BSE safeguards 'must be urgently improved' in England
Safeguards aimed at preventing a repeat of the BSE crisis in Britain must be urgently improved, MPs said today.
An influential House of Commons committee said the current system used to track cattle was “inefficient, overly burdensome and based on obsolete technology”.
The committee said the system was not adequate to control outbreaks of infectious diseases. And it called for immediate improvements.
The findings come in a report by the committee of public accounts into the tracking of livestock in England.
The report said there was an “urgent need” for improvement in the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs’ (Defra) systems.
The committee found the cattle tracing system used in England was more expensive and less efficient than those used in other EU countries.
It said it was developed “in haste” and suffered from serious difficulties in terms of access, ease of use and adaptability.
Problems with the system has already resulted in £14m (€20.9m) penalties from the European Commission. And Defra estimates that may rise to £50m (€74.5m).
Committee chairman, Tory MP Edward Leigh, said: “There is an urgent need for improvement in Defra’s systems for tracking livestock. The cattle tracing system in particular is inefficient, overly burdensome, and based on obsolete technology.
“And it does not fully meet the needs of state veterinarians to control outbreaks of infectious diseases amongst cattle, which is all the more unacceptable given that it was introduced in response to the BSE crisis in the 1990s.”
