More than a million animals were slaughtered in Wales

Agriculture officials failed to remember the lessons of the 1967 outbreak when the Army was used at an early stage to contain the disease, the Public Accounts Committee said.

Now it is calling for better planning for future outbreaks and clear policies on when to start vaccinating livestock.

It follows on from a National Audit Office report in June last year which claimed Wales was caught unaware at the start of crisis because many highly-trained vets were treating cases of swine fever elsewhere in the UK.

Both the UK and the Welsh Assembly Governments claim lessons have been learned in the episode which devastated both Welsh livestock farming and rural tourism.

The food producers industry lost around �65m while the disease raged, and the cost of bringing a farm out of quarantine rose to �44,000.

Tourism was hit harder than farming, the report claims

But tourism paid the highest price for the foot-and-mouth outbreak two years ago.

It cost the UK taxpayer more than �3bn, and the private sector around �5bn.

In Wales more than a million animals were destroyed in the slaughter policy aimed at preventing the disease's spread from one farm to another.

Eradicating the disease from Welsh farms cost �102m.

MPs on the cross-party committee are now calling for new measures to control the costs of any future outbreak.

Their report says contingency plans were directed solely at the agriculture industry but tourism suffered more.

It is claimed that the army should have been brought in earlier and compensation payments to farmers limited.

The Welsh Assembly Government is pushing for a clearer policy on the vaccination of livestock in a possible future emergency.

In November last year, Rural Affairs Minister Mike German, said the administration is "absolutely committed" to putting in place measures to deal with any future virus outbreak.

There were complaints that advice from farmers was ignored

He said: "The swift vaccination of animals in any future outbreak is crucial and the immediate closing down of animal marts to prevent livestock movement.

"The work we are now doing on the transfer of animal health powers will enable us to take our own decisions here in Wales, though very much in the context of a GB strategy for disease control."

Edwin Harris, a farmer from Libanus in the Brecon Beacons, said: "The government wouldn't listen to the people on the ground, the farmers themselves.

"We had this contiguous cull which there was no need for. They just killed stock for the sake of killing.

"It affected a lot of lives, it affected tourism, it affected every rural business and a lot of businesses nearly went through all because of mis-handling."