UK Parliament / Open data

Agriculture: Bluetongue

Oral answer to question provided on Tuesday, 18 March 2008 in the House of Lords, by Lord Rooker (Labour).

Answer

My Lords, it is worrying about what happened with the exports from the Netherlands to Northern Ireland in January. I cannot give a figure for the money, but research is going on to see whether there is a possibility of oral transfer mechanisms or transfers from cows to calves of bluetongue because that has not been thought to be the issue to date. Work is going on across Europe on the issue. The EU Commission has looked at it, but the evidence base is incomplete, so further work is being undertaken. On the second point, perhaps I may say how grateful I am to the noble Countess for drawing my attention to this lapse in technical efficiency as soon as she discovered it rather than waiting to cause me acute embarrassment at the Dispatch Box. As she will realise, the website was changed by around noon today so that it now shows the clinical signs in cattle accompanied by photographs of cattle and the clinical signs in sheep accompanied by photographs of sheep. The one thing I would say in defence is that there was a separate area on the website of the clinical signs of bluetongue accompanied by photographs, all of which were accurate. However, the leaflet was not. This is a lapse that I regret.

This is an answer to the Oral question asked on Tuesday, 18 March 2008 by Countess of Mar (Crossbench).

Question

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that reply. In the light of the recent discovery of viremic calves and the possibility of maternal transmission of bluetongue, does he agree that it is vital that we understand the overwintering process for bluetongue? What funding has been made available to the Institute for Animal Health to research this issue? Further, does the noble Lord agree that it would give farmers a lot more confidence in Defra if the officials who compiled the leaflet Bluetongue: How to spot the disease knew the difference between sheep and cattle and that you do not vaccinate a recumbent cow?

Type
Oral answer to question
Reference
700 c139-40 
Session
2007-08
Chamber / Committee
House of Lords chamber
Back to top