BVA president Nicky Paull's speech at the BVA annual Scottish dinner

11 June 2009

BVA president Nicky Paull's speech at the BVA annual Scottish dinner, in the Scottish Parliament

Honoured guests, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the annual BVA Scottish dinner and a particularly warm welcome to our host this evening, John Scott MSP – we are incredibly grateful for your continued support to the BVA – and to the Environment Minister Roseanna Cunningham for kindly agreeing to address us this evening.

But before I get into the meat of my speech this evening I do not want to miss the chance to think of one absent friend tonight. Anyone with half an eye to farming, veterinary work or animal health and welfare in Scotland will know the name Sandy Clark. Sandy was also the BVA’s link into Scotland and worked tirelessly for our profession for many years. I cannot stress enough the enormous hole Sandy has left and I am sure we would all wish he was still here with us. In some way I guess he is as we continue to carry on much of the momentum that bought to so much of all he touched. We must never forget his contribution in highlighting the importance of animal health and welfare in Scotland and placing the veterinary surgeon right at the heart of it.

I also do not want to miss the chance to pass on all our congratulations to Simon Hall on his new post as Scottish CVO. Charles Milne has set a high benchmark for Simon to follow but I can assure him that the veterinary profession in Scotland and the BVA in London will do all they can to assist him in his new role.

It is now a decade since the Scottish Parliament, National Assembly for Wales and Northern Ireland Assembly were established creating opportunities for regional responses to regional variations across a whole host of public policy platforms. One area where this approach has been particularly enthusiastically embraced is animal health and welfare.

Unlike issues of law and order or education where Scotland in particular has gone its own way without looking back; I genuinely believe that devolved responses to rural affairs and animal welfare have offered the four countries of the UK the chance to watch and learn from each other through greater cooperation. I am particularly pleased that the veterinary profession has been able to maintain strong links across all four nations to provide the best possible service to our clients and the animals under our care.

Devolution has allowed each nation to pursue an aim to become a shining example of good practice in its own area. I’m sure you’ll all have your own views on Scotland’s contribution, but I would particularly like to highlight the Scottish response to Bluetongue, where compulsory vaccination has been an incredible success story.

Proving the British Animal Health and Welfare Strategy’s mantra that prevention is indeed better than cure, the compulsory programme produced a vaccination take up well in excess of the 80% target, although I understand the exact figure is not yet known.

The BVA supported Scotland’s compulsory programme throughout the consultation and implementation and vets have played a major role in encouraging their clients to vaccinate stock. I certainly hope this strong response and significant financial investment by the Scottish Government reaps the rewards it deserves, but I must urge against any hint of complacency. Vaccination is only one part of the fight against the disease and I must take this opportunity to remind you all that importing livestock from mainland Europe, where Bluetongue is circulating, continues to be a risk.

Another Scottish success story is the very low incidence of bovine tuberculosis (bTB). As you will know, England and Wales are developing their own approaches to stop the spread of this disease – a disease which poses a potential threat to human health. Badger vaccinations will be starting in six pilot areas of England next year and a targeted badger cull will be starting in west Wales shortly. The failure of the disease to take hold in Scotland can again be linked to the strong legislative stance taken by the Scottish Government on pre- and post-movement testing of animals coming into the country. Nigel Miller, vice-president of NFUS, announced earlier this week that Scotland may apply for bTB-free status and we will watch further developments with interest.

Delivering the President’s speech at last year’s dinner, Nick Blayney flagged up the ongoing difficulties in delivering the Scottish Rural Development Plan which, at that point, had somewhat stalled. He also congratulated ministers and the then CVO Charles Milne for their perseverance in carrying out negotiations with the European Commission. I am therefore very pleased to hear that the perseverance has paid off and earlier this year the Commission gave its approval to the Plan. This enabled the launch of the new Animal Welfare Management Programme encouraging farmers to take a more proactive approach to improving welfare standards.

The new scheme has a greater emphasis on animal welfare and benchmarking than the original Animal Health and Welfare Management Programme and supports specific activities such as implementing biosecurity, preventing lameness, and controlling various diseases.

We are pleased to see that vets will play a vital role in its implementation by undertaking animal welfare reviews, preparing management plans and agreeing specific activities for livestock producers to improve welfare. Working with their clients on farm, the local veterinary practitioner will have close knowledge of both the health and welfare of the stock and is best placed to implement these reviews. The BVA will actively encourage the practising veterinarians in Scotland to work with the farmers and the Scottish Government to bring benefits across the industry.

As with all things relating to Europe, there are victories and there are frustrations. One current source of complaint involves a European ruling that all sheep must be electronically tagged – a response to the foot and mouth outbreak in Britain in 2001. The new tagging regime, due to come into force in stages from 1st January, has already attracted cross-party condemnation here in the Scottish Parliament and discussions are ongoing with Defra and other member states to take the issue back to the European Agriculture Council.

From the veterinary perspective, we of course support the need for effective traceability as a central requirement for disease control and maintaining public confidence in food safety. However, we share some of the industry’s concerns that the proposed scheme for individual electronic identification (EID) does not provide sufficient improvement over the current procedures to warrant the additional costs and practical difficulties.

On the contrary, we are concerned that compulsory individual EID could worsen the situation by forcing sheep owners to divert already scarce resources from veterinary advice on important aspects of animal health and welfare, which may impact on the availability, quality and safety of food. We continue to support the need to look again at these proposals.

Although it is farm animal issues that hit the headlines, the majority of BVA members are in companion animal practice and much of our work therefore will focus on them. With that in mind I am delighted to highlight the Code of Practice for the Welfare of Equidae, which came into force in April this year. This is the first welfare code in Scotland made to benefit companion animals and we hope there’s more where this came from. There is an ongoing need to promote the responsibility of pet ownership for a wide range of animals.

On horses, both the BVA and our specialist division BEVA (the British Equine Veterinary Association) have welcomed the requirement for foals to be microchipped and see this as an opportunity to ban hot branding as a means of identification. This is a position that may be controversial in some quarters, but we are clear that the welfare of the animal must dictate the policy.

Another companion animal issue that is coming to the fore in Scotland is dangerous dogs, with the introduction of the Control of Dogs (Scotland) Bill by Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland (who unfortunately is unable to join us this evening).

Christine has taken on the work started by Alex Neil MSP to bring a bill that focuses on the animal’s behaviour rather than its breed. This is a fantastic example of BVA policy being put into practice and we’re grateful to both Christine and Alex for taking a huge leap forward in dealing with the inadequacies of the 1991 Dangerous Dogs Act. We wish you well with the passage of the bill. With the spiralling problem of status dogs – or weapon dogs I see they are now called – our hope must be that the other devolved governments will look again at their current legislative processes in this area and perhaps look to Scotland as a lead in this.

Over the last couple of months the BVA has been consulting its members on Defra proposals for responsibility and cost sharing between the government and industry, and the specific proposal for a new body for animal health policy in England.

The more I talk about the proposals in speeches and interviews, the more complex they become. I hope you have all had the chance to look at the proposals and if you haven’t I urge you to do so – both farmers and vets here in Scotland. This consultation has the potential to completely rewrite how policy is developed and how delivery systems are planned. It may well seem on the surface that the plans will only affect animal health and welfare in England but I assure you that the reality couldn’t be more different.

I’d like to make it clear that the BVA has always supported the principle of sharing the responsibility and costs associated with disease management, as long as it comes with a genuine partnership between government and industry. As usual, our concerns about the current proposals lie in the detail of how it will be achieved. I could have devoted my entire speech to this issue, but I know we all want to hear from the Minister so for now I would just like to flag up our concerns regarding how the new structure will fit in with devolution and the need for a system across Great Britain which recognises that disease knows no boundaries. As they stand, the proposals are unclear on the role for the CVOs in Scotland and Wales as well as potentially putting at risk the single line command structure necessary for dealing with major disease outbreaks.

When dealing with disease incursions that put livestock across the whole of Great Britain at risk we have to have sound policy and a delivery system in disease control, which can be developed rapidly and are clear to all. The fragmented approach that the RCS consultation offers is a great concern to the veterinary profession as a whole. It should be a concern to those in government as well.

We are very interested to hear views from ministers on how the proposals will affect Scotland and urge you to make your voices heard in Defra.

Responsibility and cost sharing cannot be viewed in a bubble. A number of the issues raised by the consultation link directly to the general question of veterinary service provision and on that note I’m delighted that Professor Lowe is here this evening.

As you’ll know, Professor Lowe has been heading up the Defra working group on vets and vet services, which the BVA has actively been a part of. Professor Lowe’s report is due to be published shortly and while I can’t go into too much detail here I can confirm that it will set out a number of challenges for the veterinary profession throughout the UK.

Happily for Scotland the report notes research commissioned by the Scottish Government last year that questioned farmers and vets on the provision of services. The research found 97% of farmers said their vet met all their needs and 91% are satisfied with the vet.

However, before we all get too content, a third of farmers felt their vet did not add value and perhaps this is the area that we as a profession need to concentrate our efforts.

We also come back to the age old question of veterinary services in rural and remote areas. At last year’s dinner we heard about the reduction in the number of vet practices providing services to farms; instead choosing to concentrate on companion animal work. As a vital part of implementing on-farm animal health plans, the profession must look again at how we tackle this decrease, and I hope Professor Lowe’s report might prove to be the catalyst for that review. But we cannot do this in isolation and I would urge farmers and their representative bodies to also work with the profession in planning a future where farms across Scotland can continue to receive the services they require.

Still on the topic of rural areas, the Highland and Islands Veterinary Services Schemes continues to support the crofters and the Crofting Counties to make veterinary services more available in the remoter areas. This service still plays in an important role for livestock keepers in this area and long may it continue. I can announce this evening that Dr Freda Scott-Park will be taking Sandy’s place as the liaison between the veterinary practices that work in the areas of the Highland and Island schemes and those in Edinburgh who run the scheme. I know Sandy will be a tough act to follow but I can assure you that Freda does tough very well!

I’d like to end this speech by returning to devolution and making a shameless plug for BVA Congress 2009 to be held in Cardiff on 24th to 26th September. Don’t worry – it will be Scotland in 2010!

This year’s theme is ‘Together Forever?’ asking what devolution in Britain means for animal health and welfare and its impact on the veterinary profession as a whole. And we are looking forward to ending our Congress this year with a question and answer session involving a panel made up of the four devolved CVOs. I am certain the substance of many of the questions asked of them will centre on how, between us all, we can continue to deliver the best animal health and welfare for the single epidemiological unit that is Great Britain.

But without pre-empting the debate too much, I shall just point out that as a relatively small profession I believe we have been very successful in keeping the lines of communication open across the national borders in order to share best practice and innovation in veterinary science and strengthen our links with ministers and industry across the four nations. And I am sure we will continue to do so.

ENDS

Notes:

1. The BVA Annual Scottish Dinner provides an opportunity for the veterinary profession to discuss issues of animal welfare, animal health and food safety of particular importance to Scotland with other key representatives of the agri-food industry, political leaders and opinion formers.