Pandemics and Environmental Degradation

Viscount Ridley Excerpts

Wednesday 24th February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con) [V]]

There is no doubt that there is a very clear link between industrialised agriculture—factory farming, if you like—and the emergent risk of pathogens. This is very high on the agenda. Linked to that is the risk of misuse of antibiotics in agriculture to keep animals alive in conditions that are so squalid that they would not otherwise be able to survive. Our new land use subsidy system that replaces CAP will incentivise ecologically sensitive farming and farming that is in the interests of, and aligns with, human health concerns.

[Viscount Ridley (Con) [V]]

My noble friend will be aware that China has been reforesting rather than deforesting in the last decade and that the animals in the Wuhan wildlife market tested negative. At the moment, the only known connection between wild viruses that are closely related to SARS-CoV-2 and Wuhan is the collection of nine bat viruses taken by scientists from a mineshaft in Mojiang county to Wuhan—a distance greater than that from London to Budapest. Does my noble friend share the US National Security Advisor’s deep concern that the World Health Organization was premature in ruling out a laboratory leak and endorsing an unsupported claim by the Chinese Government that the virus came to Wuhan on frozen fish or meat?