After the last big foot and mouth outbreak in the 1960s, the then government set up a major public inquiry under the chairmanship of the Duke of Northumberland to establish the facts and to make recommendations as to future action in the event of a further outbreak.

In the way of these things the recommendations were largely ignored when the tragic recent outbreak occurred.

Indeed it was only when the recommendations were more nearly followed, for example in the speed with which the animals were slaughtered after an outbreak, that the disease came under control.

Calls for a public inquiry on this occasion were ignored. This was probably as well, since the costs would have been huge, and what is the point in asking for recommendations if they are going to be ignored anyway? However the newly established Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) did set up three separate mini inquiries to consult and recommend on various aspects of the outbreak and the state of farming and rural businesses.

If foot and mouth has taught us nothing else it has demonstrated that the rural tourism industry and farming are closely linked. They use the same countryside.

The first of these inquiries to report produced its recommendations, amid much publicity, at the beginning of the year. The report was into the future of food and farming, but also had much that was relevant to say about the countryside and the businesses in it.

The response of the Government, as usual, was to set up a further period of consultation. It is always easier to call a meeting, or better still, a series of meetings, than actually do something.

This course of action, or rather inaction, also has two other results. Firstly, it moves the solution, if solution it is, further from the problem, and therefore makes the problem seem more remote, and less important. Secondly, it provides extra opportunity for the recommendations to be changed to suit the Government, or in this case, the Chancellor.

One of the series of meetings was held in Harrogate during the week. Representatives of many organisations associated with the countryside were assembled. The tone of the day was set early on when someone had the temerity to mention profit. Anyone would have thought that he had been caught swearing in church.

The Minister for Rural Affairs made it quite clear that he was not going to put up with that sort of remark. We were reminded on numerous occasions that we were talking about rural businesses of many different sorts, but were not allowed to discuss the thing that keeps all businesses going in the long term. It was a bit like talking about Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark.

Businessmen want to progress and change is accepted as inevitable. The impression that I got was that the minds of the people at ministerial level were already made up.

Useful contacts were made between advisers and those who try to put the advice into operation. As usual, the advisers heavily outnumbered the advised.

It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that those who are charged with looking after our business welfare do not really care. They care in the abstract. They no doubt care when talking around their dinner tables. But they do not care enough to actually do something.

Political leaders, whether national or local are bound, or should be bound, to put in place policies that do not hinder those they are supposed to help. I wonder when they are going to start.

Updated: 12:39 Tuesday, May 07, 2002