FARMERS in North Yorkshire have been paid £123.5 million in foot and mouth compensation by the Government.

The highest payment to a single farmer was £2.19 million, according to figures released in a written Parliamentary answer.

The smallest payment was for only £23. The average payout to the 1,053 farmers who lodged a claim was about £117,000.

The cash was paid to compensate farmers whose animals were slaughtered during the outbreak, and for the loss of hay and other materials.

Vale of York MP Anne McIntosh said it would be wrong to suggest that farmers were cashing in on the crisis.

She said: "They are only being paid for the animals which they lost and none of them wanted this to happen.

"It should also be remembered they are only getting paid for the dead value of the animal.

"They could possibly have got more money in normal trading conditions. Now they are faced with having to replace those animals and they will have no wealth coming in until they do."

The highest amount paid to a single county was £413 million to Cumbria. The largest sum received by a single farmer was £4.7 million to an individual in Dumfries.

Prime Minister Tony Blair has been forced to defend the decision to hold three separate inquiries into the outbreak, rather than a single public hearing.

Mr Blair told the Commons: "I do not believe that a full statutory tribunal costing millions of pounds and probably lasting two or three years would be helpful to the farming industry or the future of farming production."

Government figures showed that a further 7,800 farmers and farm workers lost their jobs in the year to June 2001 in England - bringing the total number of jobs lost since 1997 to nearly 64,000.

National Farmers' Union (NFU) president Ben Gill, who farms near Easingwold, said: "We must hope against hope that this tide of job losses will now be stemmed."

Official forecasts show farm incomes are still 71 per cent below 1995 levels.

Gains in the dairy and horticulture sectors have pushed up the income figures - but arable, beef, sheep and pigs are still in a dire state, according to the NFU.

Foot and mouth compensation has not been added to the farm income total - it is classed as a capital transfer to farmers for the value of stock they had to surrender to the Government.

Mr Gill said: "Given that foot and mouth and the poor harvest severely damaged farmers' earnings, these figures show that only the cost cutting and efficiency gains farmers have made have enabled them to hold their ground."

Updated: 12:06 Friday, November 30, 2001