04 November 2005
MPs have condemned as 'entirely unacceptable' the failure by ministers to ensure that the costs of future outbreaks of animal diseases such as foot and mouth are borne by industry instead of taxpayers.
The Public Accounts Committee has criticised the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs for not ensuring that, four years after foot and mouth devastated UK sheep farming, costs of similar episodes will in future be divided between the public and the farming sector.
Committee chair Edward Leigh demanded urgent action to set up a levy, paid by the agricultural sector in the event of another outbreak, to protect the public from picking up the tab again.
'If another outbreak were to occur tomorrow, the taxpayer would end up shouldering the bill once again,' he fumed. 'Defra must not delay in taking forward proposals to transfer part or all of the cost of future disease outbreaks to the industry.'
Leigh's comments came as the PAC published a report, Foot and mouth disease: learning the lessons, on November 1.
It said the system used to value slaughtered stock for compensation purposes relied too heavily on individual judgement and needed to be more rigorous and consistent.
The European Commission refused to pay £610m of the £960m that the UK government had claimed against the £3bn cost of foot and mouth, the report said, mainly because it thought stock had been overvalued.
Leigh said the commission's decision was proof that there had been 'prodigious waste of taxpayers' money' in 2001. The current threat from bird flu meant the need for a levy system was even more pressing, he added.
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