The Complaint
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1. The Associated Swill Users (ASU – which is an association of 62 former swill farmers and waste collectors) complained about the actions of the now Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) in relation to the decision to impose a ban on the feeding of waste food to pigs at the time of the outbreak of foot and mouth disease (FMD) in 2001. The particular issues raised were:
a. the consultation was flawed, both in terms of the adequacy of the consultation document itself and the period allowed for consultation;
b. the results of the ban were misrepresented to Ministers, and by Ministers to Parliament;
c. the inadequate rationale behind the ban, meaning that the decision was not sound;
d. Defra’s lack of clarity about the scope of the ban and its application to individual establishments;
e. the limited time given to swill farmers for compliance with the ban; and
f. Defra’s failure to recognise the true impact of the ban on swill farmers and their consequent refusal to award compensation to former swill feeders.
These various elements are described in more detail in paragraphs 53 to 65 below.
2. ASU subsequently extended their complaint to include the contention that there had been failures in the inspection regime at Burnside Farm, Heddon-on-the-Wall, which had effectively allowed illegal feeding activities to go unchecked and thereby led to the outbreak of FMD, which in turn led to the hasty imposition of the ban.
3. The complainants contend that the decision to ban swill feeding, combined with the limited consultation prior to the ban and the speed with which it was implemented, has caused them to suffer severe injustice in terms of significant financial loss and, in some cases, the loss of their livelihoods. They said that for many former swill feeders it was not simply the case, as Defra had implied, of changing the pigs’ feed (although that in itself carried a heavy cost as the cost of proprietary feed was almost double that of swill feeding). A significant number of former swill feeders would have had to convert buildings and adapt them to new feeding equipment if they chose to continue to keep pigs (and some might not be able to get the relevant permissions for that, either from the landowner or the planning authority). Others would have to scrap equipment, some of which was still being purchased. For those who were waste food collectors, they could not compete with the collection charges of the bigger waste collection concerns; some had had to continue to honour collection contracts and pay to dispose of the waste food (whereas before they had had a cost-free means of disposal).
4. ASU concluded that many of the farmers in question had been left to suffer severe hardship, and the help that was eventually offered by the Government, in terms of business advice on how to diversify, had either been unrealistic given the farmers’ circumstances, or come far too late to be of real help. They contended that, when introducing the ban, Defra had failed to appreciate the true extent of the impact on the swill farmers. In the light of that, and of the fact that Defra’s own failings in the inspection regime had allowed the illegal feeding of unprocessed swill and therefore led to the hasty introduction of the ban, they claim that appropriate financial redress should be paid.
