The farming industry has won a five-year reprieve from EU health and safety directives that could have limited tractor drivers to two hours behind the wheel.

Tory MEPs and UK farmers have opposed a European health and safety directive on Whole Body Vibration (WBV) - said to be a cause of back injury- that would have prescribed daily limits for drivers of industrial vehicles.

The NFU has warned that the proposals would cost cash strapped farmers and industry £4 billion to implement and farmers argue that there is no scientific evidence to support claims that link health problems to tractor driving.

NFU vice president Michael Paske said: "How the proposal on the table at the moment has come this far quite simply beggars belief."

"A five-year exemption will be of little consolation to farmers who buy a new tractor expecting it to last twenty or even thirty years," warned Conservative spokesman on employment and social affairs in the European parliament Philip Bushill-Matthews.

Bushill-Matthews attacked Labour MEPs for "not listening" to UK government opposition to the directive that "would make many work activities illegal".

"I am unclear whether the government is just spinning a line that it is supporting industry, while knowing all along that Labour MEPs were voting the opposite way, or whether Labour MEPs have simply taken leave of their senses. Either conclusion is equally possible," he said.