United Kingdom-TB Inaction.

UNITED KINGDOME-TB INACTION.

THE Government has been highly criticised by the National Audit Office (NAO) for not controlling the spread of bovine tuberculosis through cattle herds in the Westcountry.

In a report, the NAO highlights the lack of the progress made on tackling TB, which it says is now "firmly established" in the South West of England.

It goes on to emphasise the failure by the Animal Health Department to rigorously enforce routine TB testing. And it also criticises the lack of co-ordination on TB at a local level – and recommends the establishment of a pilot scheme of consultative boards in hotspot areas like the Westcountry.

Last July, the Environment Secretary, Hilary Benn, refused to allow a cull of sick badgers, blamed for spreading the disease through cattle herds, sparking claims from farming organisations that he was pandering to the environmentalist lobby.

Meanwhile, bovine TB continues its relentless progress through the region, increasing annually by 20 per cent in Devon alone, where 6,000 cattle were culled last year after testing positive to the disease.

The NAO report also said that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) did not have sufficiently robust financial or performance information on controlling disease to underpin a "transparent and equitable" cost-sharing scheme with the farming industry.

The report criticised the way Defra presented its financial information in respect of animal health issues. It said that financial information was currently focused on internal management structures and could not readily be used to calculate accurate figures for the full costs of managing specific animal diseases.

Melanie Hall, the regional director of the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) in the South West, said the report’s comments that Defra did not have sufficiently robust financial or performance information on controlling disease to underpin a transparent and equitable cost-sharing scheme reflected exactly what the NFU been saying to Defra since it started discussions on responsibility and cost-sharing.

"Now we have the NAO saying this – and it will be interesting to see how Defra responds," she commented, adding: "I am not surprised to see that the report highlights the frustration of farmers who believe that cattle testing for TB alone, in the absence of measures to tackle the level of TB in the local wildlife, will not deal with the TB problem.

"But it is very important that farmers present their animals for testing on time. The recommendation of better co-ordination on TB at a local level is also positive, and something the NFU fully supports."