Volume 1: Findings and Conclusions
11. Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland
Scotland

1104 Here there was not the same happy combination of skills and knowledge in place to bring together the animal and human health implications of BSE. Matters were very much left in the hands of the Agriculture Department. However, in 1990 Dr Gerald Forbes, a former member of the Scottish Home and Health Department, expressed concerns about the risk that BSE posed to humans, which appear initially to have sounded a cautionary note with the CMO, Dr Kenneth Calman, and with Mr Graham Hart, who headed the Health Department. Dr Robert Kendell on the other hand, who took over as CMO in 1991, did not seek Dr Forbes's views, regarding the Environmental Health (Scotland) Unit which Dr Forbes now headed as a 'one man band'. Dr Kendell looked mainly to Mr James Scudamore, the Assistant Chief Veterinary Officer, Scotland, for advice about BSE. Mr Scudamore seems to have fulfilled his role admirably, both towards the CMO and in working closely with the Animal Health branch in the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries for Scotland (DAFS). However, as he told us, he had expected that his contributions from the veterinary and general MAFF perspective would have formed no more than one element in any Scottish Office assessment of an issue. We agree. But no such wider assessment appears to have been made by DAFS officials in relation to BSE.

1105 We thought that this shortcoming could be attributed to weak links and lack of shared perceptions in the Scottish Office between those responsible for animal and human health. Dr Kendell told us that he simply assumed that it was his job to keep careful tabs on the human disease, and it was the job of DAFS to ensure that everything was right and proper on farms and in abattoirs. We saw little sign of joint working on BSE between the administrators in the Health and Agriculture Departments. One manifestation of this was the pigeonholing of the hard-won SEAC papers by DAFS administrators as scientific, technical and 'all Greek'. These were never discussed and assessed jointly with Health officials, or indeed at all, nor brought to the attention of the CMO, who later thought they would have been 'enormously helpful'.

1106 It seems to us that those dealing with animal and human health could profitably have shared knowledge about and discussed slaughterhouse practices, the food chain implications if enforcement of Regulations was inadequate, and any impact that this might have on handling BSE in Scotland. We also think that it was desirable that a working competence in understanding the papers of a key advisory committee such as SEAC should have been available in the Scottish Office.

1107 Happily the poor liaison did not create delays in the action taken by DAFS to introduce Scottish legislation and apply the various precautionary measures agreed on BSE. We have no criticisms of this. The House of Commons Agriculture Committee had, in 1990, censured the delay in introducing the Scottish human SBO ban to mirror the England and Wales Regulations of November 1989. However, given the last-minute addition of sausage casings, which had a bearing on haggis manufacture, and the troubles that immediately arose over the lawfulness and adequacy of the 1989 SBO Regulations, we thought it not unreasonable that those producing the Scottish equivalent should take the time necessary to avoid these pitfalls.

1108 That said, the border between Scotland and England, and indeed between England and Wales, is meaningless so far as the movement of people, animals and goods is concerned. In these circumstances, human and animal health threats need a common approach. As a general principle, it seems to us highly desirable that when animal and human health safeguards are urgently needed, there should be available powers to bring those into effect simultaneously across the whole of Great Britain.