Volume 5: Animal Health, 1989-96
6. Breeding
The Agriculture Select Committee's report on BSE
The Select Committee's recommendation
The Government' s response

The Select Committee's recommendation

6.83 In its report on BSE, published on 10 July 1990, the House of Commons Agriculture Select Committee commented on whether there should be a ban on breeding from the offspring of cows with BSE. SEAC's advice was considered, ¹ and in its report the Agriculture Select Committee said that it found SEAC's reasoning 'neither fully convincing nor fully clear'. It acknowledged that Dr Tyrrell had admitted the advice was produced in haste, and that a second report was being prepared (see paragraph 5.77 above). The Select Committee continued:

The essence of Dr Tyrrell's advice is that decisions on whether or not to breed from the offspring of confirmed cases should be left to farmers on their veterinary surgeon's advice. His reasons for this are abstruse and depend less on pure science than a series of finely balanced judgements about whether particular constraints on breeding would be warranted by their likely effectiveness. Our own view is that this is an area where scientific advice needs to be considered in conjunction with other factors and where, beneath the agonising over technicalities, the issue may be a comparatively simple one. If it was known that BSE was maternally transmissible, no Government could countenance the offspring of BSE-affected cows breeding freely since that would signal an indifference to eradicating the disease. Since it is only speculated that the disease is maternally transmissible, what is at issue is whether one proceeds on the basis of speculation or awaits certain knowledge.

The judgment is a fine one but, in our view:

1. no legislative action is necessary unless maternal transmission is confirmed;
2. in the interests of public confidence, farmers should be discouraged from breeding from animals whose dams have been affected by BSE. ²

6.84 The Select Committee suggested that one way of achieving this would be for MAFF to 'indicate that it would not pay compensation on animals which had been knowingly bred from a dam with BSE in its lineage'. ³

The Government' s response

6.85 On 24 July 1990 Mr Lowson sent a submission to Mr Gummer, which advised that the Select Committee's recommendations on breeding should be rejected. ⁴ Mr Gummer acceded to this advice when he met with MAFF officials the next day. ⁵

6.86 In November 1990 the Government presented its response to the Select Committee's report. On breeding from offspring of BSE cows, the Government stated:

The arguments are complex and it is important that [SEAC's] views should be read in full. But the Government finds them convincing and therefore does not accept the Select Committee's recommendation on this point.

It follows that the Government does not accept either the recommendation that farmers who breed from known BSE cases should not get compensation if the offspring succumb to BSE. Such action would act as a clear discouragement to reporting suspect disease, even though it is a legal requirement. Moreover, the Animal Health Act 1981 lays down that if the Minister requires the compulsory slaughter of an animal, the owner must be compensated. ⁶