Despite years of lobbying from farmer organisations, the sheep sector will have to continue to age hoggs through teeth assessment.

This means that sheep farmers face another year of heavy discounting if their hoggs are classed as adult sheep in the abattoir. The current legal method to age a sheep is by 'mouthing', which means counting its teeth to see if its permanent incisors have come through.

If the teeth have erupted, then the animal is classed as 12 months old and the carcase must be split and the spinal cord removed. These are food safety measure introduced in 2001 in the wake of the bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) crisis.

For years the sheep sector had argued the method is inaccurate and resulted in a large number of animals being unnecessarily split. Split carcases are often heavily discounted and paid the same price per kg as cull ewes, rather than hoggets.

Following the Brexit vote, Defra said it would move to a new system based on a cut-off date of 30 June each year, which was earmarked to start in 2019. There was a consultation in England and Wales, and another in Scotland, but Defra farming minister, Mark Spencer, said England and Wales had decided to put on hold any changes due to ‘the need to give priority to Covid-19 work and most recently, avian influenza’.

Writing in a letter to Aberdeenshire MP, Richard Thomson, Mr Spencer said: “Since then, other priorities in this policy area, including a BSE case in England, had precluded further work. Following its own consultation, the Scottish Government decided not to allow an alternative method to dentition for ageing sheep.”

Speaking to The SF, Mr Thomson said: “I’m aware that the Scottish Government and Food Standards Scotland have worked with the industry to develop an implementation plan and a protocol to use a date-based system instead of using dentition checks and have taken the view that this needs to be implemented in tandem with similar changes in England and Wales to avoid market distortion.

“However, if the industry is of the view that it would rather see Scotland proceed with its own system, then that is certainly something I would be happy to raise with the Scottish Government.”

Chief executive of the National Sheep Association, Phil Stocker, added: “NSA agrees that any decision to change the system of ageing sheep must be made on a UK basis and that it would be potentially damaging for any one nation to implement a different system due to the high level of integration of trade in live animals and products between our nations.

"We are frustrated that this has been considered a low priority by Westminster as it is certainly not a low priority for the sheep industry and something we calculated costing the industry over £24m per year.

“Moving to a set calendar date would remove the uncertainty over when a lamb carcase has to be split or not and remove the significant fall in value when this happens. Its this type of regulatory improvement we were promised when leaving the EU and a Brexit promise that is not being realised.”