THE red meat levy boards in England, Scotland and Wales have submitted a document to Ministers outlining a potential change in the way the red meat levy income is distributed.

It takes into consideration the scale of economic activity by the red meat industry in each country, rather than only where the animal is slaughtered.

The Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB), Quality Meat Scotland (QMS) and Hybu Cig Cymru (HCC) have been considering what changes could be made.

At present, levy is collected at point of slaughter regardless of where animals spent their lives to beef cattle, sheep and pigs.

Under the new system, animals that have spent part of their lives in different countries would have the levy apportioned across those different countries.

The levy boards are also looking at new ways of working in partnership on activities of mutual benefit, such as developing suitable export markets.

Dai Davies, chairman of HCC, said the new system would base the levy distribution on the scale of the industry in each of the three countries.

Peter Kendall, AHDB chairman, said they had borne in mind changes in the structure of the abattoir sector in Britain in recent years.

He said: "It also gave us the opportunity to look at where we can continue to work together closely and jointly fund work that is beneficial to all of us where we face shared challenges. That has to be good news for all of our levy payers."

Jim McLaren, QMS chairman, was "very encouraged" by the progress made by the three red meat levy boards. "We hope the proposals now on the table will be fully considered by Ministers allowing us all to move forward," he said.

Due to declining slaughtering in Scotland and Wales, and a growing concentration of abattoirs in England, increasing numbers of animals are crossing the border to be slaughtered in England.

Under current legislation, the levy on these animals is collected in England and there is no legal mechanism for AHDB to pay levy funds from England to QMS or HCC.

Similarly, levy cannot be redistributed to England for animals crossing to Scotland or Wales for slaughter.

Figures calculated by the levy boards suggest that 66 per cent of sheep slaughterings occur in England – but only 47 per cent of the breeding sheep are based there – and 96 per cent of pig slaughterings occur in England, although only 91 per cent of breeding pigs are based there.

Wales has 14 per cent of the breeding cows, but only seven per cent of cattle slaughterings, while Scotland has 22 per cent of the breeding sheep, but only ten per cent of sheep slaughterings.

Before changes can be made a legislative process must be completed and are unlikely to occur before April 2017.

n AHDB analysts have estimated the potential levy that could be transferred from AHDB to be £2m to £2.5m divided roughly equally between Wales and Scotland.

In Wales, the majority of the redistribution would relate to cattle and sheep levies. However, in Scotland the redistribution total includes £200,000 to £250,000 in pig levy.

Planned additional pig abattoir capacity in Scotland could see more than 100,000 extra pigs a year processed there, which would reduce the amount of pig levy transferred to Scotland.