware, tourism is one of Scotland's most important industries and is estimated at 5 per cent of Scottish gross domestic product. It injects about £4.5 billion into the economy and employs about 193,000 people. Those figures are considerably higher than those for agriculture but, as we all know and as the RSE's report points out, the 2001 foot-and-mouth outbreak demonstrated as clearly as could be demonstrated the interdependence of the industries that constitute the rural economy.

Tourism was directly affected by the closure of the countryside, but it was also affected by the sight of burning carcases, images of which were relayed world wide. In evidence, the Borders Tourist Board told the Royal Society of Edinburgh that the effect on tourism in that region was about twice the cost of the effect on agriculture. The loss in the Borders was about 14 per cent. In Dumfries and Galloway, the figure was nearer 20 per cent in terms of loss of tourism business. VisitScotland said that the overall loss for Scotland was estimated at £200 million in gross revenue from tourism.

I am sure that members will agree that the tragedy of foot-and-mouth disease highlighted the large numbers of people who walk, climb, cycle, ride horses or just enjoy the countryside in Scotland all year round. I would like to talk specifically about some of the issues that arose for tourism in the countryside when large tracts of land and many paths were shut down—in some cases, in my view, unnecessarily. I am not for one moment downplaying the fears of farmers and land managers outside infected and at-risk areas, but we have to learn lessons about access issues.

Unlike Fergus Ewing, I share the Executive's concern about the Royal Society of Edinburgh's recommendation that the countryside should be immediately closed down for three weeks without a veterinary risk assessment in the event of an outbreak. The impact of that on the rural economy would be unacceptable and I do not think that such a shut down would be necessary. I very much welcome the Executive's more measured suggestion that, outside the infected area, the expectation is that the countryside remain open with closure being permitted only on the basis of a veterinary risk assessment. That assessment should take a presumption in favour of access as its starting point.

During the 2001 outbreak, one of the main problems was trying to get hard evidence about what was happening on the ground. It is absolutely essential that the access forum is fully involved in drawing up contingency plans. There must be bodies that have the stated responsibility of providing information on access in their local areas and on what is going on. The involvement of the access forum at a central level and involvement of local access forums is needed.

During 2001, it proved to be much easier to close down the countryside than to open it up again. I am sure that we all hope that there will never be a next time for foot-and-mouth disease, but if there is, we must ensure that a plan that is measured and—this is important—commensurate with veterinary risk can instantly swing into action to ensure that the tourism industry in Scotland is protected.

In order to understand the full impact of the foot-and-mouth outbreak on people in the Highlands and Islands, one must first take account of the fact that incomes from the primary industries, such as farming, crofting and tourism, were already at a low ebb. Since 1996, prices have fallen disastrously. The light was beginning to glimmer at the end of the tunnel, as was shown by the high prices in the European markets—especially for lamb—in the autumn of 2001. The outbreak was particularly galling for Highlands and Islands farmers and crofters, much of whose income depends on the sheep annual premium. That premium is paid to farmers in less favoured areas and its level is governed by the average lamb price in Europe.

At one point, Irish farmers were selling lambs for £70, while farmers in the Highlands and Islands were lucky to get £15. It is ironic that the high European price meant that the sheep annual premium payment to farmers here was cut drastically to less than half of the payment in the previous year. That one effect of foot-and-mouth disease slashed the incomes of farmers and crofters and the measures that had to be taken for protection against foot-and-mouth disease greatly increased their costs.

Will the member take an intervention?

No. I am sorry.

My main memory is of letters and telephone calls from confused farmers, crofters and tourism operators asking what was and was not open and where they could get advice. There was a lack of information from Pentland House and the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food's veterinary service at Jeanfield House in Perth, which is responsible for veterinary matters of state importance. It was difficult to contact that service by fax or phone—it appeared to have gone underground. It is vital that if foot-and-mouth disease recurs, a proper strategy is in place so that people know clearly what they should and should not do. The lack of information led to backbiting between tourism and farming interests, which should never have happened. Farmers who did not wish to bring foot-and-mouth disease on to their farms put up signs, but they were attacked by the ministry for doing so. Where was the ministry's advice and reassurance?

I am chairman of the Loch Awe Improvement Association, which manages some 80 miles of bank fishing for trout and coarse fish. Forest Enterprise closed its land, which constitutes between 60 per cent and 70 per cent of the area that we also manage, but no advice was given to our association. The opening of the trout season was on 15 March, when Loch Awe is usually visited by many anglers from the central belt and the south of Scotland. Many of those people might have come from infected areas. We received calls from members of the public, angling associations and the police about what we were doing and whether we were open or closed. We could not get any clear advice from any Government source about what to do.

After a special meeting of our committee, we decided to follow Forest Enterprise's lead and close the fishery; we refused to sell fishery permits. If the Executive told Forest Enterprise to close its land, why were not private landowners told to do the same?

As a result, our association suffered financially. We reopened three weeks later when Forest Enterprise removed its "Keep Out" signs, but the only way in which we could let the public know about the situation regarding fishing on Loch Awe was through The Oban Times and the Daily Record, which were both extremely helpful, for which I thank them. There should have been Scottish Government advice, but there was none. Councils such as Argyll and Bute Council and Highland Council put disinfecting mats on road entrances to their areas, but they received no help in doing so.

The reports were published in July, but what is being done properly to control meat imports? We live on an island, which should make things easier. Iceland, Australia and New Zealand manage such controls, but what are we doing?

Fergus Ewing mentioned Margaret Beckett's sniffer dog—I believe that it is still in quarantine. Margaret Beckett's idea of putting an insurance indemnity on to farmers is unfair beyond belief. She is suggesting a form of mutual insurance scheme, which is quite unacceptable to the industry. Scottish farmers have earned a high reputation for security and should not be blamed for Government faults over imports. It is hard enough for farmers to make a living without an extra expense being added.

By far the most important thing to be learned from the outbreak is the need for an immediate response and good leadership. That is what saved the Irish and that is the lesson to be learned from the nightmare of the foot-and-mouth outbreak.

We must not forget the human disaster that foot-and-mouth disease was and still is.

I have three comments from Borders farmers. The first is that farmers who return to farming try to look forward rather than back, but they found it hard to make the decision to return. The first farmer said that if they had not had a son who wished to continue the farming tradition the probability is that they would have said that enough was enough.

The second farmer was in a closedown area, as he was close to the infected area around Moffat. Since then he has had a small amount of help with business rates, but nothing else. His accountant has said that the farmer would have been better off had his farm been infected.

The third farmer felt that, nationally, farmers were being made scapegoats and that the problem lay with poor import controls, which led to infected products getting into the system. That is rightly where much of the debate has been directed.

I refer to the House of Commons report, "Illegal Meat Imports", which was published on 17 July. The summary states:

"The illegal importation of meat into the United Kingdom is the most likely cause of the outbreaks of classical swine fever in 2000 and foot and mouth in 2001."

As Fergus Ewing said, foot-and-mouth disease knows no boundaries.

The report goes on to make some recommendations. Page 13 of the report states:

"The Government has also announced ‘other specific measures'".

Of course, I have to mention the sniffer dogs—everybody else has. The first specific measure is:

"Pilot use of detector dogs to be underway by summer 2002."

I will be interested to know how many, minister, and whether they are in quarantine.

Another measure is:

"Examination of the potential benefits of using x-ray equipment to scan containers and personal baggage to detect illegal imports, leading if successful to a trial."

What has happened to that measure? The next one is:

"Provision of ‘amnesty bins' or equivalent measure to encourage the surrender of unintended illegal personal imports."

What has happened to that measure? The final one is:

"Research into available technologies which might help detect illegal imports."

What has happened to that?

A further important recommendation, because of the multiplicity of agencies involved in such an outbreak, was the recommendation that

"In the longer term there is a case for greater integration of agencies and management, and we recommend that Government",

that is the Westminster Government,

"bring forward a model of a single agency."

What has happened to that recommendation? We do not want to be in a position, in a year or two, in which no progress has been made after a great deal of serious, heavy-duty research has gone into ensuring, so far as possible, that foot-and-mouth disease does not return to the UK.

Page 5 of the Executive's response of November 2002 states:

"Scrutiny of imported product has been stepped up. Enhanced checks and controls have been put in place and more staff have been recruited to police the controls."

Can we have the numbers, please?

The Executive response states:

"Public awareness campaigns have been stepped up at ports and airports to ensure that all concerned are much more aware of the risks involved."

Richard Lochhead has given us his experience. I would like details.

The response also states:

"The Veterinary Laboratory Agency has been commissioned to conduct a detailed risk assessment, which will help enforcement agencies target resources in an effort to raise seizure levels."

What is the time scale for that assessment?

Finally, the response states:

"A review of the whole system of import controls and the role of the Agencies responsible is underway by the Machinery of Government Secretariat."

When will that report, minister?

I make no apology, following some of the remarks made by previous speakers, for discussing how we keep the threat of foot-and-mouth disease out of the United Kingdom. Whether we like it or not, foot-and-mouth disease is endemic in many countries throughout the world and will remain so for the foreseeable future. The threat will not disappear. If members look back, the history is that there are outbreaks every 20 or 30 years in the United Kingdom, when our defences fail to keep the disease out.

Keeping the disease out of the country is one of the fundamental lessons that must be learned from the recent outbreak. Like other members, I see no evidence that those lessons have been learned or that action has been taken to address the problem.

When I visited Ireland in August and went through Dublin airport, it was clear that that country takes the threat seriously. There were signs all over the airport with warnings about bringing meat into the country and there were strictures to ensure that people who possessed meat imports dumped them before going through immigration controls. In contrast, when I arrived back at Glasgow airport, there were no signs and no indications that foot-and-mouth disease is a concern. The contrast between Glasgow and Dublin could not be more stark. That is not good enough.

We cannot ask the farming community to take biosecurity seriously, when it is clear that Her Majesty's Government at Westminster does not. I ask the minister to press his colleagues in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to take action urgently and to put in place proper measures at our airports and ports to keep out this devastating disease. Make no mistake; the threat is prevalent.

Few other members have mentioned the important 20-day rule, which is in place at present, but which does not reduce the number of movements of animals. The rule is a holding measure until the Government comes up with a further measure to reduce the number of movements. All the inquiries highlighted that as a key issue.

The foot-and-mouth outbreak revealed, for members who are not involved in the farming industry, the activities of cattle and sheep dealers. It is no coincidence that the first outbreaks of the disease were not on farmers' farms, but on dealers' farms. The reason for that is simple: the dealers' role in the marketing chain in the United Kingdom is to shuttle animals from market to market, from one end of the country to the other, to try to make a quick buck from price fluctuations. The dealers are the grease in the marketing wheel that establishes the market price on a particular day. On grounds of animal welfare, biosecurity and market transparency, that practice is surely no longer acceptable in the 21st century.

I am not against auction marts, which are a good way to sell animals and which I support firmly. However, at present, animals are hauled 100 miles from my farm to the auction mart, where they spend five or six hours waiting to be sold and are then loaded on to a dealer's lorry and hurled a further 100 or 200 miles down the road overnight. In the next few days, the animals will go to another mart to be sold again and will then make another journey to the eventual destination. That is no way to market cattle and sheep in this day and age.

The right way forward is surely a system of virtual auction marts, where transactions take place electronically and animals travel straight from the seller to the buyer, thus cutting out the dealer in the middle. I hope that the minister will consider helping the industry to move to such a system.

Members from all parts of the Parliament have contributed a great deal of common sense to the debate, which is welcome. I turn to a subject that has not exercised previous speakers, which is emergency or contingency planning. Insurance is the one thing that one cannot buy when one actually wants it and, by the same token, when a crisis arises, it is not possible to build emergency response teams or plans.

It has been said that in Scotland, the response to the foot-and-mouth crisis was more effective than that in England. It has also been suggested that part of the reason for that is because of the ill fortune at Lockerbie, when the Pan Am aircraft fell on that area. That disaster brought about a heightened sense of preparedness, so that, when foot-and-mouth disease came along, the agencies were more used to working together than they were in other parts of the country.

Richard Simpson and I recently spoke at a conference of emergency planning officers, although I did not hear what he said and I am not sure that he heard what I said because we were there at different times. As part of my preparation for that conference, I discovered that the Scottish Executive provides only some £7.5 million a year to local authorities for emergency planning. That is a modest amount. I do not know whether that is the right amount or the wrong amount. However, listening to emergency planning officers, I formed the strong opinion that there is scope for further development of emergency planning and that more money might be made available to local authorities for that. I would be interested to hear the minister's thoughts on that.

It is important that the Executive ensures that an emergency plan exists for each area, covering a wide range of emergencies that may arise, of which foot-and-mouth disease is an example. However, it is equally important that the people who have to respond to emergencies rehearse regularly. There are two levels at which rehearsals can take place. There can be paper exercises, whereby people get together and talk through what their response would be to a problem that is described to them. Those exercises should be undertaken fairly frequently. Less frequent—but more intensive—should be exercises that involve practical effort on the ground. I would be interested to hear what plans the minister has to ensure that there are appropriate, exercised plans throughout Scotland.

If we are to have the capability—should the worst happen in the future—to fight foot-and-mouth disease effectively wherever it occurs, recognising that geography controls the propagation of the disease in these islands, not politics or boundaries, I would like to know what cross-border collaboration there will be, which might help us on another occasion. That is something to which the minister might equally care to turn his mind.

I apologise for missing the first part of the debate. That was unavoidable, I am afraid.

The UK Government initially failed to comprehend the sheer enormity of what it faced in the foot-and-mouth outbreak. Scottish Executive ministers handled the outbreak better, as all the inquiries have shown. Unlike Stewart Stevenson, I do not think that that was due to advance planning in the Lockerbie area. The Scottish Executive ministers genuinely deserve some credit.

The Executive response to the inquiries has identified the absolute priority of keeping out infectious diseases through tighter import restrictions. I cannot agree more with my colleague George Lyon, that not enough is being done by the UK Government in that regard.

The Scottish Executive is also considering reducing livestock vulnerability through changes in industry practice to minimise the impact of any future outbreak, potentially through the greater use of vaccination. We have heard some moans from the Tories and the SNP about it, but farmers recognise that the Scottish Executive is doing a better job for them than DEFRA is doing south of the border.

The foot-and-mouth outbreak was a disaster. It is estimated that it cost the Scottish farming sector £60 million. However, it cost the tourism sector around £200 million. While the outbreak was confined to Dumfries and Galloway and a small part of the Borders, it indirectly affected the whole of Scotland's rural economy.

I want to focus on the final issue addressed in the Executive's official response document—that of access. The RSE recommended that:

"In the event of an outbreak, unless its origins and spread are immediately apparent, the countryside should be closed for a period of three weeks at the same time as an animal movement ban is announced".

I am very pleased that the Scottish Executive says that it is unable to accept that recommendation, because I feel that it goes too far. Footpath closures for as long as three weeks would have a significant impact on the wider rural economy, which cannot be justified in terms of the risks involved. The suggestion that the countryside should be closed without regard to the specific veterinary assessment of risk would create unnecessary concern and loss for rural businesses.

In my constituency of West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, the farming industry was severely affected, but the tourism industry was even more badly affected. After the outbreak, it was extremely difficult to get the signs that had closed down the countryside removed, so that the countryside could be opened up again. That is one of the major lessons that I hope that we have learned from the exercise.

We move now into wind-up speeches. We have about three or four minutes in hand. John Home Robertson will wind up for the Labour party.

I start by declaring an interest. As a hobby, I have a small fold of five Highland cattle and I am an unremunerated partner in a family farming business. The kids of St Ninian's Primary School would be welcome to join me any time they like in the Berwickshire glaur, slaisterin around feeding those coos.

To be serious, I welcome the debate and the independent inquiries that have been held into the awful experience of the 2001 foot-and-mouth outbreak. Above all, I welcome the fact that the Scottish Executive and the United Kingdom Government are accepting and implementing the recommendations from those inquiries. It is obvious that the foot-and-mouth outbreak was an unmitigated disaster, particularly in the epidemic area of Dumfries and Galloway.

I see that my colleague Elaine Murray, who represents the area of Dumfries, has been with us throughout the debate. It is unfortunate that because of her ministerial duties she is prevented from taking part in the debate, but it is well known how concerned she was for the plight of her constituents during the outbreak.

The impact went far wider than Dumfries and Galloway, however. Vast tracts of the countryside were shut down for tourism, the farming industry was under siege and people all over the country were horrified by the slaughter and incineration of countless animals, in my constituency and elsewhere. Therefore, we should also be grateful for the stalwart work of the veterinary profession, the armed forces and the thousands of dedicated public servants working for central and local Government. We should also applaud the long-suffering people of urban and rural Scotland, who were all affected by the outbreak in some way, and just about everybody in the farming community, because the farming community was hard hit.

I said just about everybody in the farming community, but let me enter one little caveat on that. I hope that the minister will bear this point in mind, but I am sure that the Parliament would support tough sanctions against anybody who seeks to profit from compensation schemes by dishonest means. We all know stories about that, some of which might be true. However, that is one of the lessons that we must learn.

Alex Fergusson is normally a reasonable chap. He is so reasonable that he has left the chamber just now, but I know that he is with us in spirit. We understand that he feels it necessary to indulge in a bit of synthetic outrage five months before an election. However, he knows perfectly well that full, objective, independent inquiries have taken place, that the Scottish Executive is implementing virtually every recommendation from those inquiries and that the minister is reporting on the outcome during this debate. That is as it should be.

Our friends in the Scottish nationalist party seem to blame nearly every problem on Westminster and this is no exception. We can all agree that we need more effective controls on meat imports from areas at risk of serious animal diseases. That is what we seek to achieve. However, the fact is that import controls must be implemented, first and then at a European Union level for, obviously, the island of Great Britain. The minister made that point clearly. Scotland is not an island. If we are to have effective controls over import issues, it must be done on a UK basis.

Leaving aside all the usual political knockabout, I submit that the lessons to be learned report, the Royal Society report and the Royal Society of Edinburgh report have addressed matters seriously and fully. The reports make specific recommendations: to minimise the risk of importing infections in the future; to set better contingency plans so that we can deal with any future outbreak; and to encourage better livestock industry practices, specifically the implementation of Scottish measures, including the appointment of a chief veterinary officer for Scotland.

The Scottish Executive has accepted virtually all those findings and recommendations and is actively engaged with the UK Government on the wider issues. The farming community, the people of rural Scotland and members of this Parliament would expect nothing less. The minister can expect the full support of the Labour party in implementing the policies that he has outlined.

I welcome the opportunity to debate the aftermath of the foot-and-mouth outbreak and the reports of the various inquiries, despite the fact that we have had less time for the debate than I would have wanted.

Nobody should doubt that the scars of the foot-and-mouth outbreak are still raw in Dumfries and Galloway and the Borders. I know many people who still cannot bring themselves to discuss their experiences of the outbreak. Let us be in no doubt that the impacts of the events of last year will not simply go away. The farming and rural communities of the south-west of Scotland will live with what happened long into the future.

I still believe that it would have been preferable to have held a full public inquiry, which would have allowed a public examination of the many issues and required ministers to give evidence on the public record. However, I commend the Royal Society and Dr Anderson for their work. As a witness at the Anderson inquiry, I am confident that there was a full examination of the issues, although, regrettably, it was done behind closed doors. Dr Anderson admits that—as Euan Robson, a deputy minister in the Scottish Executive, acknowledged today—he was unable to get to the bottom of why decisions were made to change radically policy on the cattle cull, the contiguous cull and slaughter on suspicion. If his investigation of that matter had been on the public record, we would all be a lot wiser about how the outbreak occurred.

The overwhelming concern of the members who have spoken today is to ensure that lessons have been learned from the outbreak and that the reports of the inquiries are not consigned to dusty shelves, which is apparently what happened to the Northumberland report. The reports should form the basis of on-going vigilance and set the framework under which regularly updated contingency arrangements are made and put to the test. Members of the Parliament and people in our farming communities need constant reassurance that action is on-going and that the matter will not simply be forgotten once it is out of the public eye.

It is vital that the minister does all that he can, working with colleagues, to ensure that the chasm that some people have sought to create between agriculture, tourism and other rural activities is not allowed to develop further. More than anything else, the foot-and-mouth outbreak highlighted that everything in rural communities is linked. Any response to a disease such as foot-and-mouth must include all rural interests working together, not set apart.

I have always acknowledged the minister's role and the fact that the outbreak was handled better in Scotland than it was elsewhere. However, members must not forget the flaws in the handling of the process, which are reflected in the pertinent point that Dumfries and Galloway Council made in its submission to the Royal Society of Edinburgh:

"Information flow was poor and guidance and advice received from different places often conflicted. Throughout the response advice from Government departments was changed, amended and frequently contradicted".

We must avoid those flaws in the future.

Several important issues have been raised and, had more time been allocated to the debate, members could have had a more detailed discussion on topics such as vaccination.

Members must also be clear on how best to manage a Scottish response, while taking account of the UK position. The lack of coherence between the responses in Cumbria and Dumfries and Galloway was regrettable, given that they impacted on each other.

There are many compensation issues and I hope that the minister will give a commitment to push DEFRA on slaughter premiums. Many farmers who were compensated in the early days did not receive the slaughter premium and DEFRA appears to have put up the shutters on it.

My major concern remains that, despite the minister's actions, there is no guarantee that, in the event of a future outbreak, we would not see political interference in the management of the disease and the oscillating policy changes that characterised last year's outbreak. Even Dr Anderson did not get to the bottom of why those policy changes took place. If the approach that the UK Government adopted last year is adopted in a future outbreak, I cannot believe that the measures that flow from the report, regardless of what they are, will have the desired effect.

Our thoughts should always be with those who were caught up in the dreadful outbreak. If we really understand the pain, suffering and living hell that those individuals and communities endured last year, it will be incumbent on us all to redouble our efforts to ensure that such an outbreak is not repeated and that, in the regrettable circumstances of another outbreak, we are in a much better position to handle it.

This morning, when I was preparing for the debate and could not find my copy of the Royal Society of Edinburgh's report, I tried to peruse the society's fairly impenetrable website. I thought that I had struck gold when I came on the section called "Other publications", the first one of which was "New Directions in Differential Equations". Perhaps I should have stuck to differential equations, because at least they have one or two well-known solutions, which we do not have in the case of the foot-and-mouth outbreak.

In many ways, we are still at an interim stage. Some of the conclusions of the various inquiries that we are considering have raised more questions than they answered. As one member said, that will disappoint many, given the time that has elapsed since the outbreak. Many of the measures that are outlined in the response to the reports are welcome—for example, increased biosecurity measures and increased training.

The 20-day rule came in for considerable criticism, not least from my colleague Richard Lochhead. It is instructive to note from the diagram of the various movements that was published in the lessons to be learned report that, until the disease hit Longtown mart, the numbers that were involved were incredibly small and the disease's rate of spread was incredibly slow. Only when the disease hit Longtown mart did it mushroom. As George Lyon suggested, we must examine how to avoid that risk in future. Perhaps we should consider more seriously how farmers market their products. We clearly cannot allow such a disaster to happen again.

Does Alasdair Morgan accept that, if, as George Lyon suggested, markets were to become electronic or virtual, the biosecurity risk would be increased, particularly in the case of breeding stock, simply because farmers would be encouraged to travel from farm to farm inspecting stock before they purchased it, rather than taking stock to one place where biosecurity can be better addressed?

That might well be the case, which is why I said that we had to consider other methods. We must not again be in the situation where, if the disease gets to a place such as Longtown mart, it ends up in innumerable other places, which makes trying to contain it almost impossible.

Prevention, as in all matters, is always best. However, I disagree with George Lyon. Although it might be fine to put up notices deterring personal imports, the evidence from the lessons to be learned report is that a personal import was unlikely to have caused the problem. The cause of the outbreak is much more likely to have been an illegal commercial import. No number of notices will deter those who know that they are breaking the law, although the ban on pig swill may help in that regard.

I am disappointed that the Executive has not accepted all the RSE's recommendations on the state veterinary service in Scotland, which effectively ask for more devolution to that service. I am not making a nationalist point, but there is a little illogicality in slapping ourselves on the back saying how much better we did things in Scotland and then saying that there is an argument for keeping the state veterinary service as a UK organisation.

I welcome the commitment—I think—to rehearsals in the Executive's response document. I presume that those rehearsals will continue into the distant future. Whatever policies are finally decided on, we need to be able in 25 years' time or whenever another outbreak happens—it is bound to happen at some stage—to implement them effectively and quickly.

One of our failures in tackling the disease lay in access. In hindsight, the initial strictures to close down the countryside were far too strict. After we had realised that they were wrong, it was not a great idea to give the National Trust for Scotland the lead role in administering "The Comeback Code". The RSE notes in its report:

"this was not fully effective."

That must be the understatement of the month.

Let me clarify the position of my colleague Fergus Ewing on the RSE's recommendation of a three-week ban. He very much agrees that that recommendation should be rejected, as it is far too strict. What he was trying to get across was that, if any closure proves necessary, it should be lifted as soon as possible.

There is a deeper problem. We have no evidence of how dangerous access by tourists or ordinary individuals is. I prefer the part of the Executive's response that says that the

"countryside will be kept open with closure only being permitted on the basis of a veterinary risk assessment".

Given that some areas of Dumfries and Galloway that are fairly distant from the areas of last year's outbreak were kept shut long after the last confirmed cases, it is still not clear exactly what the scientific basis of such veterinary assessments is. However, it is clear that the financial loss to tourism probably far exceeded that to agriculture. We need to find out what scientific evidence our access restrictions are based on. We do not have that evidence at the moment.

I do not have time to talk about culls and vaccinations, except to say that, if any future outbreak is as bad or as long as last year's, acceptance on the part of the public, and indeed on the part of the farming community, will not be as readily available as it was then.

We have a heavy burden on us. We saw what happened during last year's outbreak. We saw what went right; we saw what went wrong. We have to set in place a system to ensure that a future outbreak does not have the same devastating effect as last year's did.

We have had a useful debate on the issues surrounding the Executive's response to the reports of the foot-and-mouth disease inquiries. Many members have talked about the appalling effect of what happened. We now have to move on, respond to the reports and look to the future and to what we can do, individually and collectively, both at Government level and at the stakeholder level, to learn the lessons and implement them as part of drawing a line under what was an appalling outbreak. Having spoken to people in agricultural communities, I know that they are now anxious to put that outbreak behind them and to move forward.

Fergus Ewing made a point about imports, which was picked up by other members. A number of references were made to the speeches that I heard at the NFUS conference in June, as well as to experiences in July. I do not think that we are in any way through the review of what is required. In response to Christine Grahame, I would say that the machinery of government secretariat—part of the Cabinet Office—reported only on 6 November and we are still digesting the outcome and import of its report. The Veterinary Laboratories Agency study into the risks of illegal meat will not be issued for a number of weeks, but it will be relatively short. That raises the question about our being careful. I am grateful to Alasdair Morgan for pointing out that the danger is not so much posed by individuals; by far the bigger source of danger rests with the illegal import of meats from illegal commercial activity.

We should be careful not to draw false comparisons between what happens in New Zealand and what happens at Heathrow airport. Alasdair Morgan is apparently pretty good at arithmetic, so perhaps he could tell us the annual movement of passengers through New Zealand compared with how many go through Heathrow in a day. There is no point in focusing effort in the wrong place.

On the measures that have already been taken, we have ensured that the current arrangement whereby individuals are allowed to bring meat into the country will cease in January, when it will become an offence for anyone to do so. The amount of meat that is confiscated at Edinburgh airport has risen dramatically as a consequence of the measures that have been put in place and because of the additional powers that have been given. Furthermore, a small experiment is being carried out in which the use of sniffer dogs is being trialled at Heathrow, but there are still issues about how best those who might bring in a potential risk can be targeted. Better intelligence is now being gathered and the import and export authorities are genuinely addressing the matter, but we will need to come back to what is a key issue whose consequences are raised in the reports.

All the reports point to real difficulties with vaccination, but I share the view that has been expressed by many—in particular by members such as Euan Robson, David Mundell and Elaine Murray who are from areas that were much affected—that we would not willingly go forward with a slaughter policy. However, the reports point out that we must be careful to ensure that any vaccination scheme that is in place will actually do the job. We do not want to end up in the situation—which could happen under the existing regime—where, having vaccinated animals, we are then unable to distinguish between those that are infected and those that have been vaccinated. As a minister, I am absolutely clear that I would never again want to embark on a cull policy, but before we can dismiss that, we will need to have made some advance. Our response makes it clear that that is the direction in which we want to go.

On research, let me say to Fergus Ewing that it was most unfortunate that the UK authority did not apply for the BSE money. However, that money was only for BSE testing, not for general research. BSE does not impact on the research programme to which Fergus Ewing referred.

Will the minister give way?

No, I want to move on to deal with the issue that was raised about the state veterinary service. The SVS had been drifting to the point where it was very much controlled as an arm of DEFRA. Since the disease outbreak, a management team has been created for the service in which the singular role of the chief veterinary officer for Scotland will now be recognised.

I am not entirely clear about what additional powers Richard Lochhead would seek. On a statutory basis, the Scotland Act 1998 clearly sets out that the control of disease outbreaks is a reserved matter.

Alex Fergusson mentioned the use of reserve vets. The current arrangements for local veterinary inspectors are being revised and the LVI pool is being developed with the professional bodies. I think that there will still be support for the use of LVIs in any future outbreak.

I am grateful to several members, who dealt with a number of the issues—[Interruption.]

Order. There is far too much chuntering.

My colleague Euan Robson pointed out the problems with communication. The points about what should be done with specialist breeds were also well made and I am grateful for them.

George Lyon made a point about movement controls, which Alasdair Morgan picked up in his closing remarks. We would make a great mistake if we were to listen only to one side of the argument about why movement controls have been imposed. Those who say simply that the controls damage the industry should listen carefully to what the veterinary people are saying. The vets feel strongly about the need to have controls. George Lyon referred to the need to look at where the movements actually take place and how the movements might be addressed, which are issues that we should not lightly dismiss.

The industry should recognise that the notion that we can go back to the position that obtained immediately prior to the outbreak of the disease is not tenable in the round. However, as I indicated in my opening remarks, we will give much more weight to the risk assessment and cost-benefit analysis. When we have done that and taken account of factors such as those that George Lyon raised, we will be in a better position to respond adequately to the situation.

On the question of access, I am grateful that the majority of members who took part in the debate supported the view that restrictions to access should be relaxed only on the basis of a sound veterinary assessment.

Paragraph 105 of the Executive's response makes it clear that there are continuing rehearsals for emergency planning. That is part of the Scottish local authorities' responsibilities and we have already updated our contingency plans.

The three reports have produced a huge amount of material. I hope that members will acknowledge that the Scottish Executive, in accepting the majority of the reports' recommendations, is making a genuine undertaking to move forward. As many members have said, the issues cannot simply be dealt with in a day. I assure the Parliament that there will be absolutely no complacency in the way in which the Executive tackles the issues. The issues are serious and require us to work, not just as the Government, but collectively with the farming industry and with all the stakeholders to ensure that the most robust framework is in place. We must minimise the risk of future disease outbreaks, protect Scotland's valuable livestock industry and remove the threat to the wider interests of tourism and all those interested industries that were so badly affected by the foot-and-mouth outbreak.