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Mrs. Teresa Gorman (Billericay) rose--
Mr. Baldry: I shall gladly give way to both my hon. Friends when I have explained the total picture to the House.
I have also examined the potential for incineration. Some incineration capacity will be required to deal with fallen stock, and I explained the details of that to the House on Monday. All vets will shortly have a list of abattoirs and incineration plants to which they can send fallen stock, but I am determined to explore all possible options for using existing incinerators for the scheme. Part of the difficulty is that many of the incinerators are small and it is impossible for them to take carcases unless they have been partially or fully rendered, which is the general bottleneck on the scheme. If it is possible to identify incinerators that can take animals slaughtered under the scheme without their needing to be rendered, the House can rest assured that I shall endeavour to commission them without delay.
As from Monday, I shall use all the registered bovine spongiform encephalopathy incinerators for dealing with emergency slaughtered cattle on farms. Once the casualty backlog is cleared, I shall use all those incinerators to enhance our total throughput from abattoirs in England and Wales.
Mr. Coombs:
First, I congratulate my hon. Friend on the cull scheme. He has a real grip on that--that is generally perceived, especially on the Conservative Benches. To take him back to beef export licences and the Government's exact position on them, if there were orders from abroad for prime British beef--perhaps not a very hypothetical circumstance--which we all know to be safe and which has been banned illegally by countries throughout the world, according to the British Government, can my hon. Friend give an assurance that anyone applying for a licence to fulfil those orders would not be stopped by the Government on the ground that that was illegal?
Mr. Baldry:
Our difficulty is not with orders--I know of no orders or potential orders from third countries. Our difficulty is with third countries returning to this country beef that has been on the high seas, and the considerable losses being suffered by exporters in this country. We must all bend every effort to getting the ban lifted as soon as possible, so that we may start to export throughout the world.
Mr. Riddick:
Answer the question.
Mr. John Townend:
Answer the question.
Mrs. Gorman:
Is my hon. Friend aware of the latest scientific evidence that has come from Oxford university zoological department, which shows, among other things, that we are killing 33 healthy animals for every one that might possibly have the disease, and that moreover, we are killing animals that we do not need to destroy? It shows that the target group should be animals of five, six and seven years old, not animals below five years, which are almost 100 per cent. assuredly safe. Should we reconsider the slaughtering policy?
Mr. Baldry:
Two of my hon. Friends felt that I did not fully answer the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Wyre Forest (Mr. Coombs). I am sorry about
I shall now deal with the intervention by my hon. Friend the Member for Billericay (Mrs. Gorman).
Mr. Christopher Gill (Ludlow)
rose--
Mr. Baldry:
I am seeking to deal with one intervention at a time. May I deal with the intervention by my hon. Friend the Member for Billericay first?
At present, there is only one cull scheme, and it did not have its origins in a Government measure. As I explained to the House, it had its origins in a joint approach by retailers and farmers to the Government.
As part of the measures to restore confidence in UK beef, retailers wanted to ensure that only beef under 30 months was on their shelves--no older beef. Farmers were concerned because, as a consequence of the SEAC recommendation that all beef over 30 months be deboned, retailers were no longer prepared to take beef over30 months, so farmers no longer had any market for it and they wished to find a system of compensation for that beef.
That is why we introduced the 30-month cull programme. It was suggested to us by farmers and retailers as part of the measures to help restore confidence in British beef and to help British producers, and that is what we are doing.
I hope, however, that no one in the House underestimates the logistical scale of that exercise. To maximise the slaughtering and rendering capacity, it will soon be necessary for every slaughterhouse taking part to send a sizeable proportion of every animal killed straight away to be rendered while the rest goes into cold storage.
To assist in ensuring that we have the best possible transport and other logistics, so that the transport operation is as smooth and efficient as possible, the chief executive of the intervention board is today meeting staff at the Royal Logistic Corps to obtain their independent overview of the logistics of the disposal operation.
I am sure that hon. Members will appreciate that we are talking about handling very many cattle and very large quantities of rendering material, all in a short period, and I am very glad that the intervention board is able to draw on the best available advice from the RLC and others, to ensure that we maximise the potential of abattoirs and renderers.
Mr. Gill:
I wanted to intervene when my hon. Friend was talking about casualty and fallen stock. I should like to hear him reassure the House that he understands the arithmetic of that exercise. If the arithmetic is not right, farmers will bury stock on their land, and the consequences could be very serious indeed and might be a public relations disaster. Will the Minister give hon. Members an assurance that he will consider the request for assistance from the Licensed Animal Slaughterers and Salvage Association, to ensure that farmers have an incentive to remove animals from their farms and do not bury them there?
Mr. Baldry:
As hon. Members will be aware, I have been meeting a large number of representatives of the
Hon. Members can rest assured that the proposals that I have put in place for casualty slaughter command the support of the veterinary bodies. Any farmer who has a casualty animal knows--and every vet will soon have the information--that the abattoirs taking part in the scheme have undertaken to have a commonsense approach to dealing with fallen stock and stock that may need to be killed on farms.
However, some abattoirs cannot physically manage stock that is already dead. Therefore, a significant number of incinerator plants will act as collection points for such stock--they will be registered. During the debate on Monday, I made it clear that farmers will continue to be compensated under the scheme if the fallen stock goes to an incinerator--incinerators will act as collection points for the purpose of the exercise. Farmers should not have to bury stock on their farm. Farmers should be able to deal with their vets and others to ensure that casualty stock is moved to an abattoir or to a renderer.
Mr. Alex Salmond (Banff and Buchan):
I refer the Minister to the important point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Angus, East (Mr. Welsh)--that is, why will there be no tests on the brains of animals that are slaughtered under the 30-month scheme? Surely such a test would give vital information about the concentration of the disease and provide critical hard evidence to guide an eradication or selective slaughter policy. I represent a beef constituency and my farmers believe that this disease must be faced and defeated--there is no percentage in any cover-up.
Mr. Baldry:
Anyone would resent any scintilla of a suggestion of a cover-up. Throughout all this, we have been keen--and we are keen--that all knowledge, research and information about BSE is made readily available and shared. This is a dreadful problem that faces all of us, particularly producers. I made the point to the hon. Member for Angus, East (Mr. Welsh) that if SEAC or any of the veterinary bodies come forward and say that they would like to carry out tests on parts of the animals that are slaughtered under the 30-month scheme, facilities could be made available.
The hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond) has to have some regard to the logistics of the scheme. If the programme is slowed down because we have to incorporate a system of taking tests from every animal slaughtered into what are already complicated logistics, there will be considerable resentment in his constituency and in the constituencies of many other hon. Members.
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