Speech by Llyr Gruffydd AM, Shadow Minister for Sustainable Communities, Energy and Food BVA Annual Welsh Dinner on 1 July 2014 at Cardiff City Hall It gives me great pleasure, in responding on behalf of the guests this evening, to thank you Robin for your welcome and the BVA s hospitality. The BVA Wales Dinner is a notable event in the calendar of Assembly Members - an event that was somewhat scuppered last year by legislation forcing plenary to run late, something many of us feared would be repeated this year but gladly the remaining amendments to the Housing Bill have been dealt with and I see a number of my colleagues have arrived in good time. You mentioned that I live on a family farm and you re right of course. A quintessential Welsh hill farm I suppose, stocking sheep and cattle overlooking the Vale of Clwyd. And I love it. My father in law farms the land and I get stuck in when I can. So it s the best of both worlds for me! I was raised in Carmarthen, but now living in Ruthin two quite similar towns. Both important rural market towns with a large agricultural hinterland farming being an essential feature of both local economies and communities where local veterinarians are important figures in the landscape. Veterinary practices being as much a social hub in many respects as they are centres for animal health and welfare - and making a not insignificant contribution to their respective local economies as well of course. Next week the Welsh Government tables its proposals for a Future Generations Bill to place sustainable development at heart of the wider public sector in Wales. All major decisions by the public sector in Wales will have to consider and respect the three pillars of Sustainable Development namely their social, environmental and economic impacts. Why am I telling you this?
Because that s what many of you do every day. Animal disease outbreaks and the measures to deal with them can carry a wide and costly consequence socially, for public health, the environment and the economy. And we need to do more to celebrate and recognise that in the way wider society values and appreciates your role in helping deliver healthy, functioning communities, environments and economies here in Wales. In running through a wide variety of key issues that the BVA has been active upon during the last year you touched on a number of elements that would be part of that wider manifesto for rural prosperity. Many of you will know that on CAP I was very critical of the Minister s decision here in Wales to transfer the maximum 15% from Pillar 1 direct payments to farmers into Pillar 2 wider rural development. With average farm incomes across all sectors having dropped by 44% last year, many farmers still struggling with the aftermath of recent extreme weather events and with CAP reforms bringing additional pressures it was not the right time to take the maximum 15% out of direct payments. Dont get me wrong. A Plaid Cymru government would have commited to a transfer but at a more modest level initially adopting a more gradual transition. I understand why the Minister did it. I just don t agree. The reality now is that we have the highest transfer rate in Europe. So now the focus turns to ensuring the money within the Rural Development Programme is used to best effect. The details of which will be announced by the Minister a week today. The Welsh Government has said it wishes to ensure that animal health & welfare is embedded across the RDP. I agree. The long term viability of the livestock sector will only be achieved with a sustainable approach to continually raising the standards of animal health and welfare. That s why, like you, I was disappointed that the AHVLA decided to reduce its veterinary surveillance capacity here in Wales. But that s why, like you, I m also enthused by the proposals to develop a veterinary hub in Aberystwyth.
I look forward to hearing more about those proposals and getting foursquare behind that vision of a centre of veterinary excellence in Wales and for all of Wales. Something that s much more than a provider of laboratory services. A hub for developing programmes to tackle disease, for sharing best practice and for knowledge transfer not only within the veterinary profession but to a wider audience through advice and training. Something that s much more dynamic. The Assembly s Environment Committee recently undertook an inquiry into Sustainable land management and the work of IBERS - The Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences at Aberystwyth was a great source of inspiration for many of us. An internationally recognised research and teaching centre providing a unique base for research in response to global challenges such as food security, bioenergy and sustainability, and the impacts of climate change. Their cutting edge work in bringing forward new thinking, new ideas, new innovations will make a big contribution to creating the stronger, more resilient rural economy we all want to see. The prospect of emulating even just a little bit of that in an animal health and welfare context fills me with excitement and deserves our full political support and also practical support from RDP resources. So we await the Minister s announcement next week which should give us a much clearer picture of what s possible. And whilst I hear what you say about the prospect of a new veterinary school, I believe that Wales needs to provide veterinary education and I fully intend that aspiration to be realised one day. I didn t expect to get very far this evening before mentioning bovine TB! We all welcomed the recent statistics showing a reduction in Wales. And Robin you re right to remind us that statistics fluctuate and that it is a cyclical disease so we mustn t get too carried away. There isn t I m sure any self-congratulatory back slapping happening here because as we all know it s much too early to understand what if any effect the vaccination policy is having. But I want to return here to what you explained was the theme to your presidential year. A theme that certainly ran very strongly through your speech this evening. That theme of course is trust.
The Welsh Government has quite rightly through the Cymorth TB programme turned to the veterinary profession to provide additional support and advice to farms that have suffered a TB breakdown and I welcome its wider roll out. That success is underpinned by the trust that exists between those local vets and their clients - something that can act as a bridge as you described it between policymakers and livestock owners. But here s my challenge to Welsh Government. You must show that very same trust in our vets. If in a Cymroth TB area it can be shown that despite following the letter of the law, despite following all advice and best practice in terms of movement restrictions, biosecurity measures and disease control that farms in their patch are going down to TB time after time after time, those vets should come forward to Welsh Government and ask about the prospect of eradicating TB in wildlife. The Welsh Government should then show the same trust in those vets and act accordingly. It may well not arise in most instances. But where it does and where you the practitioners believe it is necessary, I will trust you and I will support you. The bridge you mentioned between policymakers and livestock owners isn t one way traffic. It should work the other way too. I sometimes feel there s a paradox in the Government s outlook to veterinary services in Wales. Clearly through Cymorth TB and the like Welsh Government understands the important additional value vets bring to their role, based on the trusting relationship you have with your clients but then they risk undermining that by introducing large regional tenders for the delivery of on-farm Bovine TB testing. We have already seen how such an approach can have an adverse effect when the Food Standards Agency tendered for the Meat Hygiene Service. The work was taken from local practices to bigger national companies who imported their own practitioners to deliver the work on the ground. A similar outcome this time would have a huge effect on veterinary practices in Wales and on the services they provide.
I believe that the local vets are best placed to deliver this service across Wales. They already have a working relationship and are trusted by farmers who would much prefer to use their own vet than someone else. We all recognise the passive surveillance and other work carried out whilst TB testing on farms. Losing this informal means of stock inspection could undermine the early detection of other diseases. Vets also provide additional value in their advice to farmers on the wider issues of animal health and biosecurity. A local presence can also ensure a lower carbon footprint and that services are more likely to be available through the medium of Welsh. If this service is taken away from veterinary practices in Wales, or if the income derived from this work is greatly reduced, the resulting loss could lead to fewer vets further away from their clients. The Welsh Government needs to rethink its approach because getting this wrong could significantly damage the provision of veterinary services in rural areas in Wales - which could well prove more costly in the long term. I appreciate that you re encouraged by noises in Wales that the need to maintain the local network of veterinary surgeons will be recognised. But it s action that speaks louder than words - so we wait and see. Since your corresponding event last year the National Assembly has legislated on fly grazing and the abandonment of horses. As a member of the Cross Party Group on the Horse I m particularly proud of the work we did on the Control of Horses (Wales) Act 2014 which will now go a long way in addressing what has become an increasing problem in recent years. I m also glad that some of the issues raised by the BVA in your consultation response were subsequently included in the Act. In a fortnight the National Assembly will be considering the Government s long awaited new regulations on dog breeding and on microchipping and the identification of Dogs which will again I hope prove to be important milestones for animal welfare in Wales.
It was though rather disappointing that the Welsh Government decided not to pursue its own legislation to control dangerous dogs in Wales. Having consulted upon, drafted and published its own Control of Dogs (Wales) Bill, the Welsh Government put it on the shelf and with it went the particular emphasis it had on prevention, education and awareness-raising. In its place, we re getting UK legislation that adopts in my view a more punitive approach to dog control, which is often wise after the event. The UK legislation is so broad it includes a plethora of other issues ranging from forced marriages to terrorism. For me this isn t simply a law and order issue and what we now have doesn t strike the right balance between prevention and punishment. All I can say is that I wouldnt at all be surprised if we found ourselves revisiting the proposed Welsh legislation at some point in the future. I was truly honoured when I was asked to become an Honorary Associate Member of the BVA. I m in communication now and again with head office on various issues, I also speak regularly with officers in Wales, and indeed some of my neighbours and friends are members too I can hardly get away! It s important at events like these that we celebrate what has been achieved and reflect on the important work ahead. Watching my kids play on the farmyard back home, I have no doubt that their future should lie in resilient and thriving rural communities, underpinned by an agriculture industry that is world leading in its practices and innovations. Realising that ambition is the responsibility of the whole of our society, but articulating that vision is something all of us here have to do. We here are the ones who will have to do the hard-sell. We are the ones who will have to make those initial hard yards. And yes, no doubt there will have to be some hard decisions along the way. But they will be made for what I have no doubt will be the right reasons.
That s why we need a strong BVA. That s why we need strong BVA voices in Wales, reinforced by an excellent Chief Veterinary Officer of whom we can all be proud. I thank you Robin and pay tribute to you and your members for your hard work and on behalf of your guests this evening it gives me great pleasure in offering a toast to the British Veterinary Association.