CLA Statement on Final Report of the England Advisory Group on Responsibility and Cost Sharing

CLA President William Worsley said today (Monday, 13 December 2010) that Rosemary Radcliffe's Advisory Group on Responsibility and Cost Sharing for animal disease has done a "thorough and constructive job" and it is vital now to consider its report carefully rather than rushing to conclusions.

He said: "Intensive discussions on how to manage animal disease have been running for most of this decade in Britain. Throughout, the CLA has stood shoulder to shoulder with other farming organisations, arguing that the UK record on animal disease control has not been good enough. The experiences with BSE, two FMD epidemics and the ongoing saga with uncontrolled bovine TB have imposed appalling costs on farmers and on the public purse.

"So, the CLA backed calls for a new independent industry/government body to get a grip on decision-making in animal health and welfare matters, and specifically called for a Non-Ministerial Department to take this issue out of high-emotion politics and into science-based policy-making.

"We also argued there could be no discussion of more industry sharing of costs of animal disease control while there was no responsibility-sharing – especially as a critical disease, bovine TB, had not been properly controlled, with huge costs to the industry.

"The previous Government's Animal Health Bill seemed to offer some of what we were seeking, but the Coalition Government withdrew the Bill because its policy is to reduce, not create, arm's-length bodies."

The CLA President said that the Radcliffe Group had therefore tried "to square the circle of creating a meaningful responsibility-sharing body – calling it an English Partnership Board – yet doing this within Defra without the need for primary legislation and a new arm's-length body". 

He said: "Radcliffe strongly backs the industry position that there can be no cost-sharing until trust has been rebuilt with real responsibility-sharing, and that the body must deal with all animals, and with animal welfare.

 "Our instincts are to give very serious consideration to the proposed Animal Health Board. It appears to give us a large part of what we sought. However, there are no working models of it in government. It may well be a practicable advance on what we have, but important considerations are unclear, in particular the attitude of Defra and Ministers to this idea. Are they prepared to see a board with a majority of non-executive external members, and with an independent Chairman, proffering the only and the key advice for Ministerial decision making on animal disease control?"

The CLA President said: "Assuming the Government accepts this as a practical expression of 'big society', the next requirement is that the industry must have full confidence and trust in the mechanisms for nominating and selecting the industry representatives.

"Industry organisations will then have to develop the framework for keeping close contact with the board. These requirements can only be achieved if the whole industry is assured and engaged: the CLA is prepared to help achieve this."  

He added: "Radcliffe's Group has done an excellent job in crystallising these issues, and also in pressurising Defra to analyse its costs of disease control more carefully. The Group's analysis has uncovered some large areas of wasteful expenditure on low-risk disease, and established that we do not yet have adequate data to establish real costs of disease control to inform any discussion of cost-sharing. The report also, rightly, dismisses earlier proposals for a general animal disease levy.

"Radcliffe's report offers a structure with attractive features and throws the challenge back to the industry and the Government to see if we are prepared to find a new and more fruitful way of working together to deal more effectively with animal disease.

"We must all study this carefully and see if we can construct a consensus to move us forward in this troubled area of policy."