§ Mr. HayesTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will make a statement on the estimated costs of sheep tagging(a) to the industry and (b) as an average per capita to farmers in 2002–03. [128170]
§ Mr. BradshawThe Department's Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA) estimates the additional cost to the sheep industry of implementing the EU proposals on sheep identification to be in the order of £89 million per annum for a manual double tagging system, and for an electronic identification system in the order of £44 million per annum with a one off capital investment of around £45 million.
The RIA also estimates typical business costs to be:
£ Medium upland
holding
(600 ewes)
Medium lowland
(600 ewes)
Additional annual cost of moving from existing requirements to double tagging and manual recording 1,582 2,034 Additional annual cost of moving from existing requirements to electronic identification 12,736 13,376 Additional annual cost of moving from double tagging to electronic identification 11,661 11,950 1 Includes £500 capital investment for hand held reader