Foot and Mouth Disease

Thank you, presiding officer.

Today's debate marks an important step forward in the way we deal with future outbreaks and threats of foot and mouth disease, and other diseases in Scotland. More recently we have watched as bluetongue has crept into parts of England and god willing it won't make its way across the border to Scotland! Importantly, though, and I hope the cabinet secretary will take note of this, bluetongue incidents in England have this year all been as a result of infected imported animals so I hope as the debate continues long after 5pm today, that Mr Lochhead and his officials will look to protect Scotland from infected animals crossing the border or coming in from further afield once the vaccination programme starts running. And plea to farmers not to import Cattle from infected areas at all.

We do welcome Jim Scudamore's report and I am pleased that the Government is committed to taking forward the recommendations contained in it. That will be a long and complicated process, but a very necessary one.

No-one would wish to see a repeat of what happened in 2001, especially in my South Region. I was at the coalface of it then, hill farming and acting as a go-between with NFU members and officials, fielding folk's heartbreaking and life destroying concerns every minute of the day, my mobile was red hot as I tried my best to cushion the blows. Peoples' loves and livelihoods were wiped out overnight, you all saw it on TV, I'm afraid I witnessed it first hand. Its something I never want to live through again, nor last year either, the timing of that event was worse with stock having to be moved off Islands and Hills for the winter.

The distress and economic impact, both directly and indirectly, in both circumstances cannot be underestimated; never mind the animal welfare implications and the large effect these outbreaks have had in the decline of sheep and cattle in Scotland.

We therefore need to create a workable system of protection for Scotland's flocks and herds which will safeguard a future for our livestock producers both through healthy markets at home; within the EU and international markets.

In other words, we need to create a system which will react quickly and flexibly to the needs of the Scottish situation.

Key questions are how can we protect Scotland from disease in the future, but at the same time make sure we get the market back to normal as quickly as possible so as not to allow significant damage or disruption to the rural economy and livestock sector?

The bottom line is that in an FMD situation there has to be unfailing communication and clear arrangements between Scottish and UK governments. On aside it is without doubt the UK Govt should tighten up customs, to lessen the chance of illegally imported meats in the future.

But regionalisation is imperative as it became crystal clear very early on in the 2007 outbreak, that both for economic and animal welfare reasons we needed restrictions to be relaxed in a monitored way to allow businesses to operate where it was safe to do so. I believe that a regionalised system will be critical for the future.

I welcome also the need to consider a future funding mechanism for exotic disease policies in Scotland. And this brings me to the Liberal Democrat amendment. Agriculture is devolved and we therefore have full policy control of animal health and welfare as part of that, yet funding for those policies is controlled by DEFRA. If policy responsibility is fully devolved to the Scottish Government it is only logical that the budgets to deliver that policy should also be completely devolved to the Scottish Government, including funds necessary to control major outbreaks of disease, it is an anomaly of the Scotland Act. At the moment we have a system whereby the money Scotland gets from the Barnett formula doesn't include animal health, but rather it's kept in the overall UK animal health pot. I believe that Scotland's share of that money would be better used if devolved, but with the proviso that we still have access to the UK Treasury reserve when and if that's needed, after all there are no natural or trade barriers between us and England, nor do we want to see any barriers put up between us.

It's important where Scotland decides to follow its own policy route, because at the present time we retrospectively look to DEFRA or the Treasury to fund those policies; colleagues will recall that this problem arose last year when a welfare disposal scheme seemed the only way to deal with animals left on hills with insufficient food, but the implication of following our own line on that policy was that there was no guarantee of any funds from DEFRA or the Treasury to cover the costs to this Govt.

Presiding Officer, I acknowledge the Cabinet Secretary's attempts to have Scotland's share of the agricultural budget fully devolved and I sincerely hope that he and others will support the Liberal Democrat amendment calling on just that, but importantly, with an emphasis on still having access to the UK Treasury reserve. I hope that negotiations will result in a devolved budget and a budget proportionate to the importance of agriculture and broader economy of Scotland.

I look for full support across the chamber for the Liberal Democrat's amendment.

Thank you.