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Foot and Mouth Disease and Bluetongue

My Lords, I cannot answer precisely the initial question asked by the noble Countess with regard to Pirbright and the control zone, but I assure her that when I was telephoned on Friday—and I was not in the country at the time—I was informed that the location of that first outbreak was incredibly close to Pirbright. In other words, the connection had been made virtually as the analysis was being done. Even then, that may well have been locking the stable door. I have not previously referred to this, but when the foot and mouth disease came back again in a third, fourth and fifth outbreak, it is clear from all the evidence that we have that the fifth was not in fact the fifth but at least the third—and it may have been earlier than that. The disease was not reported and the lesions were up to four weeks old in some cases. The chronology is still being worked on by epidemiologists. On bluetongue, I do not discount the distress of farmers but at the moment there are only 30 cases and one hopes that it will not spread. The disease does affect sheep very badly, but the bluetongue plan—which we updated and published in late July or early August—was agreed with the industry. There was no surprise about this; we had been getting ready for bluetongue for a while. We know what happened in Belgium, where it was rampant before it was discovered. We have the unique situation, because of the movement ban of foot and mouth, of being able to know more about how it may spread. I assure the noble Countess that dozens of scientists and vets are working on this at present. They are in the unique position of being able to find out more about how bluetongue spreads in a way in which they were unable to do in Germany and Belgium.