Foot-and-mouth: What happens next?

One year after the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in the UK, farmers and businessmen are mounting a legal challenge against the government's refusal to hold a public inquiry.

They do not believe the three separate official inquiries already announced go far enough in learning the lessons of foot-and-mouth.

Lawyers for those taking the court action will challenge the claim of Rural Affairs Secretary Margaret Beckett that a public inquiry would take too long and cost too much.

They want an inquiry that will compel witnesses to give evidence under oath.

Do you feel that the government handled the crisis properly? Should there be a public enquiry? What is the future for British farming one year on from the foot-and-mouth outbreak?

This debate is now closed. Read a selection of your comments below.

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Your reaction

We cannot hermetically seal the whole country

Adam, UK

Anyone who thinks we can stop this happening again simply by tougher import controls is sadly deluded. We cannot hermetically seal the whole country. Until the ridiculous political reasons for avoiding vaccination are removed, foot-and-mouth will remain a disaster waiting to happen again.
Adam, UK

It seems funny that British farmers were being forced to kill cows when Europe didn't want contaminated beef then when that was all brushed under the carpet there was a UK-wide disaster with foot-and-mouth. Did it happen by accident? Shame Tony Blair wants to hand us over to Europe when they don't appear to support us in times of crisis.
Claire P, UK

The only reason not to have a public inquiry would be to cover the disastrous and incompetent manner in which this government handled the whole affair. The fact that we do not have proper import controls and it is fairly simple to smuggle illegal meat through ports and airports means that another outbreak is just a matter of time. In the US you cannot bring any foodstuffs in unless specifically packed and cleared for export. If we started adopting the same policy in this country with proper enforcement and very heavy penalties for offenders we may stand a chance of avoiding another outbreak. There is well-documented evidence of illegal imports simply being packed in suitcases and brought through airports. This trade should be treated in the same way as the drugs trade as it ultimately hurts us all not just the rural communities.
Matthew Turner, UK

Blame Johnny Foreigner for importing foot-and-mouth and blame the government for not acting quick enough. The outbreak was actually caused by a UK farmer feeding his livestock poor quality foodstuff and its spread was perpetuated by farmers refusing to obey movement restrictions. Furthermore if Blair had ordered an immediate cull, all the farmers would now be complaining that that policy was overzealous.
James Courtney, Birmingham, UK

The job was made impossible by those farmers who chose to break rules

James, UK

The Government was always going to have a hard time dealing with such a massive crisis, especially considering the last outbreak was over 30 years ago when farming methods were completely different. The job was made impossible by those farmers who chose to break rules and move animals, make false claims or to make legal challenges to delay as long as possible the destruction of their own animals. No doubt an independent enquiry will teach us all lessons on how to deal with this disease should it return again. It should also uncover the criminal farmers who should be jailed.
James, UK

What happens next? Another outbreak, cause unknown, in another part of the country. Another call for a public enquiry with hopes to place the blame on someone else. And at the end no-one will be any the wiser.
Barry P, England

Of course there should be a properly conducted public enquiry. It was quite obvious from the inept handling of last year's outbreak that little or nothing had been learnt from the previous epidemic in the 1960s. We must learn from the appalling mistakes made this time so that they never happen again. This government has no understanding of rural affairs and just wants to brush foot-and-mouth under the carpet and move on. For Margaret Beckett to say dismissively that an enquiry is not possible because it would be too costly and too time-consuming just shows the contempt that the Labour government has for any rural concerns.
Linda, UK

The future of British farming is bleak. Subsidies for the meat and dairy industry should be eliminated, and funding should be given to those willing to switch to organic methods. I was a vegetarian for 9 years prior to foot and mouth. I've now been a vegan for a year. So many of those cattle slaughtered were for dairy production. It drove home the final connection I needed to realise that a plant based diet is the best for the environment, animals, and most of all - people.
Marc, England

Any enquiry will be just a total cover.

David L-J, Isle of Man

Had the Government acted swiftly in the first place, a lot of suffering and money could have been saved. Yet another case of the Government being slow to act and caught with its pants around its knees. Here on the Isle of Man, we acted promptly, banned all stock movement, closed all the countryside to the public and sprayed anything that moved in disinfectant. The net result was no foot and mouth on the Island. Any enquiry will be just a total cover and consigned to the 'X' files.
David L-J, Isle of Man UK

The true lesson that needs to be learnt from this outbreak is that farming cannot continue in the same way as it has since WWII. Reform from the top of Government down, and from individual farmers upwards is needed to ensure a better future for farmers, animals produced for food and for the countryside and wildlife as a whole.
David, UK

The Government's handling of the crisis was nothing more than a disgrace and a national embarrassment. As ever, the concern was primarily business driven with the reason that meat exports had to be protected. This was why vaccination was dismissed as ineffective, even though every other country with foot-and-mouth has used this method to overcome the problem relatively quickly (That economic superpower Macedonia sorted out its outbreak in only three weeks using this method) The idiotic policy of mass slaughter extended the outbreak for months, thus ensuring more animals got the disease, more money paid out for compensation and slaughter men (who are also accused of spreading the disease) A massive environmental hazard, and millions lost in tourism. After all that being the laughing stock of the world doesn't seem too bad, I suppose...
John, London, UK

I am not sure that this will wait for a public enquiry. Forget the bungles of the government and various civil servants (allegedly), it was a series of criminal actions that brought the disease into this country and allowed it to spread. Whilst illegal trading in food and livestock takes such low priority, a fresh outbreak of disease can happen at anytime.

Anyone illegally bringing food or live animals into this country should suffer mandatory high fines plus a prison sentence. Non-UK citizens guilty of the offence should be deported immediately they are released from prison. In the event of an outbreak, farmers will need to be adequately compensated but any farmer found guilty of failing to notify the authorities of any suspected diseased animals, deliberately infecting their stock, or illegally moving animals where there are restrictions should be hit with a mandatory fine equivalent to the value of the farm.

Hard and extreme measures maybe but the events of a year ago must never be allowed to happen again. So far the country has done nothing to prevent further similar tragedies from happening.
John Andrews, London

I have been a vegetarian since last year because of this

Mark Blackburn, Essex, UK

There should be a public enquiry to avoid this happening again. The way it has been handled so far I think we are almost guaranteed another major outbreak of the disease within the next 6 months. It is a disgrace. I have been a vegetarian since last year because of this.
Mark Blackburn, Essex, UK

As a farmer, not only was it heartbreaking to witness such events being dealt with so badly, we now have to endure genuine compensation claims being disregarded, substantial payouts being made to unscrupulous parties and a whole catalogue of money-draining initiatives being implemented by a tired and wholly ill-informed Government, The small, honest farmer is being eradicated in favour of the current trend towards foreign and mass produced rubbish.
Robert Matthews, England

The government reacted too slowly and certainly mismanaged certain aspects of the outbreak. However, they did not act in a knowingly criminal way unlike a small minority of farmers who knowingly flouted the regulations around movement of livestock or who submitted fraudulent compensation claims. Any enquiry should look at the role of all those involved, not just the government.
John, England

Of course the government will be totally against a truly impartial investigation of this issue as it will undoubtedly highlight their wholly inept strategy for containing it and their utter disregard for the rural population in general. Yet another cover-up to go alongside an ever-growing list of sleazy bungles.
Shaun, Teignmouth, UK