The following is the text of a letter from the Chairwoman of FAWC to Mr Elliot Morley MP, dated 13 April 2001.

Advice on the Welfare Implications of Foot and Mouth Disease

I am sure you found our meeting earlier this week was helpful in clarifying where FAWC considers the welfare concerns in the current Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) outbreak are arising. As I made clear, I believe the value of FAWC is that its membership includes an extraordinary level of expertise in all the relevant areas - and that these experts are accustomed, within the Council, to debating issues and formulating well balanced advice. Thus, whilst individual members can and are helping officials on an ad hoc basis, the strength of the whole Council in its advisory function is greater than the sum of its individual parts.

With this in mind, I have called an extraordinary meeting of Council on 4th May the agenda of which will be dedicated to issues relating to FMD.

In particular we will consider the proposals to introduce a 20 day standstill period. You will already know that we consider a fundamental to the success of any such scheme lies in secure and affordable identification of all animals, including sheep. During our meeting, we discussed one such identification system based upon recognition of retinal vasculature. This would appear to meet such demands, with the added advantage that the system geographically locates and dates the identification event, and I am enclosing a brief description. I feel sure there are other technologies emerging which may also achieve this objective - the important factor now is to provide the infrastructure which will encourage implementation of such developments.

We will also, at our extraordinary meeting, review the welfare implications of any vaccination policy which may be under consideration. It would therefore be useful to keep me fully advised on thinking in this area.

In addition we will be considering the operation of the Welfare Disposal Scheme to review our advice on this. You will recall that, during our discussions, the main concerns I relayed to you related to the need for better prioritisation of welfare needs, the provision of adequate slaughter capacity, and the option of providing practical assistance to needy farmers (for example fodder provision) as an alternative to financial compensation.

We also discussed FAWC's view that one or several high-level (veterinary) officials should be identified who would have welfare as a key part of their portfolio. I understand that Geraldine Whitmore will be filling such a role and I am confident that this move will also help enormously with prioritisation.

Of course, FAWC's advisory role will be particularly important in the aftermath of this current outbreak. I see that all three of our upcoming reports (the interim report on Farm Assurance Schemes, the Welfare at Slaughter Report, and the Welfare at Markets Report) are very pertinent and we will be considering how best we can adapt these reports (all three are entering final stages of preparation) to include important recommendations of lessons to be learned.

In addition, no doubt there will be a major enquiry set up in due course (viz Northumberland Report following the 1967 outbreak) and I am confident that FAWC can make a key contribution to such a review.

I will be in touch following our meeting on 4th May. Meanwhile, I trust that you will not hesitate to contact me if you feel that FAWC can be of further assistance during the current crisis.