4.45pm update

Brown announces reduced cull

'Major relaxation' of slaughter policy
Phoenix the calf allowed to live
Disease 'is on the wane'

Special report: foot and mouth

Staff and agencies
guardian.co.uk, Thursday April 26 2001 17.03 BST

Ross Board, 11, celebrates with his family and their calf Phoenix after she was saved from the foot and mouth cull. Photo: Chris Ison, PA

The agriculture minister, Nick Brown, today announced a major relaxation of the government's slaughter policy following the media outcry about the fate of Phoenix the calf.

Phoenix, who was discovered alive under a heap of 15 culled animals, will most likely be allowed to live under the new policy, which will see local vets decide her fate.

The revised government policy will give local vets greater discretion in whether to cull cattle in so-called "firebreak" areas - farms neighbouring those where there had been a foot and mouth outbreak. Pigs and sheep, which pose a greater disease threat, will still be subject to the culls.

Mr Brown also released fresh evidence that foot and mouth disease is on the wane.

In a speech to the Commons, Mr Brown told MPs that for the last seven-day period, the total number of new cases fell below 100 for the first time in eight weeks.

But the prime minister, Tony Blair, faced angry protests today when he visited Cumbria, the county worst affected by foot and mouth.

Farmers from the Cumbria Crisis Alliance gathered with placards to demand help from the government.

Elizabeth Skelton, who owns an open farm in Morland just outside Penrith, said she had lost 14 sheep and 21 pigmy goats because she was classed as a contiguous case.

"Today they are telling people on contiguous farms they do not have to slaughter but it has come too late for me," she said.

Earlier the chancellor, Gordon Brown, had welcomed the reprieve for Phoenix. "I'm indeed very happy about that, and I'm happy that we are making progress so that Nick Brown can make this announcement this afternoon."

He said that the government had been considering changing the policy in "what has been the problem in relation to Phoenix, that is of contiguous farms - farms next door to farms where there is a diseased animal - you don't have to do the culling there in future."

However, the Conservatives last night called on the government for an urgent explanation of the scientific basis for revising the policy.

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