Animals will be vaccinated in next foot-and-mouth crisis

Ministers would tackle any future foot-and-mouth outbreak with a huge vaccination programme, Margaret Beckett, the Secretary of State for the Environment, said yesterday.

In a frank admission of government failures in handling last year's outbreak, she conceded that the strategy of a massive cull of livestock had been misjudged.

Mrs Beckett was responding to inquiries conducted by Sir Brian Follett and Dr Iain Anderson, which concluded that foot-and-mouth disease spread far wider than it need have because of the Government's inadequate response.

She told MPs that infected animals would still be slaughtered under emergency planning guidelines, but healthy animals could be inoculated to prevent the spread of disease. The move was fiercely resisted by ministers last year who feared it would mean British meat could never be sold abroad again.

Mrs Beckett said: "In some circumstances, additional action may be needed to control an outbreak. And in that case, emergency vaccination will form part of the control strategy from the start."

She stressed the decision did not mean that "wider culling strategies" such as pre-emptive slaughter of animals would never be used again. She said: "We must maintain a full armoury of weapons to tackle these diseases. We have to remember each outbreak is unique and we cannot prescribe in detail in advance how best to meet it."

Accepting "virtually all" the recommendations made by the inquiries, Mrs Beckett said a national movement ban would be also imposed as soon as the first case was confirmed.

Tough restrictions would be imposed for a six-mile radius around an infected farm. But in an admission of government over-reaction last year, only public footpaths in a 1.8-mile radius would be closed.