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Foot and Mouth Disease and Bluetongue

My Lords, the Minister has just mentioned making decisions based on science. Could he explain why Pirbright itself was not made the first infected premises? We knew that no animals were leaving Pirbright and that therefore it would depend on humans and vehicle movements. If Pirbright had been treated as the first IP, the protection and surveillance zone boundaries would have been different and we would not have had the second outbreak of foot and mouth disease. I understand that a lot of construction work has been going on at the Pirbright premises, as is mentioned in the report. Lorries, JCBs and all sorts of vehicles were going on and off the premises without being sprayed as they went out. There seems to have been a very poor quality of record-keeping as to where all those vehicles went. Rumour has it that some lorries were taking topsoil from Pirbright and delivering it to people for their gardens. Can the Minister say anything about that? As for bluetongue, there have been reports of outbreaks on the Continent, where animal welfare has been put in jeopardy because people cannot afford to pay to have their animals put down. That particularly applies to sheep, which I gather suffer the most. Will the Minister consider either assisting farmers with the cost of euthanizing their animals—vets fees are pretty expensive, if you call a vet out to put an animal down—or having a team of people who are prepared to come out and euthanize the animals, so that the animals do not suffer and farmers do not have to watch their animals dying because they cannot afford to have them put down?