Responding to Debby Reynolds’s update on the foot and mouth outbreak today, Peter Ainsworth, Shadow Environment Secretary, said:.
"The news that further culling is to take place in Surrey will come as a bitter blow to the farmer concerned and he has my deepest sympathy. The fact that the need for this arises from a dangerous contact, however, suggests that the disease is not spreading widely - but we can only wait and hope at this stage.”
He added:
"I welcome today's limited relaxation of the movement ban outside the affected area.
"However, I am disappointed that the Government - unlike the Administration in Scotland - is still refusing to permit on-farm burial of sheep and other smaller animals. On-farm burial would be quicker, and more efficient than waiting for dead animals to be collected, and would limit unnecessary movement. Farmers are rightly concerned that, without lifting the on farm burial ban, they, and the public, will have rotting animal corpses to contend with. I have spoken to one farmer from Cheshire who notified Defra on Sunday that he had a dead cow on his land. It was still there, uncollected, this morning.
"It is also disappointing that a further update on biosecurity at Pirbright has not appeared after yesterday's two page analysis.”
"We need urgent reassurance that the Pirbright site is now fully secure?"
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