I recently submitted the following to the BRTF and herewith the result and, as we can see, DEFRA nor the British politician has power to do anything about it.  Why, I ask myself, am I being taxed to pay for Defra, the politicians and now the Better Regulation Task Force when they are powerless to save the best part of £400millions?

Title:
Sheep Ear Tags

Department Responsible:
Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs

Problem Description:
Sheep now need TWO ear tags, BOTH of them require to have on them, the Holding Number and an Individual animal number.

The individual number is to allow traceability to an individual animal's ancestors and descendents in the event of BSE. (ovine equivalent) It has now been proven that Ovines are not subject to BSE nor is Scrapie (an ovine brain disease) likely to get into the human food chain. (We don't eat sheep's brains-and- even if we did Scrapie cannot be caught via the digestive system.) Furthermore. In the event that a sheep disease became a public health issue problem, existing rules means that that disease would be treated on a WHOLE flock basis, not on an individual basis.

Given that the entire industry knows that sheep lose ear tags at a minimum of 20% loss under ideal conditions, we have NO confidence that an individual sheep's identity stays with it throughout its life. This latter point can be countered by ideas of electronic tags embedded in the animal and this idea has been EU funded to a great extent in Spain and Defra plan to roll out a similar scheme in the UK.

My point is however, that the Individual numbering of each sheep is unecessary, wasteful, incapable of giving a high level of confidence in its primary function, and is being pursued only because Spain has already spent so much money on their scheme, that to drop it would embarrass those whose past reputations and present livelihoods depend on it. This problem is caused by conflicting regulations or guidance.

Proposed solution:
Retain single tags for farm of origin only

Cost or time incurred:
Gathering, handling, (facilities to do so) 10 minutes per animal per year @ say £9 per hour wage, including tags, equipment and facilities cost. For the UK, I estimate 44 million sheep which equates to about £396 million.

Department:
Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs.  Sector(s): Private Sector. Category(s): Agriculture

Thank you for your proposal regarding the tagging of sheep.

Unfortunately we are unable to take this proposal forward for the reasons explained below.

The identification of sheep and goats is covered by European law and Council Regulation. (EC) 21/2004 determines the system to be implemented by all Member states.  

Readers will note that there is no attempt to explain the case only the assertion that 'there is nothing we can do!'

I had essentially the same answer when I questioned the animal transport regs/tests.  On this basis what is the point of retaining the UK government at all?  If we must have regulation and we can do nothing about it at least get rid of one layer of useless parasites and govern directly.

I can;t remember the last time an incoming administration didn't promise to reduce red-tape and over enthusiastic regulation, but I can't say I've ever noticed any reduction!

I don't think the Better Regulation Task Force is about formulating better regulations or abolishing unnecessary ones, at best it's only about tinkering with forms to make them user-friendly - oh, and meeting its target for dealing with peoples' suggestions within the given time.

A neat case in point is Flash Gordon's last act as Chancellor - the infamous 10% income tax band.  Everyone seems to have lost sight of the fact that the long term goal in the 1997 Labour Party manifesto was ' to introduce a lower starting rate of income tax' - to help the lowest paid workers.

It took Flash 5 years to be able to afford to do this, and another 5 years to abolish it on the grounds that it would simplify the tax system.  The absurdity that this 'simplification' will be achieved at the expense of having to process additional millions of claims for Tax Credit seems not to embarrass him one jot.  In addition, the belated back-bench revolt against the effects on the 5 million who will not be able to claim extra benefits, has left the Treasury scrabbling round trying to find ways of identifying these unfortunates and reimbursing them - at god knows what cost in money and additional civil servants.

Jacobus:

at god knows what cost in money and additional civil servants

 Well theres so many civil servants we cant have them all sitting on their arses with nothing to do all day! The governments current plan to curb unemployment seems to be lets impose some new unnecessary rules and then we can employ some more civil servants to enforce it, make a mess of it and then spend a lot of time and money trying to fix it again!

Jacobus,

           I dont know if it's my age but I feel like this Country is now beig run like Occupied France was in 1940 +.Everywhere you go Camera's watchyou,one needs a piece of paper to do anything, the once thriving Industries are being shut or moved abroad and if anyone objects they put an Act through Parliament to stop objection but they [The Ruling Elite; The History Teacher,the unqualified Lawyer the Post Man] live lives like Louis XV and Marie Antoinette.

Thats my gripe for the day now to work and thoughts of how I can avoid these Demons.

burocrat basher:

The Ruling Elite; The History Teacher,the unqualified Lawyer the Post Man

bb - these three in parliament I could live with (in moderation), It's the qualified lawyers that worry me!  They must be the largest professional group in Parliament.  If lawyers were automatically disqualified from being MPs I believe we wouldn't get the knee-jerk reaction that the solution to every problem is to create a new law about it.  The same applies to the EU. 

A good idea would be to have a rule that, with a few exceptions such as the annual Finance Bill, any new laws passed should remain un-implemented for five years and should only come into effect after a further vote - by which time I reckon 90% of them would have been seen to be unnecessary.

Jacobus:

new laws passed should remain un-implemented for five years

Jacobus. First. may I suggest an amendment to your new Bill and that is that during the five years it applies only to those who voted for its passage through the House of Commons. If then, after five years they still wanted to apply it could then be applied to the rest of us.

However we would, I think, then expect to see a rush of tax reducing bills that would apply to the politicians for five years before being changed just prior to being applied to the rest of us.

Secondly. I believe that one third of all labour MPs were school teachers, 1/3rd lawyers and the majority of the rest, ex parliamentary researchers. Is there any wonder therefore that the Labour Party's view of life is so narrow.

We are not looking forward too 2010 and the  EID's. We just ordered ours we were just glad that they were not double the cost as they knocked the price down but it is still an unnecessary cost which there seem to no end of now.