UK Parliament / Open data

Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

I recognise that point, and I thought long and hard about this issue. There is always an argument for why we should not pick up a conversation about how the system needs to change. We could take the view, ““Well, let's put it off until later.”” Iain Anderson recommended in 2001 that we should go down this road, and it is my experience based on having dealt with these outbreaks that has turned cost and responsibility from a policy issue that was on a long list of things that I had to deal with when I arrived in this job in June to something I can now see needs to change. I think the farming industry ought to play a much bigger role in deciding what controls are put in place and how they are dealt with, as ultimately it is the farming industry that has the greatest incentive to get those decisions right. Governments of whatever party do not always know what is best, and I want to restart the conversations we have already been having about how we can design a better system for the future in which responsibility for decision making is shared, which is what the farming community wants. In the process, discussion must also take place about how the cost will be shared.
Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
468 c760 
Session
2007-08
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamber
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