Crustacean Mortality in North-east England: Independent Expert Assessment Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateRobert Goodwill
Main Page: Robert Goodwill (Conservative - Scarborough and Whitby)Department Debates - View all Robert Goodwill's debates with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
(1 year, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberI call the Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee.
The Labour party is perfectly entitled to its own opinions, but it is not entitled to its own facts, particularly scientific facts. Will the Minister thank the expert panel, who have pretty much ruled out dredging, and particularly capital dredging, which had not taken place for nine months before the mortality event occurred? Will he assure me that CEFAS will be the first agency to be mobilised should we see recurrences and that, if it can find crabs—perhaps there are some in the freezer from when it happened—more can be done to try to identify the pathogen, which obviously needs to be tracked down?
I thank my right hon. Friend not only for his question but for the work that his Select Committee has done in trying to get to the bottom of the matter and establish the facts. CEFAS remains on guard and, should the worst happen and there is another event, it will step in. As he identified, there are crabs in freezers in the north-east that are available to be tested. However, we must be clear that it is entirely possible that we still will not be able to identify what that pathogen was or if it existed.