Food, Farming and the Environment

The hon. Gentleman raises an extremely important point. We have been discussing this issue with the Scottish Government. I know that the industry is very concerned about it. Indeed, if I remember rightly, we talked about it the last time I met representatives of the core group. We will have to find a way of trying to resolve it. One of the other reasons we did not go for the compulsory programme was that although with it would have come the offer of European funding, the industry came to the view, having looked at what would be involved, the time it would take, the bureaucracy and so on, that it was not as attractive a proposition as it might first have appeared. If I may, I will come back to the hon. Gentleman on that important point, because we need to try to march in step in these circumstances. On bovine TB, which I could not make this speech without mentioning, the whole House recognises, as I do, how extremely hard it is for farmers and their families living with this devastating disease. We now have the TB eradication group, with which we are working closely. Secondly, we have committed £20 million to the vaccine programme, and we expect an injectable badger vaccine to be ready and licensed for use in 2010. The TB eradication group has considered the six areas in which a deployment project could be started as soon as the vaccine is available. The third thing that we have to do is get the regulation right. Sometimes there is a clear case for regulation. An example of that would be the decisions that were taken after the 2001 foot and mouth outbreak. Tough movement controls were put in place—that is a form of regulation—and lessons were learned. The benefit of those was seen in 2007 when, by applying them quickly, the outbreak that occurred was concentrated in a small part of the country and did not spread everywhere like wildfire.