Whether or not the hon. Member for Cambridge sticks to her guns, she has certainly done the Committee a favour by moving the amendment. I want to flag up its importance in relation to the outbreak of foot and mouth disease, which so badly afflicted my constituency. It started there and ended there about a year later. It caused devastation to the landscape and to many farmers’ livelihoods. The Government set up the “Lesson Learnt” inquiry, which was under their terms and looked at what could be done to prevent a similar outbreak in future. That was perfectly sensible, but they steadfastly refused to hold an inquiry into why the outbreak happened and whether anyone was derelict in their duty and responsible for the outbreak spreading at the rate it did.

At the time, serious allegations were made against Ministers. I have no idea whether they were founded or unfounded, but because we were approaching the 2001 election which was scheduled for May—it subsequently had to be postponed for a month—it was suggested that they deliberately failed to act with due diligence and speed so that the original May deadline would not be missed. That was a serious allegation. If it were true, it would have meant that many billions of pounds were wasted and many livelihoods ruined because Ministers, for political purposes, did not act quickly. I stress that there is no evidence that Ministers did that, but a proper inquiry would have identified the truth.

Clearly, there were other issues that never came out as a result of having no proper inquiry. First, there were serious allegations that a Ministry vet had inspected the farm where the outbreak occurred and had passed it as satisfactory, despite the visible evidence to the contrary. That was never properly explained, although some video evidence recently came to light on the state of the farm, which reinforces the view that it was inadequately inspected. Had an inquiry taken place, it would have enabled farmers who lost their livelihoods to sue in a class action. The whole issue of the treatment of foot and mouth would have been very much better if Parliament could have had a say and instigated a proper inquiry.