The Welsh Assembly Government has accepted a wide-ranging report into the foot-and-mouth crisis last year, admitting a number of lessons have to be learned.

Rural Affairs Minister Mike German said the administration had stepped in to tackle the outbreak at an "extremely difficult time".

Welcoming the conclusions of UK Agriculture Minister Margaret Beckett, Mr German said the administration is "absolutely committed" to putting in place measures to deal with any future virus outbreak.

Mike German: 'Lessons to be learned'

Mr German wants to take forward talks over further devolution of animal health powers to the assembly, endorsed by Mrs Beckett,.

The UK minister has backed future measures such as mass vaccination of livestock, which the Welsh administration also feels is essential.

"The assembly government fully accepts there are lessons to be learned," said Mr German.

"We acted as DEFRA's agents during last year's crisis and that made it difficult to tailor action to Welsh circumstances.

"The work we are now doing on the transfer of animal health powers will enable us to take our own decisions here in Wales, though very much in the context of a GB strategy for disease control.

Foot-and-mouth - key recommendations

Stronger framework for emergency preparedness Strengthening disease prevention Emergency response and disease control in an outbreak

"The swift vaccination of animals in any future outbreak is crucial and the immediate closing down of animal marts to prevent livestock movement.

"The other issue is the way we deal with animal vaccination."

He added: "We want the gradual transfer of animal health powers so we are eventually looking after them here in Wales."

Separate meetings were held on Wednesday to allow ministers in Cardiff Bay and Westminster to offer their official response to the foot-and-mouth inquiries, which were published in July.

Sub contractors were used for much of the work

Two separate inquiries published earlier this year were highly critical of the way the government handled the epidemic.

The most critical of the reports was by the National Audit Office which said Wales was caught unawares at the start of last year's crisis, with many highly-trained vets busy treating cases of swine fever elsewhere in the UK.

It criticised failures in government planning and said the Welsh vets were rapidly overwhelmed.

The NAO said last year's outbreak was unprecedented in its scale.

Disease in Wales

70,000 slaughters on infected premises 216,000 slaughters due to dangerous contact 833,000 slaughters for welfare reasons Cost to Defra: £102m Average farm clean-up: £44,000 Loss to producers: £65m Loss to food industry: £25m Cost to UK private sector: £5bn Total lost UK GDP: 0.2%

So many farms became infected at the same time that no-one could have anticipated the resources needed.

Slaughter

But the report said there were elements which could have been better handled.

Slaughtermen killed 1,119,000 animals in Wales during the foot-and-mouth crisis, according to the report.

The NAO also found the UK government was warned about the disease two years before the outbreak and should have done more to combat the threat.

It confirmed the outbreak in Wales cost the government £102m, while it cost for Britain as a whole reached £8bn.

It said a total of 6m animals were slaughtered in the crisis - a cost to the government of £3bn.

Tourism and the rural economy were thought to have suffered losses of more than £5bn.