EMERGENCY vaccination will be part of the government's new strategy for dealing with foot-and-mouth.

Margaret Becket, secretary of state at DEFRA, said a policy of vaccination in which animals would then be allowed to live rather than be slaughtered, would form a central plank of the Government's future foot-and-mouth strategy.

The announcement came as part of the government's response to its own foot-and-mouth inquiries.

Mrs Beckett, who refused to comment specifically on Cumbria's own foot-and-mouth inquiry, said she had already accepted mistakes had been made during the crisis, and now accepted "virtually all the detailed recommendations of the Lessons Learned report" and said the Royal Society's scientific inquiry would "play a major role" in shaping animal disease policy.

There was no news, however, on the future of the controversial 20-day standstill.

Mrs Beckett said the fate of that rule, and of other bio-security measures affecting livestock farming and agricultural shows, would depend on ongoing studies by the Government, the first findings of which should emerge by the end of November, but final results will not be available until the New Year.