Beef crisis: Blair warns farmers to stay within the law

Farmers were given scant hope of significant extra compensation for BSE last night as ministers warned that blockades of ports must stop. Fran Abrams watches the developments as the Irish government advises that beef on the bone should be withdrawn.

Strongly worded advice that beef on the bone should be taken off the market - which stopped short of a ban - was issued by the Irish health minister Brian Cowen 48 hours after the move in Britain to remove unboned beef from the shelves.

Mr Cowen said he was acting following "the recent findings of the United Kingdom's advisory committee on BSE [bovine spongiform encephalopathy] and in the interests of public health". He stressed that the risk to consumers was considered "very low", but said butchers should still remove the backbone before putting beef on sale.

Until now successive Irish governments have insisted that their beef was safe and BSE-free and the move is certain to dismay Ireland's powerful farm organisations.

The announcement came as Jack Cunningham, the Agriculture Minister, announced that the sale of beef on the bone would become illegal on 16 December. A consultation period will end on 12 December.

As the blockades at British ports continued, the Prime Minister warned that protesting beef farmers must stay within the law. But he failed to signal any new money which might help them over the latest crisis.

"We fully understand the distress and difficulties of farmers and we have been working to assist them," Mr Blair said at the launch at Waterloo station of the festivities for Britain's forthcoming presidency of the European Union. "The taxpayer will pay pounds 1.4bn this year in support of the British beef industry and of course we do everything we can to support them. It is essential, however, that the rule of law must be upheld."

But Mr Blair's official spokesman was underlining the Government's reluctance to dig ever-deeper into its pockets.

"The Government is keeping in touch with the issues," he said. "But as the Prime Minister made clear ... on Wednesday, there is no European pot of gold which we can go to."

He added that of the pounds 4bn spent in the United Kingdom in 1996-97 in connection with the Common Agriculture Policy, pounds 1.9bn had gone to the beef sectors, of which pounds 1.4bn went on spending related to BSE.

The warning came as it emerged that Paddy Ashdown, the Liberal Democrat leader, will today urge the Government to tap EU funds to help beef farmers at a meeting in Copenhagen of Europe's liberal party leaders.

In Cardiff yesterday, the Secretary of State for Wales, Ron Davies, held a 90-minute meeting with farmers' leaders who travelled from Holyhead and Fishguard to speak to him. Around 200 farmers and their wives crowded the steps of the Welsh Office when he emerged.

The Tory agriculture spokesman, Michael Jack, said the government should "come clean" over what it planned to do to help the farmers. "Playing hard and loose with the anxieties of anxious and desperate farmers is irresponsible government," he said. "The Government must also make clear where the money will come from to fund the package they propose. It must not be a rob-Peter-to-pay-Paul exercise. Any compensation package should be to the benefit of the hardest-pressed and not leave other areas out."

If farmers were to be given the money they are demanding the only source would be Europe. The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food said pounds 980m was available to Britain under a scheme to compensate for the rise in the value of pounds 340m of which would come from the exchequer. But this would be deducted from payments by Europe to the Treasury.