MPs slam 'inefficient' safeguards over BSE

Safeguards aimed at preventing a repeat of the BSE crisis must be urgently improved, MPs said today.

A Commons committee said the system used to track cattle was "inefficient, overly burdensome and based on obsolete technology".

The committee said it was not adequate to control outbreaks of infectious diseases and 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 systems used by the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs' (Defra).

The committee found the cattle-tracing system employed 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 have already resulted in ?14million in penalties from the European Commission. Defra estimates that the penalty may rise to ?50million.

The committee's chairman, Conservative MP Edward Leigh, said: "There is an urgent need for improvement in Defra's systems for tracking livestock.

"[The cattle-tracing system] 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 Nineties."