We are urgently developing research requirements with other European laboratories to make sure we understand and the disease (Schmallenberg) better.Lochhead urges Defra to rein in cost sharing plans
SCOTLAND’S Rural Affairs Secretary, Richard Lochhead, is urging the coalition Government to rein in the previous administration’s plans for Responsibility and Cost Sharing.
Speaking ahead of a meeting with Defra Ministers this week, he said he would be urging them to ‘go at the pace of Europe on this, not ahead of it, and to drop the plans of the previous government’.
Defra Ministers have already made it clear that they want to make up their own minds on sharing the responsibility and cost of animal disease in England. They have shelved the previous regime’s draft Animal Health Bill which would have introduced the policy in 2012.
But Mr Lochhead believes the coalition Government could yet have its hand forced by the economic pressures it faces.
“However, I think we all need to be aware that Treasury cuts may bring Responsibility and Cost Sharing sooner rather than later,” he admitted.
Addressing the British Veterinary Association’s (BVA) Scottish Dinner, he warned that the decision to cut Defra’s budget by 5.5 per cent could also impact on the Animal Health agency’s services and research spending in Scotland. He expressed frustration that the previous Government had failed to deliver on the promise to hand Scotland its own animal health budget and made it clear he would continue to pursue the issue with the new Defra team.
“There will surely be more cuts to come in the emergency budget later this month,” he said.
“We should be clear that Defra’s budget does matter to Scotland. The UK Government failed to devolve animal health budgets to us by April 1 this year, as all sides had agreed, and as was recommended in the Scudamore report, following foot- and-mouth in 2007.
“We are waiting to hear what the attitude of the new Defra Ministers will be, but it frustrates me immensely, and many people in this room, that the last administration did not get it done.
“As the pot gets smaller, so does the share that will come to us, and I don’t want to be offered a budget that isn’t enough to protect Scotland’s health status,” he said.
