Hard border between Wales and England to halt deadly disease could be 'costly and futile'
Livestock farmers in Wales face hard border arrangements with England in what some believe is a futile attempt to halt the advance of a deadly disease. The industry fears being crippled by the need to test and licence vast numbers of sheep and cattle when they cross the border into England.
Unlike England, Wales is still free of bluetongue, a viral disease that cause ulcers around the animal's mouth and face. In the Netherlands, tens of thousands of sheep have died and British farmers fear worse could happen in the UK.
In an attempt to contain the virus' spread, an England-wide restricted zone (RZ) is to be imposed from July 1. In practice this means existing movement controls will be eased with farmer encouraged to use new bluetongue vaccines instead.
The Welsh Government is reluctant to follow suit, fearing a freedom-of-movement regime will hasten bluetongue's spread into the country. Instead, Cardiff wants to keep the virus at bay 'for as long as we can' and so has opted not to apply an RZ in the county.
But the Welsh farming sector has warned the implications could be 'catastrophic' for cross-border trade. Some 550 cross-border agri businesses and straddle the Wales-England border and each year tens of thousands of animals are shipped out to livestock markets.
It also has major implications for July's Royal Welsh Show, Europe's largest agri showcase and the biggest annual event in Wales. Livestock exhibitors from England and Scotland will now be unable to attend, slashing the cattle entry by 40%. Refunds are being processed. Join the North Wales Live Whatsapp community now
Urging Cardiff to align Wales with England, the industry has branded the looming arrangements as both 'a futile endeavour and wholly impractical'. FUW president Ian Rickman said farmers' first instincts were to keep any disease out of Wales – but in this case the solution could be economically disastrous.
Mr Rickman said midges carrying the disease are likely to blow into Wales regardless of England's RZ. He said the insects 'do not respect any such boundaries' and the RZ will hasten the spread of bluetongue to Wales anyway. 'The on-farm practicalities involved with adhering to this policy position brings with it a wealth of barriers and complications,' he said.
'The mechanics of issuing licences in a timely manner, arranging and conducting pre-movement sampling and testing, co-ordinating haulage and the extortionate costs and disruption to cross-border holdings and trade – it is feared that the decision to hold back the tide will be entirely unattainable and impractical.'
While Bluetongue serotype 3 (BTV-3) poses a serious threat to cattle, sheep, goats deer and alpacas across the UK, it does not affect humans or compromise food safety.
Deputy First Minister Huw Irranca-Davies said he had agonised over the decision. On balance, it was the lesser of two evils, he said, adding: 'I cannot in all conscience invite Bluetongue into Wales on 1st July through aligning with the RZ in England.
'I am unwilling to risk the uncertain impact of the disease in livestock dense areas like the Welsh borders. I am also extremely concerned about the economic and farmer wellbeing impacts of dealing with sick animals, and the livestock productivity and fertility losses associated with severe Bluetongue, as observed in many affected European countries.'
(Image: Fourrure/Wiki)
By setting up border arrangements, it's hoped this will buy time for Welsh farmers to vaccinate their animals against the disease. If Bluetongue does arrive in Wales anyway, disease controls will be implemented. Being a fast-changing situation, Mr Irranca-Davies pledged to 'adapt to the evolving disease situation'.
NFU Cymru president Aled Jones said Welsh farmers were 'extremely worried' about the disease - but also about the containment and testing strategy.
He said: 'We have significant concerns about the lack of resources and testing capacity within the laboratories and APHA (Animal and Plant Health Agency) given the significant amount of stock that move across the border from England to Wales for management, welfare and trading purposes.
'We understand that going forward the costs of testing will be borne by the farmer, which will cause a huge increase to the cost of trading. Sign up for the North Wales Live newsletter sent twice daily to your inbox
'We are about to enter an extremely important time of the year in the farming calendar, with many farmers looking to trade breeding stock and store stock ahead of the autumn and winter months.
'For many herds and flocks, the opportunity to trade breeding stock, both those looking to purchase or sell stock, only comes once a year and this trade is critical. Welsh Government must ensure that a sustainable solution is found as soon as possible.'
Find out what's happening near you
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Sky News
35 minutes ago
- Sky News
'It's the Wild West': Dozens of women develop botulism linked to anti-wrinkle injections
A woman who thought she was being injected with Botox was left unable to swallow and doctors thought she had suffered a stroke - after she contracted a life-threatening illness from a potentially illegal product. Nicola Fairley is one of dozens of people who have developed botulism linked to unlicenced anti-wrinkle injections. She had the procedure done with her regular beautician after winning a Facebook competition for three areas of "Botox". "Within two or three hours my forehead and the sides of my eyes had started to freeze," Nicola says. "At first I thought 'amazing', that's what I wanted - then it just carried on." Nicola was eventually sent to A&E in Durham, where she met several other patients who all had similar symptoms. Doctors were stumped. "They thought I'd had a stroke," she says. "We all had problems with our eyes, some of us with our breathing. I couldn't swallow - they put me on nil by mouth because they were worried I would choke in the waiting room." It turns out all of the patients had recently had anti-wrinkle injections containing botulinum toxin. Health officials believe they were imported, illegal products. Botulism - the disease they caused - is so rare many doctors never see it in their entire careers. It can cause symptoms including slurred speech and breathing problems, and can be deadly. The disease is so unusual, and so many cases were coming in, that doctors exhausted their stocks of anti-toxin and had to ask hospitals as far away as London to get more. The UK Health Security Agency has so far confirmed 38 cases of botulism linked to cosmetic toxin injections, but Sky News has been told of several more. The outbreak began in the North East but cases have now been seen in the East of England and East Midlands as well. There are only a handful of legal botulinum toxin products in the UK - of which Botox is one. But cosmetic treatments are largely unregulated, with anyone allowed to inject products like fillers and toxins without any medical training. Cheap, illegal products imported from overseas are easily available. 'It's the Wild West' Dr Steven Land runs Novellus Aesthetics clinic in Newcastle upon Tyne. He worked for decades as an emergency medicine doctor before moving into aesthetics. He says he has been warning health officials of an outbreak for years. "It's the Wild West," Dr Land told Sky News. "Because anyone can do this, there is a lack of knowledge around what is legal, what's not legal, what is okay to be injected. "These illegal toxins could have 50 units, 5,000 units or rat poison - there could be anything in there." Dr Land showed us messages that he says he gets on a weekly basis, from sellers trying to push him cheap, unlicenced products. They advertise "limited time offers" and cheap bundles on toxins imported from overseas. He calls them "drug dealers". "They are preying on the lack of knowledge among non-medical practitioners," he says. Consultations on how to regulate the aesthetics industry have been ongoing for years - but so far, no changes have been introduced. The UK government now says it does plan to regulate certain procedures, but it's not said how it will do this, or when. "What will it take?" Nicola says. "One of the women we were with did almost die - she had to be resuscitated." Nicola's beautician has stopped responding to her messages, so she says she still has no idea what the product was "or how much of it is in me".
Times
an hour ago
- Times
Why is my generation so obsessed with being skinny?
I recently posted a picture of myself on social media, with one intention, but the outcome was unexpected. I put up a video on my Instagram of myself in the gym, wearing a sports bra and leggings and doing some physio exercises I'd been set in order to recover from a painful back injury. The caption read something like, 'Look, I can touch my toes again!', as I slowly bent forward with my arms outstretched towards the ground. I felt a sense of achievement, so why did the response send me into a complete spiral? 'You look incredible!', 'Skinny minny!', 'ABS!'. A flurry of messages about how good I was looking filled up my DMs. Messages that would have usually made me feel so happy, just made me cry. I couldn't understand why everyone thought I looked so good on the outside, when actually I was in the worst state I'd ever been in, physically and emotionally. It's true, I'd lost weight rapidly — 5kg in under two weeks, to be precise — thanks to a concoction of strong pain meds and an adverse gut reaction to them, meaning I hadn't been able to eat properly in weeks. Added to this I hadn't been able to work out for months and I was signed off work for a little while to try to get over the 'acute' phase of my injury. I'm someone who loves sport and fitness — I play netball, cycle long distances, play tennis and squash — as well as train in the gym. It keeps me in shape mentally as well as physically, so it was devastating to have to stop. I was in a dark place, temporarily stripped of my freedom, ability to do normal things — and my muscles were disappearing. I was miserable. And yet everyone was telling me how good I looked. • Is this new diet the secret to weight loss? I made light of it, joking that I'd gained bingo wings, waving my flabby underarms where toned triceps used to be. What people were calling 'abs' wasn't in fact the core I'd spent years building up, but rather a lack of muscles and the optical illusion of just a bit less fat around my waist. Granted, my legs looked slim for the first time ever and my cheekbones 'popped', but if you looked closely I was gaunt, grey, glassy-eyed and frankly quite sad. I might've looked good to outsiders, but I was the least healthy and happy I'd ever been. This reaction isn't a one-off. I've had similar comments over the past few months around how 'trim I'm looking these days'. A colleague at work asked me last month if I'd lost weight and most friends I see have been saying the same. One friend I went for a walk with recently even said I had 'Ozempic face … but in a good way'. These are the sorts of compliments some people dream of receiving, but I just brushed them off. I hadn't been trying to get a slimmer frame, I'd been spending most of my time lying flat on the floor, in pain and in a dark place. Is skinny back to being the new indicator of happiness? Whatever happened to 'strong is the new skinny' — a slogan that came about in the early 2010s and flooded through the fitness industry promoting body positivity? Now, seemingly, we're in a skinny jab-filled world where embracing all body types seems to have gone as quickly as any other wellness fad. • Ozempic side-effects: what weight-loss drugs do to your body As a child of the Nineties and Noughties I too have been on the body-insecurity rollercoaster. At 32 I'm part of a generation who grew up with 'burn books' and eating disorders. Going to an all-girls school helped to fuel the toxic body dysmorphia so many of us had. It was never the guys we were trying to impress, it was each other in the Topshop changing rooms, hoping to achieve the perfect 'thigh gap'. As a child I had chubby thighs that I've never really been able to shake. My mother congratulates me on inheriting the 'family thunder thighs'. But aside from the odd family jibe about a few extra pounds I put on at university I'm lucky that I've mostly been brought up in a healthy and sport-obsessed family. When strong bodies were supposedly in vogue I was in my twenties. Everybody was banging on about body positivity — society told us to look up to celebs (JLo, Beyoncé and plus-sized models such as Ashley Graham) who were celebrated for their big, healthy thighs and fit bodies. For someone who has always struggled with their weight, wanting to be smaller than my size 12-14, I gladly rode the wave. I became happy with my fit womanly physique. I've never been able to slim down, but I do so much sport I'm happy that I can always be toned. It doesn't matter that I'm not naturally a size 8. When I'm injury-free I work out at least five times a week, flitting from HIIT class to weights in the gym, spinning and reformer Pilates and running, as well as my weekly matches. I love the endorphins working out gives me, but also how much more confident it has made me feel about how my body looks in — or out of — clothes. I've come to love my muscles. I've worked hard for them. I've always been able to bat away any temptations towards eating disorders. While the girls around me lived on a diet of frozen grapes or ordered diet pills from dark corners of the internet like some of my friends at school did, I've never really even been on a diet. I think this comes more from a position of mental strength than body confidence. I won't pretend that my broad arms and stumpy thighs haven't ever bothered me. I'm just not someone who will obsess over skinniness, as so many seem to be doing again. • Weight-loss drugs shrink supermarket sales I don't judge people for having weight-loss jabs for non-medical reasons, but it makes me sad that it's fast becoming as common to discuss over the dinner table among my peers as other injectables already are. It's not even slightly unusual for women my age to have Botox — I have resisted. Since weight-loss drugs came on the scene a couple of years ago I've managed to drown out the noise with my usual coping mechanism: sport. I am still firmly in the camp that strong is better than skinny and, for now, the goal is to get my pre-injury body back and have muscly arms and abs. But it's hard to ignore what's going on around us — body positivity is a nice idea, but I'm not convinced society ever really believed in it. For a brief moment I achieved the skinny version of me I always wondered and hoped existed, and everyone else noticed her. I admit that despite my initial shock, a bit of me liked this validation, if only for a few weeks. For the first time in my life I started weighing myself every day. I even considered continuing to not eat. The people who messaged me on Instagram had good intent, but my insecurities about my body were feasting on it. It's hard to ignore what other people see, but I knew I had to start eating again in order to regain my strength to start my physical recovery, to get back to the things that make me tick; to work and to life and to be the healthy version of me, even if that did mean putting on weight. Skinny might feel good — but it leaves a bitter taste.
Daily Mail
2 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Labour isn't working: Sick leave in Whitehall surges under Starmer as civil servant absences jump by over a quarter in major government departments
Sick leave in the Whitehall blob is surging under Labour, analysis suggests. Absence rates jumped by up to 26 per cent in major government departments last year. Civil servants taking prolonged periods off over mental health issues was fuelling the rise, sources claimed, with tens of thousands of working days lost. And it showed Labour ministers were 'turning a blind eye' and had gone soft on trying to boost productivity in the public sector, critics said last night. The analysis comes amid wider concerns about Britain's sick-note epidemic, with 11 million 'fit notes' – which assess an individual's ability to work – doled out in England last year. Public sector workers are 60 per cent more likely to be off due to illness than those in the private sector. Foreign Secretary David Lammy's department saw one of the biggest increases, with 35,452 working days lost last year, the study found. This soared from 28,122 in 2023 and concerned 2,904 staff, up from 2,437. Alex Burghart, the Tories' Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, said: 'This is shocking analysis. Too many days are lost to sick leave in the Civil Service. It's unfair on taxpayers and on the staff left to carry the load. 'Ministers are turning a blind eye and the Government has gone soft on productivity. This is the last thing Britain needs when it is already struggling under Labour.' Most of the increase was due to 'long-term' absences, suggesting civil servants are calling in sick for extensive periods. Working days lost as a result of these longer periods off surged from 16,165 to 20,770, compared to a jump from 11,957 to 14,682 because of 'short-term' sickness. Staff with no such time off stood at 67 per cent, down from 72 per cent. Mental health issues fuelled a surge in absence rates, the Department for Transport said. Its annual report and accounts claimed overall 'Average Working Days Lost' per staff member last year jumped from 8.6 to 9.2 for officials at the department and linked agencies. Again, the majority (5.7) were for 'long-term' sickness, with 'mental ill health' remaining the 'largest long-term absence type'. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper's office recorded a jump of 12 per cent in the sickness leave rate. As of March 31 this year, the average working days lost to sickness per official was 7.4 days, up from 6.6 in 2024. And the Department for Education's rate surged from 5.3 to six. Angela Rayner's housing department also saw a 12 per cent jump in average working days lost due to sickness, from a rate of five in 2023 to 5.6 last year. Only 58 per cent registered 'no sickness absence', down from 63 per cent the year before. But rates at agencies linked to the department were much worse, with the days-lost rate at 8.8 – up from 5.9. Just 41 per cent suffered no sickness, down from 56 per cent. Of eight departments to have published their accounts for 2024/25, just two saw sickness rates fall or stay the same. These were the Treasury, where the rate dropped from 3.3 to 2.8 days lost on average per worker last year, and the Department for Work and Pensions (6.9 to 6.8). It comes despite Sir Keir Starmer saying in December that 'too many' civil servants 'are comfortable in the tepid bath of managed decline'. A government spokesman said: 'The civil service provides a range of tools and policies to ensure employees remain in work and are supported to return to work as quickly as possible.'
