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Foot and Mouth/Bluetongue

The contingency plan for foot and mouth stated that we would consider whether vaccination had a part to play in helping us to control the disease after the first measures were taken, such as the use of protection and surveillance zones and the culling of infected animals and of dangerous contacts. Extensive surveillance has been undertaken by the vets and the staff of the Institute for Animal Health—and I know that some Members present have met some of the teams that have been working so hard since the beginning of the outbreak to make sure that we have the necessary information to discover whether the approach we are taking will work. On both occasions—the first and second parts of the outbreak—we stood up vaccination capacity and made an order for vaccines, but in both cases we have decided that the measures we have taken appear to have contained the outbreak: there have been eight cases in Surrey 66 days on. If we were to reach a point where we thought that vaccination was necessary to help us control the spread of an outbreak, I would be willing to consider it, but that has not so far proved necessary.