News / MP & MSP call for EID amnesty
SHETLAND’s parliamentary representatives were last night (Friday) calling for a moratorium on penalties for breaches of the controversial EU sheep identification scheme (EID).
Both, Alistair Carmichael MP and Tavish Scott MSP said they were backing a request from the National Farmers Union (NFU) for an amnesty on the basis of claims that the EID rules were unworkable in the Scottish, and particularly, the Shetland context.
Mr Carmichael said: “Before these rules came into force, farmers made it clear that the logistical complexity of the new arrangements would make it difficult for them to meet the high cross-compliance standards demanded by officials in Brussels.
“It is only right that while problems with implementation are being ironed out, our farmers should not be penalised for unintended breaches of the new EID rules.
“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 these changes is complete.”
Mr Scott added: “The NFU is right to call for this amnesty. Now that the Scottish government has made it clear that it is committed to implement these damaging rules, and have given up working to try to find ways to make them workable, we need the government to act so that crofters and farmers are not penalised as they struggle to work with these impossible rules.”
This week Mr Scott was criticised by the Scottish government on his stance regarding EID.
A government spokesman pointed out the EID rules had been agreed with the EU by the previous administration in Edinburgh, in which Mr Scott had been the transport minister.
The spokesman said they were doing what they could to make the process as painless as possible.
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