NO2ID PRESS RELEASE
26/04/09
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
ID cards threaten to create a livestock welfare crisis
-Beings-
Within only months of foreign nationals being issued with ID cards, fears the scheme will put off skilled foreign workers from participating on our economy have been confirmed. The British Wool Marketing board is warning of a crisis facing Sheep Farming this summer as the cost and hassle of obtaining an ID card is keeping groups of shearers from Australia and New Zealand away.
Australian’s who a few years ago rejected their own Biometric ID card scheme are now facing the prospect of paying £200 for a UK Card in order to work over here. On top of this they would also have to travel personally all the way to Canberra in order to undergo the fingerprinting required to obtain a card. As a result of this bureaucracy the shearers are staying away in their droves and the nation’s livestock is facing a welfare crisis as over a quarter of the UK’s 14.5 Million sheep normally sheared by these workers may have to carry their heavy fleeces through the hottest months of the year.
Opponents of the ID card scheme warned that skilled workers would be put off coming to the UK last November in dozens of multi-signatory letters pulled together by NO2ID groups up and down the country. The letter’s signatories included such well-known authors as Philip Pullman, along with opposition politicians, Trade Unionists and Academics.
James Elsdon-Baker NO2ID spokesperson said: “We warned this would happen, but the Home Office failed to take heed. We know that there will be many negative knock on effects from this scheme the most obvious being the damage it will cause to our economy both directly in terms the schemes astronomical costs and indirectly as the Nations business gets bogged down in bureaucracy. Like many others I enjoy the countryside, and it makes me so angry to imagine the suffering this ill-fated scheme could cause out in the fields.”
Author: Magicfoundry CC Attribution 2.0 http://www.flickr.com/people/magicfoundry/
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1)The British Wool Marketing Board’s Release
jeremyhunt@britishwool.org.uk –
British Wool Marketing Board
Tel: (01274) 688666
http://www.britishwool.org.uk/news.asp?pageid=74&newsid=649
2)Article in Farming UK
http://www.farminguk.com/news/Sheep-shearing-crisis-set-to-unfold14872.asp
3) An example of one of the multi-signatory letter
published last Nobvember
http://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/letters-to-the-editor/ID-cards-are-bad-for.4733067.jp
4)For further information, or for interview please contact James Elsdon-Baker NO2ID spokesperson on 07817605162 (Yorkshire@no2id.net) or Michael Parker NO2ID Press Officer on 07773 376 16 (press.officer@no2id.net)
5) NO2ID is the UK-wide non-partisan campaign against
ID cards and the database state. Scroll down http://www.no2id.net for a list of ‘database state’ initiatives that NO2ID is actively opposing.
Tags: Press Release
