She also backed compensation for sufferers of new variant CJD, a degenerative brain disease in humans which has been linked by some scientists to the eating of BSE contaminated beef.

Her evidence came as European agriculture ministers met to discuss whether to lift the worldwide ban on British beef.

Mrs Currie described how, as a junior health minister from 1986 to 1988, she had struggled to set up meetings between her own ministry and the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF) to discuss BSE and other food safety issues.

"We would encounter obstruction, and they would brief against," she said.

Edwina Currie: Outspoken

"The cast of mind at the Ministry of Agriculture was really quite hostile to a lot of what the Department of Health was doing.

"I think they thought we were alarmist. I think they thought we were trying to raise our own profile."

Mrs Currie told the inquiry that victims of new variant CJD were a "classic case" for compensation.

"The whole BSE business has been a terrible tragedy for the food industry, the beef industry and not least the people affected," she said.

"I would hope the inquiry might at some stage turn to the issue of compensation for the human individuals who suffered.

"I feel more people became ill, more were infected and more died because of inadequate actions by government ministers over a long period of time and I feel that's a classic case for compensation."

Scathing

In a written statement submitted prior to giving evidence on Monday, Mrs Currie branded MAFF officials as "crass and incompetent".

She has frequently been scathing of her own party's handling of the crisis while it was in government.

While in office, Mrs Currie sparked a controversial nationwide debate over food safety with a warning that eggs were widely contaminated with salmonella.

She is the 288th witness to contribute to the inquiry chaired by Sir Nicholas Phillips.

Other former Tory ministers who will give evidence in the coming weeks are Kenneth Clarke, Stephen Dorrell, William Waldegrave, Gillian Shephard and Douglas Hogg.

Written statements have been requested from former prime ministers Margaret Thatcher and John Major, but it has not yet been confirmed if it will be necessary to question them in person.