A committee of MPs has claimed the government's handling of the foot and mouth epidemic was "inexcusable".

Edward Leigh, chairman of the public accounts committee, said that while he recognised the government faced a "crisis situation and decisions had to be taken immediately", ministers and officials made serious mistakes.

Forum Response: Royal Agricultural Society

Richard Sanders, director of communications at RASE, told ePolitix.com: "The important point from all these ruminations on the 2001 foot and mouth disease epidemic is that we must learn from the mistakes and put in place credible schemes for dealing with future disease outbreaks. The epidemic was a tragic waste of livestock, livelihoods and £8 billion of taxpayers' money.

"All these losses could have been lessened by properly applying knowledge gained from the 1967 outbreak. Such waste and apparent incompetence will, quite rightly, never be tolerated by the British public again."

Forum Response: Countryside Alliance

Richard Burge, chief executive of the Countryside Alliance, said: "We have always known that the official handling of foot and mouth disease was abysmal, but now this view has gained official recognition from the public accounts committee, pointing fingers is no longer helpful and we must move on.

"What is needed now is support for the industry and for measures to be put in place to ensure that, if foot and mouth disease ever returns to the UK, the wildfire spread we saw in 2001 does not recur.

"Many in the industry are still suffering as a result of the outbreak - our priority now must be to help them and to act to ensure a viable and sustainable future for agriculture in the UK. Let us consign the horrors of foot and mouth disease to the history books and look to a better future."