6. 5. Datganiad: Y Rhaglen i Ddileu TB Buchol

Part of the debate – Senedd Cymru am 4:30 pm ar 18 Hydref 2016.

Danfonwch hysbysiad imi am ddadleuon fel hyn

Photo of Mr Simon Thomas Mr Simon Thomas Plaid Cymru 4:30, 18 Hydref 2016

A gaf i ddechrau drwy ddiolch i’r Ysgrifennydd Cabinet am ddod â datganiad cynhwysfawr, i fod yn deg, i’r Cynulliad y prynhawn yma? Ac a gaf i ddweud ar y cychwyn fod gwacter polisi wedi bod yn bresennol yn yr hyn mae’r Llywodraeth yn cynnig ei wneud i ddileu’r diciâu mewn gwartheg, yn y ffaith nad oedd brechiadau ar gael ac yn y ffaith bod y Llywodraeth wedi dibynnu ar frechlyn i ddifa’r clefyd? Erbyn hyn, mae’r Llywodraeth, mae’n ymddangos i mi o’r datganiad hwn, yn derbyn y sefyllfa bresennol, yn derbyn bod angen mynd i’r afael â’r clefyd ymysg bywyd gwyllt yn ogystal, ac yn derbyn bellach fod angen ystyried ac edrych ar opsiynau eraill. Yn y cyd-destun hwnnw, a gaf i ddweud wrthi y bydd amaethwyr a’r diwydiant amaeth yn disgwyl i hynny ddigwydd? Er bod nifer y buchesi sy’n cael eu taro gan y clefyd yn gostwng, mae dwyster y clefyd yn cynyddu ac, fel y mae hi wedi’i amlinellu a dweud y gwir, yn ei datganiad heddiw, mewn ambell i ardal mae’r clefyd yn glwm wrth y ddaear yn llythrennol a bron yn amhosibl i’w waredu heb fynd i’r afael â’r sector bywyd gwyllt yn ogystal.

A gaf i jest ofyn ychydig o gwestiynau penodol felly, gan fod hwn yn ddechrau proses ymgynghorol, fel y mae’r Ysgrifennydd Cabinet wedi’i amlinellu? Yn gyntaf oll, mae’n dweud bydd yr ymgynghoriad hwn, ac efallai’r syniadau newydd sydd yn ei datganiad, yn arwain at ailedrych ar lywodraethiant y rhaglen dileu TB. Wrth gwrs, mae’r rhaglen yn rhywbeth sydd wedi cael cydsyniad y Comisiwn Ewropeaidd a byddai hi’n gwybod, fel minnau, fod nifer o ffermwyr yn poeni bod unrhyw gynllun sydd gennym ni yng Nghymru yn pasio’r prawf sydd gan y Comisiwn er mwyn gwneud yn siŵr bod allforion o Gymru yn cael eu parchu, ac hefyd wrth inni ymadael â’r Undeb Ewropeaidd fod y sefyllfa yna yn parhau. A fedrwch chi, felly, Ysgrifennydd y Cabinet, jest amlinellu ym mha ffordd yr ŷch chi’n mynd i wneud yn siŵr bod y rhaglen ar ei newydd wedd yn cael y gymeradwyaeth yna?

Can I just turn to the disease and the acknowledgement in your statement that the disease is passed between wildlife and cattle, albeit not always as direct transmission, but as something that is inherent within the environment and pasture? You acknowledge in the statement that we must control the disease within the wildlife population, particularly, as you put it, in chronic areas where it is really embedded.

Can I welcome the fact that you say there will be no English-style cull? I think that’s important. I accept that completely and I don’t think that what England has chosen to do has been particularly successful at all. However, you do accept that the link between the wildlife and the disease in cattle must be addressed. We don’t have vaccination. Can you just say a little bit more about how you may consider taking forward what you chose to evidence in your statement as learning from the Northern Ireland experience? Can you just clarify that that, in effect, can mean that an infected group of badgers might be killed rather than an individual badger and, of course, just emphasise that this is about getting rid of the disease in the badger population? It’s not about a general cull of all badgers or a cull of badgers in a particular area. We have had to move on from the situation we were in several years ago where action areas were attempted within the Welsh context. We’ve got experience of vaccination in the one particular action area that I represent and now it’s clearly time to deal with the infection amongst the wildlife population in those farms where breakdown after breakdown after breakdown has been experienced.

Just to turn to your proposal to cap compensation in particular. How are you going to ensure that we don’t have a re-run of the farce that we had the last time we looked at compensation payments? I accept that you want to ensure there is no over-valuation in the process here, but is capping compensation the way to do that rather than, as you do on the farming side, bearing down more on the correct valuation and the correct use of those valuation procedures? I wonder what has brought you to think that capping compensation, which is a rather sledgehammer-to-crack-a-nut approach—albeit quite a big nut, I accept that—but it’s a pretty big sledgehammer as well. It doesn’t take into account the real value of pedigree beasts, and that’s something that I think farmers will want to have assurance on.

Can you say a little more about the potential to make informed purchasing mandatory in Wales? This is something I discussed actually yesterday in Welshpool market myself. The concern there is not so much what could happen in the Welsh context, but how that affects cross-border flows, how it affects sales—a lot of sales from Welshpool, as you can imagine, cross the border—and particularly the way that, increasingly, some cattle purchasers outside Wales are not really engaging in the Welsh cattle market, because they have concerns about TB status in Wales. Some other things that you’ve set out in the statement might help those concerns, but I just want to understand how informed purchasing can work in Wales when we have such a cross-border flow of sales as well, and whether you’ll be modelling that before perhaps introducing it.

So, the final thing to say is that I do recognise and welcome that there’s a regional approach here set out in your statement. It’s something that Plaid Cymru has asked for consistently, and we want to see the widest possible range of tools available, not just directly to farmers, but to the Government as well, to deal with the disease based on local need and disease status. I think the final thing to ask and to say is that when, as you state in your proposal, the idea is to tackle the really deep-seated TB in conjunction and hand-in-hand with farmers and experts and vets, that you will ensure that the lessons that we have from Northern Ireland and the potential to really target in the wildlife population is there as an option for that way forward.