Please note "BBC Breakfast with Frost" must be credited if any part of this transcript is used

DAVID FROST:

And now I'm joined by the Agriculture Minister, as promised, Nick Brown. Nick, yesterday there was some encouragement that no new cases had been found. Overnight, what's the latest situation?

NICK BROWN:

We have been conducting priority testing on suspect incidents overnight and although it's too early to confirm the results, it does seem that the disease has moved to a neighbouring farm up in Heddon-on-the-Wall. This was one of the two farms that the chief vet, Jim Scudamore, wanted to take out, to cull all the animals, on a precautionary basis and it looks like he was absolutely right to do so, which is a preliminary result of the testing. But more worryingly, it looks as if there may be, and this isn't confirmed yet, a new outbreak in south Devon. We have the area concerned under quarantine and we won't know that this is the case until later on this morning. But it does look like we have a worryingly new outbreak.

DAVID FROST:

In south Devon. Any idea why south Devon?

NICK BROWN:

No. Of course we're trying to trace all the contacts with the existing outbreaks now, and that work is continuing. And I, let me emphasise, that the test is not confirmed but it does look that this is a very likely outbreak and we'll be able to confirm that later on this morning. As I say, people have worked very hard overnight to give these tests priority.

DAVID FROST:

And what, if that is confirmed, what does that say to you about the dangers of it spreading further?

NICK BROWN:

Well, it certainly suggests that the government have got the policy right and that the chief vet's advice is absolutely spot on. If further cases were going to emerge, now is the time one would expect to see them. By imposing movement restrictions we can prevent it spreading and by making sure that we don't move livestock around the country for the next seven days we have the best chance we possibly could for containing any new infections on the farm to those farms and then using quarantine and destruction as the method by which we bear down on the disease and get rid of it.

DAVID FROST:

And will in fact that seven day period, that interregnum, no transportation during that period, will that have to be extended because of things like Devon, or do you hope it will still only be seven days?

NICK BROWN:

Well, we will be conducting a review of all this in a few days' time but clearly it depends on whether there are more emergent cases and how much we know about them and how confident we are that we've got there quickly, quarantined the area concerned, and restricted, confined the disease to the outbreak.

DAVID FROST:

And obviously, one of the things is to see if there's a link between south Devon and Northumberland?

NICK BROWN:

It is, as you know, the trade moves around and it is very important to see if there is a link, if there is this new outbreak, and as I said it isn't confirmed yet, but it is looking pretty likely, to see what the link is between that farm and either the farm in the north of England or, of course, the slaughterhouse and neighbouring farms in Essex.

DAVID FROST:

That's right. But you do think that Heddon-on-the-Wall, Burnside Farm, was probably the origin in Britain of this outbreak?

NICK BROWN:

That's the theory we're working on at the minute and it seems likely because we know that the foot and mouth disease was on that farm longer than in any of the other sites, and therefore since it's been there longer that's where it was first.

DAVID FROST:

Your man, Mr Scudamore, actually has said that he was surprised that it took so long for people up there to spot it on that farm, on Burnside Farm.

NICK BROWN:

Yes, I mean frankly, it is surprising. There may be an explanation for it. And clearly all of that is being looked at very hard as well. I mean, I, the chief vet, I have to say, is doing an absolutely first rate job in incredibly difficult circumstances.

DAVID FROST:

Is there anything else that can be done?

NICK BROWN:

Look, I would appeal to the public, they have to do two things. Stay off the livestock farms. If you want to go for a walk in the country, do it away from livestock farms. Go to the national park, go to an area of land where animals have not been farmed. And secondly, I would appeal to the public just to stick to their normal shopping patterns. There is absolutely no need to stock up on any particular products. There's plenty of food for us all to eat.

DAVID FROST:

We've seen various reports and plans in terms of trying to go from Northumberland to wherever the thing originated abroad. We've seen references to possibly Asian sources because of the earlier swine fever thing that came probably from Asian sources. We've got a story here in the Independent on Sunday that it may have been caused by illegally imported beef or pork. What are you pursuing in terms of the origin before Northumberland?

NICK BROWN:

This is a very important question and I've asked a whole range of work to be undertaken in the department. But I've also asked that resources are not diverted from containing and eliminating the disease so of necessity, we're not going to get the answer to these points straight away. But what I've asked for is, if ministers can be given a list of the likely origins, the real origins of both the classical swine fever virus and the foot and mouth disease virus, if separately work could be done across government to see if the modern patterns of trade make us more vulnerable to this sort of disease.

DAVID FROST:

The free trade?

NICK BROWN:

Well, exactly. Whether that, and indeed, just in time working more intensive agricultural production on the livestock side, does all this make us more vulnerable and are there public policy considerations. And I've also asked for work to be done on whether we enforce the rules that we currently have in place, whether we are sufficiently vigilant to prevent the disease coming into the country. Do more checks need to be done, at points of entry, is there product that needs to be prohibited from entry into the United Kingdom. But I must say, if this outbreak and indeed the classical swine fever outbreak was a result of an imported product, having been brought into the country with the disease and then been fed to animals, that would almost certainly be illegal. It's very difficult to see what the legal route is for getting such infected material or material from an area where there is infection worldwide into this country.

DAVID FROST:

Is there a case for going back to vaccines? We used to have vaccines at one stage, according to.

NICK BROWN:

There is a store of vaccine. The United Kingdom holds quite large reserves of vaccine and we have access to the European Union's much larger reserves of vaccine. But the advice from the chief vet is not to pursue a vaccine strategy nor to pursue a whole area of slaughter strategy, which are the two alternatives. But to stick to our current containment and extermination plan. And the reason that neither the trade nor the farmers, nor the livestock industry are keen on vaccine is that it would seriously compromise our disease-free status. If we have to use vaccine we're acknowledging that we have the disease here in the United Kingdom and our plan is to exterminate the disease and get back to our disease-free status.

DAVID FROST:

Well, you have our best wishes as you wage this battle, Nick. Thank you very much for being with us this morning.

END