I hope it won’t disconcert the Cabinet Secretary too much if I offer my full support for the measures that she has taken. I have frequently been a critic of hers in the past on the question of proportionality. I think that, in this particular instance, the action that she has taken is proportionate. It is in the interests of all poultry keepers that we prevent the spread of this disease. Having lived through the horrors of the Edwina Curry salmonella-in-eggs scare 30 years ago, where a lot of unnecessary hysteria was caused, I think it’s important to remind people that avian flu comes in many, many different strains. Most of them are not a real menace, even to poultry keepers, let alone to the public. There is no food safety risk, as far as we know, at all. Therefore, there should not be any knock-on effects on those who sell food products that are related to birds.

I wonder if the Cabinet Secretary can tell me to what extent we can improve the general public’s understanding of these issues. Of course, among poultry keepers, we might expect a higher level of understanding than the public generally. As regards reporting of the dead birds that are seen, there is guidance that says that you should report any waterfowl or gulls—or, indeed, any bird—in quantities of five or more found together. That’s important information that is needed by the authorities to understand exactly how the disease is spreading, if it is. Biosecurity is the key to sorting this out. It sounded, from what the Cabinet Secretary said earlier on, that we are likely to see these restrictions continue for some time because of the time of year. We currently have, as she mentioned, migration in the coming weeks. Therefore, this is likely to produce problems for people who keep poultry for commercial reasons.

As regards the smaller flocks, the latest incident, in Pontyberem, involved a relatively small number of birds, and in these circumstances, I wonder what could be done to encourage people to net enclosures for keeping their birds, in which case there should be very little interference with the lives both of the birds themselves and, indeed, of poultry keepers. Given the animal welfare implications of housing indoors for significant periods of time, if this is likely to continue for several months, it may well be a worthwhile investment for people to have netted areas where birds could be let out, and I wonder to what extent her department could assist in that respect.