Ministers should not have sought to combat foot and mouth without external assistance, according to the inquiry into the epidemic.

The report by Dr Iain Anderson concludes that better information systems, a faster response and sharper science will play a critical role in preventing a repeat of February 2001's outbreak.

In a hard-hitting report, the former Unilever Chemicals chief described a situation that started as a crisis and ended as a disaster.

Forum Response: Unison

Ben Priestley, National Officer for Meat Inspectors at Unison, told ePolitix.com: "Unison believes that radical action is needed to stop the devastating cycle of foot and mouth outbreaks.

"We have been telling the government for years that the Meat Hygiene Service should expand to take on the role of on-farm inspection. Inspectors would root out bad practice and help prevent the sort of animal health and welfare abuses that were directly responsible for the Foot and Mouth crisis.

"Prevention is better than cure, and certainly less expensive. The MHS is ideally placed carry out this work and we urge the government to act quickly to empower MHS staff to take on this vital role.

"It is a sad fact that it takes a crisis for the government to act. After BSE, e-Coli and now foot and mouth, the inadequacy of official controls and the resources devoted to them have been thrown into the spotlight.

"After BSE, the government increased staffing in the Meat Hygiene Service by almost 100 per cent. After e-Coli, inspectors working for the Meat Hygiene Service at last got the powers and official backing to tackle dirty abattoirs. Post foot and mouth, on-farm inspections should be a priority."

Forum Response: Federation of Small Businesses

David Dexter, national secretary at the FSB, told ePolitix.com: "The government should have been quicker to respond. The FSB led the field by setting aside £500,000 for members in March 2001 in the belief that action spoke larger than words.

"Very little government help was available at the time and even when it did arrive, businesses based in urban areas serving rural communities were excluded."

"We are pleased that Dr Anderson is to highlight the plight of non-farming businesses. Too often during the crisis, small businesses were an after-thought and their confidence will not be restored until there is a full public inquiry."

Forum Response: Countryside Alliance

Richard Burge, chief executive of the Countryside Alliance, told ePolitix.com: "The most depressing 'lesson to be learned' from the Anderson Inquiry is that government officials had not learned the key lessons from the previous devastating outbreak and from the full inquiry which followed it! In particular they made a terrible misjudgement in not calling in the army immediately when it was already clear that the disease was spiralling out of the control of the civil authorities.

"We elect and pay for our governments to take tough decisions quickly on best available advice and evidence and then take urgent follow-up action -- especially in times of national emergency or crisis. We don't expect government to prevaricate and dither endlessly, either for reasons of political expediency or for fear of being seen in hindsight to have taken the wrong decision. But this is the stark picture of government mishandling which emerges from the Anderson inquiry.

"Dr. Anderson's report nails the disingenuous attempts by some government spokespeople and ministers, including Minister Elliot Morley, retrospectively to try to pin the lion's share of the responsibility for the spread of the outbreak on farmers.

The Anderson report will also greatly strengthen the case of those non-farming rural businesses who have brought a class action against DEFRA for compensation, since the report clearly lays much of the responsibility for the spread and scale of the outbreak on Government inadequacies in handling the crisis.

"We urge the government not to wait to be forced by the courts to pay compensation but to enter voluntarily into negotiation with these businesses to help them get back on their feet as quickly as possible, so as to safeguard the rural livelihoods that depend upon them".

Forum Response: RSPCA

A spokeswoman for the RSPCA told ePolitix.com: "The RSPCA welcomes the report as a good analysis of the terrible events of last year. In general the Society supports the recommendations of the report and notes that they are complementary to those of the Royal Society report on the science of FMD.

"The RSPCA welcomes the preventive measures recommended in the report especially the 20 day standstill, banning feeding swill (the likely cause of the epidemic), electronic identification of all farm stock, licensing of farms, an emphasis on disease control in farm assurance schemes and better controls on the import of meat and dairy products.

"We are also pleased to see the recommendation to improve contingency planning and that other relevant organisations should be included in the practicing of such plans and hope the RSPCA will be included in such exercises.

"The recommendation that the Army is involved at an early stage is supported and the RSPCA hopes this would alleviate some of the logistical difficulties experienced during the epidemic.

"Clearer guidelines on slaughter and the provision of such guidelines together with the other recommendations would alleviate the serious animal suffering caused during the epidemic last year.

"The recommendations on disease surveillance and vaccination are long overdue. This is a clear government responsibility and had adequate resources been applied before the epidemic might have been less severe."

Forum Response: Country Land and Business Association

Sir Edward Greenwell, president of the CLA, told ePolitix.com: "Preventing further outbreaks of infectious animal diseases must be the over-riding priority. Prevention depends on identifying and investigating, the source of the outbreak, and the lapses in border controls which allowed it in as far as possible."

"Government's action to curb the illegal import of meat, animals and plant material is welcome, but still leaves our border protection weak. As a result our disease free status - and the health of our farming industry - is being unnecessarily put at risk".

"It is of paramount importance that we should have the ability to diagnose FMD accurately, quickly and on farm. This would avoid the need for much slaughter. There should be increased research into vaccine-use in different scenarios. Disposal facilities should be improved so that there are more options available, particularly including a strategic rendering and incineration capacity.

"The CLA believes that in the future we must avoid such extensive slaughtering of healthy animals. Government did not recognise the effect that introducing the contiguous cull would have on the capacity of the disposal system and the subsequent damage done beyond agriculture. The animal movement ban adversely affected livestock welfare, and delays in slaughter and disposal weakened the impact of the contiguous cull on the spread of disease.

"The FMD crisis exposed the strong links between agriculture, tourism, the wider rural economy and the environment. The importance of these linkages is now being better understood, at national, regional and local level, and must not be lost. We support the Curry report's recommendations to reconnect farmers with the food chain and their markets and to reconnect consumers with the way their food is produced."