THE incoming government must urgently pay the £40m owed to contractors who worked on the foot-and-mouth clean up.

The Forum of Private Business, the business pressure group which has been fighting on behalf of small firms owed cash by Defra, says the last government's failure to act was totally unacceptable.

"The FPB knows firms which have gone bust because they could not operate without the cash they were owed by Defra," said Nick Goulding, forum chief executive. "These are businesses which did a superb job in extremely pressured circumstances.

"The culture of prevarication and inefficiency which has characterised Defra's handling of the foot-and-mouth contractors must not be allowed to continue into a new term.

"This is a fresh start and FPB calls on the new government to pay up, once and for all."

Mr Goulding dismissed Defra's plea that contractors' invoices contained "irregularities" as a tired excuse. Most of the firms had been subjected to nearly four years of forensic accounting by Defra officials which had, itself, cost millions.

The FPB says more than 1,200 contractors were involved in the crisis; 18 allegations of fraud were made, of which six have been dismissed and 12 are still under investigation.

Ironically, the FPB says, 19 civil servants have been found guilty of fraud, of whom four were prosecuted, and 15 subjected to internal disciplinary proceedings.