Call for inquiry into how ID decision made

Alyn Smith MEP yesterday claimed Scotland was "asleep on the job" on the issue of animal ID and called for an inquiry by the Scottish Parliament into how the EU regulations on individual identification of sheep were incorporated into Scots law.

He said: "I truly am tired of this whole dishonest, partial debate and we need clarity over what happened, who was in charge and who dropped the ball when the decisions were being nodded through."

Smith said he was not interested in allocating blame, but wanted assurance that never again could such a thorny issue as EID come into operation without it having been fully discussed in this country.

Smith said: "Scotland was demonstrably part of all those discussions, yet nobody seems to have raised the massive practical difficulties with the legislation until it was effectively too late."