Orkney and Shetland MP Alistair Carmichael has today sponsored a Parliamentary motion urging the Government to secure an amnesty on cross-compliance penalties for UK farmers who breach controversial new rules on the electronic identification (EID) of sheep.

The motion follows recent calls from the EU Agriculture Committee for “an amnesty of three years on cross-compliance penalties relating to electronic identification of sheep and goats”. The committee have argued that farmers need more time to become accustomed to the new technology and urged the EU Commission to conduct a thorough review of the EID legislation.

Orkney MSP Liam McArthur this week tabled a similar motion at the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh.

Commenting, Mr Carmichael said:

‘Farmers in the Isles and all over Europe warned that the complexity of the new EID rules would make it difficult for producers to avoid stiff cross-compliance penalties before they were introduced.

‘After another year in which many farmers have found it difficult to make ends meet, there is a clear need for officials to listen to producers and exercise a bit of common sense. It is only fair that while problems with implementation are being ironed out, our farmers should not be penalised for unintended breaches of the new rules.

‘A three year amnesty would offer Northern Isles sheep farmers time to make the significant changes in their businesses that the new legislation demands without facing the prospect of crippling fines.

‘Despite widespread misgivings over this legislation, the Scottish sheep farming industry has bent over backwards to comply with the new rules. Officials need to recognise these efforts and must be flexible in their application of the law until a full review of the law in this area is complete.’

Notes:

The full text of the EDM is as follows:

Electronic Identification of sheep and goats

24.03.2010

That this House welcomes the call made by the European Parliament's Agricultural Committee for an amnesty of three years on cross-compliance penalties relating to electronic identification of sheep and goats; notes that the committee made this call because this is a new and complex technology which will require some time for farmers to become accustomed to and for the systems to be road-tested; believes that such an amnesty would remove the current threat of high fines which Scottish farmers and crofters face as they struggle to cope with technology which has been shown to be far from perfect; and calls on the Government to seek the agreement of the European Commission for the early introduction of such an amnesty in the UK.