United States: Haggis Ban

Debate between Lord Winston and Lord De Mauley

Thursday 15th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord De Mauley]

Unfortunately, I cannot guarantee a rapid resolution of the problem, but I hope I have made clear that we are working extremely hard towards it. Promoting food and drink exports more generally is a key government priority. We are working hard to champion UK food and drink overseas with, I think, considerable success. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State is currently in China doing just that.

[Lord Winston (Lab)]

My Lords, I confess to being a little surprised that one of the most senior qualified medical practitioners in the Chamber is asking this Question, seeing that there is a questionable issue about haggis—which I, personally, find a revolting food. Would not charity be better at home? If haggis does indeed deal with obesity, perhaps we should promote it a little in Glasgow.

[Lord De Mauley]

My Lords, what a good idea. As the noble Lord does not appear to like the taste of the,

“Great chieftain o’ the pudding-race”,

I recommend a large tot of whisky.

Flooding: Somerset

Debate between Lord Winston and Lord De Mauley

Monday 10th February 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord De Mauley]

I thank my noble friend for that. It is one of the helpful pieces of advice that is coming in. One issue that has been raised from a lot of quarters is that of dredging, which is only one part of flood maintenance work. Evidence shows that other maintenance activities, such as maintaining pumps, sluice gates and raised embankments, can sometimes provide better value for money in terms of protecting communities from flooding. The effectiveness of dredging in managing flood risk will therefore continue to be assessed on a location-by-location basis in full discussion with local communities and landowners. But I take my noble friend’s advice.

[Lord Winston (Lab)]

My Lords, in one respect, the Minister’s Statement is a bit disappointing, because the very long term is what we also need to consider. Does he not agree that the Government need to recognise increasingly that we have to mitigate against climate change, which is increasingly threatening us? There is a serious risk—and it is not only in Somerset; there is a much wider problem that we might be embarking on, as most scientists would agree.

[Lord De Mauley]

I certainly do not disagree with that myself, my Lords. The noble Lord makes a really important point. Not only should we adapt to it, which is the substance of what we are talking about today, but we need to mitigate it as well.

Badgers

Debate between Lord Winston and Lord De Mauley

Wednesday 9th October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Winston (Lab)]

Will the Minister give an assurance that hedgehogs do not encourage tuberculosis in cattle?

[Lord De Mauley]

That is an extremely interesting and important question, so much so that I will have to write to the noble Lord. I thank him for raising it.

Genetically Modified Crops

Debate between Lord Winston and Lord De Mauley

Wednesday 26th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord De Mauley]

My Lords, first, let me say that my noble friend has a great deal of knowledge in the area of science and GM specifically. His science-based approach is very welcome. I agree with what he says. That is why, despite the difficulties, we will work to unblock the situation. As my right honourable friend the Secretary of State says, we are going to need all the tools in the box to feed the rapidly growing world population. As he also says, we want the United Kingdom to have a leading role in feeding the world and increasing the resilience of global food supplies, and not to stand by watching others take the lead and forge ahead. The UK is the natural home for scientific research. We want companies and research providers to know that the UK is the best place for them to carry out their work.

[Lord Winston]

My Lords, I am sure that it will not have escaped the Minister’s attention that a number of Members of your Lordships’ House are genetically modified. When it comes to plants, does he not agree that there is colossal evidence that, given the shortage of water in the world and of food in many countries, the need for genetically modified plants is ever increasing and that this is an important technology to help many people who are starving?

[Lord De Mauley]

Yes, my Lords, yes and yes.

Bovine Tuberculosis

Debate between Lord Winston and Lord De Mauley

Tuesday 23rd October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord De Mauley]

I am grateful to my noble friend because this is an important subject into which considerable work is going on. The evidence that he has referred to will of course be taken into account. Progress on the development of an effective oral badger vaccine relies, of course, on scientific breakthroughs in this field, and it is uncertain in outcome and timing. Compared to an injectable vaccine, an oral vaccine is technically more difficult to formulate, as my noble friend alluded to, and it requires bait, which encourages the uptake of the vaccine by badgers and minimises the potential of other species to eat it. Developing an oral vaccine against TB in badgers is proving more difficult than originally hoped, which means that I cannot say with certainty when one might be available for use in the field.

[Lord Winston]

My Lords, will the Minister inform us whether the Government intend to cull the seven or eight other common species which also affect tuberculosis and spread it among cattle?

[Lord De Mauley]

That is an interesting question. Although bovine TB is present in other wildlife, such as deer, badgers are the main species responsible for transmitting the disease to cattle because of their specific ecology. Evidence from the RBCT demonstrates conclusively that badgers contribute significantly to bovine TB in cattle. While deer in Britain are generally considered to be a sentinel or spillover host of infection in cattle, rather than a source of the disease in cattle, current evidence suggests that TB infection from deer is not a significant disease risk to cattle.