The British Agriculture Ministry has failed the tests of the foot-and-mouth crisis and should be abolished, the Liberal Democrat leader, Mr Charles Kennedy, will declare today.
During a visit to Dumfriesshire Mr Kennedy will call for the replacement of MAFF - Mr Nick Brown's Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Fisheries - with a Department of Rural Affairs to help revitalise rural communities once the present epidemic has been defeated.
Dismissing MAFF as simply "not up to the job", Mr Kennedy will turn the heat on the embattled Mr Brown, declaring: "The present crisis in our countryside has exposed a department that is inflexible, in adequate and isolated."
Meanwhile, Mr Brown told MPs that the government was "beginning to bear down" on the epidemic. But despite indications from the government's chief scientific adviser, Prof David King, that the disease may have already peaked, Mr Brown warned there was no room for complacency.
In a Commons statement he said the government was still considering the possibility of vaccinating valuable dairy herds, and it would be another week before he could predict the future pattern of the disease.
However, as another 20 American vets flew in to join the war against the disease, the Conservatives and some farmers' leaders warned the government was still some way from meeting its target of a report-to-cull time of just 24 hours.
Tory spokesman Mr Tim Yeo said government figures showed that some 48,000 "infected or dangerous contact animals" had remained unslaughtered in the seven days from Tuesday of last week.
The local branch of the National Farmers' Union in the north-east warned the situation there could get 10 times worse because vital resources were being sucked into hardest-hit Cumbria.
Mr Steve Heaton of the NFU in Cumbria last night told the BBC that the government's 24hour report-to-cull target was not yet being met there.
Meanwhile, an NOP opinion poll found that 57 per cent of those questioned believed the general election should be postponed until the crisis is ended.
