County Inquiry report to go to European committee

Originally from: Kittra
                        
I'll be so glad when the Herald gets themselves a proper website with all their articles online. As usual I have typed the whole thing out. Apologies for any typos I missed

Elaine

Cumberland & Westmorland Herald 27 April 2002:

COUNTY INQUIRY REPORT TO GO TO EUROPEAN COMMITTEE

The European Parliament's temporary committee on FMD will take in evidence the report and conclusions of Cumbria's own FMD Inquiry, which begins early next month. The news came following a meeting between Cumbria County Council and the EU temporary committee at which representatives from the council and other agencies explained the devastating impact the crisis had on the county. Council leader Rex Toft said: "We had an excellent meeting with the EU temporary committee and were able to explain in detail the devastating effects of the outbreak on agriculture and tourism, as well as the ongoing economic and social costs. I spoke personally to the head of the delegation, Redondo Jimenez, about the Cumbrian inquiry and asked that the committee accepts its report as part of the evidence it considers before drawing its own conclusions. I'm delighted that the committee is willing to do that."

According to Mr Toft, there are a number of questions which must be answered by any inquiry into the crisis, including:
 a.. What caused the outbreak?
 b.. Why and how did it spread so rapidly?
 c.. Were the measures taken to deal with it effective?
 d.. Was the widespread culling of livestock the right response?
 e.. Should livestock have been vaccinated?
 f.. What measures must now be put in place to prevent a further outbreak? Mr Toft said: "The answers to these and many more questions are more likely to be found here in Cumbria than anywhere else, as we bore the brunt of the outbreak. We need to understand what happened here – the people of Cumbria demand no less." He added: " our own inquiry is independent and non-political. An independent panel of experts will consider every piece of evidence submitted and produce a detailed report, which we expect to publish in July. I fully expect its conclusions to be of not jus regional but of national and European significance. That's why it is so important the lessons learned here in Cumbria are considered fully in Europe and Westminster."

The announcement that the EU temporary committee will take evidence from the Cumbrian inquiry was welcomed by NFU officials. County policy advisor Veronica Waller said: "Cumbria County Council has offered to send the committee a report of its own forthcoming inquiry which we hope will provide the detail needed for the necessary lessons to be learned. With almost half the cases of the worst FMD outbreak in history, Cumbria needs to be assured that these inquiries will ensure we will not be faced with this trauma in future." She added: " We welcome the fact that the inquiry committee has come to Cumbria and we were able to give them the first hand personal experiences from both culled out farmers and those that kept their stock. However, we feel the visit has been far too short to get over in sufficient detail the lessons to be learned from Cumbria's FMD experience."

DANGEROUS CONTACT

During their time in England, the EU committee members visited the farm of Peter Holliday at Dalston. A dairy farmer culled out in late March last year, Mr Holliday recounted his experience of the crisis, as did his twin brother, Roger, who kept his livestock during the crisis despite potentially qualifying as a dangerous contact 14 times.

Three other farmers also attended – Stephen Brough, a culled out dairy farmer from the Dalston area, and William Rawlings and Joyce Spedding, from West Cumbria, who suffered from the many months of restrictions. Vets David Black and John Cook also gave valuable veterinary background to the outbreak and stressed the need for local decision making and empowerment.

On Saturday morning, a further meeting of the inquiry committee at Kendal as attended by eight farmers, including Cumbria NFU deputy chairman Steve Dunning from Orton, and Peter Allen, from Bampton. Mr Dunning said: "I was expecting a bit of a fracas, because there had been a lot of abuse flying around at the Gretna public meeting from Scottish people who thought the Cumbrians shouldn't be there, but it went quite well. There was passion but not too much anger. They had obviously picked up a lot of what went on in Cumbria and the people from tourism and farming came together well to get their messages over. It was a bit difficult for people like me because there were two or three interpreters talking at the same time, but you got used to it. We only go four or five minutes each, but that's all you really need to make your point."

TIGHTER CONTROLS

"We stressed that there needs to be tighter controls on imports to prevent disease coming into the country. We also old them about the importance of protecting the heafed flocks – they actually understood what those are, which was good to hear." He added: " They gave us the feeling vaccination will be at the top of the list the next time there is a FMD outbreak."

Like the NFU, North West MEP Richard Inglewood welcomed the visit while expressing regret that it had been so short. He said: "Although the visit to Cumbria by the European Parliament's temporary committee was far from ideal, being organised at too short notice which meant the program was not the one I would have chosen, and the lack of publicity meant some of those who would have liked to have talked to it will not have been able to, I do believe it was still worthwhile. From talking to colleagues on the committee – obviously having lost much of my stock in the outbreak I could not be a member myself – it is clear they now have some realisation of the kind of intensely emotional experience the county went through, how the outbreak had some of the characteristics of war, the sheer scale of the slaughter, and how the outbreak hit deeply into all sectors of the economy, not merely agriculture. I think this is important to them in reaching their conclusions."