Avian Influenza

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Thursday 3rd November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I will pursue with my noble friend the Minister the question of what is happening in Scotland. There is deep unease that Scotland is not following the same measures as England. Will he keep this under review and use his best offices in that regard? The noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, referred to the impact of migratory birds. How can we prevent the spread of wildfowl entering the system in future years?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

We have a devolved system of government, and the Scottish Government have this decision in their hands. They will be talking to the Scottish NFU, Scottish research establishments and other interests in Scotland while making their decision. As I said, we are consulting them on a regular basis. On my noble friend’s second point, migratory birds are the reason this disease came to this country. It is a tragedy that is very hard to control because migratory birds are coming from all over Europe and beyond, and we now have the problem that the disease is within our own wild bird population. Whereas in the past it started to flare up at this time of year and more or less ended towards the end of February, it is now established in the kinds of species that I described earlier. All we can do is monitor this and see whether we can find areas of change. This is a flu—an influenza like many others—and, after a while, these viruses diminish in their effect, and great abilities to withstand their impacts start to occur. We must hope that this happens quickly. We are all united in this House in wanting this country to fulfil its desire to see no net loss of biodiversity by 2030, although factors like this make it more difficult. Nevertheless, these species can be extremely resilient: if we can get over this, their numbers can start to recover. I assure noble Lords that we are monitoring this carefully.