Passports, Disease Surveillance and Breeding: A Consultative Paper For The Equestrian Industry Available At www.bef.co.uk

Since the Minister for Rural Affairs, The Rt Hon Alun Michael, made his statement on 14 February 2002, regarding the Government's wish for all horses to have passports and for a Disease Surveillance database to be established, there has been a great deal of speculation about the outcome. In particular concerns have been expressed about the costs of such passports and the imposition of more bureaucracy upon the equine industry.

The BEF offered to lead an industry team to develop a plan for the Minister's consideration to avoid:

" excessive cost to owners
" an excess of bureaucracy
" duplication in management effort
" unnecessary additional databases.

The BEF chaired Implementation Planning Team has been working very hard since the announcement and has to-day published on its web-site (www.bef.co.uk) a consultative document containing the suggested principles to be included in the plan to be presented to the Minister by 30 June 2002.

BEFs Chairman, and Planning Team Chairman, Philip Billington said:

"We hope that individuals and organisations will study the consultative paper and let us have their views using the online feedback form available on the BEF web-site. There is still a good deal of work to do but a huge amount has been achieved in a very short period of time. We have not yet been able to define the costs to owners; this work is ongoing. We will update the paper and present more detail on www.bef.co.uk as it becomes available. In the meantime we are grateful for all of the work that has been undertaken by representatives of the entire industry in getting to this stage. I am particularly grateful to the members of the Implementation Planning Team for their input to this complex piece of work."

www.bef.co.uk

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