mr president this legislation will give farmers flexibility choice and hope i am glad to say
for too long our vaccination strategy has been held back by the fact that we have not developed sophisticated enough products to allow vaccination of animals outside exclusion zones
being in an exclusion zone can be disastrous for a farmer's livelihood
it can also be disastrous not to protect your animals from disease especially one as damaging and virulent as bluetongue
the development of new vaccines and the rules changes which i hope the parliament will agree today will allow the uk to move to bluetongue-free status
it will allow freer movement of animals and save money in rural areas
however it is vitally important that these rules are brought into force as soon as possible
farmers in the west country need to be able to vaccinate before the end of may to ensure that animals are fully protected
all of us here understand the background to the interinstitutional battle raging over correlation tables but i can tell you that the farmers i represent do not understand it and they rely on us their elected representatives to sort it out for them
this is an urgent issue and common sense must prevail
let us get on with this now agree a fast track for urgent issues of this kind and get on and get our livestock vaccinated
