Foot-and-mouth payouts for farmers dropped after U-turn on election

Published on Thursday 11 October 2007 00:30

THE UK government was last night accused of playing politics with Scottish farmers' livelihoods as it was revealed plans for an £8.1 million compensation payout for foot-and-mouth disease were mysteriously scrapped after Gordon Brown decided not to call an election.

The Scottish Government claims that in the run-up to the anticipated election announcement, the environment department was preparing to reveal the scheme.

But on Monday - just 48 hours after Mr Brown said he was not going to the polls - Hilary Benn, the Environment Secretary, dropped the pledge from a statement to the House of Commons.

The SNP Government last night accused Westminster of putting politics before the interests of the farming industry north of the Border by scrapping the "pre-election bribe".

But Labour sources said the SNP had chosen to publish confidential communications between civil servants ahead of Mr Benn's speech and that the move threatened the future of open and honest information sharing between Westminster and Scotland.

Mr Benn also denied that a pre-election bribe had ever been planned.

Alex Salmond, the First Minister, revealed Westminster's original foot-and-mouth compensation proposals yesterday. The First Minister issued a draft of Mr Benn's speech which had been given to the Scottish Government on Friday ahead of Mr Benn's statement in the House.

The draft statement contained a paragraph saying Scotland would receive 8.1 million to deal with the foot-and-mouth disaster.

The Environment Secretary was due to say: "I have also agreed with the Chief Secretary to the Treasury that Scotland should receive 8.1 million and Wales 6.5 million to assist them in countering the impacts of foot-and-mouth on their livestock farmers."

But by Monday, when Mr Benn delivered the statement to MPs, the paragraph had disappeared.

He instead said: "I am announcing today a package of assistance for the English livestock sector, amounting to 12.5 million. The devolved administrations are proposing to introduce their own schemes."

The SNP seized on the draft statement as circumstantial evidence that Mr Brown had been prepared to offer pre-election bribes to his countrymen - then snatched them away after he was scared off by unfavourable polls.

Mr Salmond said the crisis had broken out in England but now Scottish farmers were bearing the brunt - and had been dealt a double blow with the prospect of compensation taken away from them.

"It would be extraordinary not to read into that change of heart over the weekend that Friday the election was on, by Monday the election was off," he said.

"I thought and believed it was the agreed position of all the governments that such was the emergency to rural communities that it was necessary to unite in the face of this challenge to minimise the damage and get us out of this crisis as quickly as possible.

"It is therefore with great disappointment that we heard the agricultural secretary on Monday announce the scheme for England that made no provision for Scotland or Wales in that scheme.

"I found that remarkable because it wasn't what we had been led to expect late last week.

"On Monday, when Hilary Benn made the statement, it was all basically, 'you're on your own lads'," Mr Salmond said.

The First Minister has written to the Prime Minister to urge him to rethink his position - pointing out that previous such emergencies had been met by Treasury funds.

"The effects are being felt in our economies. This is a pretty shabby way to treat a national emergency. It flies in the face of the Prime Minister's rhetoric on facing the emergency of foot-and-mouth."

If the animal welfare scheme was not funded and introduced in Scotland immediately, animals would starve on the hillsides, Mr Salmond said.

Jim McLaren, president of the National Farmers Union (Scotland), said farmers would be angry if the outbreak has been used as a "political football" by the UK government.

"We have been calling on it to accept its moral responsibility to pay compensation to farmers suffering a crisis which is not of their making," he said. "It would appear the UK government had accepted that principle, but at some point over the weekend or on Monday changed its mind. We want to know why this U-turn came about.

"Without the facts, people will only draw conclusions that this is linked to the decision not to call a general election."

But Mr Benn hit out at the allegations that farmers were being used for political gain. He said: "There is not a word of truth in the allegation that a possible election had anything to do with decisions on funding for the foot-and-mouth crisis, and I very much regret that this is being used in this way.

"Throughout the outbreak, we have tried to work with the devolved administrations to help farmers, and I agree with Jim McLaren, that farmers need assistance. That is why the Scottish Executive is implementing its own package, and why Defra is helping hill farmers in England. As we do not yet know what the full cost will be for all of us, we have decided that our existing budgets should carry the cost for the moment. Both Defra and the devolved administrations are always able to approach the Treasury once we know what the full picture is."

A Defra spokesperson said: "We don't comment on leaked documents." The Treasury also declined to comment on the "leak" although it was allegedly Andy Burnham, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, who had pledged the cash to Defra for Scotland.

Meanwhile, Labour sources tried to highlight the "breach of trust" that had occurred after Mr Salmond had "attempted to make political gain" out of the leak. A source said: "We often have to share information with governments from other countries, from the EU and the G8. But this abuse of information is unprecedented.

"It calls into question how confidently the UK government can share confidential information in future with the Scottish Executive."

A Defra official had shared the draft statement with their Scottish counterpart before it had been seen by a UK Minister. Mr Salmond then highlighted the point at a Westminster press conference after he failed to be called by the Speaker during Prime Minister's Questions yesterday.

Late last night, Alistair Carmichael, the Liberal Democrats' Scotland spokesman, called a point of order in the Commons chamber, insisting that Mr Benn should return to the Commons to correct his statement.

On Monday, Mr Benn had told MPs that the matter of compensation was a responsibility for Scotland when in fact it was his department's responsibility. He had been pressed on the quarter of a million lambs stuck on the hills and islands by Angus MacNeil, the crofter and SNP rural affairs spokesman.

Mr MacNeil asked: " Given that this current crisis emerged from a Westminster government laboratory, will the UK government live up to its responsibilities and fund the Scottish and Welsh schemes fully?"

Mr Benn said he understood that the Scottish Government and Welsh Assembly had their own schemes in mind. But he added: "One of the issues that I am going to have to address ... once the total cost is known, is can it be managed within my budget, and if not, then there are traditional routes that one then turns to, including compensation from the Treasury, and the devolved administrations can of course do the same."

GOING IT ALONE - BUT WHO PICKS UP THE TAB?

WHEN the foot-and-mouth outbreak hit Surrey in early August, all animal movements across Britain were halted.

While some of the restrictions north of the Border were lifted in part soon afterwards, the recurrence of the disease in the south of England through the autumn has caused major problems for Scottish hill farmers.

There are about 250,000 so-called light lambs in Scotland. These are small lambs bred purely for the European market and are usually taken off the hills by the start of October and shipped to southern Europe to be spit roasted, usually in village festivals. Because of the movement restrictions, they have been stranded, and with no exports allowed, there is nowhere for them to go.

Aware of these mounting difficulties, the Scottish Government has been in discussion with the UK government for weeks to try to sort out a compensation scheme.

By the start of this week, Scottish ministers decided no more time could be wasted and implemented their own scheme - paying 15 per lamb to the farmers and culling all the light lambs. They made it clear they expected the UK government to pick up the expected bill of 5 million to 6 million.

The rationale was based, firstly, on the fact the foot-and-mouth outbreak was in England but affected Scottish farmers, and secondly, on the devolution settlement, which, Scottish ministers believe, makes it clear the UK government is responsible for all such welfare schemes, so should pick up the bill.

The Scottish Government said Westminster retained control over "the financial arrangements for disease compensation". It said the UK government also retained control over the state veterinary service, now called Animal Health, and had the responsibility to fund both centrally for the whole of the UK.

A spokesman for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in London refused to say whether the UK government agreed with that position, but he held out hopes of negotiations, saying:

"In situations such as this, departments can always have a conversation with the Treasury. The devolved administrations can, of course, do the same."