Originally from: mona parr
                        
Apologies if this has been up before but it needs response by Jan 7th. Puzzled to find it under the 'Defra horse gateway site', even though horses are mentioned in it (African Horse Sicness, Vesicular Stomatitis) no horse organisations appear on the stakeholders list<A HREF="http://www.defra.gov.uk/corporate/consult/disease-comp/index.htm">.

http://www.defra.gov.uk/corporate/consult/disease-comp/index.htm</A>

Dear Stakeholder

I invite you to consider the enclosed consultation paper and partial Regulatory Impact Assessment outlining our proposals for changes to the compensation arrangements for notifiable animal disease control.

After reviewing existing compensation arrangements and recent experience of compensation regimes in operation during the outbreaks of Foot and Mouth disease and Classical Swine Fever, it is clear that compensation policy requires an overhaul. Our aim is to increase transparency and fairness while enhancing controls that will protect the taxpayer from excessive payments. We want to remove inconsistencies that have built through the case-by-case approach to compensation policy by producing a system where compensation is determined by the value of the animal and not the disease it has contracted. Eventually, the rationalised compensation system decided upon will cover all notifiable diseases. In the short-term a pilot scheme will cover 4 cattle diseases: Bovine Tuberculosis, Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathies, Enzootic Bovine Leukosis and Brucellosis.

We have tried to consider the potential problems of dealing with large livestock populations with price broad ranges. We have also given thought to the different diseases that the government would pay compensation for and the practical pressures they would impose on a compensation system. Our aim is to strike a balance between practical disease control necessity and responsiveness to individual circumstances.

You may be aware that the Department has been considering proposals for an animal disease levy to share the costs of disease outbreaks, and that we announced in the Outline Animal Health and Welfare Strategy that we would be looking at the wider issue of the sharing of animal health costs between Government and industry. These issues are now under review, however the rationalisation of compensation is a policy objective in its own right. In any future proposals for a disease levy, we would need, in the interests of fairness and equity, to ensure some correspondence between higher compensation rates and levy rates. We intend to consult on proposals for an animal disease levy early next year.

Instructions for when and how to respond to this consultation can be found at paragraph 4 of the main consultation paper.

Responses to this consultation will be made available to the public and Parliament. If you wish your response to be kept confidential, please make this clear at the top of the front page. We will assume unmarked responses are intended for public inspection. Defra will acknowledge responses and will publish an analysis of them after the closing date.

Bill Parish

 Page published: 27 October 2003