Gummer to take brunt of blame in BSE report

John Gummer, the former Tory agriculture minister, is to take the brunt of criticism in the soon-to-be-published BSE inquiry report. In particular it will condemn his action in feeding his four-year-old daughter with a beefburger in a publicity stunt designed to reassure the public that beef was safe.

John Gummer, the former Tory agriculture minister, is to take the brunt of criticism in the soon-to-be-published BSE inquiry report. In particular it will condemn his action in feeding his four-year-old daughter with a beefburger in a publicity stunt designed to reassure the public that beef was safe.

Mr Gummer caused controversy when he fed his daughter Cordelia a burger in front of press photographers as the fears were growing that "mad-cow disease" could be transmitted to humans.

Mr Gummer, who was at Agriculture from 1989 to 1993, was incensed when told by the independent inquiry team, headed by Lord Phillips, that he would be criticised for the way he presented assurances by the government, based on scientific advice at the time. "I am being criticised not for what I did but the way I said it," he has told friends.

The photographs of Mr Gummer's daughter tasting a burger in May 1990 were taken after media approaches to the ministry for photos of Mr Gummer at an agricultural event. Former press officers from the ministry have told the inquiry that there was no carefully thought-out strategy for presenting the assurances to the public. They said the stunt with the burger was spontaneous, not part of a media plan.

There were 53 referrals of cases with suspected CJD in 1990, and alarm was rising about the safety of beef, but it was six years later that ministers were told that the National CJD Surveillance Unit had discovered the human form of mad-cow disease, variant CJD and a probable link with BSE.

The latest figures show that the death toll is still growing. There were 82 cases this year, and the total could rise still further, making this one of the worst years on record for the disease. No one knows how many more cases there could be. Many are young people, and the disease, which causes extreme stress to victims and their families, is incurable.

Ex-ministerial colleagues of Mr Gummer believe the inquiry is unfair in blaming him for the public presentation of the health assurances. As first disclosed in The Independent on Sunday, William Hague is braced for criticism by the two-year inquiry of the handling of the scandal by the Tory government of which he was a member. Its report is to be given to the Prime Minister at the end of this month and published when the Commons returns in October, after publication of the next CJD figures.

The former ministers in the firing line of the Lord Phillips's inquiry report include John MacGregor, who had expected to escape criticism, and Douglas Hogg, who was heavily criticised at the time for his handling of the crisis, but who also insisted on tougher measures than the ministry's scientists.

Officials are likely to bear much of the criticism for being too slow to respond, buck-passing, and failing to ensure that a ban on the use of specified offal was properly enforced on the slaughterhouses to stop it entering the food chain.

Keith Meldrum, chief veterinary officer at the agriculture ministry for much of the period, told the inquiry: "Neither I nor my colleagues in MAFF [the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food] had responsibility for advising the public on public health issues."