Whether it will provide an update on the foot-and-mouth disease situation.

The foot-and-mouth disease situation in Scotland continues to improve. There have been no new cases of the disease in Scotland since 30 May, when the number of confirmed cases was 187. To prevent any further cases from occurring, I urge farmers and people who visit livestock farming areas to continue to maintain their vigilance against the disease, especially in relation to biosecurity, cleansing and disinfection and other disease safeguards. In partnership with farmers, local authorities, the army and others, the Scottish Executive and the State Veterinary Service remain prepared to deal swiftly with any further outbreaks of the disease should they occur.A wide range of measures has been introduced over the last month to assist livestock farmers to resume some of their normal activities, including shrinking of the Infected Area, further relaxations to the restrictions on animal movements, new arrangements for sheep shearing and dipping, and programmes of serological testing of sheep and cleansing and disinfection of affected farms. Subject to the disease situation remaining stable in Scotland and taking into account veterinary advice, we will continue to relax animal movement controls and other restrictions over the coming weeks.I am pleased to be able to announce today some further relaxations to the disease control arrangements which we intend to make over the next few weeks. The Infected Areas of Dumfries and Galloway and the Scottish Borders are being progressively shrunk as quickly as possible and with no further outbreaks of the disease we would expect to move virtually all of the remaining Infected Areas to At Risk status within the next month.Serological testing of sheep from the At Risk Areas is now nearly complete and all of the results from the Galashiels Division are negative. Provided the remaining test results from the Ayr Division are also negative and there are no adverse developments in the disease situation, I intend to move the Provisionally Free Area line southwards to the borders of Dumfries and Galloway and the Borders Administrative Regions to take in administrative areas which have never had any cases of foot-and-mouth disease. I hope to be able to do this in early July. When this happens, I will ensure that satisfactory arrangements are in place to continue to allow cattle from the Infected Area to be slaughtered elsewhere in Scotland. My aim thereafter will be to move the remaining parts of Scotland as quickly as possible to PFA status.Since the beginning of June movements of cattle only direct to slaughter from the Infected Area have been permitted under license and subject to strictly controlled conditions. SEERAD staff are monitoring these operations to ensure compliance with the conditions. During the course of June we have also announced further relaxations to the restrictions on animal movements, particularly in relation to pigs, and the remaining restrictions will be relaxed progressively as the disease situation improves, but we will not take unnecessary risks. As part of this process, we are also considering what steps could be taken to allow some controlled market transactions in livestock to resume in the autumn in recognition of the importance of breeding sales and stock markets. However, because of the disease risks associated with stock from around the country mingling together and then dispersing, we cannot run the risk of allowing an immediate resumption of markets.An important step in moving towards securing disease free status is to carry out extensive blood testing of sheep flocks throughout Scotland. In the Provisionally Free Area blood samples have been collected from 112 flocks and, as at 26 June, confirmed negative results have been received from 108 flocks, with only four results still awaited. In the At Risk Area, samples from approximately 120 flocks around three Dangerous Contact premises in Ayr Division and five in the Galashiels Division have