Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:29 pm on 30 April 2019.
Thank you, Joyce Watson, for your questions. Just picking up on that last point—and, certainly, officials constantly monitor the different programmes and systems used in relation to trying to eradicate bovine TB—I mentioned before that the chief veterinary officer is going to Dublin today, to—. I forget which university it is. Professor Hewinson, who I mentioned, working at our centre of excellence—he will also be there with her, because people want to learn from him. He's world renowned, and for me, he's a great source of advice when I need it. So, I think it is about learning from other countries, but it's also good to see that people are inviting our experts also to learn from them.
The question you raise—which is a difficult one—around specific farms, has been raised with me several times by individual farmers. But certainly, again, officials have not given me that advice. But you can clearly see where we have these long-term breakdowns, and that was one of the reasons I was so keen—. You may remember from when I made the statement about the refreshed programme that some of these breakdowns were for years and years and years. And as you say, it's complete misery, distress and heartbreak. So, whilst I haven't received advice for that, individual farmers themselves have raised that question with me, and I think it is probably something that will be discussed as we go forward.
In relation to informed purchasing, I mentioned in an earlier answer that it's something that we are considering making mandatory. I wanted to do it voluntary, certainly, and I made that funding available to livestock markets. I do think farmers do need to take greater responsibility in relation to purchasing, but they need that information, and that's why I wanted to work with livestock markets, grant funding them, so that they could upgrade their facilities to enable them to be able to very prominently display TB information of the cattle being sold. But, unfortunately, certainly when I've looked at what's been going on over the last year, there seems to be very little information coming forward from sellers to enable farmers to make those decisions.
So, certainly, I know DEFRA are also looking at the possibility of a mandatory informed-purchasing system, so we are working in collaboration with them. It is very complex. It would require, of course, consultation. It would require a change to legislation. It's not something that you can do very quickly. Pre and post-movement testing reduces, but, of course, does not eliminate the risk, because cattle can, obviously, become infected after being tested or because they may be at the earlier stages of infection and it's too early to be picked up. So, I think this is something that I need to look at, because it's absolutely vital that farmers get that information so they can give consideration to where their cattle are sourced from.