Nick Brown's Ministry of Agriculture has failed the tests of the foot-and-mouth crisis and should be abolished, Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy was proposing today.
Mr Kennedy said a Department of Rural Affairs (DORA) should replace the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF) as MAFF is not "up to the job".
Ministers have been reluctant to consider abolishing MAFF as it would disrupt the fight against foot-and-mouth, and Mr Kennedy.
But during a visit to Dumfriesshire, Mr Kennedy said: "The present crisis has exposed a department that is inflexible, inadequate and isolated."
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