The Welsh Pony and Cob Society
Cymdeithas y Merlod a'r Cobiau Cymreig

Horse/Pony Tax to be in place by 2012

Further to the announcements in Horse and Hound 16 April (page 5) and 14 May (page 7) and the venues and dates of the DEFRA Consultation Meetings placed on the WPCS web-site, Mrs Angela Kember, Chairman of the SEWPCA attended the meeting held at the Ashford, Kent hotel on 19th May and supplied a report of the proceedings.

There were present 2 members of DEFRA staff and only 5 animal owners: 3 horse/pony owners, 1 beef cattle owner and 1 sheep owner.

Information supplied: Currently Animal Health matters are costing the taxpayer £44m per year and a new body is to be set up to retrieve 50% i.e. £22m from the livestock owners. Livestock owners currently are classified as persons owning horses/ponies, beef cattle, dairy cattle, sheep, poultry, game birds, wild boar, bison, farmed deer, pigs, Llamas, Alpacas etc. The suggested levy per animal is horses/ponies £10.50; cattle £1.20; sheep £0.09; poultry £0.04 etc. This is an annual levy and every owner has to register the maximum numbers held at any time of the year.

If an animal lives at two places e.g. hill in summer and lowland in winter, both places have to pay the levy. Similarly if a horse/pony owner lives in a town and has the animals at a Livery Yard, both have to pay.

On top of this levy, every animal owner has to pay an annual insurance which could be more or less than the levy. This is to fund a “compensation” fund so that e.g. when the next foot and mouth outbreak happens or African Horse Sickness hits, the owners would be able to make a claim to this new body to get some compensation money. For horses/ponies this would not be market value but meat value which could be negligible even though the Levy is £10.50. For beef cattle this could be considerable despite the Levy being only £1.20.

The new body to oversee the implementation of the above will be 8 people who will be held directly responsible to the Minister. 240 DEFRA staff are being transferred to run the scheme.

Mrs Kember urges everyone to attend the Meetings and ask leading questions, though she suspects that everything is already set in stone and will be in operation by 2012.

So far this scheme applies only to England. DEFRA Wales (Welsh Assembly), The Rural Directorate, Scotland (The Scottish Parliament) and DEFRA N. Ireland have not yet made any announcements on the matter.

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