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Agricultural Policy

I am grateful to the Minister for that response. I pay tribute to his expertise in this field. I was to come next to motivation behind the move. A monetary saving? Yes, most certainly, I acknowledge that savings have to be made. It is also said to be an attempt to streamline the service to make it more efficient and responsive to the farms that those laboratories serve. That is the problem I have with this. What are the savings of shutting down laboratories, mothballing the labs, keeping the fabric of those buildings intact while we retain the post-mortem function? What are the savings, when there is talk of redeploying some staff elsewhere? The message came strongly from Carmarthen and Aberystwyth staff, who met the Select Committee, that savings could and should be made. Many have already been made: bigger Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency centres and headquarters, but retaining our labs and, critically, the surveillance functions, and continuing to work with the local veterinary service, not relying on it exclusively. As the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr just said, in such a hugely significant livestock area, what further guarantees can the Minister give us that, with hived-off laboratory functions, the post-mortem service will not eventually also cease? That is another fear of the Farmers’ Union of Wales revealed during questioning at the DEFRA Committee hearings.