I wish it were that easy. I wish we could ignore all the regulations and precautionary measures that are taken for the licensing of vaccines and just go to the EU and say, “Sort this out. Do it tomorrow,” and then come back and start using the vaccine. However, it is not that easy. We cannot put at risk several billion pounds-worth of produce from this country by implementing something that is illegal. Last week we saw a lot of nonsense in the newspapers about people going over to the European Commission to sort it all out because we stupid Ministers could not quite bring ourselves to do it. We have had an announcement from the Commission; it was mentioned earlier. It said that the Commission was disappointed to see an article by Brian May in The Mail on Sunday on 21 October, that some of the quotes were out of context or inaccurate and therefore misleading, and that vaccination of cattle against TB is forbidden under current EU rules agreed by all member states. That is very clear.
I will happily arrange for those who are genuinely interested in this issue and who want us to develop a vaccine, as we do, to speak to Glyn Hewinson at the Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency—our chief scientist who is working on this—and he will tell them directly, as he told me only two weeks ago, the exact state of play with vaccines. I want a vaccine to be in position at the earliest opportunity, but I have to face facts, and wishful thinking is not going to get rid of bovine tuberculosis in this country. We must have programmes and measures that work, and we must use all the tools in the box.