On monday morning, July 23, the news broke that the Prime Minister had ordered the suspension of the disinfection of farm premises in cases where stock had been slaughtered.

Wham, bang, everyone was in shock, then later in the day a correction was broadcast which said the suspension only applied to premises where new outbreaks occurred.

This was bad enough for the farmers who had stock newly slaughtered - to be told, sorry chaps but you can only do the preliminary wash down with disinfectant, anything beyond that would not be paid for at this stage.

On Tuesday, July 24 about lunchtime, unbelievably the original instruction was countermanded and we were told that all disinfecting would cease until the whole costings had been thoroughly looked into.

Tony Blair is, of course, quite right to inquire if he is getting fair and proper value for money.

To make a real assessment you have to be sure you are comparing like with like, in other words is everyone everywhere cleansing and dis-infecting to the standards set firstly by MAFF and now by DEFRA? Did the Prime Minister check this out when he found cleansing costs less in the Netherlands and, while talking to the Dutch and the French, did he also check out why they were able to jump on and contain the foot-and-mouth outbreak in weeks while it is still rampant over here?

One should always seek value for money but it should be understood that you couldn't carry out the requirements set by the Government on cleansing farm premises on the cheap.

Believe me, I know the time and effort and equipment needed by our son and his farm worker to do the job and we never had foot-and-mouth.

Three different vets gave it as their opinion that there was no foot-and-mouth disease among the cattle, which were all still in their winter quarters.

They were all slaughtered as dan-gerous contacts.

The blood tests taken from 500 of the 1,000 sheep returned the results all negative but the whole sheep flock was already slaughtered as dangerous contacts.

I repeat, we never had foot-and-mouth but we were put under the same stringent regulations as if we had.

John and Douglas started the cleansing operation shortly after slaughter took place on April 6.

Nobody should run away with the idea you give everything a quick squirt with disinfectant and that is it - nothing could be further from the truth.

You are allotted a field officer who tells you what you are required to do and then often comes back at a later date and says: "Oh we've been told we're not doing it that way anymore" or sometimes: "We can't pay you to do that any more." You get so as you do not know where you are.

For instance, we were told to disinfect between the felt and the slates, next it was: "Oh tear the felt down, we can't pay to put the slates back."

The silo walls were constructed of upright railway sleepers which would have done another 20 years but John was told to take them all down as they could not be cleaned properly when in place.

As they were set in concrete they were not so good to get out without some being damaged, so we now have a silo with a roof but no walls, and we never had foot-and-mouth.

Those with milking parlours had to strip the machines down to the bare metal and dismantle the parlour itself.

Were these sort of things required in the Netherlands? My understanding, certainly in Cumbria, is that DEFRA is not saying that farmers aren't doing a good job, nor are they saying that when farmers are doing the job they are not getting value for money.

Farmers and their workers are paid a set hourly rate, watched over with visits by the field officers.

Plant and equipment hire is covered on production of receipted accounts.

If there is any truth in the report that gangs were paying as much as £93 per night for bed and breakfast, this does not, of course, apply to farmers and staff as they are already on the job.

I'll fill in some more next time.

Thought for the day: A budget is what you stay within if you go without.