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AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD

Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy

Dr. Spink: To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if the slaughterhouse support measures announced on 16 April, Official Report, columns 513-29, include assistance for cutting, boning, defatting and packing operations; and if he will make a statement. [25724]

Mrs. Browning: Wholesale businesses involved in cutting, boning, defatting and packing meat are licensed as cutting premises under the Fresh Meat (Hygiene and Inspection) Regulations 1995 as amended. Under the emergency aid scheme for the slaughtering industry announced by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food on 16 April, Official Report, columns 513-29, the Intervention Board for Agricultural Produce will purchase stocks of

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unsaleable beef from licensed cuttings premises at 65 per cent. of their pre-crisis market price, and will arrange for their secure disposal.

Dr. Spink: To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will list the objectives of the Coopers and Lybrand phase 2 study into beef production, processing and distribution; if that study will address whether assistance should be made available for the processing and distribution industries and for those who hold processed frozen-down beef stocks; and if he will make a statement. [25723]

Mrs. Browning: Coopers and Lybrand has been commissioned to report to the Agriculture Departments on how much unsaleable beef from UK herds slaughtered in the UK--over and above that identified in the slaughtering and cutting plant stock survey of 9 April 1996--is still in the supply chain. It is asked to:

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identify the volume and location of such beef;


In his statement of 16 April my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food noted that the support announced for the slaughtering sector was based on the particular circumstances and role of that sector. The Government therefore did not consider that equivalent assistance should be paid to other sectors.

Mr. Beggs: To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if the operators of abattoirs and meat processing plants, hauliers and others associated with the beef trade will be granted compensation in proportion to lost income resulting from recent developments in relation to BSE. [25606]

Mrs. Browning: I refer the hon. Member to the statement made by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food on 16 April, Official Report, columns 513-29, in which he outlined a comprehensive system of support for the essential links in the beef supply chain, in particular the rendering and slaughtering sectors. The purpose of the temporary financial aid for these sectors is to provide a breathing space during which companies can adjust to the changed market circumstances, not to provide compensation for loss of income.

Mr. Hanson: To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how many cases of BSE have been recorded in the Dexter breed. [25943]

Mrs. Browning: None.

Miss Emma Nicholson: To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what plans he has to extend the 30 months age limit for entry into the food chain to 36 months in respect of extensively produced beef. [26136]

Mrs. Browning: Officials are working on a scheme under which animals which can safely be identified as low risk my be sold for human consumption. Such a scheme could operate irrespective of the age of the animal. We will consult the industry on a scheme shortly.

Miss Nicholson: To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what financial assistance will be made available to those in the animal feed industry for local authority charges incurred in the disposal of meat and bone meal products. [26135]

Mrs. Browning: Residual feedingstuffs may be disposed of either by incineration or by landfill at a suitable site. Only limited resources are available to deal with the very wide ranging consequences of the measures that have been introduced to prevent the continued transmission of BSE. I do not, therefore, propose offering financial assistance for local authority charges incurred by those in the animal feed industry in disposing of meat and bone meal products.

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Mr. Gale: To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will introduce a ban on the importing of beef and veal from (a) EU and (b) other countries in which there has been a reported case of BSE; and if he will make a statement. [26589]

Mrs. Browning: The prohibition on meat from animals aged over 30 months of age applies equally to imports as well as domestic consumption. The only exception to this is meat from a named list of third countries which have never had a case of BSE. Third countries which have had cases of BSE and all member states are covered by the 30-month rule.

Mr. Ainger: To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what research is being funded by his Department into a live test for BSE based on DNA within cattle; and if he will make a statement. [23370]

Mrs. Browning [holding answer 28 March 1996]: No such research is under way, as BSE is not a genetically inherited disease, nor are changes to the DNA structure and sequence known to be associated with the development of the disease.

Mr. Hinchliffe: To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what assessment his Department carried out into Professor Harash Narang's test for BSE in live cattle; and what were the results. [23228]

Mr. Ainger: To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what conclusion was reached by his Department on the efficacy of the live test for BSE in cattle developed by Harash Narang; when the test was evaluated; and if he will make a statement. [23354]

Mrs. Browning [holding answers 28 and 29 March 1996]: MAFF is aware of reports in the media that Dr. Narang is working to develop a test to detect BSE in live cattle. No details of such a test have been published in an independent, peer reviewed scientific journal, the usual way for validating such claims. The Department has also asked Dr. Narang for details of his test so that its efficacy and usefulness can be evaluated; he has so far refused to provide any details.

Mr. Cohen: To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what changes took place, and when, to enable cattle feed containing animal offal to be fed to cattle; when the manufacturers were allowed to lower the temperature at which cattle feed was processed; when Ministers banned beef offal from (a) animal feed and (b) the human food chain, and what were the reasons for the difference in time between (a) and (b); and which Ministers were responsible for decisions relating to these changes. [23434]

Mrs. Browning [holding answer 1 April 1996]: The processing of offals, and the subsequent use of one by product, meat and bone meal has evolved over a period of many years. It had been a standard practice within the industry to feed bovine animals with feed supplements containing meat and bonemeal derived from ruminants. The contamination of ruminant feed in the early 1980s which led to the BSE epidemic was not the result of any regulatory changes introduced by the Government. A number of changes to the rendering process were introduced for commercial reasons. These changes included a reduction in the time/temperature combination of rendering and also the elimination of an organic

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extraction step. This last measure was removed primarily for health and safety reasons. There were no changes to the regulations governing these aspects of rendering at that time.

The feeding of ruminant protein to ruminants was prohibited on 18 July 1988.

The Bovine Offals (Prohibition) Regulations, which forbade the use of certain specified bovine offals or anything prepared from them in human food, came into force in November 1989. In September 1990, following the experimental transmission of BSE by intracerebral injection to pigs, the prohibition was widened to prevent the use of SBOs, or protein derived from them, in food for any animal.

The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, the Under-Secretary of State for Wales and the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland were responsible for the implementation and subsequent amendment of the controls on specified bovine offals.

Mr. Ron Davies: To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will list the dates of birth, by month and year, of the 10 youngest cattle to have been confirmed as BSE sufferers. [26333]

Mrs. Browning [holding answer on 23 April 1996]: The dates of birth of the 10 youngest cattle, including estimated ages, to have been confirmed as BSE sufferers are as follows:


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