COTSWOLDS' MP Geoffrey Clifton-Brown has told Parliament that "there is an awful lot of gloom and doom about in the agriculture industry".

In a wide-ranging speech to the House, Mr Clifton-Brown said of the dairy industry: "One of the problems is that we export the cheap dairy products - liquid milk and milk powder - and import the expensive value-added products, such as cheese and yoghurt.

"That is crazy - we ought to be doing exactly the opposite. We are not only contributing to the balance-of-payments deficit, which is almost at a record in this country, but are exporting jobs to our continental neighbours."

Turning his attention to tuberculosis he told MPs: "I took a delegation to see the former Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food eight years ago when this government was first elected and he said that tuberculosis was the single most important animal health issue that we had to face.

"I regret to say that, in those years, it seems that very little has been done - in fact, worse than very little.

"I do not particularly blame the government for this but, throughout the foot-and-mouth crisis, all staff dealing with tuberculosis were taken away, so the eye was completely taken off the ball.

"The problem is getting worse, whether we like it or not. The disease is getting into the deer and hare populations, and that is extremely serious.

"Whereas badgers have a normal roving pattern of about five to ten miles, deer rove for up to 30 to 40 miles, so the risk of spreading the disease is far greater."

"We need to put much more emphasis on trying to find a satisfactory vaccine and trying to improve diagnostics so that we can differentiate between a vaccinated animal and one that has caught TB in the wild."

Mr Clifton-Brown also dealt with registration under the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000.

He told the House: "I had a case in Wotton-under-Edge, where two sites were registered. The farmer appealed on those two sites and suddenly found that a third site had been posted on the internet. It may also have been posted at the local council but he did not know about it until after the date of appeal so he could not appeal.

"That seems unfair. I have taken the matter up with the planning inspectorate and the Countryside Agency, but have had very unsatisfactory treatment."

Mr Clifton-Brown also covered the problem of excessive paperwork, saying: "I have enormous sympathy with poor farmers at the moment, who, at a time when they are trying to sow their spring crops, are having to deal with hugely complicated paperwork related to the single payments.

"It is almost impossible for ordinary farmers to administer the paperwork themselves. Even if they can administer the paperwork themselves, the time taken in administration is a cost. We should inculcate a new ethos in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs: keep the paperwork simple and keep it to the minimum commensurate with dealing with fraud."