BSE, the cost of a crisis : thirty-fourth report, together with the proceedings of the Committee relating to the report, the minutes of evidence and appendices / Committee of Public Accounts.

  • Public Accounts Committee
Date:
1999
Catalogue details

Licence: Open Government Licence

Credit: BSE, the cost of a crisis : thirty-fourth report, together with the proceedings of the Committee relating to the report, the minutes of evidence and appendices / Committee of Public Accounts. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    49/68 (page 23)
    30 November 1998] [Mr Love Cont] eradication of BSE, as you have seen it, because the matter had already been dealt with through the feed that was delivered to the cattle, that the eradication of BSE was very much a secondary issue in relation to the way that the money was spent? (Mr Packer) No, I would not put it like that. The first priority has always been to protect the public. There is a series of subordinate objectives to that, one of which is to eliminate BSE and another of which is to stabilise the market which in itself has beneficial effects on public expenditure via the interventions and so on. The potential costs of interventions from a collapse in the beef market are very, very large indeed. 162. There are, as I understand it, still a small number of cases of BSE arising, and a figure like 4,000 comes to mind. (Mr Packer) We are anticipating perhaps 3,000 this year, yes. 163. The selective cull has stopped, as I understand it. Are you confident that the measures you are now taking will be able to deal with those 3,000? (Mr Packer) The selective cull will have reduced the number of cases of BSE by a relatively small margin from what otherwise would have been the case. The predictions are that BSE will continue so that by 2000 we will be below 1,000 cases a year and in the following year hopefully very much lower than that. 164. Can I refer you to the page opposite page 1, the Executive Summary, and the table headed “Expenditure on BSE-related Schemes...” I looked at the bottom of that and it says, “Research into BSE” being £10 million and £12 million. Do you think that was an adequate response to this whole crisis and the sums of money that we were spending on the other areas of market support? (Mr Packer) Well, we have spent quite a lot of money on research and development since BSE was started. In the period 1987 to 1997, the UK Government spent £61 million on _ transmissible spongiform encephalopathies of which £37.5 million has been spent by MAFF and the rest by all the research councils and the Department of Health added together. However, I would add a further point which is that, first of all, the full amount of money spent on research is not included in the figures for technical accounting reasons, because we had to build cattle sheds which cost a lot of money and they are charged against departmental capital as opposed to the research budget. Also research cannot be expanded very, very quickly because there is a need for trained people to do it and it is the people doing it are even more important than the money. 165. Finally, because I have been given my marching orders, let me rephrase my original question in relation to the issue of the eradication of BSE which I consider to be the primary concern of the public, not the support. I understand why we need to support the market and I do not object to the measures which were taken, but the primary concern of the public is the eradication of BSE. I believe that the Report shows that you were complacent on the traceability scheme, which is one of the direct measures, and I believe that [Continued you implemented very half-heartedly the selective cull. What confidence, therefore, do you think this Report gives to the public that we have really rooted out BSE in the way that we were supposed to do? (Mr Packer) I have already made clear to the Committee, I think, my views that the traceability system and the selective cull are largely irrelevant to the eradication of BSE, subject to the caveats I have already made. However, it is our view, and it is the view of independent observers, that BSE is on the way to eradication within a short timescale. Of course it is very important to remember that with an incubation period of four and a half to five years what we see at any given period reflects the circumstances of four and a half to five years previously and that is something which must never be lost sight of indeed in thinking about BSE. Mr Love: If I could just comment, it is not a question, Chairman, I accept that if you look at it strictly from a scientific viewpoint or indeed from a Statistical viewpoint, the difference that these two policy issues would have made to that is fairly minimal, but the reality is that this Committee is supposed to look at it from the public’s viewpoint and the concern of the public about the implications of BSE not only for them, but indeed for the cattle concerned. Mr Twigg 166. Mr Trevelyan, can I ask you first to go back to the issue of selection of abattoirs and renderers. On page 26, in 2.15, it talks about “The selection of those best placed to participate in the scheme took account of advice from the abattoir trade associations”. What weight did you put on that advice? (Mr Trevelyan) Yes, this is in terms of the operation of the cull from the earliest days. As I think we have made it clear, we had no direct experience of contracting for the slaughter of cattle; that, up until that point, had been the job of farmers seeking to send their cattle to market and to the slaughterhouse. Therefore, we had to enter into the arrangement in the most open way possible and we consulted very widely indeed and put a great deal of weight on the advice we received, particularly in areas which had, I think, never been explored before which were the links between slaughterhouses and renderers and the techniques to be employed in rendering whole carcases which of course was a completely unknown practice before that date. 167. So is it true to say that you put significant weight on the advice from the trade associations? (Mr Trevelyan) Yes. 168. Which associations did you consult? (Mr Trevelyan) The associations we consulted are largely those which the NAO themselves consulted, as you will see recorded in the appendices. 169. Did you consult the Association of British Abattoir Operators? (Mr Trevelyan) We did. They put a particular point of view, as the Report has indicated. There were those whom we selected for collaboration and those whom in large part we did not.