Zoonoses Research Centre

Lord Cunningham of Felling Excerpts

Tuesday 24th May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I am very happy to pay tribute to Fera, which does extraordinarily important work and is part of a wide range of different organisations— I apologise to noble Lords; sometimes it is like an alphabet soup—which we are trying to bring together, with their various different strands of expertise, to make sure we tackle all zoonotic diseases. My noble friend is absolutely right that monkeypox is one of them.

[Lord Cunningham of Felling (Lab)]

My Lords, when the Labour Government were elected in 1997, we inherited the international beef ban. Bovine spongiform encephalopathy was a zoonosis which wreaked havoc on the British agriculture industry and our reputation, not just in Europe but internationally. I regret that, although we eventually solved the beef ban and the problem of BSE, the Labour Government did not go on to establish the kind of thing that the noble Lord, Lord Trees, talked about. I fear that this Government are making the same error. Does the Minister not recognise that, unless we act in a wholly different way, as the noble Lord, Lord Trees, suggested, we will run the same risks again?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The noble Lord is absolutely right to point out the impact that these diseases have. Foot and mouth cost this country £8 billion and huge amounts of human and animal misery. Subsequent diseases, including Covid, have identified that we need to be so much more prepared for this. We are putting enormously increased resources into scientific research and the infrastructure that supports it. Our science capability in animal health, which is centred at Weybridge, has just been voted £200 million to improve its facilities, and there is much more to come in future. That is all part of being a significant contributor to the global effort to tackle zoonotic disease.