The Countryside Alliance today claims that ministers have used secondary legislation to "circumvent democracy" and give DEFRA officials new powers to seize and slaughter animals suspected of carrying animal diseases.

Forum Response: Countryside Alliance

Richard Burge, chief executive of the Countryside Alliance, told ePolitix.com: "The Lords rightly threw out the illiberal Animal Health Bill because it would have given DEFRA officials coercive and unmerited powers to legally trespass onto farmland, seize or slaughter animals and imprison or fine farmers who resisted them.

"The bill was neither scientifically sound, nor just. Now the government has attempted to circumvent democracy and use a statutory instrument to give DEFRA similar powers.

"There is no indication of how the government intends to monitor the actions of its own officials in the handling of animal disease outbreaks."